Journal of Global Affairs | 2018

2018

Š 2018 University of Oklahoma

JOURNAL of

College International David L.of Boren College ofStudies International Studies Universityof ofOklahoma Oklahoma University 729 Elm Elm Avenue Avenue 729 Norman, Okla. 73019 Norman, Okla. 73019

GLOBAL AFFAIRS

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The Journal of Global Affairs was made possible through magnanimous financial considerations provided by: David L. Boren College of International Studies & Department of International and Area Studies

Journal of Global Affairs Editorial Board Faculty Advisors Dr. Suzette Grillot Dr. Rebecca Cruise Managing Editor Maura McAndrew Editors Lamis Ahmed Noah Coen Tasden Ingram Lauren Lason Linda Stack-Nelson Corey Standley Nathan Thompson

Cover Artist Jacque Braun Special Thanks Patsy Broadway Dr. Mitchell Smith The faculty and staff of CIS

The Journal of Global Affairs is the official research publication of the Department of International and Area Studies in the David L. Boren College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

The editorial board is comprised primarily of students from the David L. Boren College of International Studies, who apply and are interviewed and assessed, in the fall semester of each year. The Journal of Global Affairs strives to appoint from a variety of fields and specialties. Those interested in applying to the Journal of Global Affairs editorial board should contact the College of International Studies.

The views in the Journal of Global Affairs are those of the contributors and should not be attributed to the editorial board, the College of International Studies, the University of Oklahoma or any sponsors or affiliates thereof.

Table of Contents Daniel Holland Best Paper Prize Western Conceptions of Feminism and its Effect on Global Disparities Sindhoora Garimella...............................................................................................................................................................7 Democracy and Global Governance Jamie L. Franzese...................................................................................................................................................................26 The Ethics of Self-Determination Jeremiah Gentle......................................................................................................................................................................45 Perceptions of the Black Market Tasden Ingram........................................................................................................................................................................63 Institutionalized Stigma as a Global Health Crisis Ben Kannenberg.....................................................................................................................................................................79 Norway: The Energy Security and Climate Change Dyad Colin Olson.............................................................................................................................................................................99 Drought and the Arab Spring: Examining the Role of Climatological Variables in the Emergence of Protests in Syria, 2011 Evan Schleicher....................................................................................................................................................................112 American Globalization in the Middle East Ashleigh Stevens...................................................................................................................................................................156 About the Contributors.....................................................................................................................................................179

Western Conceptions of Feminism and Their Effect on Global Disparities

Sindhoora Garimella

Abstract While ideologies have globalized to a certain extent, discrepancies still exist between the feminisms of developed countries and undeveloped countries. Western concepts of feminism often do not apply to poorer women, women of color, or women in the LGBTQ community. This phenomenon has led to the coining of the term “white feminism,” or feminism that limits itself to a specific group of people and does not address, or actively exacerbates, the problems that women who are not in that group face. Feminist geopolitics is a growing sphere of research, and the study of gender issues as they affect foreign policy could yield significant insight into how to address gender inequality globally. This research looks closely at feminist rhetoric within the United States and the rhetoric of the United Nations, and compares it to the current geopolitical situation in South Asia through an evaluation of the rhetorical, cultural, and historical evidence from the region. Rhetoric will be analyzed primarily through speeches made by public figures, such as Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson, and Malala Yousafzai, and the concepts that each speech addresses.

The past century has seen a dramatic shift in women’s rights and women’s roles in society. From the fight for suffrage around the world to the ongoing discussion of women’s reproductive rights, feminism has come a long way and won many battles. An analysis of current events and history through a feminist perspective often brings greater attention to this gender gap and allows for a different interpretation of the narrative and the ideas. Feminist geopolitics as a field “examine[s] the personal, private, and everyday scales of resistance to existing power hierarchies and the role and power of reproduction as significant geopolitics,” such as girls going to school despite orders from local de facto governments.1 Much still remains to be done as the world still does not see total gender parity, leading women with influence, both political and 1

Jennifer L. Fluri, “Geopolitics of Gender and Violence ‘from Below,’” Political Geography 28, no. 4 (2009): 259– 65, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.07.004.

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social, to use their platforms to discuss gender inequality. Actress Emma Watson, Senator and former Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton, and former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama stand as examples of women who have, on a global scale, discussed perceptions and realities of women everywhere, and because of their efforts, “the focus shifts from the operations of elite agents to the construction of political subjects and the ability of diverse subjects to act.”2 While these women and many others have made significant strides in women’s history, their achievements have not affected all women worldwide. In fact, these accomplishments often come at the exclusion of or detriment to women around the world. Some scholars in feminist geopolitics even see what these women embody as being “contemporary forces of neoliberalization that aim to ‘modernize’ and reconfigure subjects and subjectivities” around the economizations of societal and cultural standards.3 The United Nations claims to represent all of its member states, and the United States proclaims itself to be the leader of the free world, but neither has made significant strides in ending the cultural norms that surround the gender binary that disenfranchises women in South Asia. This region faces issues that, while not unique to the area, do not plague the Western world similarly, such as lack of educational opportunities for women, honor killings, and acid attacks against women. Western ideologies, as represented by Watson, Clinton, and Obama, exclude certain groups of women and many believe they fail to address the roots of the issue. In fact, Western feminists and scholars tend to view issues through an “enlightened, Western ethnocentrism, that both helps animate and justify a ‘modern-facing’ 2

Lynn A. Staeheli and Eleonore Kofman, “Mapping Gender, Making Politics: Toward Feminist Political Geographies,” in Mapping Women, Making Politics: Feminist Perspectives on Political Geography, edited

by Eleonore Kofman, Linda J Peake, and Lynn A. Staeheli, 1–14 (New York: Routledge, 2004).

3 Rebecca Patterson-Markowitz, Elizabeth Oglesby, and Sallie Marston, “‘Subjects of Change’: Feminist Geopolitics and Gendered Truth-Telling in Guatemala,” Journal of International Women's Studies 13, no. 4 (2012): 82–99.

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politics and economy.” This is problematic, considering that women in Eastern countries often face the brunt of geopolitical strife.4 The experiences of women relate to the geopolitical codes of their respective regions.

Watson, Obama, and Clinton work more broadly toward theoretically elevating the status of women to the point where women are politically enfranchised to represent themselves in the global community. These efforts have not been met with great success, and while some in India and Pakistan have signed the HeForShe pledge or heard Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches, the message of the ideologies that these women represent fail to take root in South Asian culture, begging the question: how does the rhetoric of the feminism of the United States of America and the United Nations fail to reach women in Southern Asia?

Methods and Materials The materials analyzed in this study are primarily speeches made and interviews given by the four women. Each of the speeches was given at an event sponsored by the United Nations, with the exception of Malala Yousafzai’s remarks, which were given after she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. All of the data is primary and qualitative in nature—the transcripts of speeches were analyzed, and the interviews were viewed directly—and was found online.

In 2014, British actress Emma Watson stood at a podium at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City and gave a speech detailing the premise of the organization’s new campaign that she would be leading called HeForShe. Her words garnered international attention almost immediately, and the video of her speech has over 1.5 million hits on YouTube.

In her address, she issued a formal invitation to men around the world to join in her campaign and embrace the term “feminism.” Her actions were met with praise and she has since been 4

Deborah P. Dixon, Feminist Geopolitics: Material States (New York: Routledge, 2016).

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campaigning for this platform. Through her campaign, she pushes primarily for men to sign a “HeForShe Pledge,” which indicates a commitment to eradicating gender inequality, and to engage in everyday activities to raise awareness, such as tweeting messages that highlight the issue. The website for the organization has implementation plans for reducing the gender gap in the areas of education, health, identity, work, violence, and politics. Yet HeForShe failed to meet its goal to engage 1 million men worldwide in the fight for equality. The message has not appeared to resonate globally, given that in many countries with large population sizes, only a few thousand have signed the pledge. The speech she gave in introducing the campaign is interpreted in this paper, as well as the “Action Kit” available on the HeForShe website.

Approximately twenty years earlier, in 1995, Hillary Clinton also gave a speech regarding the global gender gap at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session in Beijing, China. Unlike Watson, Clinton’s speech did not specifically address men, and she primarily emphasized that women’s rights are human rights. She spoke of her own experiences seeing women around the world who were limited by their circumstances, and called for those at the assembly, as well as privileged individuals around the world, to speak up on behalf of women who were unable. In her many positions with the US government—First Lady of the United States, Senator of New York, and US Secretary of State—Hillary Clinton has given a multitude of speeches regarding women’s rights, and many consider her to be a pioneer for women’s rights given her strong involvement in US politics, an incredibly male-dominated field.

This paper closely examines the Beijing speech as well her past and present political stances, as Clinton, along with other Western female politicians, has often been accused of “a tendency to

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occlude historical and structural causes for gendered violence while hyper-visiblizing that which is war-related” and economy-related.5 Clinton’s sentiments are echoed by the former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, who also speaks out about feminism and the international community. She has given talks at United Nations summits, nonprofit organizations, universities, and other high profile venues about sexism. While Obama’s role in global politics does not match that of Clinton, who is an elected official with political clout, she remains an influential figure regardless because of her position as First Lady of a country as politically and militarily prominent as the United States of America.

Together—with Watson being a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and Obama and Clinton both heavily involved in American politics—these women exemplify the feminism of the United Nations and the United States. South Asia, on the other hand, has its own feminist icons, perhaps the most famous of which is Malala Yousafzai, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Yousafzai is a young Pakistani activist who advocated for women’s right to education in northwestern Pakistan, an area where the Taliban had banned girls from attending schools. Yousafzai gave political speeches in Pakistan and wrote under a pseudonym for BBC Urdu, actions that drew the ire of the Taliban. At the age of fifteen, she was shot by the Taliban, but she remained undeterred, and now organizes the Malala Education Fund, which financially aids girls seeking education. Yousafzai has decried the local culture that limits what women can be and speaks primarily from her own experiences. This paper analyzed her ideologies as represented by her interviews with CNN and the Forbes Under Thirty Summit, as well as her Nobel lecture.

5

Patterson-Markowitz, Oglesby, and Marston, “‘Subjects of Change.’”

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Discussion Historians now credit mainstream feminism as beginning in the late nineteenth century, with the beginning of the movement for women’s suffrage. This movement is often known as the First Wave of feminism. After the women gained the right to vote, the focus shifted from de jure inequalities to de facto inequalities, such as cultural norms that prevented women from seeking high prestige jobs and encouraged women to become housewives. Some of the global feminist population criticized this Second Wave, feeling that it was exclusionary to women of color, women of lower socioeconomic classes, and women in the LGBTQ community. These feelings sparked the Third Wave of feminism, which aimed to be more inclusive and correct the perceived failures of the Second Wave. Scholars debate whether the Fourth Wave runs currently, or whether we remain in the Third Wave, but regardless, the current feminist ideology relies heavily on technology such as social media, and emphasizes intersectionality, or the concept that social identities overlap, or intersect, such that race, class, sexuality, gender and other axes of identity cannot be studied individually to be fully understood.

Hillary Clinton: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” This historical timeline of feminism becomes relevant when considering that many of the female icons of today imbibed the ideology of their time. For example, Hillary Clinton appears to be highly influenced by the Second Wave, as evidenced by the support of Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem for Clinton’s presidential campaign, both of whom were active members of the Second Wave. Clinton also currently faces a problem attracting young women voters, as they see her through a Third Wave lens: she is straight, white, and rich, leading some feel that she cannot truly serve a diverse public. Many criticize her conception of domestic security and

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international affairs for prioritizing the upkeep of the current system, in which the US stands out as hegemon, rather than truly serving the US public.

Yet Clinton remains an important figure in women’s history because of her past advocacy for women around the globe, and Clinton’s famous 1995 speech “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” exemplifies her stance. In the speech, Clinton decries the abuse of women around the world and within the People’s Republic of China, where the conference was held, specifically citing China’s One Child policy. Clinton emphasizes the unity of all women, states that the work that women do, both domestically and professionally, is not valued, and points to men as holding women back and keeping conditions unfavorable.6 Her words drive the point home: women’s rights can no longer be seen as separate from human rights. She speaks from her own experiences and observations from her travels and addresses a broad range of problems that women face across the globe, including the abortion of female fetuses, women being sold into slavery and prostitution, dowry deaths, violence against women as an act of war, rape, genital mutilation, and government mandated family planning. Her scope is broad, and depicts the problems faced by women of all continents except South and Central Americas.7 (Interestingly, in 2009, Clinton would help institutionalize a coup in Honduras that overthrew a progressive government in the process of making the morning after pill available.)

Despite her globally inclusive language, Clinton leaves out another major group of women as well: women in the LGBTQ community. Never once in her speech does Clinton mention gay women, trans women, or non-binary individuals, and the unique struggles that each group faces. Granted, in 1995, gay rights were not a current issue on the democratic ticket, but it 6

Hillary Clinton, “Remarks To The UN 4th World Conference On Women Plenary Session,” speech, Beijing, China, September 5, 1995, www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm.

7 Ibid.

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was not as if the world was unaware that gay people existed: the Stonewall Riots and the AIDS crisis had already brought national attention to the community that was fighting for its right to live an authentic life.

A recurring theme throughout Clinton’s speech is the empowerment of women, but the this is placed in the context of women being able to contribute better to their families, societies, and local economies. Her speech values women almost exclusively on their productivity, and does not mention women who are unable to be productive in the capitalist sense. Malala Yousafzai has directly called out this manner of dealing with women’s rights, stating “A girl has the power to go forward in her life. She is not only a mother, she is not only a sister, she is not only a wife … She should have an identity. She should be recognized, and she should be given equal rights as a boy.”8 Moreover, Clinton’s descriptions of women working hard play into the “noble poor” archetype but ignore the structural inequalities that transcend gender and limit these women. Her criticism of men, governments, and norms that allow the oppression of women do not cover the entire reason why women remain poor and disenfranchised. In order to get a more complete understanding of the situation, Clinton must look to the exploitation of the Global South by large transnational corporations that, for example, set up sweatshops in developing countries and recruit women to work in poor conditions for low pay.

While the overall message, that women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights, does not seem groundbreaking or revolutionary today, it was one of the first times that a politician stood on a global platform and spoke so urgently about women’s rights.

Clinton faced pressure from both the Chinese government and the US government to soften her

8

“Malala Yousafzai Learns of Nobel While Sitting in Chemistry Class,” Guardian, October 10, 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/10/malala-yousafzai-learns-of-nobel-win-while-sitting-inchemistry-class.

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criticisms, speak more generally, and avoid calling out governments and cultures. Nonetheless, she defied, and took a firm stance on an issue to which many international players were hoping to turn a blind eye. Her heteronormative, cis-gendered, capitalist interpretation of global gender inequality may simply reflect her Second Wave sensibilities, and the temporal context of her feminism.

Emma Watson and HeForShe Emma Watson, on the other hand, is many years younger than Clinton. She recognizes the importance of social media, fights to eliminate gender roles, and purports that in order for true change to occur, culture must change. Watson specifically calls for the de-stigmatization of the word “feminism,” which means nothing more than the political, social, and economic equality of the sexes, although many perceive it to be synonymous with misandry.

In her speech for HeForShe, Watson states what she believes to be three fundamental rights of women: the right to equal pay for equal work, the right to make decisions about their own bodies, and the right to the same social respect as men. She acknowledges that she grew up in a quite privileged environment. Watson references Clinton’s 1995 speech “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights,” and is critical of the fact that only 30 percent of the audience to which Clinton spoke were men. Watson then specifically encourages men to “pick up the mantle,” join in the fight for gender equality, and embrace feminism, both as a label and a movement.9 Watson’s campaign, HeForShe, asserts that men are victims of the same system and culture that oppresses women. Watson herself states that she has seen men shamed for emoting in public and seeking help for mental illness because of gender stereotypes. In addition, she

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Emma Watson, “Gender Equality Is Your Issue Too,” speech, HeForShe, United Nations Headquarters, New York, September 20, 2014, www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-yourissue-too.

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discusses how fatherhood is less celebrated than motherhood. Feminism has historically been a field of almost exclusively women, which partially inspires the stereotype of feminists as “manhaters,” but looking back, men have not been barred from joining the movement. In fact, a facet of Third Wave feminism involves actively including cis-gendered men in the conversation, particularly after what many perceived to be exclusionary and divisive rhetoric of the Second Wave. A central theme of Watson’s conception of feminism is that gender is not binary, but a spectrum. Seeing gender in this way negates the gender binary that places men over women, socially, economically, and politically. While this is a theme that Third Wave feminism as a whole attempts to establish, Watson’s own campaign is guilty of preserving the binary. Within the very name of her campaign itself, a clear binary becomes visible, which begs the question of how trans people and non-binary people fit into the campaign. The language of HeForShe is not very inclusive for a campaign that invites everybody, regardless of gender identity, to join in its form of feminism.10 Put in a global context, HeForShe also does little to truly address the root of gender inequality. Men in the Global South who perpetrate violence against women or uphold systems that inhibit women’s autonomy are unlikely to be swayed by her speech, as it comes from a place of privilege and describes issues that many feel they cannot relate to. Watson describes being sexualized by the media, and watching her friends quit sports because of fears of becoming too masculine.11 Her words cannot resonate in areas where issues such as dowry deaths, honor killings, and forced sterilization plague women. Her feminism appears to be limited to her own experiences, and these cannot extend to areas where the gender landscape is dramatically different from the United Kingdom and United States.

10 11

Ibid.

Ibid.

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Interestingly, Malala Yousafzai has stated that watching Watson’s speech gave her the courage to publicly declare herself to be a feminist.12 Prior to calling herself a feminist, Yousafzai still worked to encourage women’s access to education, but she did not label her activism as feminism. In her speeches and interviews, Yousafzai speaks out specifically against the Taliban, which seeks to limit access to education, and an extremist culture that denies women rights. Though she does not have political power as part of a government, she has considerable influence as a public figure. In her Nobel lecture, she describes and criticizes a global culture that prevents women from seeking education. She herself is from the northwest region of Pakistan and she was prevented from education by terrorism, but she cites women who cannot go to school because of regional instability due to war or because of poverty. She emphasizes that regardless of the cause, the intellectual deprivation of women cannot be tolerated. Yousafzai’s work deals primarily with education, but she addresses the cultural norms in place that create a system that prevents women from seeking education. She speaks out against radical terrorism from a religious standpoint and argues that the problem stems from the culture of the area and can only be remedied through education.13 Michelle Obama: Remarks at the World Innovation Summit for Education This is a belief shared by Michelle Obama. Obama, in addition to giving speeches and attending events dedicated to remedying gender inequalities, utilizes social media, such as when, in 2014, she tweeted her support for the #BringBackOurGirls movement that followed the kidnapping of around 300 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria by the terrorist organization Boko

12

Malaka Gharib, “Viral Video: Emma Watson Inspires Malala to Call Herself a Feminist,” NPR, November 6, 2015, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/11/06/455012172/viral-video-emma-watson-inspires-malala-tocall-herself-a-feminist.

13 Malala Yousafzai, “Nobel Lecture,” speech, Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, Oslo, December 10, 2014, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzai-lecture_en.html

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Haram. Interestingly, however, President Obama’s State Department, led by Secretary Hillary Clinton, refused to place Boko Haram on the terrorist list in 2011 after the bombing of the United Nations office in Abuja by Boko Haram.

In Michelle Obama’s speech at the World Innovation Summit for Education on Let Girls Learn: Educating Adolescent Girls Worldwide, Obama emphasized that in order for true, tangible change to be made, the attitudes that prevent women from going to school must change.14 Both she and Yousafzai state that women are more likely to attend primary school than secondary, but give differing reasons as to why this is. While Obama highlights the cultural conception that older girls do not need to go to school, Yousafzai argues that organizations such as the United Nations have not placed as much importance on the building of secondary schools as they have to the infrastructure of primary schools. She specifically calls out leaders of developed countries in her Nobel lecture for what she perceives to be them turning their backs on the secondary educations of children in developing countries, while their own children pursue higher education in science, math, and the humanities. She names three specific societal norms that rob children of their childhood in developing areas: child labor, child marriage, and war. The message of her speech is more politically charged than any of the three other women, and she assertively describes the problem and those who sustain it.15 Neither Clinton nor Watson or Obama have been so descriptive of the gap between the developed and developing world. In addition, a part of Obama’s speech—in which she explains how gender roles constrain and impact men—seems to echo Watson’s ideology as well as Clinton’s, in many regards. She describes women as mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives, and 14

Michelle Obama, “Remarks By The First Lady At World Innovation Summit For Education On Let Girls Learn: Educating Adolescent Girls Worldwide,” speech, Qatar National Convention Center, Doha, November 4, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/04/remarks-first-lady-worldinnovation-summit-education-let-girls-learn.

15 Yousafzai, “Nobel Lecture.”

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details the economic benefits of integrating women into the workforce and national economy, citing that the GDP of a country tends to increase after sending more girls to school and women to work. She states that in order to achieve full parity, it is necessary to look closely at how gender is conceived in society.16 Yousafzai, although not disagreeing this argument, maintains that educational facilities that are accessible to all, regardless of gender, are most effective at battling the gender gap.17 Despite the geopolitical codes of both Obama and Yousafzai involving an introspection and change of global gender politics, key issues divide the two, namely views on US military actions in the Middle East and South Asia. President Barack Obama’s drone policy attracted global attention and often drew criticism. As part of the War on Terror, President Obama expanded the United States’ use of drones to eradicate potential threats, and while he maintains that drones are an efficient means of achieving an end, his program has drawn criticism, partly because of the lack of concrete data regarding civilian deaths available to the global public.

Furthermore, even in theory, drones are a violation of national sovereignty. The US has used drones heavily in the area from which Yousafzai hails, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and Yousafzai herself vocally opposes President Obama’s actions in this regard.

In a meeting with the First Family of the United States, Yousafzai expressed concerns about drones destabilizing and further radicalizing the region, openly told the Obamas to “stop arming the world,” and suggested that instead, a focus should be put on education. In Yousafzai’s own words, Obama’s response was “pretty political,” but both the President and the First Lady openly

16 17

Obama, “Remarks By The First Lady At World Innovation Summit For Education.”

Yousafzai, “Nobel Lecture.”

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laud Yousafzai for her bravery and activism. In addition, Yousafzai urged the Obamas to support democracy in Pakistan.18 The United States projects itself as a “democratizing force” throughout the world, and truly does have a long history of practicing democracy within the state, but this image is often at odds with its actions abroad, and Pakistan stands out as an almost perfect example. Since the first military coup by General Ayub Khan in 1958, the Pakistani military has been at odds with the democratically elected government, seizing power periodically. In this way, the country has cycled through military coups and civilian rule. Even during periods of democratization, the military has considerable political clout, leading one Pakistani history scholar to state, “Other countries have armies. In Pakistan, the army has a country.”19 The US aligns with the military every time, in efforts to serve its own interests in the region, beginning with the fight against the Soviet Union to the north, and now fighting the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

This stance of the United States draws censure from Pakistanis, who see the US’s support of the Pakistani military, which routinely seizes power from the Pakistani democracy, as being selfserving and even hypocritical. Yousafzai expresses a milder version of this belief in both her Nobel lecture and Forbes 30 under 30 interview Neither Watson, Clinton, Michelle Obama, nor really any other Western feminist of their global stature has addressed this issue, and for this reason, criticism of the United States’ military actions in other country, while a part of feminist geopolitics as a whole, remains one of the manners in which Eastern and Western ideologies differ.

18

Malala Yousafzai, Interview with Ronan Farrow at Forbes 30 under 30 Summit, October 22, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAhjiUh-Pho 19 Shah, Aqil, “Domestic Institutions And Foreign Policy Of Pakistan And Bangladesh,” lecture in South Asian Security series, University of Oklahoma College of International Studies, Norman, February 2016.

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Conclusions The rhetoric of all the women studied involves a call to action for everyone, not just women, and each woman—with the exception of Clinton—pointed to societal standards that dictate a gender’s behavior as part of the cause of inequality. Yousafzai and Obama offered different solutions to the problem, with Obama stating that the world must look closely at its societal institutions and carve a space specifically for women, while Yousafzai asserted that access to education would alleviate gender disparities. Yousafzai’s activism, speeches, and interviews are reflective of this approach, and although she does not have any tangible political power, her influence and stature make her an important figure, within feminism and also in the field of geopolitics. Obama also, like Yousafzai, does not have the power ascribed to an elected government official, but still has political sway because of her status within society. She has used this to draw attention to causes related to women’s issues, such as Let Girls Learn, an initiative by the United States to expand women’s access to educational facilities in areas that have been affected by conflict. However, the same position that gives her the power also implies her support for policies like the United States utilizing drones, which some, such as Yousafzai, believe further destabilize the region and thus indirectly worsen conditions for women in that region. Despite this, Obama clearly outlines what must occur in order to reach gender equality, and in order for these measures, such as increasing the number of female teachers, increasing the representation of women in state governments, and integrating women into the workforce, to be put in place and function, societies must look closely at how they conceptualize gender.

Although Yousafzai also challenges gender norms in her work and rhetoric, she is much more explicit in her support of education.

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Watson, too, challenges social norms and cultural standards, but her work comes from a social perspective, and she does not mention the role politics, governments, conflict, and nonstate actors can have in shaping the way that women behave. That her stance is purely social and not political by no means invalidates her argument, but it does limit the applicability of her ideas to those who have similar social experiences, simply because people in other situations often cannot relate to her. Because she represents the United Nations, this constraint is problematic and represents another failure of Western conceptions of feminism to address the myriad of diverse problems faced around the world. Clinton, on the other hand, specifically names the different conditions, such as dowry deaths and China’s One Child Policy, but does not discuss their roots in certain societies or how to remedy them—even though temporally, her words were groundbreaking in their own right.

It is worth noting that none of these women mention issues faced by women in the LGBTQ community, such as cis-centricism and bi-erasure. While Watson specifically calls out the gender binary as being part of the root problem that keeps the system of inequality in place, she does not really explain how to move away from the binary, or propose an alternative to it.

None of these women address race as a separate issue from gender, although Yousafzai does include women of other countries in her Nobel lecture. Women of color often face not only gendered violence, but racialized gendered violence, and Watson, Obama, and Clinton all avoid discussion of race or systematic racism. Yousafzai does not mention race either, but her discussion of feminism does not profess to be global in the way that Clinton’s, Watson’s, and Obama’s do: rather, she speaks about her culture as it is and as it relates to other cultures, not about women around the world as a whole. Indeed, the ideologies of the women leave out considerations beyond economic class, showing that “Anglo-North American . . . feminist

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geography has not proven analytically powerful enough to incorporate social relations produced through differences beyond those of gender and class.”20 Despite the very different backgrounds of these women, the different institutions that they represent, and the overlap of their ideologies, the messages of the three women stand apart from each other. While Yousafzai emphasizes education as the remedy for gender disparities, Watson and Obama state that a critical examination of the concept of gender is more important, but their rhetoric and political beliefs restrict the impact that their words could have otherwise.

By failing to be more inclusive in their discussion of women’s rights, these women neglect women throughout significant portions of the globe who are striving to reach gender parity and better conditions.

Works Cited Clinton, Hillary Rodham. “Remarks to the UN 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session.” Speech, UN 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session, Beijing, September 5, 1995. www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm.

Dixon, Deborah P. Feminist Geopolitics: Material States. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Fluri, Jennifer L. “Geopolitics of Gender and Violence ‘from Below.’” Political Geography 28, no. 4 (2009): 259–65. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.07.004.

20

Jennifer Hyndman, “Mind the Gap: Bridging Feminist and Political Geography through Geopolitics,” Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004): 307–22, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2003.12.014.

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Gharib, Malaka. “Viral Video: Emma Watson Inspires Malala to Call Herself a Feminist.” NPR, November 6, 2015. www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/11/06/455012172/viralvideo-emma-watson-inspires-malala-to-call-herself-a-feminist.

Hyndman, Jennifer. “Mind the Gap: Bridging Feminist and Political Geography through Geopolitics.” Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004): 307–22. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2003.12.014.

Obama, Michelle. “Remarks by the First Lady at World Innovation Summit for Education on Let Girls Learn: Educating Adolescent Girls Worldwide.” Speech. World Innovation Summit on Let Girls Learn, Qatar National Convention Center, Doha, November 4, 2015. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/04/remarks-first-ladyworld-innovation-summit-education-let-girls-learn.

Patterson-Markowitz, Rebecca, Elizabeth Oglesby, and Sallie Marston. “‘Subjects of Change’: Feminist Geopolitics and Gendered Truth-Telling in Guatemala.” Journal of International Women's Studies 13, no. 4 (2012): 82–99.

Shah, Aqil. “Domestic Institutions and Foreign Policy of Pakistan and Bangladesh.” Lecture in South Asian Security series. University of Oklahoma College of International Studies, Norman, February 2016.

Staeheli, Lynn A., and Eleonore Kofman. “Mapping Gender, Making Politics: Toward Feminist Political Geographies.” In Mapping Women, Making Politics: Feminist Perspectives on Political Geography, edited by Eleonore Kofman, Linda J. Peake, and Lynn A. Staeheli, 1–14. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Watson, Emma. “Gender Equality Is Your Issue Too.” Speech, HeForShe, United Nations Headquarters, New York, September 20, 2014.

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www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issuetoo.

Yousafzai, Malala. Interview with Ronan Farrow at Forbes 30 under 30 Summit, October 22, 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAhjiUh-Pho Yousafzai, Malala. “Nobel Lecture.� Speech, Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, Oslo, December 10, 2014. www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/yousafzailecture_en.html.

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Democracy and Global Governance Jamie L. Franzese

Abstract The end of WWII and the rise of Communism contributed to the Global West’s significant democratizing efforts in the name of human rights, legitimacy, and the rule of law. This time period is unique because individual states were undergoing these institutional shifts toward democracy at the same time that the world saw a significant increase in the prevalence of intergovernmental organizations and the concept of international justice. So, has the rise of democratic norms, rules, and institutions at the state level been replicated at the international level since WWII? After surveying the expansive body of literature on the topic, this essay will argue that the rise of democracy at the state level has indeed contributed to the reproduction of democratic norms in the international system. In particular, this essay will put forth a conceptual framework that defines the democratic tradition and identifies the norms, rules, and institutions that embody democratic values. Following this context, the essay will examine how the global system has increasingly begun to resemble a democracy at the global level since 1945 by tracing the trajectory of specific international norms and institutions, especially the UN, multistakeholder governance, and international laws and courts. Finally, the essay will conclude with analysis depicting the future of the global order. More specifically, can we expect that the international system will remain liberal in character given recent developments in Trump’s America?

Norms, rules, and institutions impart structure to social systems of all kinds, and a comparative historical analysis of international politics reveals that these systems have not worked in the same way at all times and in all places.1 The end of WWII signaled a massive shift in the politics of the international system in which victorious powers began to redefine trends in Charles R. Butcher and Ryan D. Griffiths, “Between Eurocentrism and Babel: A Framework for the Analysis of States, State Systems, and International Orders,” International Studies Quarterly 61, no. 2 (2017):328–36; Halvard Leira and Benjamin de Carvalho, “Construction Time Again: History in Constructivist IR Scholarship,” ERIS 3, no.

3 (2016): 99–111; Joseph MacKay and Christopher David LaRoche, “The Conduct of History in International Relations: Rethinking Philosophy of History in IR Theory,” International Theory 9, no. 2 (2017): 203–36; Christian Reus-Smit, “The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions,” International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997): 555–89; Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); John Gerard Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? NeoUtilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 855–85; Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” Int Org 46, no.

2 (1992): 391–425.

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the global order. Since this time, conventional wisdom in the Global West has dictated that democracy is the standard for legitimate governance.2 However, few would categorize the international system itself as “democratic.”3 This dissonance is fascinating and raises important questions about the structure and rules of the contemporary international system. More specifically, how has the rise of democratic governance and liberal values contributed to changes in the global order? This essay argues that the norms, rules, and institutions of democratic states have shaped the contemporary global system since 1945. This essay also seeks to categorize the replication of the democratic tradition on a global scale by identifying and illustrating the trajectory of these processes.

Historical Context: The International System and Democracy since 1945 In order to define the shift in the global order which has contributed to increasing democratic norms in the international system, it is first necessary to consider a broad overview of historical events and trends that produced these outcomes. The period of time following WWII is epitomized by a robust power shift, the integration of different political communities, and the establishment of broader communities.4 After WWII, the victorious Allied Powers emerged with the authority and ability to modify the prevailing Westphalian system.5 Technological advancements and intensifying global linkages following the war also contributed to the beginning of the shifts in the global order beginning in 1945. More specifically, these trades

John S. Dryzek, “Global Democratization: Soup, Society, or System?” Ethics & International Affairs 25, no. 2 (2011): 211–34.

3 Daniele Archibugi and David Held, “Cosmopolitan Democracy: Paths and Agents,” Ethics & International Affairs 25, no. 4 (2011): 433; Archibugi, Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, and Raffaele Marchetti, eds., Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

4 Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community, SUNY Series in Global Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), 30.

5 Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, “Between Centralization and Fragmentation: The Club Model of Multilateral Cooperation and Problems of Democratic Legitimacy,” IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, 2001; Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization 36, no. 2 (1982): 379–415.

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were due in part to “trade, foreign direct investment, and capital flows, globalization [dispersed] political authority throughout the international order.”6 At the beginning of the period, the great powers worked to create a system that would keep other states accountable to the principles outlined by the newly established international institutions. Though the idea of a global democracy was discussed at this time, it was not until the end of the 1970s during the process of decolonization that “the conventional UN ideal of international democracy had a revival.”7 Cold War politics also significantly influenced the way that people conceptualized the international system and democracy. Frictions between the United States and the Soviet Union soon divided the world into two groups: the Global West against the rest.8 With the amplifying Cold War tensions, the United States began to utilize democracy as a means of “containing” communism from spreading to other nations via domino theory.9 As the United States and the Global West sought to democratize countries in various regions around the world, so too did the popularity of democratic ideology.

In the contemporary international system, scholars continue to debate the existence of democracy on the global scale; however, there is little debate about the benefits of democracy. In other words, even though there are differing views on whether or not the global order can be described as democratic, most skeptics agree that at least interstate democracy is valuable.10 In order to argue that the rules, norms, and institutions of the international system in the period of

Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss, “Toward Global Parliament (citizen Input on Globalization),” Foreign Affairs 80, no. 1 (2001): 213.

7 Heikki Patomäki, “Global Democracy,” Theory, Culture & Society 23, nos. 2–3 (2006): 520.

8 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (1993): 22–49, doi:10.2307/20045621.

9 Johan A. Elkink, “The International Diffusion of Democracy,” Comparative Political Studies 44, no. 12 (2011): 1655.

10 Adrian Little and Kate Macdonald, “Pathways to Global Democracy? Escaping the Statist Imaginary,” Review of International Studies 39, no. 4 (2013): 789–813, doi:10.1017/S0260210512000551.

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history since 1945 are a product of the replication of democratic norms on the international level, this essay will first present a framework for interpreting this debate.

Norms, Rules, and Institutions of Democracies within the Territorial State Democracy within the territorial state is best understood as a governmental tradition in which the political desires of the people are represented by the government. However, democracy as an institution is often conflated with democratic values more generally.11 This distinction is important, so it is necessary to separate the governmental institutions of democracy from its system of values, which more broadly define it.12 This section will focus on identifying different democratic institutions and values in order to contextualize cosmopolitan democracy against the backdrop of democracy within the territorial state.

When people think about democratic values, they typically conceive of principles such as human rights, equality before the law, accountability, transparency, public discourse, robust civil society, rule of law, representative government, and a common well-being.13 Another foundational democratic principle is “the extension of the moral and political community to encompass the interests of all those affected by decisions made within that community.”14 These liberal principles are broadly valued across all democracies and are enshrined in the norms, rules, and institutions at all levels of territorial state governance. Though these tenants are not necessarily unique to democracies, when viewed as a whole, these principles comprise the value system by which democratic governments base their institutions.

Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, “Global Democracy?” International Law and Politics 37, no. 2 (2006).

Little and Macdonald, “Pathways to Global Democracy?”

13 Michael Zürn, “Democratic Governance Beyond the Nation-State: The EU and Other International Institutions,” European Journal of International Relations 6, no. 2 (2000): 183-221, doi:10.1177/1354066100006002002; Jan Aart Scholte, “Reinventing Global Democracy,” European Journal of International Relations 20, no.1 (2012): 4, doi:10.1177/1354066111436237.

14 Ibid., 189.

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With the values of democratic states in mind, institutions within territorial democracies exist in order to push democratic ideals out of the abstract and into the realities of the polity. As such, democratic states include a multitude of institutions all with the intention to preserve these values. Some of the institutions commonly associated with democracies include political parties, free and fair elections, and representative law-making bodies. The particular institutions that exist within state-based democracies vary from country to country. For example, the United Kingdom is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy while the United States is a constitutional federal republic. Though both are democracies, there is a difference in the democratic values they embody and the specific types of institutions the states use to maximize those values. This distinction is merely a product of cultural differences between nations, and can also be attributed to the distinct histories of these states.

Understanding the core values and practices of democracy helps to contextualize the institutions that exist within the territorial state. Even though it is quite obvious that democracy exists at the state level, there is a substantial debate about the quality of those institutions, the ability for those norms and rules to be extended to the global system, as well as normative questions as to whether or not the global system should be democratized. Though this essay does not seek to make any sort of normative claim, the analysis that follows details the proper way in which international, or cosmopolitan, democracy should be conceptualized. That is, in the spirit of democratic principles, not with the intention of instituting a democracy as the government of the global order.15 Democratic Norms, Rules, and Institutions in the International System

15

Little and Macdonald, “Pathways to Global Democracy?” 812; see also Dryzek, “Global Democratization.”

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There is already an extensive body of knowledge on the structure of the international system, which is fundamentally shaped by its norms, rules, and institutions.16 Few scholars argue that democratic norms, rules, and institutions have been replicated on an international scale in the exact same way that they exist at the state level. In fact, the body of literature that describes the global order as a large series of democratic practices and values acknowledges that the way in which democracy has manifested itself is vastly different within the territorial state and the international system.17 More specifically, “the progress of global democratic institution building can be assessed with reference to core democratic values rather than specific institutions.”18 This essentially means that the idea of cosmopolitan democracy is founded on the principles that exist within a state-based democracy. In fact, Jan Aart Scholte argues in his 2012 article “Reinventing Global Democracy” that “global human rights can offer a foundation for global democracy, much as a bill of rights enshrined in a national constitution is meant to guarantee public participation and control in state-based democracy.”19 As such, this framework allows us to conceptualize the notion of a global democracy while accounting for the obvious differences between the size, scope, and actors of the international system and the territorial state.

Therefore, it is more useful to describe cosmopolitan democracy as an effort to model the norms, rules, and institutions of the international system after the liberal, democratic values that exist in territorial states. This consequently “entails providing citizens with the opportunity to participate in world politics parallel to and independently from the governments of their own

Butcher and Griffiths, “Between Eurocentrism and Babel”; Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change,” 380; Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” Int Org 46 no. 3 (1992): 561–98. doi:10.1017/S0020818300027831; Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It .”

17 Samhat, “International Regimes and the Prospects for Global Democracy,” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations (Winter/Spring 2005): 171–91.

18 Little and Macdonald, “Pathways to Global Democracy?” 792.

19 Scholte, “Reinventing Global Democracy,” 9.

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states.”20 Global democracy is rooted specifically in the values of discourse and accountability within international institutions.21 Due to the fact that the international democratic system is not intended to be a scrupulous reproduction of state-based democracies, it is important to first examine those specific institutions, norms, and rules that best illustrate the structure of the politics of the international system.

With regard to specific cases in which democracy has been replicated internationally, the body of literature on cosmopolitan democracy examines a wide breadth of international norms, rules, and institutions in order to illustrate the increasing liberalization of the global system.

Technological advancements, especially social media in recent years, coupled with rising globalization in the twentieth century have contributed to an even higher “interaction capacity” in the international system.22 Interaction capacity is best understood as “the amount of transportation, communication, and organizational capability in the world.”23 Higher interaction capacity contributed to bringing “actors into dialogue in ways which enabled global democratic norms to diffuse as new democratic identities arose.”24 In particular, the creation and expansion of the United Nations, the proliferation of international law and courts, and multistakeholderism—defined as “two or more classes of actors engaged in a common governance enterprise concerning issues they regard as public in nature”—are all evidence of a robust “global civil society,” among other democratic principles.25 These cases offer empirical evidence that strongly suggests the presence of cosmopolitan Archibugi and Held, “Cosmopolitan Democracy,” 434.

Ibid., 179; James Bohman, “International Regimes and Democratic Governance: Political Equality and Influence in Global Institutions,” International Affairs 75, no. 3 (1999): 499–513.

22 Butcher and Griffiths, “Between Eurocentrism and Babel,” 328.

23 Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 80.

24 David Chandler, “Promoting Democratic Norms? Social Constructivism and the ‘Subjective’ Limits to Liberalism,” Democratization 20, no. 2 (2013): 220.

25 Mark Raymond and Laura DeNardis, “Multistakeholderism: Anatomy of an Inchoate Global Institution,” International Theory 7, no. 3 (2015): 2.

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democracy.26 The subsections that follow are examples of empirical evidence, which further help to illustrate the democratization of the international system. Though none of these subsections are independently sufficient to prove the existence of democracy at the global level, there is substantial evidence of a global democratic political community when viewing the following as evidence of the broader structure of the international system.27 The United Nations The first case, and perhaps most commonly referenced international institution, is the United Nations. The victorious powers of WWII established the UN in 1945 in order to promote international cooperation and provide a platform for maintaining the global political order. At its inception, the founding states talked of international democracy and attempted to create an institution to model that vision and embody democratic values.28 The UN has since worked toward these goals under a variety of guiding frameworks, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Democracy Fund, United Nations Development Programme, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right.

In addition to the explicit goals of the UN, portions of the structure and operations of the United Nations are indicative of democratization at the global level. The UN highlights consensual debate and public discourse, two crucial tenets of democracies, in the propagation of new treaties. Furthermore, the UN solicits states to sign and ratify treaties once they are created.

This signifies a dedication to the democratic principles of cooperation, consent, and multistakeholder governance, among others.

Falk and Strauss, “Toward Global Parliament,” 214; Raymond and DeNardis, “Multistakeholderism.”

John M. Owen, “Springs and Their Offspring: The International Consequences of Domestic Uprisings,” European Journal of International Security 1, no. 1 (2016): 68; Payne and Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics, 44 28 Patomäki, “Global Democracy,” 519.

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The UN has made an effort to pass resolutions and treaties with an eye toward inclusivity, equality, and transparency.29 The UN has passed a variety of resolutions, albeit non-binding, on the rights of various peoples. One of the most well-known UN resolutions is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which enumerated and sought to protect the human rights of all peoples. The protection of human rights is a core tenet of the democratic tradition.

More broadly, these types of resolutions are passed with the intention of “reform of international economic governance means creating a more transparent and pluralistic system than exists today.”30 Though the body of scholarship on cosmopolitan democracy is largely in agreement that the UN is an institution that has contributed to the democratization of the international system, there are certainly problems within the institution. One of the problems associated with the UN that actually indicates a democratic deficit at the international level is the “arbitrary inequality” associated with “veto power for five states in the United Nations Security Council and votes based on capital subscription in a number of intergovernmental financial institutions.”31 In addition, the UN has been criticized for its practice of granting more aid and advantages to member states than other countries.32 Again, despite these flaws within the broader institution of the UN, the organization as a whole points to a robust international system typified by democratic norms, rules, and institutions.

International Law and Courts

Gráinne de Búrca, “Developing Democracy beyond the State,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 46, no. 2 (2008): 221–78.

30 Ruggie, “The United Nations and Globalization: Patterns and Limits of Institutional Adaptation,” Global Governance 9, no. 3 (2003): 305.

31 Scholte, “Reinventing Global Democracy,” 7.

32 Elkink, “The International Diffusion of Democracy,” 1655.

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International law is a fascinating and important phenomenon in the context of the politics of the international system. International law is regarded as a key component of the international system, especially for resolving conflict between actors and governing global problems.33 In addition, international law is the primary basis by which states conduct agreements and treaties.34 While states and other actors disagree about the content of international law, there is no state that rejects the idea or intention of international law.

Rules, norms, and institutions are virtually ubiquitous in international politics, though the scale and scope of these laws has changed with time.35 In the contemporary international system, these rules, norms, and institutions are explicitly expressed via contracts.36 Along with this idea is the increasingly shifting paradigm for the process by which rules are made. The modern Westphalian system has brought with it the idea that those subject to rules must have the right to participate in making those rules.37 With these changing views about the way rules in the international system are made also came the belief that rules should apply equally to all similar actors in all similar cases.

Though the scholarship on international law and its role in the international system is clear that great powers occupy a vital role in global rule making, a perception of equality among sovereign states with regard to this international norm persists.38 This is significant because it

33 Oliver Kessler, “The Same as It Never Was? Uncertainty and the Changing Contours of International Law,” Review of International Studies 37, no. 5 (2011): 2163–82, doi:10.1017/S0260210511000386.

34 Vincent Pouliot, “Hierarchy in Practice: Multilateral Diplomacy and the Governance of International Security,” European Journal of International Security 1, no. 1 (2016): 5–26, doi:10.1017/eis.2015.4; Raymond, “Renovating the Procedural Architecture of International Law,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 19, no. 3 (2013): 268–87, doi:10.1080/11926422.2013.845580.

35 Kessler, “The Same as It Never Was?” 36 Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State.

37 Ibid.

38 Christian Kreuder-Sonnen and Bernhard Zangl, “Which Post-Westphalia? International Organizations between Constitutionalism and Authoritarianism,” European Journal of International Relations 21, no. 3 (2015): 568–94; see also Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter, “Global Norms and Major State Behaviour: The Cases of China and the United States,” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 2 (2012): 329–52; Kessler, “The Same as It

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further reveals that the global system is democratic in structure, even if the application of these values is uneven. Still, the notion that all are equal before the law is a uniquely democratic value.39 Additionally, because violation of international laws corresponds to a change in the global power hierarchy, this analysis further implies that democracy exists as a tenet of the global order.40 In addition to the mere existence of international laws, the international courts that serve as enforcement mechanisms increasingly indicate the existence of the democratized global order.

There are a variety of international courts, each serving a unique purpose. Among the most notable are the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ); however, there are various other sanctioned, sometimes regionally based international courts in existence. While the multitude of international courts that exist serve a unique purpose, they all are established with the far-reaching constitution to enforce international laws.41 Not only does this highlight the democratic value of rule of law, it also endeavors to uphold human rights and accountability. Thus, international courts are yet another example of democratic norms, procedures, and rules being exercised outside of the conventional territorial state.42 Multistakeholder Governance Also, the international system is increasingly defined by the multitude of state actors, which has been realized due to the massive trend toward the formation of international organizations over the last two centuries.43 The rise of international organizations has led to the increasing involvement of non-governmental organizations and firms in international policy and Never Was?”; Pouliot, “Hierarchy in Practice”; Raymond, “Renovating the Procedural Architecture of International Law,”.

39 Pouliot, “Hierarchy in Practice.”

40 Foot and Walter, “Global Norms and Major State Behaviour.”

41 de Búrca, “Developing Democracy beyond the State,” 231–32.

42 Ibid., 233.

43 Rebecca Adler-Nissen, “Late Sovereign Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4, no. 2 (2009): 121–41; Ruggie, “Multilateralism”; Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State.

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administration.44 This description of the international system is distinct from multilateralism, which John Ruggie defines as the coordination of relations among three or more states on the basis of general principles of conduct.45 A defined previously, multistakeholder governance, or multistakeholderism, is an institutional form in which at least two types of actors engage in public governance.46 The partial movement away from a state-centric international system to a more broadly defined national global interest is part of Adler-Nissen’s theory of “late sovereign diplomacy.”47 According to Adler-Nissen, “Late sovereign diplomacy is characterized by the intense legal, institutional and social integration of national representatives adhering to the sweeping notion of 'an ever-closer union' and producing legislation that challenges the sovereignty of their own nations.”48 Though Adler-Nissen describes “late sovereign diplomacy” in the context of the European Union specifically, the “delocalization” of the national interest is a broader trend that exists within the global system writ large with the rise of multistakeholderism.49 This analysis holds a number of implications, all of which indicate the replication of democratic institutions, norms, and rules at the global level. First, Adler-Nissen’s concept of late sovereign diplomacy suggests that groups of states have come to define “national interest” in terms of groups of states as opposed to within one’s borders.50 This is highly consistent with the democratic norm of the establishment of a collective identity. Moreover, late sovereign diplomacy encapsulates the conception of a common well-being, in which what is best for one’s allies is also best for themselves. Finally, both the establishment of a collective identity as Pouliot, “Hierarchy in Practice”; Raymond and DeNardis, “Multistakeholderism.”

Ruggie, “Multilateralism.”

46 Raymond and DeNardis, “Multistakeholderism,” 573.

47 Adler-Nissen, “Late Sovereign Diplomacy.”

48 Ibid., 122.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

44 45

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“global citizen” and the acknowledgement of the common well-being points to the establishment of a robust global civil society.

Similar in nature to the democratic norms and rules exemplified by late sovereign diplomacy, multistakeholderism dictates there are increasing governance roles for non-state actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and firms.51 These non-state actors are known to participate alongside states, or even deal with international challenges independently from states. This trend is evidence of a transnational civil society, one of the key democratic tenants. As such, “the diversity of NGO goals, structures, resources, and modes of action contributes to patterns of democratization in global politics.”52 Before furthering this analysis, it is important to address critiques of international law, courts, and institutions, which have in some cases hindered democratization despite the democratic structures and values of the international system. Global hegemonic powers like the United States frequently decline to ratify and accede to UN resolutions and treaties without fear of repercussion. Similarly, the ICC is frequently criticized for failing to prosecute Western powers. While Western powers enjoy exemption and favor in the eyes of the international system, international relations scholars and economists have documented the predatory nature of the IMF, WTO, and World Bank, whose policies have historically led to the degradation of democracy in the developing world.53 These examples of the unequal application of international law indicate that hegemonic powers enjoy certain advantages in the international system. As such, is an active debate about the extent to which these institutions are truly democratic. This Raymond and DeNardis, “Multistakeholderism.”

Payne and Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics, 45.

53 Alice H. Amsden, Escape from Empire: The Developing World’s Journey through Heaven and Hell (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007); Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Paperback ed. (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009).

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essay does not seek to minimize these global inequities. Rather, this paper argues that the specific institutions, norms, and rules that frame the international system are democratic in nature, despite their flawed application.

The Future of Global Democratic Norms, Rules, and Institutions Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency coupled with the dramatic increase in populism and nationalism are serious threats to liberal international order.54 Though the historical pattern since WWII has trended toward the increase of multilateral agreements, institutions, and rules, there are growing doubts about the future of these norms.55 In fact, the Trump administration has signaled radical changes with regard to “trade, alliances, international law, multilateralism, environmental protection, torture, and human rights” that would bring to an end the United States’ role as “guarantor of the liberal world order.”56 Even though the substantive policies of the United States have sometimes defied international laws and norms, the statements that Trump has issued since the beginning of his presidency in January 2017 have contradicted over seventy years of convention.57 So what changes can people expect to see in the global political system as a result of these changes? First, there are increasing doubts about the future of multilateral treaties in general, at least in number.

Trump’s so-called “America first” policy of international relations has also raised doubts about the future of multilateral trade agreements.58 The Trump administration’s refusal to participate in multilateral treaties such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris Agreement has

G. John Ikenberry, “The Plot Against American Foreign Policy: Can the Liberal Order Survive?” Foreign Affairs, April 17, 2017, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-04-17/plot-against-american-foreign-policy; Jeff Colgan and Keohane, “The Liberal Order Is Rigged: Fix It Now or Watch It Wither,” Foreign Affairs 96, no. 3 (2017): 36–44.

55 Foot and Walter, “Global Norms and Major State Behaviour.”

56 Ikenberry, “The Plot Against American Foreign Policy.”

57 Ibid.; Nye, “Will the Liberal Order Survive?” Foreign Affairs, December 2, 2016, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-12-12/will-liberal-order-survive.

58 Foot and Walter, “Global Norms and Major State Behaviour.”

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demonstrated the outcome of this policy to the global order. Interestingly, other actors in the international system have shown a general commitment to these types of partnerships through the general continuation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), TPP, and the Paris Agreement.

Overall, the new presidential administration has crafted and enforced policies that trend away from the norms of the contemporary international system. This shift is significant and could result in the United States no longer maintaining its status in the global power hierarchy.59 More injurious consequences are also plausible. It is possible that the international system is taking a sharp turn and trending towards authoritarianism. This could lead to norm disruption that contributes to the ineffectual handling of global problems and the interruption of normal cooperation.60 More distressing still is the possibility that the recent developments in the domestic politics of several states, especially the United States, could lead to another large scale, international war.61 Conclusion Overwhelmingly, an empirical analysis of the norms, rules, and institutions that have formed the contemporary global system indicate the existence of some form of global, cosmopolitan democracy. Although the democratic international system looks quite different from democracy within a territorial state, the social and political conditions with respect to democratic values have enabled this democratization at the global level. Therefore, this essay argues for a new understanding of global democracy in which IR scholars adopt a broader lens of analysis to escape state-centric views of the international system. The extent to which democratization has permeated international institutions and norms since 1945 is staggering. In Ibid.

Ibid.

61 Nye, “Will the Liberal Order Survive?�

59 60

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particular, the UN, international law and courts, the EU, and the rise of multistakeholder governance all point to the existence of a democratized global order. Using this analysis to extricate the reality of the norms and rules of the international system allows IR scholars to somewhat predict the future with regard to the international system. The 2016 election of Donald Trump signals not only a fundamental, dangerous shift in the underlying norms and rules of the international system, but also poses a tangible threat to the domestic politics of states. Therefore, recognizing and applying the democratic norms that highlight equity, participation, and accountability are increasingly crucial.

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Works Cited Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. “Late Sovereign Diplomacy.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4, no. 2 (2009): 121–41.

Amsden, Alice H. Escape from Empire: The Developing World’s Journey through Heaven and Hell. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.

Archibugi, Daniele, and David Held. “Cosmopolitan Democracy: Paths and Agents.” Ethics & International Affairs 25, no. 4 (2011): 433–61. doi:10.1017/S0892679411000360.

Archibugi, Daniele, Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, and Raffaele Marchetti, eds. Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Bohman, James. “International Regimes and Democratic Governance: Political Equality and Influence in Global Institutions.” International Affairs 75, no. 3 (1999): 499–513. doi:10.1111/1468-2346.00090.

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The Ethics of Self-Determination Jeremiah Gentle

Abstract This paper seeks to explore the ethical dimensions of self-determination and how they might manifest in reality. Self-determination, in the context of my research, is the notion that a nation (people group) can decide its own governmental structure. I organize my research into three categories of theories, model, and case study. First, evaluating the ethical theories and providing new definitions for terminology used creates a foundation on which the rest of the paper is built.

I also create a model for showing under what conditions self-determination might yield the most ethical outcome. The case study of Kurdistan, the region in Northern Iraq, provides an example to which the reader can apply the arguments of the paper. By breaking down self-determination, I provide a clear outline for the parameters of how and when self-determination is ethical.

Creating this new framework for evaluating self-determination sheds light on a largely opaque and esoteric subject.

Consequentialism is the most utilized ethical framework in western liberal foreign policy, yet rarely is it used to evaluate self-determination. Albeit inconclusive as an ethical theory guiding the creation of foreign policy, it is the most helpful theory for analyzing evolving selfdetermination. This paper seeks to use this theory to conclude how self-determination is ethical, and when/how is it applicable to people groups in different geographies. Through consequentialism, I define the moral framework for self-determination and how it can be carried out ethically. I use facets of consequentialist theories to advance an ethical type of selfdetermination as well as the shortcomings of the consequentialist perspective. This model is explained in the context of Kurdistan, a contiguous large portion of land spanning across four countries in the Middle East. The majority population is Kurds, who share a robust ethnic history.

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In the postcolonial era, modern self-determination is convoluted at best. It is unclear what it is exactly or who is entitled to it, and it usually causes more harm than good. In order for a nation to be entitled to ethical self-determination, it must suffer systematic repression, have a strong leadership apparatus, have substantial ethnic homogeneity, have economic and military capacity, and be primarily concentrated in one geographic region. Furthermore, I argue that rarely is the outcome ethical when a nation breaks from its superior pre-existing regime to form a sovereign self-governed region, or tries to gain representation by force from the regime that is stronger and more violent.

Ethical Theories of Self-Determination Defining Self-Determination For a clearer analysis, five working definitions are needed. First, self-determination is the process that deems a nation capable of determining its own government, state, and political organization. Second, a “nation” is a united people of common descent, history, language, culture, and/or geography. I use this interchangeably with “ethnic” or “people” group. Third, the postcolonial era refers to the current time period in which people groups within autonomous states must fight to guarantee equal rights from a group of people close to their ethnic origins rather than a foreign colonizer. Fourth, an autonomous state refers to a state where the government is collectively ruling apart from foreign manipulation or influence, meaning it is not a puppet state. A puppet state has the illusion of autonomy, but is actually dependent on a foreign power. Czechoslovakia in the Cold War serves as a prime example of a puppet state, because the Soviet Union largely shaped government policy; the UK would be an example of an autonomous state during the same time period. Last, the spectrum of self-determination is the range of its

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different manifestations, from minimal representation in a preexisting regime to total autonomy in self-governance. These definitions are vital when trying to articulate what parts comprise a nuanced conception of self-determination.

Existing Systematic Impartial Consequentialism Those entitled to ethical self-determination are minorities, majorities ruled by minorities, or any people group/nation that is justified by all five points of the SLEEG model. The discourse of self-determination often fails to move past political interest and history, thus failing to establish a clear framework for how it should be promoted. Consequentialism is the ethical theory I use to establish this framework, and it is important to concede its imperfection in both international relations and self-determination. However, I contend that through this theory one can most accurately create an effective process for measuring levels of self-determination.

Paul Hurley, in his critique of the moral shortcomings of the consequentialism, sums up this ethical theory, stating that consequentialists “appeal to the impersonal, value-based rationale to reject any considerations concerning moral rightness and wrongness that cannot be provided with such a rationale.�1 According to his thinking, moral rightness and wrongness should not be thrown by the wayside when trying to maximize the consequences of a decision, and he says that all consequentialists care more about yielding positive outcomes than guaranteeing moral rightness. His critique is not entirely conclusive when used in the context of ethical selfdetermination. With Hurley’s logic, consequentialists would be willing to trample on the rights of minorities, repressed majorities, or any ethnic group so long as it led to a greater good for the most amount of people seeking self-determination. Thus, a pluralistic consequentialist ethical theory should guide self-determination because it accounts for the hedonistic tendencies of pure consequentialism.

1

Paul Hurley, Beyond Consequentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 139.

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This analysis requires a thorough definition of consequentialism and the outlook I use to evaluate nations’ eligibility to self-determination. It also requires an overview of the current impartial consequentialism that is so present in the global political order. James Fishkin suggests that all of today’s Western foreign policy is formed and implemented using systematic impartial consequentialism (SIC). He states that SIC is a product of liberalism, and is comprised of four basic criteria: (1) the conditions and circumstances of a situation are evaluated through an impartial process, considering the rights of all individuals involved; (2) first principles rank these conditions and circumstances established by the impartial process; (3) the moral requirements determined by the first principles must apply to all parties of the situation; (4) the first principles established apply without exception or qualification.2 He claims that this yields immoral outcomes when it becomes systematic, and makes ethical outcomes and unjustly evaluates complex situations with a one-size-fits-all mentality. I do not suggest that impartial consequentialism should be used in all circumstances, but I do believe it should be the starting point for making a model of ethical self-determination. Impartial consequentialism seeks to yield the fairest and best outcomes for the largest amount of people while seeking to preserve a minimal amount of peace and stability. Although Fishkin is partially right to question SIC with regard to intra-state relations, I think it should be a driving ethical theory for determining peoples’ rights and entitlement to determine their government.

Consequentialism: Pluralistic Utilitarianism It is the policy of nearly all Western democracies of the global north to promote liberalism and democracy abroad. It would seem, then, that this system of governance is more ethical and moral than dictatorships or regimes where the majority of people do not have a 2

James Fishkin, “Theories of Justice and International Relations: The Limits of Liberal Theory,” in Ethics and International Relations, edited by Anthony Ellis, 1–19, 1st ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985).

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political voice. But this is not necessarily the case. True, a freely elected government is a step toward creating a more ethical society; indeed, a government can only be deemed legitimate and morally permitted to rule when the governed consent to their rule. Democratic processes allow individual citizens to collectively use their voices to create political change. The cosmopolitanism promotion of liberalism is also consequentialist because it supposedly creates the best outcome for the most people. I do not aim to critique Western imperial tendencies in promoting democracy abroad, but simply to qualify the notion that the liberal democratic model grants more rights to citizens than other regimes. The supposition here is that societies will be better off in the long run if they can consent to their government. A utilitarian ethical theory is part of pure consequentialism. It says that “the morality of an act depends solely on some relation that it has to the maximization of overall utility” and that utility is what determines the moral and ethical outcome. Utility deems actions correct if they promote the overall happiness, satisfaction or pleasure, and wrong if they do otherwise. Ethical self-determination is best explained in terms of pluralistic utilitarianism (PU), because it provides for the hedonistic tendencies in raw consequentialism; PU defines utility as that which has some kind of intrinsic (non-moral) value, apart from simply pleasure or pain. With PU, one can evaluate situations based on consequences all the while retaining a sense of moral obligation and dignity to do the “right” thing.

PU, Intrinsic Value, and Self-Determination Pluralist utilitarianism considers pleasure and pain with intrinsic value. Intrinsic value includes things like health, happiness, and family. The sum of these things, plus the pleasure and/or pain, is the total utility of life. Pluralistic utilitarianism allows these values to influence decision-making while considering consequences. It makes for a well-rounded moral

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consequentialist argument. For example, knowledge, happiness, and peace are all intrinsically valuable. They are independently important to nations seeking self-determination; nevertheless, their intrinsic value does not exceed the necessity for a positive outcome for the most amount of people. These values of a nation are influencers in preserving the aggregate peace of a region.

Surely, a minority group in Africa should not be allowed to become a sovereign new state simply because it will increase happiness if the consequence of doing so is an armed conflict resulting in pervasive violence and numerous deaths. The death of people is worse than not having sovereignty within an existing regime. Simply, some happiness with no representation is a more ethical outcome than full representation and long-term political instability. A nation does have rights and traditions which are intrinsically valuable, but this only counts as part of the equation when evaluating their self-determination.

This highlights a distinctive dilemma of consequentialism. Which is more important, the values of the ethnic group or the consequences of self-determination? The iantrinsic values of nations are the first principles, the building blocks, for determining possible outcomes and consequences of self-determination. If consequentialism considers multiple intrinsic values, they have to compare value against the others. Consequentialism makes this difficult because many times these comparisons fall short due to the theory’s inability to determine which values are more important.3 Although the incorporation of values into consequentialism is convoluted, it is crucial for providing an ethical framework of self-determination.

SSD Spectrum and the SLEEG Model Spectrum of Self-Determination (SSD)

3

James Griffin, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

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Practically, how does one decide if self-determination is ethical? All humans are guaranteed the right to self-determination in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Ethnic groups are made up of humans. Thus, all ethnic groups have a right to self-determination. The problem with this logic is that not all ethnic groups have legitimate enough claims to self-determination. The 1966 resolution to ratify the Covenant was in the context of colonialism and was primarily directed at the democratization movement happening in the former colonies. Although the declaration was necessary for affording total sovereignty and self-governance to colonies, its actual use was mostly for Western countries to pay lip service to make up for their exploitative actions and repressive political structures, a mea culpa of sorts.

The declaration is not as helpful in laying out self-determination, post-colonization. Today selfdetermination can mean different things and manifest itself in different ways. As a result, a new ethical framework and set of working definitions are needed.

To synthesize the vastness of modern self-determination, I use a three-point spectrum to show the varieties of self-determination in the modern era. The three-points of Spectrum of SelfDetermination (SSD) are minimal sovereignty, moderate sovereignty, and complete sovereignty.

Minimal sovereignty is defined as a people group having minimal rights with limited political representation and merit within a pre-existing regime governing them. Moderate sovereignty comprises a people group having legitimate political representation and regional autonomy within a federal state. In moderate sovereignty, the political representation held by the people is far more effective than that found in minimal sovereignty. Complete sovereignty is the total autonomy and sovereignty over politics and civil society. Although there are variants in how much or how little sovereignty a people have, these three are the base categories that I use for labeling the amount of self-determination a people group has.

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The SLEEG model asserts five requirements for ethical self-determination. These five parts or characteristics—systematic repression, leadership of the group, economic and military capacity, ethnic homogeneity, and geographic centrality—determine if and to what extent an ethnic group is entitled to self-determination. They also give an outline of what experiences lead to legitimate self-determination. For some people groups, there might be a less ethical outcome from gaining sovereignty than there would be from gaining minimal sovereignty with partial representation. Consequentially, it is important for an ethnic group to pursue the most ethical outcome for the most people while preserving the intrinsic value of its political and social community. An important factor for this is perspective. Kurds living in Turkey have dwindling representation in Erdogan’s corrupt polity, and the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) continues to be accused of being affiliated with military insurgents.4 Attaining minimal representation, no matter how menial, is a step forward from being prohibited from all political life. This five-point method of self-determination is important because it opens up a new category of people who have a right to self-determination.

Systematic Repression The first part of deciding whether or not a nation can be merited in pursuing ethical selfdetermination is if it suffers systematic repression. The goal of this is to see if there are patterns of marginalization institutionalized in society. This point is so important because it looks at the condition of a people group over time and assesses how marginalization and political biases have changed or not changed. Systematic repression can come in the form of prohibiting political participation, like African Americans being prohibited from running for office until 1867.5 It can look like rigging elections at polls where minorities vote. Anywhere a “separate but equal” 4

Kareem Shaheen, “Turkey Arrests Pro-Kurdish Party Leaders amid Claims of Internet Shutdown,” Guardian, November 4, 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/04/turkey-arrests-pro-kurdish-party-leaders-mps.

5 US Const. amend. XV. Sec. 1.

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perspective is a political and social norm, systematic repression exists. If inequality and difference are fostered by the political structure and civil society, then repression becomes systematic.

Leadership Ability The second aspect of ethical self-determination is the robustness of an ethnic group’s leadership. This piece is integral to the discussion of self-determination, especially when an ethnic group is seeking total sovereignty. To gain the most ethical outcome, leadership of the ethnic group must be respected and agreed upon by most the people in the minority group. For example, amidst systematic repression from the Israeli military and government, the Palestinian population has effectively voted for and appointed consistent leadership. Theoretically, were Palestine to be given full autonomy and recognized as a sovereign state, it would be politically prepared to govern given the robust leadership apparatus that exists.

Economic and Military Capacity The third aspect of this model is the ethnic group’s economic and military capacity. If total sovereignty is the goal of a people group, it must have a larger capacity for creating and maintaining a successful economic system and military. Military strength is crucial for peoples seeking total sovereignty in self-determination because the securing of borders requires a strong military presence. The Kurds have the Peshmerga Forces, who defend the Kurdish territory in northern Iraq; they have been quite successful in their fights against ISIS in the region, compared to other national militaries in the area. These fighting forces cannot cover the whole of Kurdistan, however. Securing the borders of this massive region is difficult, especially when Iranian backed

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Iraqi forces are advanced on the southern border of Kurdistan.6 This aspect will be discussed more in the Kurdish case study.

Economically, how are individuals in people groups set up to successfully operate an economy or participate in one? Is the region around them open to trade and business with them?

If there has been continual access to education, these people groups might not have the knowhow to competitively participate in a marketplace. For example, if members of a minority are continually experiencing prejudice, they will most likely be unable to find as much substantive work as members of the unbiased group of people.

Ethnic Homogeneity The fourth part of the SLEEG model is ethnic homogeneity. An ethnic group must have a distinct faith, religion, and set of cultural traditions, historically. This unique culture does not necessarily have to be small in population but absolutely must be different from the normative culture. This group should be ethnically homogenous, meaning it shares a common identity through language, faith, and/or traditions. That is the case in Bahrain, for example, where a marginalized Shiite majority struggles to gain any power or control under the Sunni minority monarchy that violently cracks down on them. The ethnically repressed group does not have to be made up of minorities, as “the demand for self-determination can come in the context of an outside power ruling over a population, or it can apply to a population that is marginalized in its own country. Bahrain fits into the latter category because it is a country ruled by a hereditary

6

Tamer El-Ghobashy, Mustafa Salim, and Liz Sly, “Iraqi Forces Clash with Kurdish Troops near Strategic Border with Syria,” Washington Post, October 26, 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-forces-clash-with-kurdishtroops-near-strategic-border-with-syria/2017/10/26/2f0987bc-ba30-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html.

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monarch, in which a minority rules over a majority.” 7 In this context, ethnic homogeneity is an integral part of the self-determination dialogue.

Geographic Proximity The final piece of this ethical model is geography. Most of the people in the ethnic group in question must live in the same geographic area. Centralized ethnic groups make a stronger claim to self-determination because it generally reveals the depth of ethnic history. One cannot adequately understand ethical claims to self-determination without evaluating the geographical history and length of time ethnic groups have been in one region.

Self-Determination in the Modern Era The Orthodox View of Self-Determination As previously mentioned, the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “all peoples have the right of self-determination. By that right, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”8 The orthodox view regards self-determination in the context of states rather than individual actors. The understanding from the UN Convention and UN Bill of Rights is that all countries have a human right to self-governance and self-determination.9 However, selfdetermination is a human right when breaking free from colonial powers, not necessarily when breaking free from a repressive native government. This older model should not be conflated with self-determination in countries in the modern postcolonial era. Antonio Cassese, a famous Italian jurist and President of the International Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Lebanon,

7

“Know Your Rights: Bahrain and Self-Determination,” Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain, May 9, 2016, https://www.adhrb.org/2016/05/principle-self-determination/.

8 UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (New York, December 16, 1966).

9 UN General Assembly, Universal declaration of human rights, 217 [III] A (Paris, 1948).

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explains this view at its most fundamental level: self-determination has primarily been defined through the lens of colonialism and “territorial integrity.”10 When one thinks of selfdetermination only in terms of being a new sovereign state, it is usually justified with a postcolonial model. When one sees territorial sovereignty as the ultimate manifestation of selfdetermination, people groups with illegitimate claims to statehood are pigeonholed into no selfdetermination or representation. Michael Freeman articulates this more clearly, stating that this orthodox view leaves “minority peoples vulnerable to majority oppression, encouraged secession conflicts, provoked state violence and gross human-rights violations, and threaten[s] destabilization of the inter-state order.”11 Modern View of Self-Determination Leaving the state and forming a new government is the foundational principle of the orthodox view. Martti Koskenniemi is a Finnish lawyer, professor, and former diplomat. He suggests that in the modern context, self-determination is expressed through the state's ability to cultivate an “authentic communal feeling” and a feeling of “us” among all groups of the governed society, arguably more so than it was fifty years ago. In the most extreme cases, this can only be avoided by leaving the state; thus necessity becomes a right.12 In the modern context, groups are entitled to seek total sovereignty only in necessity; this is the main difference between the orthodox and modern views of self-determination. The government must exhibit a continual refusal to cultivate a communal feeling before leaving the state is even a question. Establishing and/or increasing representation in a pre-existing regime is the first step of making a selfsustained people group, because it preserves the stability and status quo of the existing polity 10

Antonio Cassese, Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

11 Michael Freeman, Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), 143.

12 Martti Koskenniemi, “National Self-Determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice,” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1994): 241–69.

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(this requires the existing regime to be accepting of representation from other ethnic groups).

Kurds in northern Iraq have successfully sought a regional government and have arrived at a position where leaving the state is the only option.

Case Study: The Kurds Introduction and Historical Overview The Kurds are a group of people who share common ethnic, linguistic, historic, and cultural origins. Spreading across a large geographic region, the Kurds are not in a single country but clustered across eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria, and western Iran. The Kurds are distinctly different from all the countries they live in and historically marginalized to the point that hundreds of thousands of Kurds are relocating to Western Europe for equality and better treatment. Kurdish cultural identity has remained strong despite repression. The population of Kurds is estimated to range from 36 million to 45 million with the majority (some 25 percent) in Turkey.13 Northern Iraq is home to the most realized Kurdish state with a regional government and robust military; yet even here the Kurds have struggled to maintain their moderate sovereignty. On September 25, 2017, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq held a referendum along with some other KRG territories. Over 93 percent of voters favored the creation of an independent Kurdish state. The Iraqi government, with the help of Iran-backed militias, retook control of areas in northern Iraq that had fallen to the KRG after the 2014 collapse of the Iraqi military in the wake of the first offensives launched by the Islamic State.14 As I explain in the following sections, the Kurds in northern Iraq meet the qualifications of the

13

“The Kurdish Population,” Institutkurde.org, January 12, 2017, www.institutkurde.org/en/info/the-kurdishpopulation-1232551004.

14 Nikolas Gvosdev, “Self-Determination versus State Integrity: Catalan and Kurdish Issues,” Ethics & International Relations, October 27, 2017, www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2017/self-determination-versus-state-integritycatalan-kurdish-issues/

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SLEEG model, and are therefore entitled to ethical self-determination and total sovereignty. I assert that this ethical self-determination and new state would be the greater consequences yielded from an independent state.

Systematic Repression The Kurds have suffered invaders and marauders for millennia. Even in recent decades, the Kurds in northern Iraq have failed to be treated fairly by any of the four countries that make up the region. More than that, western countries have consistently used the Kurdish region as a pawn in gaining political and militaristic leverage in Iran and Iraq.

Leadership Ability The Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq has exhibited continually its effective leadership and ability to independently govern. This is seen in Erbil, the capital, and surrounding regions included in the Kurdish governorate. It has established an effective platform for combatting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and has been able to conduct fair elections for the governed region while continually maintaining diplomatic relations with the Iraqi government.

Economic and Military Capacity Kurdish Iraq’s economy in Erbil has been successful due to oil, which makes up 90 percent of revenue. However, they have experienced “less success developing economic selfreliance . . . largely because steady petroleum revenues have stifled the incentive to diversify into other sectors, like agriculture, manufacturing, and banking—as well as developing their capacity to collect taxes.”15 The overwhelming majority of oil, some 600,000 barrels, is piped entirely through Turkey, whose increasingly corrupt and anti-Kurdish government could cut off all oil

15

Alex Dziadosz, “The Economic Case Against an Independent Kurdistan,” The Atlantic, September 26, 2017, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/kurdistan-barzani-iraq-turkey-blockade-oil/541149/.

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exportation from the region in a moment. Iran, Iraq, and Turkey have all adamantly spoken out against the 2017 referendum for statehood, so an attempt to embrace statehood would be met with profound antagonism.

Contrarily, the KRG has been able to train and maintain a highly effective military force.

The Peshmerga forces, although recently set back by Iran-backed Iraqi militias and consistent conflicts with neighboring countries, have historically maintained a minimal level of stability in the Kurdish governorates. Their role in fighting the ISIL has been successful as a whole but continues to suffer setbacks by multiple militaristic invasions.

Ethnic Homogeneity The most significant facet of the Kurdish example is their ethnic homogeneity. Although they do not all speak the same dialect of Kurdish natively, they share a common base language, history, culture, and religion. Originating from the Mesopotamian highlands, the ethnic group shared a similar nomadic way of life in which they lived in the mountains to defend against attacks.

Geographic Centrality The geographic region of Kurdistan has three parts: Erbil, Slemani, and Duhok. These three parts share a similar climate and mountainous features that the Kurds have historically roamed and settled. The significance of their current geography is that they are largely still in one primary area. This creates easier conditions for creating a unified Kurdish state because of its centrality and historical claim to the same physical area.

Kurdistan Conclusions The Kurdish region of northern Iraq is unique for self-determination in that it meets all five-points of the ethical framework but would suffer dramatic consequences from its

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neighboring countries were it to assert itself as a sovereign state. The militaristic inferiority to its neighbors joined with its economic reliance on Iraqi and Turkish infrastructure would certainly be unsustainable for the new state. Moreover, the backlash from Turkey and Iraq after the KRG referendum is proof that any attempts to gain independence in the region would be swiftly snuffed out. The consequences of creating an independent Kurdistan would undoubtedly lead to a more unethical outcome than the semi-autonomous state that exists now.

Conclusion Historically, the idea of political self-determination has permeated ethnic communities.

The Israelites believed they had a right and divine entitlement to shake off the oppression of Egyptian slavery and claim a specific geographical region in the ‘Promised Land’ thousands of years before Christ. Mozambicans revolted against the brutal Portuguese regime despite the United States-backed military government and, for the first time in over 400 years, became an independent Mozambique. And the list goes on, due to colonialism’s profound influence on the world. But self-determination has changed significantly, and in an increasingly democratizing world, it is important to have an updated perspective on ethical self-determination. Using the parameters I outlined in this presentation, one can more concisely evaluate who has a right to self-determination in this modern postcolonial era, and to what degree their self-determination should be carried out, yielding the most positive consequences and outcomes for the most people.

Works Cited

Cassese, Antonio. Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal. New York: Cambridge

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University Press, 1995.

Dziadosz, Alex. “The Economic Case Against an Independent Kurdistan.” The Atlantic, September 26, 2017. www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/kurdistanbarzani-iraq-turkey-blockade-oil/541149/.

El-Ghobashy, Tamer, Mustafa Salim, and Liz Sly. “Iraqi Forces Clash with Kurdish Troops near Strategic Border with Syria.” Washington Post, October 26, 2017. www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-forces-clash-with-kurdish-troops-near-strategicborder-with-syria/2017/10/26/2f0987bc-ba30-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html.

Fishkin, James. “Theories of Justice and International Relations: The Limits of Liberal Theory.”

In Ethics and International Relations, edited by Anthony Ellis, 1–19. 1st ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.

Freeman, Michael. Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.

Griffin, James. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

Gvosdev, Nikolas. “Self-Determination versus State Integrity: Catalan and Kurdish Issues.”

Ethics & International Relations, October 27, 2017. www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2017/self-determination-versus-state-integritycatalan-kurdish-issues/ Hurley, Paul. Beyond Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

“Know Your Rights: Bahrain and Self-Determination.” Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain, May 9, 2016. www.adhrb.org/2016/05/principle-self-determination/.

Koskenniemi, Martti. “National Self-Determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1994): 241–69.

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“The Kurdish Population.” Institutkurde.org. January 12, 2017. www.institutkurde.org/en/info/the-kurdish-population-1232551004.

Shaheen, Kareem. “Turkey Arrests Pro-Kurdish Party Leaders amid Claims of Internet Shutdown.” Guardian, November 4, 2016. www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/04/turkey-arrests-pro-kurdish-party-leaders-mps.

UN General Assembly. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New York, December 16, 1966.

UN General Assembly. Universal declaration of human rights, 217 [III] A. Paris, 1948.

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Perceptions of the Black Market

Tasden Ingram

Abstract Black markets are a complex structure within the global economy. There has not been a single established term that well defines the functions of black markets because it is not an individual body of illicit trade. It exists on many levels and in many places, yet the international community oversimplifies it as only the “black market.” This paper will attempt to put into perspective the multi-dimensionality of illicit trade and why its generalization as a harmful, unregulated network of businesses is counterproductive to our approach at understanding it. It is an inevitable characteristic of centralized economic systems, and is necessary under certain conditions. By analyzing the conditions of Sierra Leone and Liberia that cultivate illicit trade and the effects it has on the state and international community, it is possible to comprehend the necessity and view it less indiscriminately. Under different socioeconomic conditions the black market is utilized for a variety of reasons, which merit a greater and more nuanced understanding. While there are many negative consequences, it also yields some beneficial opportunities.

Defining the Black Market In short, the black market is the illegal purchasing and/or sale of goods and services.

Black markets exist all over the world in almost every economy. There is the legal purchasing and sale of goods and services, known as the “white” market, as well as an in-between economy referred to as the “gray” market, which consists usually of reselling goods in a market other than where it was purchased. Unlike the white and gray markets, the black market functions almost entirely outside the rule of law and established regulations. There is not a single cause or characteristic of an economy or state that will lead to the formation of a shadow economy, but in general, the limitations or restrictions put in place by governments can lead individuals to pursue means of income outside the legal market.

The black market is an enormous source of wealth that flows untaxed and unaccounted for within states and on the global marketplace. Because illicit trade is exactly that—illicit—it is difficult to accurately measure how much money, how many goods or

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services, or which groups of people are actively involved in it. There are many organizations dedicated to following the nature of illicit trade, and they have attempted to quantify the industries within it, such as the sale of weapons, prostitution, counterfeit goods, and narcotics. These are among the most profitable and extensive shadow markets, with an estimated annual value around $700 billion.1 The total worth of the world’s illegal trade is thought to be around $1.8 trillion, and consists of everything from cocaine to counterfeit handbags to butterflies.2 This is an enormous sum of loose money and also a good indicator of what makes illicit trade so appealing to many people and groups. It is important to note that although this trade is being done illegally, it is not always criminal actors or networks facilitating the transactions. Networks of varying complexity dependent on the commodities they deal in are responsible for the creation of trading routes, smuggling operations, production, distribution, and often bribery to move goods through the underground economy.

The intricacy and vastness of illicit trade globally is what makes it such an interesting and difficult subject to understand. There are millions of people involved, all of whom are evading something, be it taxes, law enforcement, or rival organizations.

1

Nathan Vardi, “The World’s Biggest Illicit Industries,” Forbes, June 4, 2010,

www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/biggest-illegal-businesses-business-crime.html#6003f1105b98.

2

“Underground Economy,” Investopedia, www.investopedia.com/terms/u/underground-economy.asp (accessed November 28, 2017).

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Fig. 1. Different Levels of Participants in the Underground Market. (Source: Lillian Ablon, Martin Libicki, and Andrea Golay, “Markets for Cybercrime Tools and Stolen Data: Hackers' Bazaar,� Rand Corporation, National Security Research Division, 2014.)

As shown in Figure 1, black market participation requires an abundance of personnel to assure goods can be successfully manufactured, transported, distributed, and protected from legal interventions. The vast majority of illicit trade involvement comes from the consumers, which is a problematic role to prosecute or even detect from the perspective of law enforcement agencies.

Consumption of benign goods and services, such as an impoverished child selling smuggled cigarettes in a fragile state or immigrants paid under the table for construction jobs, attracts little attention in the combatting of illicit trade, but it does contribute to the entirety of illegal activity happening. That raises many questions about the most appropriate method to approach these markets. Deciding how policy needs to be enacted means states and the international community need to have an adequate knowledge of black markets and their organization. This requires an unbiased perspective towards the true nature of these markets

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and avoiding the sweeping generalization that it is an innately harmful element to the state. In the cases of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the black markets established there operate locally, regionally, and globally. Civil war and the war economies created by generals to fund rebel movements within these countries have revealed the immense complexities of illicit trafficking and its ability to adapt in shifting political environments. Corruption in the governments was a direct consequence of illicit trade and the incorporation of criminal actors into official positions within the government following the war. For example, non-state actors like Charles Taylor or the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took hold of the available natural resources and exported them to support themselves. These war economies allowed non-state actors to access the government in postwar developmental processes. They were performed as self-proclaimed, interim governments and their successors benefitted from immunities granted in the peace agreements.

Sierra Leone and Liberia’s experiences with black markets during war, and the effects as they became an integrated in their political system, have shown the need for a broader understanding of illicit trafficking and its consequences. There were positive aspects, such as employment opportunity and networking with the global markets, but the way in which these markets became affiliated with the state blurred the accepted definition for black markets.

The exploitation of power and failure to bring effective change that would improve socioeconomic conditions in West Africa are a result of illicit trade’s ability to take advantage of state vulnerabilities during the transitional periods following the civil wars.

Effects of Black Market Trade In general, the black market is perceived as damaging to the overall structure of society, as it operates outside the recognized principles of business. It reveals the weaknesses of the institutions that are in place to facilitate trade and promote an adequate standard of

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living via regulating the economy. Illicit trading undermines the role of these powers and has summoned international task forces pursuing its suppression. Illicit trade occurs on a small scale in communities, especially in places with weak governments. Shopkeepers may barter for goods or neglect to report certain purchases for taxes. Usually this happens only because it is nearly impossible for that person to be caught, and it is highly unlikely that a state such as Sierra Leone or Liberia is actively trying to thwart the common marketplaces from bartering legal goods under the table. Allowing this sort of trade to happen is beneficial for the local communities and is arguably the most efficient way to conduct business where state support is unable to better facilitate the economy. In large cities, there are typically street vendors trying to make a quick dollar selling trinkets or art, and they are often able to do so without reporting their incomes in a formal manner with the state. It is of little use to the authorities to combat these small local markets. In a global context, these smaller markets are estimated to account for trillions of dollars annually. In his book Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, investigative journalist Robert Neuwirth argues that these markets also employ up to half of the world’s workforce.3 Local “illicit” trade has a small impact on the stability of a state, but as a positive consequence, it does grant opportunities to struggling labor forces to provide for themselves.

However, the black market does not begin or end with local markets like these. There are many reasons that these markets arise and why they become an essential piece of citizens’ well-being. When governments fail to promote the welfare of their populations, then communities become dependent on entrepreneurial capabilities like selling smuggled cigarettes or merchandise. Smuggling goods into a country that may be conflict-affected or struggling through development also has larger repercussions on the region. Smuggling often depends on the formation of relationships with border officials, pilots, and truck drivers, 3

Robert Neuwirth, interview by Robert Capps, “Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy,” Wired Magazine, December 16, 2011, www.wired.com/2011/12/mf_neuwirth_qa/

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among others. The deeper issues of smuggling and its connection to black markets are often associated with transnational crime organizations. Transnational crime occurs regionally and globally as parts of greater networks of illicit trade. The criminal aspect is attributed largely to the commodities being trafficked like guns, humans, and narcotics. These types of illicit networks are considered to be the most threatening to state stability and the well-being of communities where trafficking takes place. West Africa has become increasingly popular for trafficking as a transit point for drug flow into Europe.

Global trafficking of goods such as humans, narcotics, and firearms is what is usually associated with the term black market. Online markets like the Silk Road are key elements of illicit trade and enable the globalization of black markets. The global illicit market has distorted the perceptions of the black market and allowed for it to be generalized as this inherently malicious network that exploits people, resources, and centralized economies for profit. The black market may ultimately be a negative characteristic of business, but its complexity does warrant a closer look at the dimensions of it and how a variety of socioeconomic conditions support differing degrees of illicit trade with both positive and negative consequences. The changing conditions of Sierra Leone and Liberia have cultivated many forms of black markets and show how a more nuanced approach to them may help clarify the lines between illicit and licit trade.

Sierra Leone and Liberia Liberia and Sierra Leone both emerged from devastating civil wars in 2003 and 2002, respectively. Following the signings of peace agreements, each of these countries has been on a long road to development in terms of political stability, promotion of welfare, development of infrastructure, and providing basic necessities to their populaces. According to the African Development Bank’s annual African Infrastructure Development Index, in 2016 the West

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African sub region finished third in infrastructure development behind North Africa and South Africa.4 Within this region, I chose Liberia and Sierra Leone to illustrate the complications of illicit trafficking as they have struggled with prolonged developmental processes that have a strong presence of black market trade and smuggling. The two countries function fluidly as stepping stones for the smuggling of narcotics to Europe from South America, and can be viewed as a single entity within global illicit trade. However, since their beginning as developing democratic countries there have been relevant advancements and setbacks due to their black market industries. This is an appropriate area for a case study on black market trade because its impact locally, regionally, and globally varies in severity.

When looked at objectively, this case study may allow one to argue for the positive consequences of black markets in fragile states.

The reality of these countries’ development is that it has been undoubtedly hindered by the incorporation of criminal actors within state-building projects. Before the wars, smuggling and informal economies had already been well established by leadership as a means for personal profit. Liberian president William Tolbert was found to be connected to international drug trafficking networks, and following him Samuel Doe had been trading timber for firearms prior to the outbreak of civil war. Likewise, Sierra Leonean officials Siaka Stevens and Joseph Momoh developed illicit markets in the country’s mineral resources through the 1970s and ’80s. Valentine Strasser is credited with the overthrow of Momoh, and it is believed this was due to Momoh’s “illicit mining operation [being] disrupted by rebel attacks.”5 Inevitably, the countries spiraled into conflict as control over resources and the most profitable illegal industries became embedded in their governments.

4

Nirina Letsara and Charles Leyeka Lufumpa, “African Infrastructure Development Index 2016,” African Development Bank, 2016, 6, available at www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Africa_Infrastructure_Development_May_2016. pdf.

5 Judith Vorrath, “From War to Illicit Economies: Organized Crime and State-building in Liberia and Sierra Leone” (Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2014).

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Decades of warring amongst rebel groups left millions displaced, political institutions nonexistent, and caused widespread fragmentation of state authority and the local communities. This has created an opportunity for illicit trade to root itself in the region and further exploit the vulnerabilities of underdeveloped countries. West Africa is an exceptional area of trafficking because of its history and the connection to the state throughout these decades.

In Liberia, Charles Taylor created the Forestry Development Authority and granted minimum wages to its “employees” along with a rubber plantation in the territories that he controlled.6 Locally, he was providing an opportunity for employment in the illicit mining and logging industries he had created, which in some capacity functioned as a state sponsored program under his regime. Taylor acknowledged the need for economic opportunities for the struggling populations. He was in control of most of Liberia outside the capital, and attempted to alleviate some of the war’s disastrous effects; however, without proper regulation of working conditions it is difficult to imagine the quality of life for laborers under Taylor was satisfactory or even close to what is considered adequate in developing countries.

Moreover, Taylor began to tap into the illicit mining of diamond provinces in Sierra Leone, as he was a supporter of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) there until they took control of the diamond fields from 1992–2002. Between Taylor’s logging networks and exports of gold and diamonds, it is estimated that his group was receiving roughly $100 million per year, predominantly from taxes.7 The positive result from wages and employment in these industries under Taylor becomes completely invalidated by the fact that these tax systems were also illegitimate and maintained a warlord’s authority throughout Liberia and parts of Sierra Leone without proper redistribution to the communities trapped in the armed-conflict zone. Control over natural 6 7

Ibid.

Ibid.

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resources and illicit networks changed regularly during fighting, as these sat at the heart of the conflicts and were the driving force that perpetuated violence by funding rebel groups and garnished illicit foreign investments. In this instance, black markets within the conflict-ridden states of Liberia and Sierra Leone allowed continual warring and limited the official governments’ capacity to establish power against the well-connected warlords and rebel groups that had taken over natural resources and mining territories.

It is important to consider the effects of illicit trafficking during wartime, because it allows conclusions to be drawn from the transformation of these markets during the reconstruction periods following their peace agreements. Following United Nations and British intervention throughout 2001 and 2002 to disarm rebel forces, British troops pulled out and the war was officially declared over. In August 2003 the Accra Peace Agreement was signed by the Government of the Republic of Liberia, The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), and the political parties to end fighting and begin the transition to a democratic state. The deeply integrated criminal networks maintained their significance at the state level, however, now began an even greater distorted perception between the illicit and licit trading of natural resources and other goods.

The primary sources of income within Liberia and Sierra Leone are diamonds, gold, timber, and more recently, cocaine. Cocaine trafficking operates as a transit commodity in West Africa with final destinations throughout Europe. From 2009 to 2014, West Africa has experienced a 78 percent increase in cocaine smuggling from Latin America, as the flow of narcotics is shifting dramatically in response to the restrictions on drug trade through the Caribbean.8 The growing effects of drug trafficking in West Africa are introducing a new element to the obstacles in state building. Trafficking networks through Liberia and Sierra 8

David M. Luna, “Trans-Africa Security: Combating Illicit Trafficking and Organized Crime in Africa� (lecture, National Defense University, Washington, DC, May 12, 2017), available at https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2017/270858.htm.

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Leone create opportunities for violent actors and transnational crime organizations to become involved in the countries. According to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, drug trafficking and its related activities are the greatest threats to political stability and peace operations in West Africa.9 The smuggling of drugs incorporates many levels of participants, and the violence associated with it stems from crime groups trying to protect their goods and routes. It is evident that illegal networks dealing with drugs rely on certain violent actors to maintain control over their territory. Narcotics are a global commodity that offsets the stability of whole regions at a time, while it is the natural resources of Liberia and Sierra Leone that are causing the greatest internal struggles during their development. With the return of a legitimate government, these countries have begun to regulate their mining and logging industries more successfully. Nonetheless, the structures of wartime networking were still in place and exploiting the natural resources shortly after peace agreements went into effect.

The Accra Peace Agreement declared, “All combatants shall remain in the declared and recorded locations until they proceed to reintegration activities or training for re-entry into the restructured Liberian armed forces or into civilian life.”10 Civilian life consisted of working in the diamond and gold mines, which relied on “licensed” miners to supply the young men with both equipment and the proper certification to export the precious stone.

Here the postwar illicit markets began to take off and the international community was required to intervene. Thus, the creation of the Kimberley Process resulted in a global effort to eradicate “blood diamonds” from the international markets in an attempt to undermine illicit funding of transnational crime and rebel groups. Some take issue with the implementation of this process, saying that it fails to recognize the larger issue of illicit 9

Vorrath, “From War to Illicit Economies.”

United Nations Security Council, “Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” August 29, 2003 (Notre Dame: Peace Accords Matrix, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame): art. 6, sec. 6, https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/accord/accra-peace-agreement.

10

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diamond trade with human rights abuses. Conflict diamonds are defined by the Kimberley Process as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments.”11 The illicit mining remains under the recognized legitimate governments in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but this process does not take into account working conditions of mines. Broadening the definition of a “blood diamond” would allow for a more proactive approach toward their black market, mitigate the harmful effects of human rights abuses, and lessen the prospect of illicitly mined diamonds finding their way out of these countries.

Sierra Leone and Liberia have extensive histories with black market trading and its ability to adapt against changing situations that might otherwise curb the reliance on their businesses. Integration into the statecraft has perpetuated violence and corruption which, in turn, creates a degree of instability that renders governance highly ineffective in areas such as employment, welfare, infrastructure development, and combating crime. Furthermore, as the reach of influence expanded and the region became more integral to the global illicit trade, outside actors migrated toward West Africa and furthered the negative effects of illicit trade.

This is a meaningfully illustrative case study on the intricacy of black markets and how they cannot be generally characterized by a single negative function of illegal activity.

A Necessary or Inevitable Market?

In his 1689 Two Treatises of Government, John Locke argues that a government must provide safety and security for the people who consent to abide by its authority. Government should act to certain ends that allow its citizens to enjoy their properties freely and comfortably, but when the government fails to act in accordance with the trust bestowed in it then the citizens are within their natural rights to establish new government.12 Locke’s

11

“The Kimberley Process,” globalwitness.org, April 1, 2013, www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflictdiamonds/kimberley-process/?gclid=CjwKCAiAx57RBRBkEiwA8yZdUE-1APwXhlJHkRLLw9-BTPjjVgIOwhUIZwvtpFnaNClaCLArOtDZBoCHz0QAvD_BwE (accessed December 4, 2017).

12 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1689, 374–75.

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political theory is applicable beyond the field of governmental structuring or social revolution. When communities engage in the unregulated trade of goods like food and clothing it is out of necessity, not greed. Neuwirth claims this market is growing because it is “an economy based on providing things that the mass of people can afford—not on high prices and large profit margins. It grows simply because people have to keep consuming— they have to keep eating, they have to keep clothing themselves. And that’s unaffected by global downturns and upturns.”13 The role of black markets transcends motives of greed and consumption, specifically in the developing economies of fragile countries newly engaged in state-building projects. This is one of the conditions of Sierra Leone and Liberia as well as dozens of other countries in South America, Latin America, and Asia. Justly realizing the effect that illicit trafficking has on a state goes further than only quantifying lost tax revenues, deaths from trafficking crimes, or speculating on its role in state corruption.

Considering the diversity of illicit trafficking and transnational crime organizations, it is challenging to gather data that accurately depicts the economic effects from unreported transactions or illegal commerce in the small-scale markets. However, it is global networks that sustain the most noticeable and damaging activity. The majority of international responses are necessary in combatting the trading of commodities that threaten the safety of communities and individuals, such as sex trafficking and narcotics. Here is where the paradigm shift away from a holistic black market that incorporates all illegal trade to a multidimensional attribute of centralized economic systems would allow for a more focused approach to the greater issues of illicit markets.

At the rate that globalization is taking place and countries are becoming ever more interconnected financially and socially, the presence of black markets are an unavoidable offshoot for business. Criminality has always been a problematic societal issue, and the black 13

Neuwirth interview, “Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter.”

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market functions as a vessel for exploitation. The manifestation of transnational crime in illicit trade is a major cause for the sweeping definitions of black markets and the danger they pose to state stability. David Luna, the Senior Director for National Security and Diplomacy Anti-Crime Programs, emphasized this in his address on trans-African security, stating, Today’s reality is one in which we live in a world where there is no region, no country and no community who remain untouched by the destabilizing effects and corruptive influence of transnational organized crime and violent terrorism. Their impact is truly global and their real threat centers in some cases in their convergence. In particular, we must recognize that trans-regional illicit trafficking of drugs, arms, humans, and other illicit trade goods and services, are fueling greater insecurity and instability across Africa, and in other parts of the world.14 In West Africa this convergence takes place within the government and introduces a new complication of the illicit trade. Corruption is leading to inconsistency with the development of Sierra Leone and its fight against crime organizations. It is paramount to pay attention to the state’s role in the attempt to diminish the negative repercussions of transnational crime.

Black markets are considered to work against the state, but in many cases, the state may be the main proponent of their existence.

In the case of the developing country, illicit trade or grey markets enable a positive consequence that allows for people to adequately provide for themselves. Weak borders, a lack of economic regulation, corrupt government officials, and poor socioeconomic conditions make the black market for basic goods, like food and clothing, necessary.

Communities would be subject to harsher conditions without access to potentially illegally acquired goods off the mainstream market. The Accra Agreement formally requested humanitarian aid with an accompanying security force so that it could be distributed where needed without fear of rebel groups blocking efforts.15 Beyond war-torn communities and foreign aid, major world corporations target developing communities to sell their goods. As Neuwirth states, “Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive: They sell lots of 14 15

Luna, “Trans-Africa Security.”

UN Security Council, “Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” art. 6, sec. 6.

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products through the little unregistered and unlicensed stores in the developing world” because there is a need and these companies recognize the opportunity to provide.16 This is certainly more of a legitimate cause to facilitate unregulated business in developing countries.

The quality of life for millions of people is improved in these circumstances, where underdeveloped countries are slowly making their way towards becoming fully developed.

This should not fall into the stigma of illicit trafficking as inherently negative, and shows the diverse impact that black markets are capable of having.

Conclusion: Why It Matters The “black market” is a term that encompasses trillions of dollars of businesses and millions, if not billions, of individuals. It is a functional, diversified, ongoing system of trade that exists in every corner of the world. Among the largest industries within it are firearms, humans, and drugs. These are the primary commodities that come to mind when speaking of the black market today, and for good reason. It is a detrimental system of trade that is responsible for violence and corruption everywhere. The need to eradicate and limit the opportunity for the black market is of the upmost importance, specifically where it undermines the ability of states to progress economically and socially. In some cases, such as Sierra Leone, black markets are fostered by their governments and create harmful environments. The applied definitions become blurred in the connection between state and illicit activity. The black market, however, is not universally threatening to global stability.

Its capability to function within local communities and provide necessary supplies where otherwise people would starve is a testament to its complexity. It takes on many forms, and the perception of illicit trafficking must not be generalized with a destructive stigma that limits the capacity to see where it affords progressive characteristics. The common definition 16

Neuwirth interview, “Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter.”

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of the black market as contra-governmental is restrictive, when the true nature of illicit trade can conform to a variety of conditions.

Works Cited

Ablon, Lillian, Martin Libicki, and Andrea Golay. “Markets for Cybercrime Tools and Stolen Data: Hackers' Bazaar.” Rand Corporation, National Security Research Division, 2014. www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR600/RR610/RAND_RR61 0.pdf.

“The Kimberley Process.” Globalwitness.org. April 1, 2013. www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-diamonds/kimberleyprocess/?gclid=CjwKCAiAx57RBRBkEiwA8yZdUE-1APwXhlJHkRLLw9-BTPjjVgIOwhUIZwvtpFnaNClaCLArOtDZBoCHz0QAvD_BwE (accessed December 4, 2017).

Letsara, Nirina, and Charles Leyeka Lufumpa. “African Infrastructure Development Index 2016.” African Development Bank. 2016. Available at www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Africa_Infrastructure_ Development_May_2016.pdf.

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. 1689. Class handout (publication info. unknown).

Luna, David M. “Trans-Africa Security: Combating Illicit Trafficking and Organized Crime in Africa.” Lecture, National Defense University, Washington, DC, May 12, 2017.

Available at https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2017/270858.htm.

Neuwirth, Robert. Interview by Robert Capps. “Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to

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the World Economy.” Wired Magazine, December 16, 2011. https://www.wired.com/2011/12/mf_neuwirth_qa/.

“Underground Economy.” Investopedia. www.investopedia.com/terms/u/undergroundeconomy.asp (accessed November 28, 2017).

United Nations Security Council. “Comprehensive Peace Agreement.” August 29, 2003.

Notre Dame: Peace Accords Matrix, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/accord/accra-peaceagreement.

Vardi, Nathan. “The World’s Biggest Illicit Industries.” Forbes, June 4, 2010. https://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/biggest-illegal-businesses-businesscrime.html#6003f1105b98.

Vorrath, Judith. “From War to Illicit Economies: Organized Crime and State-Building in Liberia and Sierra Leone.” Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2014.

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Institutionalized Stigma as a Global Health Crisis Ben Kannenberg

My mother told me I was born in hell . . . and I am afraid I will be here forever.

– Child (8) living in a facility for children with developmental disabilities, Oaxaca, Mexico.1

Abstract Mental illness is an international epidemic, quietly amounting to an alarming percentage of the global disease burden. The epidemic is severely and negatively impacted by stigma, but the mismanagement of this issue at both the national and international level has hampered the ability of institutions on the ground to recognize and address its effects. While much of the existing literature examines the effect of cultural stigma on individual outcomes, this paper examines the effect of stigma on institutions—both how they work against it and how it works against them— in the case studies of Mexico and South Korea. Primary sources, particularly newspapers and NGO reports, were examined alongside existing secondary literature to produce a far-reaching summary of stigmatization within the institutions of these two nations. The findings indicate that institutional stigma manifests in four primary ways: flagging institutional resources, ineffective educational efforts, poor address of cultural factors, and a lack of confidentiality for patients. These factors must be addressed within both nations, as well as in large portions of the world, before significant progress can be made to slow the international mental healthcare crisis. Additionally, international agencies such as the World Health Organization must take the lead on this issue, setting an example and providing effective solutions to providers on the ground.

Introduction Global health as a field has exploded over the past few years. Teams of doctors and public health officials have made headway where progress once seemed impossible—knocking back polio and tuberculosis in developing nations, finding new treatments for HIV/AIDS, and setting up health systems where none existed before. While there is still so much to do, these achievements provide stepping stones to a brighter future; it seems that the world is slowly becoming aware of health disparities and reacting to them. Within the realm of physical illness, humanity finally seems to be heading in the right direction.

With this in mind, many people do not realize that depression and other mental health conditions are quietly some of the most debilitating diseases present in the world today. In 2010, major depressive disorders alone made up about 10 percent of global years lived with disability (YLDs) and were the leading cause of Disability-

1

Eric Rosenthal et al., Abandoned & Disappeared: Mexico’s Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities (Washington, DC: Disability Rights International and La Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, 2010), www.driadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/Abandoned-Disappeared-web.pdf.

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Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), both key markers of disease burden.2 Yet these issues are not discussed widely, if at all. At its height, the Ebola outbreak captured the world’s attention (and its funding) for months, dominating news coverage and spurring international interventions. At the same time, Mexican mental health patients were languishing for decades in conditions that violate UN torture standards, and those were the lucky ones who had access to treatment. At the same time, suicide rates in a region of South Korea sextupled in direct response to a terribly mismanaged government program, and shamans commanded significantly more business than mental health professionals. Yet these problems were swept neatly under the international rug, given scarcely a penny or a second look.

The global community clearly treats mental health differently than physical health. A large contributor to this difference is stigma, which throughout this paper will be defined as the real or perceived societal shame associated with having a mental illness. Multiple scholars have clearly shown that social and cultural stigmatization is a major barrier to an individual’s ability to receive effective mental healthcare.3 Furthermore, others have shown that social and cultural stigmatization is present in the nations of Mexico and South Korea, to detrimental effect for patients.4 However, there has been little research on the effects of this stigma on healthcare institutions. In this paper, I attempt to fill this void by investigating how these institutions interact with stigma—how they adapt to accommodate it as well as how they are molded by it—in Mexico and South Korea.

My findings indicate that stigma within institutional planning and reporting is a major barrier to care for the mentally ill across the world, and this negative effect manifests in four primary ways: a lack of institutional resources, misguided or ineffectual educational efforts, improper address of cultural factors, and a widespread lack of confidentiality. Mexico’s crumbling mental health infrastructure is a direct result of a lack of resources, but this issue distracts from other equally serious institutional issues. South Korea presents an interesting case of a nation in 2

Alize Ferrari et al., “Burden of Depressive Disorders by Country, Sex, Age, and Year: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010,” PLOS Med 10, no. 11 (Nov. 5, 2013): doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001547.

3 Patrick Corrigan, “How Stigma Interferes with Mental Health Care,” American Psychologist 59, no. 7 (2004): 614–25; M. C. Angermeyer and H. Matschinger, “The Stigma of Mental Illness: Effects of Labelling on Public Attitudes towards People with Mental Disorder,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 108, no. 4 (Oct. 2003): 304–9; D. L. Vogel et al., “Perceived Public Stigma and the Willingness to Seek Counseling: The Mediating Roles of SelfStigma and Attitudes toward Counseling,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 54, no. 1 (2007): 40–50.

4 Refugee Review Tribunal, Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “South Korea: RRT Research Response,” April 29, 2009, www.refworld.org/pdfid/4b6fe2770.pdf; Diana Gonzalez and Mauricio Alvarez, “Depression in Mexico: Stigma and Its Policy Implications,” Yale Global Health Review 4, no. 1 (Dec. 2016): 14– 16; Soowon Park et al., “Factors Affecting Stigma toward Suicide and Depression: A Korean Nationwide Study,” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 61, no. 8 (2015): 811–17; Claudia Rafful et al., “Depression, Gender, and the Treatment Gap in Mexico,” Journal of Affective Disorders 138, nos. 1-2 (2012): 165–69.

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which mental health facilities are largely sufficient, but misinformation and a lack of consideration of cultural issues still prevent a large portion of the populace from receiving care. After comparing the conditions within these nations, I then provide recommendations for how common issues can be avoided or managed.

Background The method in which the international community discusses stigma in relation to mental illness is curious.

Despite all of the literature concerning the role of stigma as a barrier to care, the World Health Organization (WHO) generally stays away from discussing stigma in any context, especially any role that it may play within institutions.

In fact, in the WHO’s flagship mental healthcare publication, the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), stigma is not mentioned even once in the entire section concerning the treatment of depression.5 The mhGAP presents itself as a comprehensive plan for treatment in areas in which professionals are not available, yet it ignores stigma even as a potential factor. Similarly, in the WHO’s mental health action plan published in 2013, stigma only appears as a concern in reference to re-integrating patients into society once treatment has been completed.6 WHO policy prescriptions are often intentionally vague to increase the chance that they will be relevant and accepted internationally, but stigma is a worldwide issue, and to make little mention of it in two major, comprehensive documents is an egregious oversight no matter the reasoning behind it.

This trend continues into statistical reporting as well. Alongside the data presented in the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, the WHO released a color-coded map showing the magnitude of age-standardized YLD rates in every country in the world. On this map, the countries with statistically significant higher rates are fairly predictable—primarily war-torn regions like Yemen or Afghanistan, or politically unstable nations such as Sudan or Turkey.7 However, the countries with significantly lower rates are more random: Mexico, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and China. These countries have nothing in common and are presented without comment; a casual glance at the map would lead one to believe that the ruthlessly oppressive North Korea is on par with the UK’s National Health Service in terms of mental healthcare.8 This is of course not the case; what the map is actually reporting is the number of registered cases, and it fails to take into account the 5 World Health Organization, “WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme,” Oct. 10, 2017, www.who.int/mental_health/mhgap/en/.

6 World Health Organization, Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020 (Geneva: WHO, 2013), http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/89966/9789241506021_eng.pdf.

7 Ferrari et al., “Burden of Depressive Disorders.”

8 Ibid.

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cases that are never seen due to stigmatization. These countries are not, as the map would lead one to believe, the least depressed regions of the world; rather, most of them are among the most stigmatized regions of the world.

Of these nations, Mexico and South Korea present the best opportunity for case studies. North Korea and China are notoriously stingy with information, so while stigmatization almost undoubtedly occurs in these nations, it is difficult to prove. The UK and Australia both have excellent health systems, so it is very possible that these nations treat depression significantly better than the rest of the world. Of the remaining three, South Korea and Japan are somewhat similar culturally in that both have strong norms of saving face and taboos on public “weakness,” but South Korea is unique because it has one of the highest suicide rates in the world as well as a cultural tradition of binge drinking not present in Japan. Additionally, the issue of suicide has forced South Korea to enter the international discourse surrounding mental health, but the government has stubbornly refused to include stigma in this discussion. These factors make Korea a more interesting study than Japan.

Mexico presents an interesting counterpoint in that it has an entirely different set of cultural traditions and infrastructural issues, yet still deals with many of the same problems. Mexico’s mental health system has also been cast into an international spotlight as of late due to a series of exposés on the horrific conditions present in their mental hospitals. In response, the Mexican government made a series of promises to the international community that the system would be improved, but these have largely fallen through. Conditions in Mexico today largely remain the same as they were before the reports were written. Additionally, like South Korea, Mexico has largely refused to acknowledge stigma as a factor in this process.

These nations studied together provide a unique opportunity to consider a wide variety of cultural factors while also showing surprising similarities, such as the general disregard of mental health as a medical condition. In this way, the comparison of mental healthcare institutions in Mexico and South Korea provides insight into common patterns of stigmatization across the world, as well as unique issues based on culture.

Discussion I. Institutional Resources Mental health systems around the world are plagued by a lack of funding, adequate facilities, and trained professionals, and this problem has been abundantly documented internationally as demonstrated in the literature review. However, this research has largely avoided the topic of stigma as a driving factor of this resource gap.

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Stigma acts within both facets of the resource-gathering process; it deflates statistics about the need for care, which then decreases the availability of funds to repair areas of deficiency. Furthermore, it distorts ideas about what type of care is most effective, which often leads to the incorrect prioritization of mental hospitals instead of community resources. Mexico is a prime example of these phenomena, representing one of the most drastic resource shortages in the international community today. South Korea falls on the other side of the spectrum; with generally respected and well-funded infrastructure, it appears to be on the right side of this issue. However even there, issues of stigma mean that funding is consistently not put to its highest and best use.

Mexico’s mental health system has found itself on the brink of catastrophic collapse multiple times in the past two decades. In a scathing 2010 study, numerous mental health facilities were cited by Disability Rights International (DRI) for a litany of abuses: a lack of basic necessities like clothing or clean living conditions; the use of long-term restraints to the point of violating UN torture standards; the unauthorized use of lobotomies and psychosurgeries to incapacitate aggressive patients; the disappearance of children, often into the sex trade or forced labor; and a general tendency to retain patients indefinitely with no plan to rehabilitate or release them.9 These findings would have been devastating on their own, but this study was actually a follow-up to a previous study done ten years earlier.10 Since 2000, Mexico had made numerous promises to improve its mental health system, including ratifying the 2006 United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, yet DRI researchers found that numerous patients interviewed in the 2000 study were still languishing in the exact same squalid conditions as they were a decade prior.11 Despite an increase in mental health spending and a significantly greater increase in promises, the Mexican government made no discernible improvements to its existing mental hospital system, even with strong international pressure to do so. Additionally, while much international attention has gone toward the situation within hospitals, little attention has been paid to inpatient or community clinics.

This situation highlights the effect that stigmatization has on resource gathering in Mexico. The vast majority of scholars, reporters, and international actors agree that the Mexican mental health system is in total disarray and have provided numerous recommendations; however, the situation has remained unchanged. Within the DRI report, a former-patient-turned-advocate related this inaction to stigma, specifically the incorrect notion that the

9

Rosenthal et al., Abandoned & Disappeared.

Eric Rosenthal et al., Human Rights & Mental Health: Mexico, (Washington, DC: Mental Disability Rights International, 2000), www.driadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/Human-Rights-Mental-Health-English.pdf.

11 Randal Archibold, “Abuses Found at Mexican Institutions for Disabled,� New York Times, Nov. 30, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01mexico.html.

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mentally ill are often dangerous or beyond help. He notes that this creates a narrow focus on certain conditions, specifically those that cause violent or disruptive episodes, at the expense of more common and less severe conditions like depression or anxiety.12 The logical extension of this is that mental healthcare would be focused on the mental hospital as the unit of care rather than outpatient clinics, and this is borne out by the data: in 2011, there were forty-six mental hospitals with 4,333 available beds compared to just twenty-six outpatient facilities.13 Because the populace (and therefore elected officials) favors the view that those with a mental illness are dangerous, the scarce governmental resources that are available go to the hospitals instead of clinics. This is an issue for multiple reasons, primarily in that it cuts down on the number of specialized facilities for vulnerable populations (such as adolescents) and also reduces the chance that treatable mental illnesses will be caught early on in the process.14 However, despite the fact that the majority of resources flow into hospitals, conditions in these hospitals have not improved. The first reason for this is the paltry amount of funding available in the first place: in 2011, only 0.65 percent of the government’s total health expenditure was earmarked for mental health.15 Secondly, the money that does trickle down is often put to use for cosmetic facelifts or short-term improvements rather than meaningful long-term investments—“rearranging the chairs of the Titanic,” as one frustrated psychiatrist put it.16 This lack of funding even after the pair of damning reports is curious, but it makes more sense when viewed through the lens of stigma—in Mexico, discussion of mental health issues or disorders conjures the image of someone who is violently disturbed, so rehabilitation and care take a backseat to containing dangerous individuals. Thus, the government pours what few resources it does provide into its long-term care facilities, but this money is often directed toward ineffectual short-term improvements.

South Korea has curiously developed a similar institutional issue despite significantly greater resources. In 2006, the WHO reported that South Korea had set aside 6 percent of its overall health budget to be used for mental health, 31 percent of which was to be spent on mental hospitals and inpatient facilities.17 This is a drastic increase

12

Rosenthal et al., Abandoned & Disappeared.

World Health Organization, “Mexico: Country Profile,” WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2011, www.who.int/countries/mex/en/.

14 G. Borges et al., “Treatment of Mental Disorders for Adolescents in Mexico City,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86, no. 10 (Oct. 2008): 757–64.

15 World Health Organization, “Mexico: Country Profile.”

16 Karla Zabludovsky, “Ex-Patients Police Mexico's Mental Health System,” New York Times, Oct. 12, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/world/americas/ex-patients-police-mexicos-mental-health-system.html.

17 World Health Organization, WHO-Aims Report on the Mental Health System in the Republic of Korea, (Seoul: WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2006), www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/ korea_who_aims_report.pdf.

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from Mexico’s mental healthcare spending, and roughly comparable to many industrialized nations worldwide.

However, at the same time this 2006 report was being filed, the South Korean Commission on Human Rights published a study that found that mental hospitals were being both misused and overused—the study recounted stories of patients hospitalized because of familial or community issues (such as straying from the family religion) or being hospitalized for multiple months with no clear plan for rehabilitation.18 This study urged the Korean government to develop mental health resources at the community level with a clear focus on recovery, and to be extremely wary of placing patients in a mental hospital when other forms of treatment would be more effective.19 However since 2006, Korea has enacted policies have done the exact opposite of this recommendation.

From 2000–11, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) noted that member states were drastically reducing the number of inpatient psychiatric beds in favor of increasing community resources; Korea was the notable exception to this trend, more than doubling its number of beds from 1998–2008.20 This trend has continued since 2008, and the government has also begun decreasing how much it reimburses outpatient and short-stay facilities.21 These two policy decisions have cemented mental hospitals as the main units of care, directly defying the recommendations made in the 2006 report. There are numerous reasons behind these decisions, but stigma is a large factor; many Korean municipalities refuse to allow mental health facilities within their communities, which severely hampers both the growth of community resources and also the ability of mental hospitals to successfully reintegrate patients at the end of their designated stay.22 This view significantly handicaps the government’s ability to respond effectively to community-level issues.

II. Educational and Awareness Efforts Another set of crucial mental health institutions outside of physical infrastructure are educational programs and awareness campaigns directed at the general public. These programs, if effective, could lessen the effects of stigma and help those with mental illnesses more easily integrate into society. However, when these educational campaigns are created within a stigmatized or otherwise misguided framework, the attempts can backfire horribly,

18

Daniel Fisher, “Recovering Humanity in South Korea: Nothing about Us Without Us,” National Empowerment Center, Dec. 22, 2016, https://power2u.org/recovering-humanity-in-south-korea-nothing-about-us-without-us/.

19 Ibid.

20 OECD, Korea's Increase in Suicides and Psychiatric Bed Numbers Is Worrying, Says OECD, 2014, www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/MMHC-Country-Press-Note-Korea.pdf.

21 Ibid.

22 World Health Organization, WHO-Aims Report.

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creating an even worse problem. In Mexico, few awareness campaigns exist, meaning that news coverage of tragedies is the only exposure to mental health that many Mexicans receive. In South Korea, the government has attempted various gimmicks in an attempt to lower suicide rates, but these have instead yielded largely negative results; many have reached only a narrow audience, and all fail to fully account for stigma.

Mental health remains largely taboo in Mexico, which means that official government educational programs are few and far between; those that do exist are intensely region- or population-specific. One notable program that is slowly gaining traction is Radio Abierta, a radio program started by former and current psychiatric patients. This program presents research from experts as well as personal stories, all designed to tear down the stigma surrounding both mental health and mental hospitals.23 However, this program also has a limited reach and misses the vast majority of those that need to hear its message. Unfortunately, the only widely circulated “discussion” of mental health in Mexico occurs after tragedies that cannot be explained any other way. As an example, a Mexican student opened fire on his classroom earlier this year before turning the gun on himself.24 When it came out that this student had been receiving treatment for depression, authorities fumbled for words to explain what had happened before finally deciding to place the responsibility on parents. The Sonoran governor stated that “parents’ responsibility [to identify depressed children] will never be replaced by any public policy, program, or governmental action” and the president issued a statement calling on Mexicans to “work on our family values so that a tragedy like this one never happens again.”25 Sentiments like these are harmful because they further cement the conception that families with “proper values” do not struggle with mental illness, and also provide a convenient excuse for the government to continue doing nothing. Nonetheless, these misrepresentative statements are the closest Mexico has come to a national mental health awareness campaign.

In South Korea, suicide is a massive issue, and the government has put together several national campaigns to address the issue. However, many have failed spectacularly due to a flawed understanding of what suicidal individuals (and those with mental illness at large) actually need. The most infamous of these failures is the 2012 “Bridge of Life” campaign in which Samsung and the Korean government collaborated to transform the Mapo Bridge, from which many people jumped in order to commit suicide26. Workers placed thousands of lights along the

23

Zabludovsky, “Ex-Patients Police Mexico's Mental Health System.”

Marisol García Walls. “Why We Desperately Need to Talk About Mental Health in Mexico.” Remezcla, 25, 2017, http://remezcla.com/features/culture/mental-health-stigma-mexico/.

25 Ibid.

26 Young-Ha Kim, “South Korea's Struggle with Suicide,” Opinion, New York Times, Apr. 2, 2014, 24

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length of the bridge, which at night would light up as pedestrians passed to illuminate photos of happy families or messages like “I know it’s been hard for you.”27 In its first year, the bridge won numerous international awards and was the subject of a massive advertising effort by both Samsung and the government.28 However, just one year later, it turned out that suicides from the Mapo bridge had actually increased six-fold.29 This was likely because the program made three key missteps: it drew attention to the bridge as a potential site for suicide, promoted tone-deaf messages that presumed to understand how deeply-depressed individuals were feeling, and inadvertently presented the concept of suicide in a romanticized fashion. Any of these issues could have been solved through simple research on suicide prevention best practices; instead, the government’s desire for a flashy solution made the problem considerably worse.

Since this spectacular failure, the government and the Korea Association for Suicide Prevention (KASP) have been a bit more cautious. In 2011, KASP partnered with the Young Health Programme (YHP) to lead a series to workshops on suicide prevention; this program was a success, reaching over 88,000 high schoolers with resources and training more than 1,700 “gatekeepers” in suicide prevention before ending in 2014.30 More recently, the government has instituted the “Are you OK?” campaign, which included videos of dozens of celebrities blowing kisses and giving inspirational messages alongside information about suicide prevention hotlines.31 Both of these campaigns were quite effective at reaching a younger audience, although their overall effect on suicide prevalence has yet to be determined. However, as both were organized online and targeted at urban settings, neither program noted its efficacy in reaching rural communities, the number of rural youth reached was likely negligible for both.32 These well-meaning programs also contain an even more significant flaw—each confines its impact to suicide and ignores the underlying factors present. The curriculum of the YHP revolves around identifying those at specific risk for suicide; the “OK” campaign focuses on specifically reaching out to those considering ending their own life. Neither program mentions the word “depression” once, nor does either address the cultural factors that place Koreans at specific risk for suicide. Additionally, neither provides a way to magnify the voices of those

www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/opinion/south-koreas-struggle-with-suicide.html 27 Ibid.

28 “Suicide Prevention Campaign Wins Cannes Award,” USA Today video, 2:00, Jun.18, 2013, www.usatoday.com/videos/money/business/2013/06/18/2430905/.

29 Kim, “South Korea's Struggle with Suicide.”

30 “YHP Korea,” The Young Health Programme, 2014.

31 Korean Association for Suicide Prevention, “Are You OK? Program,” 2016.

32 Korean Association for Suicide Prevention; “YHP Korea.”

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struggling; instead, the stories highlighted are those of celebrities or trained YHP gatekeepers. As a result, these programs do nothing to address the stigmatization of depression or anxiety, and they further send the message that mental health is only significant when it comes to the extreme of suicide. In effect, what Korea has done in recent years is distance suicide from mental health—within the stigmatized framework, suicide is a condition that must be dealt with independently through these specialized programs. Thus, even the best of these educational programs can only treat the symptoms of a larger mental health crisis.

III. Acknowledgment of Cultural Factors To be truly effective, mental health institutions must take cultural norms and stigmatization into account when seeking to attract patients and put together treatment plans. In both Mexico and South Korea, healthcare institutions struggle to effectively account for the effects of cultural factors. In both nations, these factors contribute to a strong view that mental illness is not a health concern but rather a personal concern; in Mexico, this takes the form of outright dismissal, while South Koreans typically view these illnesses as weakness. The net result of both is similar—mental illness is hidden, and therapy is regarded as an absolute last resort. In Korea, there is the additional problem of socially encouraged binge drinking, which serves to temporarily deaden depression or anxiety without resolving them in any way. This view of mental health outside the sphere of health severely limits the ability of practitioners to reach those in need, and further to have a significant impact on these patients, even in regions where facilities are readily available.

The Mexican self-ideal itself partly stands in opposition to effective mental health treatment. In a nation where people pride themselves on being hardy and cheerful, the idea of undergoing therapy for a mental illness—or worse yet, taking medication such as an antidepressant—is viewed as an extreme and unnecessary measure.33 With this concept in mind, many individuals who eventually choose to seek treatment anyway, often enduring backlash from their family and friends, are shocked to learn what therapy actually involves. In a survey of Mexican women accessing therapy for the first time, many reported bewilderment about being asked to pay after simply having talked to a psychologist.34 Many of these women additionally noted that their family, friends, and priests were

33

García Walls, “Why We Desperately Need to Talk About Mental Health in Mexico.”

Jorge Galván et al., “Perceptions of Mexican Women Regarding Barriers in Mental Health Services in Primary Care,” BMC Women’s Health 17, no. 70 (Aug. 31, 2017), doi:10.1186/s12905-017-0423-x.

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capable of providing advice, and felt that therapy was simply a more expensive form of receiving that same advice.35 Since the popular Mexican concept of mental healthcare paints it as a last-ditch strategy, many are disappointed when their first experience is not earth-shatteringly effective.

Mexican culture also retains a strong social stigma against discussing personal concerns or issues in public, even when mental health is not involved. In a recent study, Mexican women reported that talking with an authority figure (such as a health professional) about things they viewed as socially unacceptable made them feel judged or inferior regardless of the response of the health professional.36 Conversely, these women also felt they would be significantly more likely to trust someone with a high degree of authority.37 With these conflicting expectations, even the very best mental health professionals have to walk a fine line just to communicate effectively with their patients, and professionals who are less experienced are far less likely to aid their patient in any way.

Together, these two factors deter help-seeking and also play into the feedback loop set up by Mexico’s insufficient mental health infrastructure. Since “minor” mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety are typically dismissed, what people associate with mental health are illnesses that are so severe that they cannot be ignored, such as schizophrenia. Individuals with these severe conditions are then segregated from society in mental hospitals, where they often stay for life.38 As such, many Mexicans have no exposure to successful, limited treatment. This results in the avoidance of treatment at outpatient facilities even if these facilities are available; cultural factors alongside institutional ineptitude result in a devastating vicious cycle.

In South Korea, there is also a strong social stigma against disclosing personal information in public, but the roots of this are very different. The first factor is that Korean culture places a large emphasis on the Confucian ideal of a perfect family, and admitting to struggling with a mental illness is tantamount to admitting that this ideal is not being met.39 As such, if a struggling son or daughter approaches a family member about their mental illness, they will often be advised to keep it hidden; going to see a mental health professional behind the family’s back is considered a betrayal. This is also related to another cultural factor – the presence of a specialized form of collectivism called jib-dan ei-gi ju-eiu, which roughly translates to “group greed.” Under this framework, individuals prize important social groups (including family, but also close friend groups or team members) over both 35

Ibid.

Galván et al., “Perceptions of Mexican Women.”

37 Ibid.

38 Rosenthal et al., Abandoned & Disappeared.

39 Deepa Bharath, “Stigma of Mental Illness Rooted in Korean Culture,” Orange County Register, Aug. 29, 2016, www.ocregister.com/2016/08/29/stigma-of-mental-illness-rooted-in-korean-culture/.

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their own welfare and the welfare of the larger community.40 This means that patients are less likely to seek treatment if it reflects poorly on their social group, and also less likely to support resources that benefit their entire community. A third factor is prevalence of maintaining chae-min, or saving face. In modern Korea, this takes the form of being hyper-conscious of both how an individual compares to others in their community as well as how that individual is perceived by others.41 The combination of all three factors makes the fear of disclosure and resulting stigmatization one of the most important barriers to mental healthcare in the nation.

Because of these cultural factors, South Korea presents a nearly identical problem to Mexico—people avoiding outpatient treatment for mental illness—but for very different reasons. The shame of admitting to a mental illness can last a lifetime or even beyond; mental illness may impair future occupational or romantic prospects, and there are reports of churches excommunicating members of a family in which a family member committed suicide.42 Especially when alternative medicine providers are both more common and more discreet, many patients choose to avoid psychiatric treatment even when facilities are readily available. A 2016 study reported that despite the fact that one in four Koreans suffer from a treatable mental illness, only one in ten actually seek medical help.43 Additionally, of that 10 percent, many patients simply want a prescription; most balk at talk therapy as unpleasant (because discussing private issues in public goes against cultural norms) and unnecessary (as they could receive similar advice from within their social group), and therefore needlessly expensive.44 The overall result is that only a tiny fraction of Koreans receive comprehensive mental healthcare beyond just medication, despite the relatively high availability of mental health facilities.

This problem is also magnified by a toxic culture of binge drinking to compensate for stress. On average, South Koreans drink fourteen shots of hard liquor per week, which is the most in the world and more than double the number of Russia, which records the next-highest average.45 Korean corporations often encourage their employees to bond over alcohol, and in these settings, it is actually considered socially unacceptable to remain sober

40

Chris Juergens, “‘In Korea, There Is No Mental Health’: Barriers to Treatment,” Forefront: Suicide Prevention, University of Washington School of Social Work, 29 June 2017, www.intheforefront.org/in-korea-there-is-nomental-health-barriers-to-treatment/.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Anita McKay, “Korea Neglecting Mental Health Issues: Experts,” Korea Herald, July 10, 2017, www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170710000535.

44 Mark McDonald, “Stressed and Depressed, Koreans Avoid Therapy,” New York Times, July 6 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/asia/07iht-psych07.html.

45 Steve Chao and Liz Gooch, “The Country with the World’s Worst Drink Problem,” Al-Jazeera, Feb. 7, 2016, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/02/country-world-worst-drink-problem-160202120308308.html.

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or hold back while colleagues drink.46 Drinking is one of the only non-stigmatized ways to release stress in public, and it takes the place of more constructive activities. It is also linked to Korea’s abnormally high suicide rate; in a 2015 survey of the families of suicide victims, it was revealed that 40 percent of all fatal suicide attempts were made while intoxicated, and over 25 percent of the victims had previously faced extensive legal or personal conflicts directly relating to alcohol abuse.47 Despite this, the government has not released any guidelines on drinking, nor has it established any link between mental health, heavy drinking, and suicide. Services for alcoholics are extraordinarily difficult to find, and the vast majority that do exist are completely disconnected from other mental health services.48 In effect, the stigmatization of healthy emotional release has combined with a culture already susceptible to binge-drinking to disastrous effect, and both the government and mental health professionals are doing nothing to relate these two causes or try to stop the damage.

IV. Confidentiality and Trust Even when mental health facilities are available, issues of unreliable doctor-patient confidentiality can still deter potential patients from seeking treatment. This issue worsens when paired with a strong social stigma surrounding mental health issues; when patients stand to lose significant social capital through the disclosure of their condition, confidentiality becomes of paramount importance. In Mexico, there is a binary: patients must choose confidentiality, which can usually be trusted in closed-doors facilities like mental hospitals, at the cost of the accountability of their doctors; this can lead to further problems, like sexual abuse or unauthorized treatments. In South Korea, the destructive combination of a low-trust society that also places a large emphasis on saving face results in a culture in which patients would rather struggle on their own than seek help and accept the possibility of stigmatization.

The Mexican government attempted to equalize confidentiality across the board as part of a comprehensive 2017 mental health bill, stating that all patients have “a right to confidentiality of personal information, medical psychiatric illness, and treatment contained in the clinical record.”49 This is certainly a positive step; however, any

46

Juergens, “‘In Korea, There Is No Mental Health.’”

Claire Lee, “Avoiding Psychiatric Treatment Linked to Korea's High Suicide Rate,” Korea Herald, Jan. 27, 2016, www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20160127001146.

48 Jee Wook Kim et al., “The Current Situation of Treatment Systems for Alcoholism in Korea,” Journal of Korean Medical Science 28, no. 2 (Feb. 28, 2013): 181–89.

49 Leticia A. Gámez, Iniciativa Que Expide la Ley Nacional de Salud Mental, Mexican Department of Health, Apr. 20, 2017, http://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/Archivos/Documentos/2017/04/asun_3526762_20170420_1492453429.pdf.

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good it does is almost entirely undone in the fine print: “except in cases determined in the provisions of applicable law.”50 As the Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out, this clause is so vague that the government could use it in almost any scenario, and as such it does little to reassure patients of the government’s commitment to their right to privacy.51 It also does little to dispel common myths like the idea that in the case of a divorce, a parent’s mental health records could be released to defend the other parent’s right to custody; this does not typically occur, but it is not expressly forbidden under the new law.52 Furthermore, Mexico has a history of disregarding its own mental health promises and laws, as is shown in the background section of this paper. As such, control over confidentiality rests almost exclusively at the provider level.

At this level, there is pervasive risk for the disclosure of personal information; this breach could happen at any point within the treatment process, including at the intake stage. This likely happens to a great degree, although there is not sufficient data to prove that these leaks occur. However, there is conclusive evidence that some providers leverage their power over patients to perform dehumanizing acts, such as forced abortions or sterilizations.

A 2015 survey of women with debilitating mental illness found that 42 percent of the women surveyed had been coerced in sterilization by doctors.53 When researchers dug deeper to uncover the roots of this problem, they found that some doctors were simply incompetent and viewed sterilization as a quick fix to a problem they were not equipped to deal with; however, some of the procedures were performed to cover up (and further enable) sexual abuse by mental health professionals.54 These abuses are more common in closed-door facilities, in which patients are completely disconnected from their communities and doctors have little oversight. Thus, Mexicans dealing with mental illness typically have two awful choices: they can seek treatment within their community and risk having their personal information disseminated without their consent, or they can distance themselves from their community and risk abuse or mistreatment without any opportunity for recompense.

As an outgrowth of the cultural factors discussed earlier, South Korea is considered a low-trust society— people tend not to trust others outside their immediate social groups, and they certainly do not trust the government.

50

Ibid.

Human Rights Watch, “Letter to the Chair of the Mental Health and Drug Commission of Mexico,” Oct. 17, 2017, www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/17/letter-chair-mental-health-and-drug-commission-mexico.

52 Gámez, Iniciativa Que Expide la Ley Nacional de Salud Mental.

53 John Holman, “Mexican Mentally Ill Women ‘Coerced into Sterilization,’” Al Jazeera, Feb. 26, 2015, www.aljazeera.com/blogs/americas/2015/02/mexico-mentally-ill-women-sterilisation-150227024620279.html; Little literature is available on abuses specifically suffered by men, but it safe to assume that men also face the same issues of powerlessness and a lack of recompense in regard to mental healthcare providers.

54 Holman, “Mexican Mentally Ill Women ‘Coerced into Sterilization.’”

51

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This is problematic for mental health practitioners because Korea has government-run medical insurance, and upon receiving any type of mental healthcare, a specific designation (“Code F”) appears on the patient’s insurance records indefinitely.55 In this way, even if the clinic itself maintains confidentiality, a shameful designation is present that can then be discovered by community members. To avoid this public disclosure, rich patients often go to private clinics and pay in cash to avoid the paper trail, but this option is not available to poorer patients. Instead, pastors, shamans, and “room salons”—clubs where businessmen can go and drink heavily while a personal hostess listens to their problems—take the place of medical care.56 To account for this and maintain their business, some doctors knowingly misdiagnose patients with nonexistent physical illnesses like “chronic fatigue,” which is not only dangerous for the misdiagnosed patient but also adds to the general misinformation surrounding mental health.57 In the midst of all of this, the Korean government has not acknowledged the problem and made no strides to improve their laws on doctor-patient confidentiality or the issue with insurance records.

Conclusion Stigma within mental healthcare institutions is a major barrier to care for citizens of Mexico and South Korea, serving as the root cause of four major problems: a lack and misuse of available infrastructure funding, botched educational and awareness efforts, an inability to effectively address cultural factors, and untrustworthy or unethical mental health professionals who cannot be relied upon to maintain confidentiality. Together, these four issues significantly increase the likelihood that patients will either not be able to access care or will choose to forego it. As such, it is imperative that the governments of both Mexico and South Korea take steps to tighten laws surrounding mental healthcare and launch awareness campaigns to educate their citizenry about mental illness.

Additionally, mental healthcare providers must receive training on how to encourage help-seeking, meet their patients in a culturally sensitive context, and help patients navigate cultural stigma surrounding their treatment. In order to do either of these effectively, however, both governments first need to admit that mental illness and stigma exist within their borders, which neither has explicitly done so far.

The international community needs to spur on nations like Mexico and South Korea by taking the lead on this issue. By taking a strong stance on both cultural and institutional stigma, organizations like the WHO or the

55

McDonald, “Stressed and Depressed.”

Bharath, “Stigma of Mental Illness Rooted in Korean Culture”; McDonald, “Stressed and Depressed.”

57 Lee, “Avoiding Psychiatric Treatment Linked to Korea's High Suicide Rate.”

56

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OECD would put pressure on member states to do the same. While these organizations have little power on the ground, they do hold sway at the national level and they should use this influence to set guidelines for member states. By setting uniform standards for confidentiality or a baseline of care, for example, they give struggling nations like Mexico both a warning to cease mistreatment of patients and a reference on which to base new national policies. In order to maximize this effect, the international community also needs to account for stigma within its own publications and reporting measures. It is crucial that the next iteration of the mhGAP must include instructions for helping patients navigate cultural stigma while also avoiding institutional stigma. Furthermore, the GBD 2020 must find a way to take stigma into account to avoid the same issue presented in the 2010 survey; at the very least, it must avoid the implication that oppressive regimes such as North Korea’s and dysfunctional systems such as Mexico’s are in the same tier as the United Kingdom. This too is a way for the international community to lead and set an example for individual nations.

If left unchecked, mental illness will continue to function as a silent epidemic. Suicide remains a major cause of death among all age groups worldwide, and South Korea demonstrates that many nations are not ready or equipped to address this challenge. If nations do not commit to reducing stigma and the international community sits idly by, these rates will only continue to rise. Additionally, outside the number of lives directly lost from mental illness, failing mental health systems rob their patients of the opportunity to live fruitful and productive lives, as Mexico abundantly demonstrates. This issue must be treated as the health emergency that it is, and for the issue to be truly resolved, international and national actors must work to reduce both cultural and institutional stigma.

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Galván, Jorge, Nayehli Saavedra, Feliciano Bartolo, and Shoshana Berenzon. “Perceptions of Mexican Women Regarding Barriers in Mental Health Services in Primary Care.” BMC Women’s Health 17, no. 70 (August 31, 2017). doi:10.1186/s12905-017-0423-x Gámez, Leticia A. Iniciativa Que Expide la Ley Nacional de Salud Mental. Mexican Department of Health. April 20, 2017. http://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/Archivos/Documentos/2017/04/asun_3526762_20170420_1492453429.pdf.

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Gonzalez, Diana, and Mauricio Alvarez. “Depression in Mexico: Stigma and Its Policy Implications.” Yale Global Health Review 4, no. 1 (December 2016): 14–16. Available at http://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/12/21/depression-in-mexico-stigma-and-its-policy-implications/ (accessed October 5, 2017).

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Park, Soowon, Min-Ji Kim, Maeng Je Cho, and Jun-Young Lee. “Factors Affecting Stigma toward Suicide and Depression: A Korean Nationwide Study.” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 61, no. 8 (2015): 811–17.

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World Health Organization. WHO-Aims Report on the Mental Health System in the Republic of Korea. Seoul: WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2006. Available at www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/korea_who_aims_report.pdf.

World Health Organization. “WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme.” Oct. 10, 2017. www.who.int/mental_health/mhgap/en/.

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Zabludovsky, Karla. “Ex-Patients Police Mexico's Mental Health System.” New York Times, October 21, 2013. www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/world/americas/ex-patients-police-mexicos-mental-health-system.html.

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Norway: The Energy Security and Climate Change Dyad

Colin Olson

Abstract In the eyes of the international system, Norway is a vocal proponent in the fight against climate change, and its participation in international treaties as well as its domestic goals reflects this image. Concurrently, Norway supplies a large proportion of European Union gas consumption.

This paper endeavors to take a closer inspection of many of the lofty anti-climate change goals Norway has established in recent history. The research suggests that Norway’s anti-climate change policies are ineffective, as the government provides no realistic means to achieve them.

To explain this paradox between the international narrative and the actual effectiveness of Norwegian policy, the abnormal strength of Norway’s energy security is evaluated under scholar Benjamin Sovacool’s five categories: availability, affordability, resilience, fulfillment, and governance. Norway’s current energy security policies mostly fulfill the caveats of a strong national energy security rhetoric; however, Norway stumbles glaringly in its ability to address energy governance. To achieve strong energy governance, Sovacool argues that a state must be transparent and accountable for accurate and adequate information over its energy supply. In this capacity, Norway provides strong policies but fails to offer feasible means to accomplish its goals over long periods of time. The contradiction in the message Norway conveys of fighting climate change and its actual focus on fossil fuel production stems from its environmental advantage, such as sheer cliffs, a resilient ecosystem, and domestic hydroelectric power. These comparative advantages allow for Norway to continue pressing its political agenda for counteracting climate change while also further developing its natural gas industry.

Since the discovery of oil in the North Sea in the 1960s and Norway’s subsequent political discourse on its ownership of the vast oil and gas reserves in the “High North,” Norway has emerged as one of the leading exporters of oil and natural gas in the world. In 2011, Norway became the eighth largest crude oil exporter in the world and third largest natural gas exporter.1 The Norwegian government’s successful navigation away from the Dutch Disease despite the massive influx in oil and natural gas wealth since the twentieth century has morphed the small 1

International Energy Agency, “Key World Energy Statistics 2011 Edition,” 2011, http://iea-gia.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/08/key_world_energy_stats-2011-27Dec11.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017).

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Nordic state into a stable European energy exporter. Norway’s energy export consistency has been echoed in its political atmosphere when confronted with both energy security and climate change policy. Despite fluctuating political coalitions in its parliament, Norway has maintained its pledge to work toward energy security for its people and consumers. Since 2000, this pledge has not directly affected Norway’s ability to combat climate change based on its political discourse; however, the Norwegian government has remained vague on the details of its plans to cut carbon emissions and reduce the state’s effect on climate change. This paper seeks to highlight the discrepancies in Norway’s climate change policy in favor of enhanced energy security through evaluation of Norway’s carbon emissions and its ability to address the five parameters of energy security as defined by Benjamin Sovacool. While Norway has positioned itself at the forefront of the global narrative on climate change, its own commitments toward combatting the trend are vague and halfhearted. The country’s energy security policy, on the other hand, remains potent and clear.

Energy Availability in Norway One of the greatest challenges scholars face when addressing energy security is how to measure it and provide a consistent set of parameters that best wholly encompasses the characteristics of modern energy security. To establish a complete and consistent set of energy security classifications, this paper utilizes Benjamin Sovacool’s five categories comprising the conceptualization of energy security.2 This outline was created under the examination of the merits of other series of energy security definitions, such as Larry Hughes’s “four Rs” and the US Department of Defense’s “five Ss,” and provides the most wholesome narrative of what

2

Benjamin K. Sovacool and Harry Saunders, “Competing Policy Packages and the Complexity of Energy Security,” Energy 67 (April 2014): 642.

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modern energy security is.3 Sovacool’s first parameter for defining energy security is availability.

A state’s ability to provide “sufficient and uninterrupted energy supply” is critical in evaluating its energy security.4 In the continually globalizing energy market, it is becoming more and more difficult for states to maintain consistent energy supplies disconnected from the influences of other states. Applying this metric to Norway, the peninsular country excels in its ability to maintain a sufficient and uninterrupted energy supply. Norway relies very little on its oil and natural gas industry to provide energy for its population despite its cool climate. In fact, 95 percent of Norway’s energy demand is supplied by its domestic hydroelectric power plants: in 2005, Norway produced 137.8 TWh (Terawatt hours) with 136 TWh produced by hydroelectric plants.5 Due to the state’s incredible energy self-sustainability, 30 percent of its carbon emissions are owed to its oil and gas offshore drilling activity—the largest single portion of Norway’s total carbon footprint.6 The interconnected island geography and low population density of Norway demands citizens utilize private transportation means outside of major cities. This is represented in the 23 percent of Norway’s carbon emissions represented by transportation of the 53.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions attributed to Norway in 2015.7 Based on the data presented on Norway’s energy availability, it can be concluded that Norway’s energy security does not feature any threat from a limited availability of energy.

Affordability of Energy in Norway

3

Ibid.

Ibid.

5 “Energy in Norway,” The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, 2007, www.nve.no/Media/5144/energy-in-norway-2007-edition.pdf (accessed May 3, 2018).

6 Jakub M. Godzmirsk, “The Norwegian Energy Security Debate,” in The Political Economy of Renewable Energy and Energy Security, edited by Espen Moe and Paul Midford, 113–36 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

7 “Production and Consumption of Energy, Energy Balance,” Statistics Norway, June 28, 2017, www.ssb.no/en/energibalanse (accessed December 13, 2017).

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Sovacool’s next metric in defining energy security is affordability that “exhibits stable and affordable cost profiles, both for current and future generations.”8 Norwegian energy security policy also advocates affordable energy for its population: The average energy use per household in Norway is three times higher than any other European state.9 Norwegians are capable of using such a large amount of electricity per household due to the domestic supply of energy and the renewable nature of hydroelectric energy. These dimensions allow for an affordable energy supply to all citizens of Norway. In addition to the nature of the energy being supplied, the political atmosphere of Norway creates a smaller disconnect between income inequality, with the state boasting a comprehensive social security system featuring the Government Pension Fund, universal health care, and a strong welfare model.

Resilience of Norwegian Energy Security Norway’s energy security policy does not adequately address Sovacool’s next parameter, resilience. Resilience of energy security is characterized by a diversity of the energy supply sector and energy services that “can survive unexpected events that disrupt efficient and effective operations.”10 His narrative calls for a decentralized energy system in which the state can survive a disruption in supply resulting from a technological malfunction, natural disaster, or even terrorist attack.11 Norway suffers from an almost one-dimensional domestic energy supply that, although affordable and efficient, is relatively vulnerable to special circumstance threatening the hydroelectric process. Additionally, the dominance of Norway’s more than 1,000 hydroelectric dams does not inspire significant competition in the energy supply sector, nor does it foster the 8

Sovacool and Saunders, “Competing Policy Packages,” 642.

“Emissions of Greenhouse Gases,” Statistics Norway, December 14, 2017, www.ssb.no/en/energibalanse (accessed December 14, 2017).

10 Sovacool and Saunders, “Competing Policy Packages,” 642.

11 Ibid.

9

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best environment for technological advancements in efficiency. However, Norway’s energy security is not a failure due to the already profound efficiency of and renewable nature of hydroelectric power.

Norway’s Fulfillment of Energy Sustainability Following Norway’s narrative of an abnormally strong energy security policy in a progressively interdependent society, the fourth aspect of Sovacool’s energy security definition, sustainability, is addressed sufficiently. Sovacool argues sustainability plays a key role in energy security because the state must develop a system that synchronizes well with its “natural endowments, technological capacities, and social expectations.”12 Hydropower became the predominant source of energy in Norway through its natural endowments: its topography features many steep valleys and rivers that have made hydroelectric plants not only ideal but extremely efficient.13 Norway also maintains a reputation as one of the leaders in the continual advancement of hydroelectric technology with its innovations in sea-bed tidal power. In 2003, Norway was the first to pioneer this technology when it began generating power using an experimental 300 kilowatt underwater turbine.14

Norwegian Governance on Energy Security The paradox between Norway’s commitments to both climate change and energy security presents itself most clearly in the fifth facet of modern energy security as defined by Sovacool: governance. This accounts for “quality of governance, transparency, and accountability” and 12

Ibid.

“Norway,” International Hydropower Association, May 2017, www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/norway (accessed December 14, 2017).

14 Danny Penman, “First Power Station to Harness Moon Opens,” New Scientist, September 22, 2003, www.newscientist.com/article/dn4188-first-power-station-to-harness-moon-opens/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

13

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when “personnel working in transparent institutions . . . provide high quality information about energy production and use.”15 Norway’s government has provided a narrative for its future energy security policy on many platforms. Norway is a member of the International Energy Agency and allows itself to be audited by the IEA in every capacity. Additionally, Norway participated in the Paris Climate Accords, is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol—which commits states to reducing greenhouse gas emissions—and publishes its own White Paper on its future energy security policy intentions. The most recent White Paper was passed by the Norwegian Parliament in 2016 and focused on four key goals: enhanced security of supply, efficient production of renewables, more efficient and climate-friendly use of energy, and economic growth and value creation through efficient use of profitable renewable resources.16 This narrative is the first of its kind to arrive from the Norwegian Parliament since 1999 and echoes the state’s commitments to energy security in its policies since the turn of the twenty-first century. Despite all of this, Norway continues to increase its oil and natural gas production in the High North: Norway issued fifty-six new licenses in January 2016 to explore for oil in the North and Barents Seas to respond to increasing global demand.17 Norway’s total greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 600,000 tons since 2014.18 Through all of these contradictory practices, the Norwegian government sticks to its narrative of increasing profits and productivity while staying climate conscious, but many of its policies skirt the actual issue of climate change and provide vague goals with no means of feasibly achieving them.

15

Sovacool and Saunders, “Competing Policy Packages,” 642.

“White Paper on Norway’s Energy Policy: Power for Change,” press release, April 15, 2016, www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/white-paper-on-norways-energy-policy-power-for-change/id2484248/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

17 John Vidal, “Norwegian Industry Plans to up Fossil Fuel Production Despite Paris Pledge,” Guardian, January 29, 2016, www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/29/norwegian-industry-plans-to-up-fossil-fuel-productiondespite-paris-pledge (accessed December 12, 2017).

18 “Emissions of Greenhouse Gases.”

16

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Norway’s Advantages against Climate Change To understand the effect of climate change on Norway and what might motivate Norway to neglect actual effective combative climate policies, it is imperative to know the anticipated effects of climate change on Norway—many of which differ from other regions of the world.

This discrepancy is the reason that Norway contradicts itself so frequently under Benjamin Sovacool’s evaluation metric. Compared to the rest of the world, the future global warming trend would have a positive impact on agricultural yields in Norway due to longer growing seasons and the melting of permafrost. While toying with the balance of ecosystems, climate change would create a larger area suitable for farming when currently agricultural areas only account for 3 percent of the Norwegian mainland.19 The glaciers that formed Norway and persist today are displaying recessive trends parallel with others around the world. The melting of glaciers globally has a destructive connotation due to the inherent rise in sea level as more of the mammoth ice sheets melt in a positive feedback loop; however, Norway is not forecasted to suffer from rising sea levels. The ice that melted in the previous ice age alleviated pressure on the Earth’s crust, allowing land to rise above sea level. Norway is among these landmasses, and despite a predicted sea level rise—10 centimeters more than the average rise across the world— by 2100, Norway’s topography featuring steep cliffs and mountains allows the effects of rising sea levels to be marginal.20 Additionally, the changes in precipitation patterns that occur laterally with climate change will only benefit the Norwegian hydroelectric plants. Data from climate models expect Norway to receive annual precipitation increases near 18 percent through the

19

Norway Ministry of the Environment, Adapting to a Changing Climate, Official Norwegian Reports NOU 2010: 10, www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/00f70698362f4f889cbe30c75bca4a48/pdfs/nou201020100010000en_pdfs.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017); “Norwegian Water Resources.”

20 Ellen Øseth, Climate Change in the Norwegian Arctic: Consequences for Life in the North (Tromsø: Norwegian Polar Institute, 2011), available at http://www.npolar.no/en/news/2011/2011-02-09-new-report-climate-change.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

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coming decades.21 This increase in precipitation can be viewed as a double-edged sword for Norway: potential droughts during the summertime associated with climate change could limit hydroelectric productivity and agriculture while the overall increased precipitation levels in Norway could allow for more abundant, low-cost energy supplies.

Combatting Climate Change: A Paradox Previously, this paper discussed Norway’s perceived involvement in combatting climate change based on its role in the IEA, Kyoto Protocol, and other pledges toward leading the world in cutting carbon emissions; however, a closer look at Norway’s actions rather than intentions reveals a stark contrarian narrative. The IEA provides an evaluation of Norway’s efforts to reduce climate change in its annual audit of the prominent energy exporter: “In order to meet its ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this review finds that Norway needs to step up efforts at home. The IEA encourages the government to spell out more in detail how the emissions reduction targets will be met.”22 In 2005, the Norwegian political system ended a moratorium on oil exploration of the Norwegian claim in the High North, which was previously upheld since 2001 due to environmental concerns.23 This renewed interest in the High North was prevalent among government officials before it was declared a top priority of the government in late 2005. Jensen and Skedsmo illuminate the motivations behind Norway’s desire to discover more oil in the High North through excerpts from the Norwegian government’s official policies: “The Government’s aim is that Norway will be the best steward of resources in the High 21 Asgeir Sorteberg and Marianne Skolem Anderson, “Regional Precipitation and Temperature Changes for Norway 2010 and 2025,” Report Series for the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, 2008, https://folk.uib.no/gbsag/Publications/Sorteberg_Andersen_2008.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017), 36.

22 “Norway,” International Energy Agency, 2017, www.iea.org/countries/membercountries/norway/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

23 John Acher, “Norway Takes Oil Bids for Barents Sea Frontier,” World Environment News Planet Ark, November 16, 2005, (accessed December 12, 2017).

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North. . . . It is also likely that the Barents Sea will become increasingly important in the global energy supply context.”24 Action to explore for more oil in the High North however, is disguised as Norway commanding the production of potential reserves because it is the best “steward of resources,” when the state is actually taking advantage of the further degradation of the ice caps to secure a stronger presence in the region. Contrary to Norway’s discourse on its commitment to countering climate change, it can be postulated that Norway’s building of a liquefied natural gas plant in place of the shrinking Arctic ice caps is an endeavor to stage more exploration as the global temperature trend continues.25

Symbolic Climate Change Actions While Norway entertains a plethora of approaches combatting climate change, these policies are largely symbolic. One of these attempts at demonstrating Norway’s commitment to counteracting climate change is its decision to withdraw its Government Pension Fund investments from any entity reliant more than 30 percent on coal.26 This decision aligns the $890 billion sovereign fund with many other large companies withdrawing their support of entities not concerned with curbing climate change.27 However noble this maneuver looks, oil companies have historically dismissed action such as this as symbolic and lacking a strong impact. Another example of Norway’s lackluster commitment to combatting climate change, despite a strong political rhetoric emphasizing the contrary, is Norway’s involvement in the practice of carbon

24

Leif Christian Jensen and Pal Wilter Skedsmo, “Approaching the North: Norwegian and Russian Foreign Policy Discourses on the European Arctic,” Polar Research 29, no. 3 (December 2010): 443.

25 Clifford Krauss et al., “As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound,” New York Times, October 10, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/as-polar-ice-turns-to-water-dreams-of-treasure-abound.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

26 John Schwartz, “Norway Will Divest from Coal in Push against Climate Change,” New York Times, June 5, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/science/norway-in-push-against-climate-change-will-divest-from-coal.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

27 Ibid.

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offsetting. Carbon offsetting is the process of purchasing excess carbon caps from other countries to cover its own emissions created in its oil and natural gas industry. Utilizing this practice, Norway is able to claim its adherence to the Kyoto Protocol and furthermore propose becoming carbon neutral by 2030.28 These policies are significant examples of Norway’s perceived focus on combatting climate change through its political system; however, each instance has a hidden catch that allows Norway to continue emphasizing energy security at the expense of its capability to adequately address climate change.

Norway’s Lofty Goals for the Future Much like predictions of what technology and the world will look like in the future, Norway has put forth an aggrandized narrative for the next decade yet failed to offer a means to that end. In 2016, Norway released the National Transport Plan 2018–29, which aims to curb the over 16 million tons of carbon emissions produced by Norway annually from the transportation sector.29 The overly ambitious goals outlined in this attempt at climate change policy serve to summarize the effect that Norway’s pursuit of a wholesome energy security policy has had on its ability to combat climate change. This plan boasts that all new private cars, buses, and commercial vehicles will be zero emission vehicles by 2025.30 By 2030, new vans, long-distance buses, and 50 percent of new trucks will give off zero emissions.31 Additionally in 2030, greenhouse gas emissions from maintenance and infrastructure will be reduced by 40 percent.32

28

Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes with Caveat in Norway,” New York Times, March 22, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/world/europe/22norway.html (accessed December 11, 2017).

29 National Transport Plan 2018-2029 (Oslo: Norwegian Coastal Administration and the Public Roads Administration, 2016), www.ntp.dep.no/English/_attachment/1525049/binary/1132766?_ts=1571e02a3c0 (accessed December 14, 2017).

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

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These lofty goals have been announced, but Norway has offered no concrete and feasible paths to reaching these goals.

Conclusion International energy demands increase every year, and Norway is in possession of plentiful reserves in the High North that position it to respond to this demand. The oil and natural gas deposits in northern oceans have provided Norway with a dynamic—while not diverse— energy security matrix that satisfies Benjamin Sovacool’s key energy security factors. However, as the abuse of fossil fuel production becomes increasingly taboo, Norway must highlight a different narrative. Its geographic isolation from many of the effects of climate change that other states will experience in conjunction with its strong domestic hydroelectric energy supply allow Norway to produce oil and natural gas freely. Additionally, its government consistently introduces domestic goals aimed at curbing carbon emissions and developing new climatefriendly technology. All of these policies are toothless upon a closer inspection and provide no avenue to induce effective change. As long as Norway continues to satisfy international interests with its political doctrine of condemning climate change, participates in global initiatives, and provide its citizens with cheap energy, then the state is free to enhance its oil and natural gas industry. Only time will determine if Norway achieves its ambitious anti-climate change curriculum. However, if its continued interest in providing oil and natural gas to the European Union and beyond as a source of revenue is used as a historical precedent, these policies laid out in the National Transport Plan will remain vague and succumb to Norway’s further emphasis on energy security policies over those concerning climate change.

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“Emissions of Greenhouse Gases.” Statistics Norway. December 14, 2017. www.ssb.no/en/klimagassn (accessed December 14, 2017).

“Energy in Norway.” The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate. 2007. www.nve.no/Media/5144/energy-in-norway-2007-edition.pdf (accessed May 3, 2018).

Godzmirsk, Jakub M. “The Norwegian Energy Security Debate.” In The Political Economy of Renewable Energy and Energy Security, edited by Espen Moe and Paul Midford, 113– 136. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Jensen, Leif Christian, and Pal Wilter Skedsmo. “Approaching the North: Norwegian and Russian Foreign Policy Discourses on the European Arctic.” Polar Research 29, no. 3 (December 2010): 439–50.

“Key World Energy Statistics 2011 Edition.” International Energy Agency, 2011. http://ieagia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/key_world_energy_stats-2011-27Dec11.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017).

Krauss, Clifford, Steven Lee Myers, Andrew C. Revkin, and Simon Romero. “As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound.” New York Times, October 10, 2005. www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/as-polar-ice-turns-to-water-dreams-of-treasureabound.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

National Transport Plan 2018-2029. Oslo: Norwegian Coastal Administration and the Public Roads Administration, 2016. Available at www.ntp.dep.no/English/_attachment/1525049/binary/1132766?_ts=1571e02a3c0 (accessed December 14, 2017).

“Norway.” International Energy Agency, 2017. www.iea.org/countries/membercountries/norway/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

“Norway.” International Hydropower Association, May 2017. www.hydropower.org/countryprofiles/norway (accessed December 14, 2017).

Norway Ministry of the Environment. Adapting to a Changing Climate. Official Norwegian Reports NOU 2010: 10. Available at www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/00f70698362f4f889cbe30c75bca4a48/pdfs/nou201020 100010000en_pdfs.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017). Øseth, Ellen. Climate Change in the Norwegian Arctic: Consequences for Life in the North.

Tromsø: Norwegian Polar Institute, 2011. Available at

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www.npolar.no/en/news/2011/2011-02-09-new-report-climate-change.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

Penman, Danny. “First Power Station to Harness Moon Opens.” New Scientist, September 22, 2003. www.newscientist.com/article/dn4188-first-power-station-to-harness-moon-opens/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

“Production and Consumption of Energy, Energy Balance.” Statistics Norway. June 28, 2017. www.ssb.no/en/energibalanse (accessed December 13, 2017).

Rosenthal, Elisabeth. “Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes with Caveat in Norway.” New York Times, March 22, 2008. www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/world/europe/22norway.html (accessed December 11, 2017).

Schwartz, John. “Norway Will Divest from Coal in Push against Climate Change.” New York Times, June 5, 2015. www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/science/norway-in-push-againstclimate-change-will-divest-from-coal.html (accessed December 12, 2017).

Sorteberg, Asgeir, and Marianne Skolem Anderson. “Regional Precipitation and Temperature Changes for Norway 2010 and 2025.” Report Series for the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, 2008. https://folk.uib.no/gbsag/Publications/Sorteberg_Andersen_2008.pdf (accessed December 12, 2017).

Sovacool, Benjamin K., and Harry Saunders. “Competing Policy Packages and the Complexity of Energy Security.” Energy 67 (April 2014): 641–51.

Vidal, John. “Norwegian Industry Plans to up Fossil Fuel Production Despite Paris Pledge.”

Guardian, January 29, 2016. www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/29/norwegian-industry-plans-to-up-fossilfuel-production-despite-paris-pledge (accessed December 12, 2017).

“White Paper on Norway’s Energy Policy: Power for Change.” Press release, April 15, 2016. www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/white-paper-on-norways-energy-policy-power-forchange/id2484248/ (accessed December 12, 2017).

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Drought and the Arab Spring: Examining the Role of Climatological Variables in the Emergence of Protests in Syria, 2011

Evan Schleicher

Abstract This paper interrogates the relationship between the 2006–2009 drought in Syria and the emerging political tensions that produced violence throughout the country from 2011 onward.

The protests emerging in the aftermath of the drought in 2011 were the result of demographic changes and population stressors catalyzed by the drought itself. While this drought was not wholly unparalleled in a purely climatological sense, it forced a widespread migration of families from the northeast into the cities in the south and west. This singular shift interacted with a myriad of other causal factors, including government repression, economic liberalization, and the Arab Spring, to produce the initial protests seen in places like Daraa and Homs. Recognizing the interconnected nature of protests across the entire region in 2011, this paper takes special care to establish a model of causation which recognizes that, especially in the social sciences, there is very rarely one factor which, taken by itself, explains the course of events in any particular circumstance. This paper shows that the drought from 2006–2009 was a significant, but by no means the only, cause of protest in Syria.

A litany of (sometimes conflicting) explanations for the emergence of protest in Syria in 2011 have emerged in the last seven years. To uncover the diverse causes of violence in Syria during the Arab Spring, academics, social theorists, and intelligence analysts have labored for years to find patterns in the events leading up to the emergence of protests which would have predicted their occurrence. It is not enough that it happened; there must be an explanation. At the time, the most publicly visible theory held that climate change, and drought in particular, produced social unrest and tension by pushing the Syrian people into increasingly dire situations.

News sources as wide-ranging as the New York Times, Washington Post, Smithsonian, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, and NPR released heavily circulated news articles bearing titles as explicit

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as “Without Water, Revolution.”12 Even former President Barack Obama fed into this narrative, publicly proclaiming at the 2015 United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement that “drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East.”3 While this statement itself does not make any causal claims regarding drought, it does reveal the degree to which a positive correlation between drought and the likelihood of conflict in Syria is assumed across news outlets, political channels, and academic circles, although the published literature on the question and the reality of the situation on the ground in Syria are not nearly so clear-cut. Figure 1 (below) shows the statistics of the extensive dispersion of just one of these articles (Kelley et al.) among news outlets, policy sources, and individuals, especially in the United States, where the article was tweeted about 731 times, according to Altmetric stats from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website.4

1

Thomas Friedman, “Without Water, Revolution,” New York Times, May 18, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/opinion/sunday/friedman-without-water-revolution.htm.

2 “How Could a Drought Spark a Civil War?” NPR, September 8, 2013, www.npr.org/2013/09/08/220438728/howcould-a-drought-spark-a-civil-war.

3 Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, May 20, 2015, https://obama whitehouse.archives.gov/the-pressoffice/2015/05/20/remarks-president-united-states-coast-guard-academy-commencement.

4 See Colin P. Kelley et al., “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian Drought,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, no. 11 (March 17, 2015): 3241–46, doi:10.1073/pnas.1421533112.

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Fig. 1. Altmetric data on the influence of Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought. (Source: Kelley et al.)

Despite the widespread acceptance and diffusion of the narrative that climate change and conflict are related, authors have been quick to point to the failures of this generalization in the context of Syria, noting the influence of factors as varied as poor government policy, political repression, the absence of protest in other drought-affected countries, and the unifying nature of the Arab Spring itself in producing sustained violence in Syria.56 They point further to the absence of protest in other drought-affected countries as evidence that the drought itself could not have been a significant causal factor in the events that occurred.7 All these criticisms point to an important reality: the political and social arenas within which the Arab Spring occurred were and are highly diverse and complex, and the relationship between different political and geographic events and conflict will differ highly depending on the state or area which is to be analyzed. Where water is concerned, different state-state water treaties or relationships can produce or alleviate the potential for conflict. For example, “tensions have worsened over the 5 Jan Selby et al., “Climate Change and the Syrian Civil War Revisited,” Political Geography 60, supp. C (September 1, 2017): 232–44, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.05.007.

6 Cullen S. Hendrix, “A Comment on ‘Climate Change and the Syrian Civil War Revisited.’” Political Geography 60, supp. C (September 1, 2017): 251–52, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.010.

7 Ibid.

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past several decades as average annual flows in the Euphrates at the Turkish–Syrian border have declined substantially since 1990, coinciding with both the completion of the Ataturk Dam and an apparent decrease in precipitation in the region.”8 This Dam may lessen the likelihood of domestic unrest in Turkey, where water resources will be more secure, and it may also increase unrest in Syria, where water is less available. The point here is that weather impacts on political or social events are generally highly context-dependent, as environmental effects in different geographic locales are not uniform. With the context-specific nature of drought in mind, very specific attention must be given both to the effects and social or political shifts that can be attributed to the drought itself, and to other geopolitical or social explanations that may diminish the importance or severity of the drought in each specific location. In establishing causality through this method, this thesis attempts to account for the complex, interwoven nature of causality by designating events or factors which uniquely increase the likelihood of an event, and without which an event is far less likely.9 Thus, causality becomes less a question of singular relationality and more a question of which of the many varied social, political, and cultural factors are most important in the occurrence of an event. In Syria, drought did not singularly cause protests to emerge.

This paper will attempt to show, nevertheless, that drought did highly increase the probability of discontent and protest by increasing instability within cities, magnifying water instability, and causing huge demographic shifts in a society where geography and social group had historically aligned. It will dissect the situation in Syria to determine if, as the UN Security Council and the European Commission have stated publicly, “climate [factors are] a threat 8

Peter H. Gleick, “Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria,” Weather, Climate, and Society 6, no. 3 (March 3, 2014): 331–40, doi:10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1.

9 John Gerring, “Causation: A Unified Framework for the Social Sciences,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 17, no. 2 (April 1, 2005): 163–98, doi:10.1177/0951629805050859.

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multiplier which exacerbate existing tensions and instability, and . . . overburden states and regions, already fragile and conflict prone.”10 Drought, rather than being an end in itself, acted as a catalytic element in Syria, which overwhelmed the ability of society to adapt to changing city structure, water conditions, and demographics. This particular drought affected human systems and produced unpredictable social reactions, and thus, it is not enough to pontificate about generalized theorizations of water security and its relationship to social instability.11 What is necessary is a complete analysis of the effects directly attributable to this unique drought and their impact on the escalation of protests in Syria. This paper, in attempting to ascertain the unique relationship between drought and protest, will first look at the physical reality of the drought and its effects on human systems, and then will parse out the relationship between those effects and the emergence of protest, accounting for alternative explanations to ensure a rigorous causal claim. It will argue that drought, in line with the previous explanation of causation, was a significant causal factor in the emergence of protests in Syria in 2011 and that no alternative explanation of protest is significant enough to diminish the particular importance of drought in this specific context.

The Syrian Drought: Previous Analysis To begin, the question of causality is highly complicated in terms of drought, given that drought affects such diverse social institutions as “agricultural production, economic decline, population displacement, and disrupted institutions and relations.”12 Causality requires the 10

Peter Hough et al., International Security Studies: Theory and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2015), 369.

11 Anaïs Voski, “The Role of Climate Change in Armed Conflicts across the Developing World and in the Ongoing Syrian War,” Carleton Review of International Affairs 3 (Spring 2016): 120–41.

12 Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict,” International Security 16, no. 2 (1991): 78, doi:10.2307/2539061.

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connection of one of these effects (which is uniquely explained by the drought itself) with the emergence of conflict, which is no easy task. The relative complexity of establishing causality within such a varied and diverse social and cultural arena may explain, in part, why very few authors have even attempted to do so. Some casually throw out migration as a potential cause, failing to show a linkage between either the migrants themselves and conflict or the physical movements of people and the escalation of unrest.13 No study to date has been able to draw a linkage between drought and conflict which is both specific to Syria and which stands up in the face of contradicting evidence. In fact, critics of the claim that drought acts as a causal factor in conflict escalation often point to flaws in the scale and context of the data which is drawn on as evidence. While most data aggregated on the question of drought is aggregated at the country level, drought often varies within national borders (sometimes dramatically) and the escalation of violence and civil conflict is often dependent on local tensions or instabilities.14 Some of the most heavily media-cited and publicly noted studies on the relationship between drought and conflict in Syria focus on data that is not even Syria specific, but which applies to regions as broad as “the Fertile Crescent” or the Levant.15 It seems that much of the research done on the relationship between climate and conflict is hopelessly broad, either combining disparate, largely unconnected studies into meta-analyses, or else focusing on overly broad regions. The most apparent trouble with the use of meta-analysis is that conflict is defined in a broad and constantly

13

Kelley et al., “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent.”

Nina von Uexkull, et al., “Civil Conflict Sensitivity to Growing-Season Drought,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 44 (November 1, 2016): 12391–96, doi:1073/pnas.1607542113; Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 3 (2003): 475–94, doi:10.1017/S1537592703000355.

15 F. Femia and C. Werrell, “Syria: Climate Change, Drought, and Social Unrest,” The Center for Climate and Security, 2013. http://climateandsecurity.org/2012/02/ 29/syria-climate-change-drought-and-social-unrest/; Kelley et al., “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent”; Gleick, “Water, Drought, Climate Change”; Selby et al., “Climate Change.”

14

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changing sense, making it impossible to isolate more banal instances of violence from full-blown civil war.16 In fact, one of the most universally accepted studies on the relationship between conflict and climate focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and finds acceptance from both sides of the climate debate.17 The study, conducted by Couttenier and Soubeyran, who analyze conflict data in subSaharan Africa from 1945–2005 (note that this study is both a meta-analysis of data and covers a broad geographic region), notes a high degree of correlation between situations of extreme drought (defined by a Palmer Drought Severity Index value of 25 or higher on a scale of 0–30) and conflict over time, with this correlation becoming more robust between 1977–2005.18 They find a 45 percent higher instance of civil war in countries with extreme drought, and this relationship is robust even when the authors run individual regressions to account for government, population, and country-specific issues.19 Many authors misinterpret the significance of this study, noting only “a weak positive link between drought and civil war” or claiming that Couttenier and Soubeyran produce rigorous analysis of the existence of a relationship between climate change and drought while simultaneously denying that such a link exists.20 In fact, the study concludes, “Drought has a positive and significant effect on the incidence of civil war.”21 This fits into the argument made later that drought at a country level

16

See Solomon M. Hsiang and Marshall Burke, “Climate, Conflict, and Social Stability: What Does the Evidence Say?” Climatic Change 123, no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 39–55, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0868-3; Halvard Buhaug et al., “One Effect to Rule Them All? A Comment on Climate and Conflict,” Climatic Change 127, no. 3 (December 1, 2014): 391–97, doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1266-1.

17 Selby et al., “Climate Change”; H. Buhaug et al., “One Effect to Rule Them All?” 18 Mathieu Couttenier and Raphael Soubeyran, “Drought and Civil War In Sub-Saharan Africa*,” The Economic Journal 124, no. 575 (2014): 201–44, doi:10.1111/ecoj.12042.

19 Ibid.

20 Uexkull, “Civil Conflict Sensitivity”; Selby et al., “Climate Change” 21 Couttenier and Soubeyran, “Drought and Civil War.”

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increases the likelihood of civil conflict, although moderate or low levels of drought are not systematically linked to conflict.22 Problems emerge in this theoretical linkage between drought and conflict almost immediately. First, data is aggregated at the country level, which is problematic given that drought is highly variable within country borders and across regions. This produces a failure on the level of scale, with the authors drawing regional conclusions based upon evidence that “2007/2008 was the driest year in the instrumental record” for the entire Fertile Crescent region while failing to account for the fact that many areas in Western Syria, including Daraa, where conflict began in Syria in early 2011, had close to average rainfall in the same year.23 From 2007 to 2009 Southeast Turkey was affected by the drought, but to a far lesser degree than was Northeast Syria, and the largest variations in seasonal precipitation were actually seen in Northern Iraq.24 Evidence shows that the three most drought-affected regions in the Middle East during the period from 2006–10 were Northern Iraq, eastern Syria, and Iran.25 This evidence reveals the extreme variations in drought effects observed between geographically different countries and within individual countries themselves. Given the predominance of evidence that Syria did not experience the drought uniformly, highly specific data will be necessary to make any definitive claims about the causal relationship between drought and conflict in the case of Syria (see figure 3). A general discussion of climate trends in the region is insufficient to explain the unique escalation of political violence seen in Syria. This was the ultimate failing of many

22

Uexkull, “Civil Conflict Sensitivity” Kelley et al., “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent”; Selby et al., “Climate Change” 24 Ricardo M. Trigo, Célia M. Gouveia, and David Barriopedro, “The Intense 2007–2009 Drought in the Fertile Crescent: Impacts and Associated Atmospheric Circulation,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 150, no. 9 (August 15, 2010): 1245–57, doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2010.05.006.

25 David Kaniewski, Elise Van Campo, and Harvey Weiss, “Drought Is a Recurring Challenge in the Middle East,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 10 (March 6, 2012): 3862, doi:10.1073/pnas.1116304109.

23

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news sources in reporting this trend, that they used the previously mentioned studies to make very particular claims about the relationship between the Syrian conflict and drought which the studies themselves did not, to the same extent, support.

Second, while PDSI data given for Syria (when adapted to the scale used in this study) fits the model of “dry” to “extremely dry” conditions in the unpictured zone 5, it does not fit this model in the other four zones, nor does it represent a unique instance of drought.26 This means that the study cannot be used to justify the relationship between conflict and drought in the Syrian situation. For this argument to be universally valid in the Syrian context, drought-related conflicts would have had to occur in 1972, 1988, and 2000.

These factors, taken together, heavily weaken the correlative claims made by Couttenier and Soubeyran. Historically, the expected escalation of protest and revolt surrounding drought has not been seen in Syria. Where there are a myriad of other alternative explanations for conflict in Syria, the mere existence of a regression analysis with data from sub-Saharan Africa is an insufficient thing to explain away variables as diverse as Assad’s policies of economic liberalization, government mismanagement of agricultural resources, and effective governmental repression. A dynamic linkage between climate and conflict is necessary to explore the singular ways in which this particular drought may have affected human systems and produced unpredictable social reactions in Syria.27 Further, a more particular frame of analysis is necessary for the results of this study to have any use for this paper.

Other studies suffer from similar failings. Burke et al. posit a robust connection between civil war and climate change, with the likelihood of civil war increasing over 50 percent by 26

Couttenier and Soubeyran, “Drought and Civil War.” John O’Loughlin, Andrew M. Linke, and Frank D. W. Witmer, “Modeling and Data Choices Sway Conclusions about Climate-Conflict Links,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 6 (February 11, 2014): 2054–55, doi:10.1073/pnas.1323417111; Voski, “The Role of Climate Change.”

27

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2030.28 However, this study uses a definition of civil war that is based on deaths and so cannot effectively gauge the beginning point of conflict.29 This, in addition to the fact that data is again drawn from an overly broad region (sub-Saharan Africa), make Burke’s data effectively useless in the case of Syria. Buhaug fails to prove the opposite claim, though. He, in making the claim that climate change and civil war do not rigorously correlate, conflates climate change with climate.30 That long-term climatological effects do not necessarily lead to conflict says nothing about short-term climate shocks or variations and their impacts on social and political unrest. In fact, the data on the effects of climate shocks on conflict is diverse and often contradictory, with some authors finding a robust connection between shocks and conflict and others finding little evidence of a linkage between the two events.31 The contradictions present in the existing literature can likely be explained by the differences in the scale, region, or even timeframes of analysis, which can already be seen in this small sample size of studies. Simply, the existence of a relationship between drought and conflict in one country does not prove the relationship between the two in another country or region. Beyond this geographic specificity, the final data frame must prioritize a study of short-term climatological shifts rather than the more general specter of “climate change,” since long-term, subtle shifts are much more difficult to gauge in terms of scale and impact than are short-term shifts in climatological patterns.

28

Marshall B. Burke et al., “Warming Increases the Risk of Civil War in Africa,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 49 (December 8, 2009): 20670–74, doi:10.1073/pnas.0907998106.

29 Halvard Buhaug, “Climate Not to Blame for African Civil Wars,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 38 (September 21, 2010): 16477–82, doi:10.1073/pnas.1005739107.

30 Ibid.

31 Kostadis Papaioannou, “Climate Shocks and Conflict: Evidence from Colonial Nigeria,” The London School of Economics and Political Science (2015), doi:10.13140/RG.2.1.1093.1364; Cullen S. Hendrix and Idean Salehyan, “Climate Change, Rainfall, and Social Conflict in Africa,” Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 1 (January 1, 2012): 35–50, doi:10.1177/0022343311426165; Jeroen Klomp and Erwin Bulte, “Climate Change, Weather Shocks, and Violent Conflict: A Critical Look at the Evidence,” Agricultural Economics 44, no. s1 (2013): 63–78, doi:10.1111/agec.12051.

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Drought Data Establishing that frame of analysis is the next step. A metric must be utilized which is capable of sub-national analysis, since it has been established that particularity is essential in gauging drought impacts and effects, especially when the social effect being analyzed is local.

Difficulty emerges in this process almost immediately, because the proper index to use is not always clear. There is a consensus among scholars who focus on drought that there is no consensus or universal drought index, since drought tends to be highly context-specific (especially since drought is usually defined as a “departure from the historical record”).32 In a country where about half of irrigation is drawn from groundwater sources, the drought index used must be capable of measuring more than simply rainfall.33 The necessity of a more complex drought metric is even more important given that authors have concluded that as much as 78 percent of groundwater withdrawals in Syria are unsustainable and exceed recharge.34 Such excessive use of groundwater means that it cannot be considered a neutral variable in the analysis of true drought impact.

Thus, there needs to be a model proposed which can analyze more than just rainfall. For this, we turn to drought indices. “Drought indices are quantitative measures that characterize drought levels by assimilating data from one or several variables (indicators) such as

32

Giorgos Kallis, “Droughts,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33, no. 1 (October 16, 2008): 85–118, doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.33.081307.123117; Donald A. Wilhite, “Drought as a Natural Hazard: Concepts and Definitions,” in vol. 1 of Drought: A Global Assessment, edited by Donald A. Wilhite (London: Routledge, 2000), 3–18.

33 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Syrian Arab Republic Joint Rapid Food Security Needs Assessment (JRFSNA),” FAO Report, December 2012, www.fao.org/giews/english/otherpub/JRFSNA_ Syrian2012.pdf.

34 M. Salman and Wael Mualla, “Water Demand Management in Syria: Centralized and Decentralized Views,” Water Policy 10, no. 6 (December 2008): 549–62, doi:10.2166/wp.2008.065; Yoshihide Wada, L. P. H. van Beek, and Marc F. P. Bierkens, “Nonsustainable Groundwater Sustaining Irrigation: A Global Assessment,” Water Resources Research 48, no. 6 (2012), doi:10.1029/2011WR010562.

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precipitation and evapotranspiration into a single numerical value. Such an index is more readily usable than raw indicator data.”35 An index such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is insufficient in painting a complete picture of the situation in Syria, since it only loosely connects precipitation to the actual conditions on the ground, and so its numeric values vary little from mere raw indicator data.36 Hydrological drought indices provide a metric for looking at “precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, recharge, . . . soil moisture . . . and snow component accumulation.”37 However, these indices, since they are primarily concerned with looking at “delayed hydrologic impacts of drought,” cannot account for the more immediate impacts to human systems that result from droughts.38 Emerging research asserts that remote sensing technology, which has a very high spatial resolution compared to drought indices, will provide a way to effectively delineate between particular land cover variations within the broader categories provided by hydrologic and severity indices.39 This data would provide an infinitely regressive definition of drought, with scholars arguing into oblivion about which land cover type demarcates drought-ridden areas from areas that are “normal.” This is the argument that researchers should draw data from within countries taken to its logical extreme, to the point that a researcher could legitimately spend exorbitant amounts of time evaluating the drought conditions of Syria based on 1meter by 1 meter samples.

It seems that the best model to account for these multiple effects without being bogged down in meaningless technicalities is the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), which “takes 35

Amin Zargar et al., “A Review of Drought Indices,” Environmental Reviews 19 (December 2011): 333–49.

G. Tsakiris and H. Vangelis, “Establishing a Drought Index Incorporating Evapotranspiration,” European Water 9, no. 10 (2005): 3–11; Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano, Santiago Beguería, and Juan I. López-Moreno, “A Multiscalar Drought Index Sensitive to Global Warming: The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index,” Journal of Climate 23, no. 7 (2010): 1696–1718.

37 Zargar et al., “A Review of Drought Indices.”

38 Ibid.

39 Su et al., “Drought Monitoring and Assessment Using Remote Sensing,” in Remote Sensing of Hydrological Extremes, edited by Venkat Lakshmi, 151–72 (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), doi:10.1007/978-3319-43744-6_8.

36

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into account precipitation, water recharge, runoff, and loss.”40 Based on a primitive waterbalance model, the goal of this index is to establish a degree of deviation from historical normalcy.41 The data set has a spatial resolution of 200 kilometers by 200 kilometers, which allows for effective analysis of regional variation while simultaneously maintaining a reasonable amount of data to be analyzed. However, this model is not without its critics.

The most common criticism of this model is that it is not applicable to regions outside of the Midwestern United States, the area for which it was initially designed in 1965.42 However, this criticism does not apply the data used in this study, which adapted to the geography and climate of Syria by “adjusting the climatic characteristic and calculating the duration factors based on the characteristics of the climate” based on the self-calibrating model of the PDSI developed by Wells et al. in 2004.43 The previous criticism would only apply to the validation data that Wells et al. developed (as that data used the United States as a baseline to test the relative accuracy of their new model), and not to the Syria-adjusted data used in this study.44

40

Al-Riffai et al., “Droughts in Syria: An Assessment of Impacts and Options for Improving the Resilience of the Poor,” Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture 51, no. 1 (January 2012), available at https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:qjiage:155471.

41 Nathan Wells, Steve Goddard, and Michael J. Hayes, “A Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index,” Journal of Climate 17, no. 12 (2004): 2335–51.

42 Michael J. Hayes, “Drought Indices,” in vol. 1 of Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006), doi:10.1002/9780471743989; Kallis, “Droughts.”

43 Wells, Goddard, and Hayes, “A Self-Calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index.”

44 Ibid.

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Figure 2, Agroecological zones in Syria

Thus, it is less an inability of this metric to be applied to areas beyond the continental United States, and more an absence pre-2009 of any true attempts to apply this model to areas beyond the continental United States. In fact, the study used in Hayes, 2006 to justify this claim is from 1995, and so cannot account for the development of a self-calibrating model such as the one proposed by Wells.45 Figure 2 (above) shows the climatological zones by which the PDSI model was adapted to the specific geographic realities of the Syrian state.46 Using this model to gauge true levels of drought, it becomes quickly apparent that the drought of 2006–09, although it included the driest year on record, was not a huge anomaly in

45

F. N. Kogan, “Application of Vegetation Index and Brightness Temperature for Drought Detection,” Advances in Space Research 15, no. 11 (1995): 91–100.

46 “LANDSCANTM: Geographic Information Science and Technology,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2010, www.ornl.gov/sci/landscan/; Al-Riffai et al., “Droughts in Syria.”

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the history of Syria. In fact, “from 1961 to 2009, Syria experienced nearly 25 years of drought, which represents almost 40 percent of the period.”47 Drought Index data is calculated by AlRiffai et al. in their article, “Droughts in Syria: An Assessment of Impacts and Options for Improving the Resilience of the Poor.” It accounts for inter-Syrian variations by dividing the country into five agro-ecological zones (pictured in figure 2) and then calculating drought data based upon those regions.48 Figure 3 (pictured below) shows that, based upon these divisions, there were extreme drought instances in zones three, four, and five (not pictured) while zones one and two saw a very minimal variation during the same time period.49 In fact zone two, which includes Daraa and part of Homs, saw a positive increase in drought data compared to historical norms, suggesting that the natural conditions in these areas were better during the “drought” than they were in the years previous.

Further, the majority of the country has experienced drought at least as severe as the droughts from 2006–09 multiple times, including in the years 2000–01. In fact, for every zone except zone 2 (including zone 5, which is not pictured due to difficulties with mapping

47

Francesca De Châtel, “The Role of Drought and Climate Change in the Syrian Uprising: Untangling the Triggers of the Revolution,” Middle Eastern Studies 50, no. 4 (July 4, 2014): 521–35, doi:10.1080/00263206.2013.850076.

48 Al-Riffai et al., “Droughts in Syria” 49 Breisinger et al., “Food Security and Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa,” International Food Policy Research Institute (2010): 1–52. (Al-Riffai clarifies the Syrian data shown); Al-Riffai et al., “Droughts in Syria.”

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Fig. 3. Palmer Drought Severity Index Data for the Agroecological Zones in Syria.

(Source: Al-Riffai et al., “Droughts in Syria.”)

software), there were drier conditions in the year 2000 than there were in 2006–09, according to available PDSI data. It is obviously reductionist to posit a one-to-one relationship between drought and conflict in Syria when no conflict emerged in the year 2000, or in previous drought years. However, the 2006–09 drought heavily shifted internal migration patterns in Syria, which produced unique impacts on Syrian civil society and its stability.

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Migration Thesis The most apparent impact of the 2006–09 drought was a dramatic shift in internal migration in Syria. The most extensive study done on the question of internal migration in Syria was conducted by the Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies, which is the Norwegian think tank that played a large role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords.50 The study is based on “interviews with 20,409 households . . . and 20,330 adults aged 15 and over . . . together with about 15,854 ever-married women aged 15-49.”51 Data from the survey makes it clear that from the 1960s until about the year 2000, internal migration in Syria was relatively low, with urban towns hosting the highest number of in-migrants and the highest proportions of period migrants.52 The majority of these internal migrants moved from rural to urban areas, and only three major urban areas (Sweda, Qunitra, and Daraa) had lower numbers of rural migrants than other types of migrants.53 It is apparent from the data that, while internal migration was not statistically significant, there were existing migratory patterns which were consistent and stable over time. In fact, about nine percent of the populations of these mid-sized urban areas aged five or older lived in different localities in 1995.54 Cities like Homs and Daraa (where conflict initially broke out in 2011) were the sites of consistent lifetime migration well before conflict broke out. These patterns were present and largely linear for three periods of drought equivalent to the drought from 2006–09. Over time, the rates of migration increased, with 8 percent of all moves made by adults fifteen and older occurring before the 1960s and up to 30 percent of such

50

Marwan Khawaja, “Internal Migration in Syria,” Findings from a National Survey, 2002, 5, http://alma shriq.hiof.no/general/300/320.political_science/327/fafo/reports/375.pdf.

51 Ibid., 8.

52 Ibid., 17.

53 Ibid., 35.

54 Ibid., 18.

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moves occurring during the 1990s.55 However, despite this increase in migration, migrants continued to adapt well to the transition from rural to urban settings, with the study defining migrants as more well-integrated into cities than the city’s initial inhabitants.56 The existence of well-established migration patterns that were relatively stable, favoring rural to urban migration slightly over a lifetime, suggests a system of migration which allowed cities to adapt to new migrants and vice versa. This pattern of migration supports studies that establish migration as a form of adaptation and resilience that allows individuals to survive, making it unlikely that a migrant would, having moved to escape poor conditions, willingly seek out potential violence and poor conditions.57 This short-term adaptation does nothing to improve long-term resilience to drought conditions, but it does allow individuals and families to counter balance, to an extent, the impacts of dramatic conditions, such as drought.58 Significant variation in migration patterns may disrupt the de-escalatory capacity of internal migration in Syria, though, and in fact, there was significant variation between these historical migration patterns and the patterns experienced during and immediately after the drought from 2006–09. According to De Châtel, “UN agencies estimated that up to 65,000 families or around 300,000 people migrated from the Northeast, and that 60–70 per cent of villages in the governorates of Hassakeh and Deir ez-Zor had been deserted in 2009.”59 Selby et al. independently note a displacement of between 40,000 and 60,000 families from Northeast

55

Ibid., 41.

Ibid., 81.

57 Richard Black et al., “Climate Change: Migration as Adaptation,” Nature 478, no. 7370 (October 2011): 447–49, doi:10.1038/478477a; Betsy Hartmann, “Rethinking Climate Refugees and Climate Conflict: Rhetoric, Reality and the Politics of Policy Discourse,” Journal of International Development 22, no. 2 (2010): 233–46, doi:10.1002/jid.1676.

58 Al-Riffai et al., “Drought in Syria” 59 De Châtel, “The Role of Drought.”

56

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Syria from 2008 to 2009.60 Interviews conducted among Syrian refugees support the claim that migration in this time period was largely the result of degraded agriculture and water instability in the Northeast of the country.61 These numbers are more exact than the alarmist numbers given by the authors widely cited among news sources in reporting on the link between conflict and migration, which gauge displacement as a result of drought between 1.25 and 1.5 million people.62 Selby notes that these numbers are likely based on the previously mentioned UN assessments, which calculate that about 1.3 million people were affected by the drought.

However, Selby goes too far in using this misinterpretation by academics as the singular proof that the migration in 2008–09 was not significant in terms of the nation’s history. The paper includes no discussion of historical migration trends, and so can little be called a thorough condemnation of the climate-migration thesis. Further, in the defining of a significant demographic change, Selby focuses too generally on “population changes,” and so includes factors such as population growth, which are largely consistent over time in his calculations of significant demographic changes. Selby even admits that population growth at the time fell in line with historical trends.63 Historical migration patterns contradict Selby’s claim that the 2006– 09 migration was not a significant deviation. Data from 1995 to 2000 establishes annual migration rates in Syria that “range from a high level of 1.5 per 1,000 persons in . . . Damascus to a low level of nearly zero in Deir Elzor.”64 In the year 2000, the population was about 16.4 million, and some quick math reveals that the highest possible number of internal migrants in 60

Selby et al., “Climate Change”; Massoud Ali, “Years of Drought: A Report on the Effects of Drought on the Syrian Peninsula,” Heinrich Böll Stiftung, March 3, 2014 https://lb.boell.org/sites/default/files/downloads/Drought_in_Syria_En.pdf.

61 John Wendle, “The Ominous Story of Syria's Climate Refugees,” Scientific American 17 (2015).

62 Femia and Werrell, “Syria”; Gleick, “Climate, Water, and Conflict: Commentary on Selby et Al. 2017,” Political Geography 60, supp. C (September 1, 2017): 248–50, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.009; Kelley et al., “Climate Change.”

63 Selby et al., “Climate Change.”

64 Khawaja, “Internal Migration,” 28.

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that year would be about 25,000. hat at least 40,000 to 60,000 families were displaced from 2008–09 is significant, given that the minimum amount of migration in 2008–09 is at least twice the norm. Further, while historically migration had heavily involved individuals over families, in this period, almost all migrants were displaced with their entire families.65 Further, these migrants, rather than dispersing evenly across the country, primarily moved to “Damascus and its outskirts, Daraa, Homs, Latakia, and Tartous . . . in search of work.”66 This heavy and sudden migration constitutes a significant deviation from the norm, given that evidence of migratory patterns in Syria suggest that migration tends to disrupt familial structures within this specific context. A study analyzing the realities of Iraqi refugees in Damascus from 2006–09 found that “geographic dispersion of the different family members as well as the precariousness of their legal and economic situations led to a dislocation of the family system of solidarity.”67 Historic internal migration in Syria reflects this trend, with most historical migrants moving alone to urban areas in search of work.68 Because drought migration maintained family units and even, at times, community structure, it deviated demographically from both the Iraqi migration and historical internal migration in Syria. The unique nature of this migration seems to justify the claims made by one of the original authors in response to Selby’s condemnations, that “part of the problem appears to be a determination on the part of the authors to refute rather than carefully critique the work of several previous papers . . . (Kelley, Mohtadi, Cane, Seager, & Kushnir, 2015) and . . . (Gleick, 2014). Some of the specific criticisms they level against those other papers are useful and should 65

De Châtel, “The Role of Drought.”

Ali, “Years of Drought.”

67 Kamel Doraï and Martine Zeuthen, “Iraqi Migrants’ Impact on a City: The Case of Damascus (2006-2010),” in Syria from Reform to Revolt vol. 1, Political Economy and International Relations, edited by T. Zintl & R. Hinnebusch, 250–65 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014).

68 Khawaja, “Internal Migration,” 80–81.

66

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help future assessments, but too often they push their own arguments past the point where the facts support them” and, in doing so, they discount the possibility of drought being a significant causal influence without analyzing the historical uniqueness of the 2006–09 drought.69

The Migration-Conflict Nexus The deviation of migration patterns from historical norms is intriguing, but it is not evidence enough to proclaim drought as a causal factor in the emergence of protests in Syria. In fact, interviews conducted in Lebanon among diasporic Syrians who had lived in the area around Daraa in 2011 suggest that migrants had nothing to do with the initial protests, and, when violence began to escalate, they left altogether.70 These findings are supported by an article titled “The End of a World” in which migrants are described as “not tak[ing] part in the revolts in Daraa and on the coast, being too poor to get politicized.”71 “One interviewee from Daraa pointed out that ‘in the first year some of the muhajirin (migrants) stayed. But when the troubles grew, they left.’ Another said that ‘they left at the beginning of the demonstrations.’”72 It seems that, although farmers and tribal people were just as opposed to the regime as were local members of Daraa’s community, they were poor and thought that they would suffer the most whether Assad stays or goes.73 The link between migrants and conflict seems to be purely coincidental when seen in this light. The mere correlation between migrant patterns and sites of violence is not enough to establish causality. These are only interviews though, and there is 69

Gleick, “Climate, Water, and Conflict.”

Christiane J. Fröhlich, “Climate Migrants as Protestors? Dispelling Misconceptions about Global Environmental Change in Pre-Revolutionary Syria,” Contemporary Levant 1, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 38–50, doi:10.1080/20581831.2016.a1149355.

71 Myriam Ababsa, “The End of a World: Drought and Agrarian Transformation in Northeast Syria (2007–2010),” in vol. 1 of Syria from Reform to Revolt, edited by Raymond Hinnebusch and Tina Zintl, 199–223 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015).

72 Fröhlich, “Climate Migrants”; Ramtha interview, October 10, 2014; Zaatari interview, July 1, 2015.

73 Zaatari interview, March 10, 2014.

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considerable disparity between the assumptions made about migrants from interview to interview. For example, one interviewee contends that not only did they stay, but that they were also pro-Assad.74 The contradictions within these interviews make it difficult to use them as demonstrable proof of the effects and intentions of migrants in Daraa and other regions.

However, what these interviews do reveal is the significant differences in political ideology, focus, and reactions to protest among the migrant groups within these cities. Such fracturing would make it difficult to organize and makes it far more difficult to claim a totalizing causal interaction between migration and violence. At best, what can be shown is that some people, but by no means a majority, were motivated to take political action as a result of their displacement.

This evidence should not be taken as a totalizing picture of the situation of migrants in Daraa, Homs, Damascus, and other cities, however. The interviews were taken years after the fact, and reflect only a small portion of Daraa’s community (those who ultimately fled to Lebanon).75 The subjective nature of this very minimal sample size of people should make any analyst hesitate to draw broad conclusions about the reality of the situation on the ground. However, there is certainly some validity to the claim that migrants did not contribute directly to the initial protests.

The local nature of these protests magnifies further the claim that migrants, who had little historical connection to the local politics of this region and little desire to do anything other than work, were highly unlikely to be the cause of protest or to contribute to them.76 In the absence of direct migrant involvement in protests, it is still possible that such a sudden demographic change would overburden Syrian cities. However, evidence from largescale migrations of Iraqi refugees to these cities suggests that Syrian cities are uniquely capable of adapting to heavy population changes without conflict. Historically, these cities can 74

Ibid.; Zaatari interview, June 10, 2014.

Ibid.

76 Fröhlich, “Climate Migrants.”

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incorporate large numbers of migrants into the periphery of cities, and this effect is unique when compared to the situations in cities in other Arab countries (and in Amman and in Beirut, specifically).77 That Amman and Beirut saw larger numbers of Iraqi migrants suggests that Syrian cities, rather than being uniquely capable of adapting had been uniquely insulated from heavy migration and so protected from the worst destabilizing effects of sudden and abnormal migrations.78 Data drawn from 2006–09 supports this conclusion, showing that Syrian cities were able to incorporate Iraqi migrants effectively into their existing structures and that, at the time of the drought migrations in 2008–09, these cities were burdened by migration, but not yet overburdened.79 It seems that Syrian cities had limits, and so could not withstand the short-term changes of both Iraqi migration and drought migration from the Northeast.

Drought migration “served as a multiplier for social and economic pressures on a system already burdened by a large influx of Iraqi refugees.”80 The nearly 500,000 refugees who came into the country from Iraq landed primarily in cities and contributed to heavy rises in the prices of real estate, consumer goods, and subsidized goods.81 This data shows that significant shifts in migration patterns can put heavy strains on local populaces, depleting land, resources, and jobs, and creating conditions of instability in cities. However, the book itself focuses mostly on the welfare of drought migrants and their relative poorness to the rest of the country, leaving the issue of the emergence of protests largely untouched.82

77

Khawaja, “Internal Migration”; Doraï and Zeuthen, “Iraqi Migrants.”

Ibid.

79 Paolo Verme et al., The Welfare of Syrian Refugees: Evidence from Jordan and Lebanon (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016), doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0770-1, 33.

80 Ibid.

81 International Monetary Fund, “Syrian Arab Republic: 2007 Article IV Consultation—Staff Report,” IMF Country Report No. 07/288, August 2007.

82 Verme et al., “The Welfare of Syrian Refugees,” 32–41.

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In fact, the social and economic pressures caused by shifts in migration patterns had a significant influence on the development and proliferation of protests across Syria. In Homs, early protests in 2011 involved local concern over demographic shifts, real estate deals, and land expropriations which had been carried out by or assisted by the local governor.83 Here we see a clear linkage between the effects of drought and the initial protests in Syria. Similar conditions were seen in Daraa, where initial protests erupted against the local governor for “postponing the acquisition of property rights and preventing farmers from drilling water wells for irrigation.”84 These particular demands follow a trend throughout the region, with protestors “demanding freedom, dignity, and an end to corruption.”85 It seems that many analyses fall to the same failings to which de Chatel ultimately succumbs. By viewing protest through broad and abstracted ideals, such as freedom, the analyst short circuits any possible inquisition into the more specific demands made by groups in different areas. The city-specific demands mentioned above are absent from the more general categories of freedom or dignity, and so, even if these ideals are applicable across the many protests of the Arab Spring, they are not as useful at parsing through the complex causal factors involved in the emergence of protest in each singular instance. Drought, while it might not have constituted a stated grievance, did affect food and housing prices, as well as employment in both Homs and Daraa in ways that ultimately produced discontent and protest.86 For sure, the drought was not the sole influence on the prices of food and consumer goods (among other things), but it did act as a significant multiplier of problems which were being experienced to a lesser extent in other regions.

83

Heiko Wimmen, “Syria’s Path From Civic Uprising to Civil War,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 22, 2016, http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/11/22/syria-s-path-from-civic-uprising-to-civil-war-pub66171.

84 “Assad appoints new governor for Daraa,” Al Jazeera, April 4, 2011, www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/201144134848651549.html.

85 De Châtel, “The Role of Drought.”

86 Colin Kelley et al., “Commentary on the Syria Case: Climate as a Contributing Factor,” Political Geography 60, supp. C (September 1, 2017): 245–47, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.013.

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The easy counter-argument to this model of causation is to propose alternative causes.

The fact that migration effects correlate heavily with the stated reasons for early protests is not wholly sufficient to justify a claim of causation. However, given the complex, often contradictory nature of protest, causation can only really be established by comparing the stated reasons for protest with the conditions surrounding those statements. Individuals protest for different reasons, but since it is difficult to gauge and estimate each individual and their exact motives, and even harder to create a sum or average set of demands, it is perhaps more useful and similarly insightful to look at the predominant claims which emerge in each locale.

Alternative Explanations For this explanation of drought effects to be significant, it must stand up in the face of alternative explanations of conflict. As noted earlier, causation in the social sciences writ large, and in this paper specifically, involves designating events or factors which uniquely increase the likelihood of an event, and without which an event is far less likely.87 If a factor exists which operates independently of the drought and which also falls in line with the stated demands of the original protesters, then the causal chain becomes muddied to the point that no complete or foolproof conclusion can be drawn from the available evidence. That is, the distinction between drought effects and the effects of other factors vanishes and they become imminently interchangeable. This is the major flaw with so broad a claim as the claim that drought leads to conflict. It falls prey to alternative explanations, and so special attention must be paid to those potential alternative explanations of the emergence of protest, the most glaring of which are

87

Gerring, “Causation.�

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long-term government resource mismanagement, strains created by economic liberalization policies, and governmental repression enacted against the citizenry of the country.

Government Mismanagement There is a significant base of authors, in responding to claims of the causal link between drought and conflict, who point to the influence of poor government policy and response to drought conditions in increasing the intensity of opposition movements.88 This claim is weakened initially because many of these authors still place the drought as the final catalyst to conflict, while arguing that absent other conditions (the removal of subsidies and resource mismanagement being the most prominent of these), drought would not have caused conflict.89 De Châtel specifically notes that “the overall impact of the 2006–10 drought in Northeastern Syria was undoubtedly exacerbated by a long legacy of resource mismanagement.”90 Now obviously, the question of what level of drought would not have produced conflict is an interesting question, but ultimately not one which can be answered given the available evidence and the absence of a uniform relationship between drought and conflict. It is an intriguing hypothetical scenario, but not a useful intellectual pursuit in the context of this paper.

Institutionally, the water policy framework in Syria is inefficient and heavily focused on supply-side policies such as irrigation and dam building in the Northeastern region of Syria. The inherent problem in this combination of systems is that the inefficiency of water supply systems has led to an enormous overuse of such systems over the last fifty years. As a result, total irrigation area in Syria has more than doubled in the last twenty-five years, according to the official Syrian Agricultural Database. Despite inconsistencies in Syrian government data and 88

Selby et al., “Climate Change”; De Châtel, “The Role of Drought.”

Ibid.

90 Ibid.

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reporting, it can be said with moderate certainty that these numbers are accurate, given that independent organizations and authors corroborate similar numbers.91 Aw-Hassan also notes that this increase in irrigation led to a depletion of groundwater and traded off with food security in drought years.92 It is within this history of resource mismanagement that the Syrian government’s decision to dedicate 70 percent of its agricultural budget to irrigation subsidies can be best understood.93 It is apparent that government response exaggerated the conditions of the drought.

Fig. 4. Water Table Data in Syria (1984-2010). (Source: Aden Aw-Hassan et al., “The Impact of Food and Agricultural Policies on Groundwater Use in Syria,” Journal of Hydrology 513, supp. C (May 26, 2014): 204–15.)

91

FAO of the UN, “Syrian Arab Republic”; Aden Aw-Hassan et al., “The Impact of Food and Agricultural Policies on Groundwater Use in Syria,” Journal of Hydrology 513, supp. C (May 26, 2014): 204–15, doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.03.043.

92 Ibid.

93 George Haddad, Ivett Szeles, and Sándor Zsarnóczai, Water Management Development and Agriculture in Syria, Institute of Economic Analyse and Method, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences Szent István University, Gödöllő, Hungary, 2017, http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/47546/2/22haddadetal.pdf.

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However, what is not clear is the degree to which ineffective government response and action was a causal factor in the escalation of violence. That is, absent a drought, would these government programs have led to an escalation of conflict in 2011? The answer, history seems to suggest, is no. Assad had been engaged in a systematic program of resource mismanagement since he came to power in 2001, and this mismanagement had spanned also many years of his father’s rule. In fact, it was only very recently that the Syrian government came to even question the nature of resource use and effective management.94 Data on water table, or groundwater, levels in Syria (shown also in figure 4) show dramatic reductions in available resources over the last twenty years that would have put increasing strains on the country.95 However, there was no similar or parallel escalation of conflict over time. This suggests that resource mismanagement, while it was not a cause of conflict, did create an increasingly unstable environment in which conflict was far more likely. However, absent a flash point occurrence this trend may have continued for years, as it had from about 1990 to 2010, suggesting that government mismanagement cannot fully explain why conflict escalated when it did, in 2011. Further, the study done by Aw-Hassan et al. concludes that any reduction of subsidies would have upset the profitability of most crops, and so it seems that the government was faced with an impossible choice between supporting farmers profits and preventing the long-term degradation of their lands.96 Any response would ultimately have produced some degree of popular opposition, making it extremely difficult to determine the degree to which a different government response would have produced a different outcome. It seems, ultimately, that a history of misuse of resources entrenched by government policy created conditions in which even a minor drought could potentially have dramatic consequences on both the physical geography of the country and 94

De Châtel, “The Role of Drought”; Salman and Mualla, “Water Demand Management.”

Aw-Hassan et al., “The Impact of Food.”

96 Ibid.

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on the society contained within that physical geography. Drought as a catalyst to conflict is supported by the material reality of the Syrian situation and by authors writing on the theoretical linkages between drought and societal stability.97 Economic Liberalization The second major claim made by these authors is that the program of economic liberalization, specifically the removal of fuel subsidies for farmers in 2008, worsened the drought and produced opposition which would not have been present in a world where drought is the only constitutive factor.98 The removal of specific subsidies in 2008 and 2009 multiplied the cost of diesel fuel and fertilizers overnight, which some authors argue resulted in a loss of agricultural profitability which ultimately sparked the mass migrations seen in 2008–09.99 If this is true, it would mean that drought cannot be isolated as a causal element, since the drought, while severe, would not have produced such a level of migration had not its effects been magnified by policy. However, this policy is neither unique nor was it highly impactful in the case of Syria. There had been policies of economic liberalization to “deregulate domestic commerce and industry” since the 1980s, and this trend was “most evident in the case of the textile factories that proliferated in and around Aleppo in the late 1980s. . . . By the early 1990s, private textile and food processing factories were springing up far outside the city of Aleppo itself, on lands previously devoted to agriculture.”100 This quote hints at an underlying reality reflected in economic data, that agricultural production had been losing prominence steadily since about 1985, with significant drops occurring in its value as a percentage of GDP between 97

Ole Magnus Theisen, Helge Holtermann, and Halvard Buhaug, “Climate Wars? Assessing the Claim That Drought Breeds Conflict,” International Security 36, no. 3 (2011): 79–106.

98 Selby et al., “Climate Change.”

99 De Châtel, “The Role of Drought.”

100 Fred H. Lawson, “Private Capital and the State in Contemporary Syria,” Middle East Report, no. 203 (1997): 8– 30, doi:10.2307/3012639.

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1988–89, 1998–2000, and 2003–07.101 Curiously, significant drops in production and profitability correspond to significant drought instances as shown by Palmer Drought Severity Index data, suggesting that, at the minimum, drought has a correlative effect on the profitability of agriculture in Syria. Here, the water is muddied, because it is not clear if it is the drought or the policy that is more significant in determining agricultural stability in Syria. Given that since 2000, when Bashar al-Asad came to power, Syria has been actively supporting economic liberalization, including the phasing out of agricultural and fuel subsidies, and other supports for farmers, it would stand to reason that agricultural degradation would have been steadier and play out over time, if it were the result of policy.102 The decrease in agricultural profitability and prominence from 1992 to 2007 was an almost 50 percent reduction, and yet there was no similar trend of escalating protest over time.

Further, since protests, when they did emerge, were generally focused on local governors and not on the Asad regime in whole, it seems unlikely that Asad’s economic policies were a unique causal factor.103 Further, none of the demands present in the initial stages of the protests seem to suggest that economic liberalization policies were the primary concern. In fact, the closest the demands of the protesters came to questions of economic liberalization was the demand that a local governor allow wells to be dug for irrigation. Not only was this demand not reflected in other regions, but also it had little to do with broader questions of economic liberalization and can more accurately be said to reflect the economic reality of a very specific governance within Syria. Broader economic policy can be better understood as the underlying reality upon which more specific demands were made. Further, this specific demand, since it was for permission and 101

“Agriculture, Value Added (% of GDP) Data,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS?locations=SY (accessed November 23, 2017).

102 Raymond Hinnebusch, “Syria: From ‘Authoritarian Upgrading’ to Revolution?” International Affairs 88, no. 1 (2012): 95–113, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01059.x; De Châtel, “The Role” 103 Wimmen, “Syria’s Path.”

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not for funds, cannot be correlated to the removal of subsidies and definitely cannot be linked to the removal of fuel subsidies.

This contention is slightly tricky, in that even if these policies did not result in the escalation of conflict, they may have driven migration, suggesting that a Syria without drought would have seen the same level of violence. However, as previously noted, these policies have been in progress since the 1980s, and since migration in the country was stable until the year 2000, it seems likely that these policies did not drive mass migration. There is still the specific 2008 policy to contend with, though. This policy removed subsidies for fuel normally given to farmers.

Next, some authors suggest that the geographic positioning of large-scale protests in smaller cities (Daraa and Homs) and the initial security of relatively large cities (Damascus and Aleppo) hints that the unrest was due to these liberalization policies, since people in more urban centers tended to benefit more than those in rural settings.104 This argument presumes that those most differentially affected by liberalization would be the ones who revolt, but this is incorrect on two levels. First, none of the initial sites of protest were in rural, agricultural areas, which would have been the most differentially impacted, and second, evidence shows that migrants who had to actually abandon their farms did not join protests in these mid-sized cities, making it clear that the loss of agricultural prominence did not necessarily lead individuals, and specifically farmers, to protest.

Repression Hypothesis The final alternative cause of protest involving governmental influencers is the theory of repression. Syria’s government under the Asads was highly authoritarian and often repressed 104

See Selby et al., “Climate Change.�

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dissent. The differential escalation of conflict in Syria’s urban areas reflects this trend. In Homs, “the Syrian regime responded violently to peaceful protests . . . from the very beginning in March 2011.”105 Sectarian violence in this area has far exceeded violence in Tartous, in which the government did not use violent force, and this suggests that “Syrian nationalism . . . is rooted in local concerns.”106 Violence and repression were highly present in Syria throughout the thirty years between the Hama massacre and the Arab Spring uprising and, following this trend, the government expanded its repressive tactics in the first months of protest, with soldiers using tanks and snipers to clear streets and reestablish regime control.107 This violence led many soldiers to defect in the early months of protest and divided the military between loyalists and a growing number of defectors.108 The growing opposition, bolstered by military defection, developed a professionalized military resistance and offensive under the umbrella designation of the Free Syrian Army.109 This evidence may highly correlate conflict escalation to governmental repression, but it says nothing about the initial causes of protest. Given that the government violence in this case is heavily reactive, it cannot be the initial cause. This is especially true given that Syrian nationalism is heavily local, and the local demands levied against governors referred mostly to water rights and land expropriations, and to reform more generally, making it clear that the Syrian people, while not enthralled by the regime, were not initially calling for its overthrow.

For example, “In Homs, about 200 protestors had first assembled on March 18 at the Khaled Ibn 105

Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur, “The Struggle for Syria’s Regions,” Middle East Report 43 (2013): 2–11.

Ibid.

107 N. Van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria: Politics and Society under Asad and the Ba'th Party. Rev. 4th ed.

(London: I. B. Tauris, 2011).

108 Tim Lister, “Syrian Defectors Tell of Orders to Kill and Torture Protestors,” CNN, December 15, 2011, www.cnn.com/2011/12/15/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html; Tim Fitzsimons, “Syria Defections Surge: Reports,” Public Radio International, March 15, 2012, www.pri.org/stories/2012-03-15/syria-defections-surgereports.

109 Joshua Landis, “Free Syrian Army Founded By Seven Officers to Fight Syrian Army,” Syria Comment, 2011, www.joshualandis.com/blog/free-syrian-army-established-to-fight-the-syrian-army/.

106

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al-Walid Mosque to denounce not the regime but the local governor. He had acquired a track record for arbitrary land expropriations and shady real estate deals and was attempting to push through a futuristic, urban renewal project named ‘The Dream of Homs.’”110 In Daraa, commonly thought to be the birthplace of the revolution, protest also surrounded the actions of local officials until “the storming of the Omari Mosque in Daraa [by the Syrian military] on March 23, 2011, where protestors had established a field hospital and a headquarters of sorts, added a sectarian tinge to a contestation.”111 It is interesting to note that, in these cases, the protest was focused not on Assad himself, but upon local leaders and regional governors. A widespread opposition to the regime itself did not emerge until after military involvement expanded.112 However, it would be a mistake to say that government retaliation had nothing to do with the emergence of protest. In Daraa, protest erupted “after the arrests of at least 15 children for painting anti-government graffiti on the walls of a school.”113 Repressive government tactics cannot be discounted as a potential causal factor or influencer, but they also cannot be allowed to overdetermine a complete understanding of the causes of protest. That is, while the mistreatment of these children was a cause or influencer in the emergence of protests, so too were disputes over water and land resources which were catalyzed by the drought. The proclamation of any singular cause in this specific case would be highly reductive, given the complex and intermingled factors which produced opposition and tension in Syria. This alternative cause does not disprove the drought thesis. However, it does reveal that drought was a threat multiplier, an

110

Wimmen, “Syria’s Path.”

Mohamed Jamal Barout, “Al-Takawwun al-tarikhi al-hadith lil-Jazirah al-Suriyyah,” 2013.

112 Sharon Erickson Nepstad, “Nonviolent Resistance in the Arab Spring: The Critical Role of Military-Opposition Alliances,” Swiss Political Science Review 17, no. 4 (2011): 485–91, doi:10.1111/j.1662-6370.2011.02043.x.

113 Joe Sterling, “Daraa: The Spark That Lit the Syrian Flame,” CNN, March 1, 2012, www.cnn. com/2012/03/01/world/meast/syria-crisis-beginnings/index.html.

111

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event that increased the likelihood of conflict, but it did not cause conflict in any direct or singular way.

Arab Spring The final and most generally known alternative link to conflict is the Arab Spring. This thesis does not necessarily contradict the claims that drought was causal in the Syrian protests.

The Arab Spring is not a central, unified phenomenon.114 In fact, the diffusion of protests, often lacking a clear leader, throughout the region, reveal a new trend away from centralized leadership and into more diffuse avenues of resistance.115 This diffusion of protest makes it difficult to label the phenomenon itself as a causal factor, since the reasons for resistance and the scales of resistance were determined by local conditions. Further, it is true that the majority of protest movements emerging in this time period were populist in nature and rejected central authority in many regions of the world (including the United States) so it would be a mistake to view the Arab world as exceptional merely because there were mass protests.116 For these reasons, it is not a question of the weight of common protest, but rather a question of whether or not drought was a primary factor that determined the proliferation of protest in Syria specifically.

That “the uprisings’ deafening cry ‘Al-sha‘b yurid isqat al-nizam’ (people want to overthrow the regime) resonated across the Arab world” reflects the interconnected nature of Arab civil societies, but it does not disprove that there were different particular pressures within

114

Bassam Haddad, “Syria, the Arab Uprisings, and the Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience,” in The Arab Spring: Will It Lead to Democratic Transitions? edited by Henry Clement and Jang Ji-Hyang, 211–26 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

115 Sadik Al-Azm, “Arab Nationalism, Islamism and the Arab Uprising,” (lecture, London School of Economics Middle East Center, London, November 30, 2011), available at www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/transcripts/20111130_1830_arabNationalism_tr .pdf; Francesco Cavatorta, Arab Spring: The Awakening of Civil Society: A General Overview. IEMed, 2012, www.iemed.org/observatori-en/arees-danalisi/arxius-adjunts/anuari/med.2012/Cavatorta_en.pdf.

116 Haddad, “Syria, the Arab Uprisings.”

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each country which determined opposition.117 For example, “Egypt . . . prioritized economic grievances . . . [while] Tunisia . . . [emphasized] . . . corporat[e] politics.”118 In the Western Sahara, protests were predominantly carried out in opposition to Moroccan colonial opposition.119 Obviously, these are generalizations, but the point here is to show that the revolutions (even when generalized) were not homogenous across all locales. In fact, as previous evidence attests, the protests in Syria were not homogenous either, and the lack of either inter-state or intra-state conformity to a common set of demands makes it difficult to judge the whole movement as a singular entity. In Syria, concerns were mostly regional and concerned land control and resource scarcity. Rather than determining the emergence of protest or the process of causation, it seems that the Arab Spring functioned more as a useful heuristic for explaining the diffusion of similar styles of protest across a vast region in a very short window of time. This diffusion is seen in the mirroring of methods and patterns by protestors and governments throughout the region. The best example of this mirroring is the proliferation of self-immolation, with numbers of deaths from self-immolation tripling in the five years after Mohammad Bouazizi lit himself on fire in Tunisia.120 This method of protest spread, with thirteen people self-immolating throughout the region within two weeks of Bouazizi’s self-immolation and dozens more following after Ben Ali stepped down from power in Tunisia.121 Regimes also began to mirror other regime responses to the initial protests, with countries like Bahrain 117

Bassel F. Salloukh, “The Arab Uprisings and the Geopolitics of the Middle East,” The International Spectator 48, no. 2 (June 1, 2013): 32–46, doi:10.1080/03932729.2013.787830.

118 Mark R. Beissinger, Amaney Jamal, and Kevin Mazur, “Who Participated in the Arab Spring? A Comparison of Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions,” Working Paper, American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 2012.

119 Alice Wilson, “On the Margins of the Arab Spring,” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 57, no. 2 (2013): 81–98.

120 Mehdi Ben Khelil et al., “A Comparison of Suicidal Behavior by Burns Five Years before and Five Years after the 2011 Tunisian Revolution,” Burns 43, no. 4 (June 2017): 858–65, doi:10.1016/j.burns.2016.10.014.

121 Mehran Zarghami, “Selection of Person of the Year from Public Health Perspective: Promotion of Mass Clusters of Copycat Self-Immolation,” Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 6, no. 1 (2012): 1–11.

146

bringing in outside mercenary forces (from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) to ensure that the military would not refuse to fire on civilians, as they had done in Tunisia.122 This form of learning and cross-cultural diffusion, while it can be shown to be a causal factor in the change of protest movements over time, cannot be shown to be initially causal of the protests themselves.

Protestors and governments clearly learned from the successes and influences of other protestors and governments in the region, and in this way, the Arab Spring is a good explanation of a similar temporal emergence of grievances in the region. However, the differing specific demands and grievances that emerged within the many countries in which protest occurred suggest that “the Arab Spring” is less of a causal factor in itself, and more a simple heuristic for unifying the complex causes and factors which produced and sustained violence into one blanket event. To truly understand the Arab Spring, analysis must look below the simple catchphrases and generalized commonalities to see the more complex reality of the situation.

Conclusion The role of drought in protest and conflict is often complicated. To generalize about the relationship between drought and conflict risks miscalculation if local environmental and political conditions are not taken into consideration. A specific analysis of the events surrounding the emergence of protest in Syria reveals that the drought caused a significant migration which resulted in the destabilization of the cities in Syria where the violence began, including Daraa and Homs. Even in light of the other potential factors that could have resulted in such destabilization, this drought remains a significant multiplier of existing and trenchant instability and conflict. The claim made here is not that drought was the determinative or only factor, but rather that the drought devastated the ability of Syrian society to adapt to the small122

Haddad, “Syria, the Arab Uprisings.”

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scale conflicts which had historically existed within Syrian borders. A complex web of social and political factors overlaid this massive internal destabilization to produce a uniquely violent landscape in the country, which has been unable to recover in the almost ten years since.

Although the drought ended (in terms of Palmer Drought Severity Index values) in 2009, its effects outlast that date, and the city peripheries and agricultural zones of Syria have not yet fully recovered. While drought is not, based on the overwhelming weight of the literature, related directly with conflict, in the specific case of Syria, the relationship becomes clear when the disarray and confusion of the initial stages of revolt are parsed out to their fullest extent.

148

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American Globalization in the Middle East

Ashleigh Stevens

Abstract The boom of American globalization in the Middle East began in the 1990s with brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola making their way into the consumerist patterns of society. Political and cultural differences between the United States and Middle East have led to feelings of animosity toward American brands stemming from antagonism toward American ideals of capitalism and imperialism. However, a lack of acceptable domestic alternatives has continued to fuel the consumption of American products in the Middle East. Looking at the four distinct cases of Israel, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab World with particular focus on Saudi Arabia, this paper identifies key developments in the globalization of these societies, examines the presence, processes, and perceptions of prominent American brands in these countries, and analyzes the politically and culturally motivated brand rejection many companies have faced, and in some cases, the acceptance and profitability they have encountered. The broader concept of globalization is accepted if and when it is perceived not as destroying the local society but helping it to not only survive in the modern world but to flourish. While Islamic societies have generally struggled to accept globalization, American globalization efforts in each case have cultivated a successful relationship between the local culture and society and the global. As is the case in Israel, Turkey, Iran and the Arab world, while the global often transformed the nature of the local, the local, in turn, inspired modification of the global to account for the cultural and societal diversity unique to each nation.

The 1990s saw a boom in the globalization of American brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola and the integration of American consumerist patterns into society in the Middle East.

The political turmoil between the United States and Middle East that defined foreign relations during the 1990s and 2000s left a lasting impression on the region. Political and cultural differences have led to a general feeling of animosity toward American brands stemming from antagonism toward American ideals of capitalism and imperialism. However, A lack of acceptable domestic alternatives has fueled the consumption of American products in the Middle

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East for nearly fifty years. Focusing on the four distinct cases of Israel, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab World, with particular focus on Saudi Arabia, the purpose of this paper is to identify key developments in the globalization of these societies. In addition, I will examine the presence, processes, and perceptions of prominent American brands in these countries, and analyze the politically and culturally motivated brand rejection many companies have faced, and in some cases, the acceptance and profitability they have encountered. I plan to argue that while Islamic societies have generally struggled to accept globalization, American globalization efforts in each case have cultivated a successful relationship between the local societies and cultures and their global counters.

Key Concepts Globalization Globalization is commonly interpreted as “leading to commercial, cultural and technological standardization across the world.”1 The United States has led the way in globalization for nearly a century, with a unique focus on the Middle East since the 1960s.

Globalization is often described as a global integration of information technology, economies, the spread of popular culture and other forms of human interaction.2 As I will demonstrate, American globalization in the Middle East entails much more than the concept of standard globalization. My intention here is to introduce other key concepts that have played an integral part in American globalization in Israel, Turkey, Iran, and parts of the Arab world. In general, the term “cultural imperialism” is most closely associated with the United States. Typical examples of the imperialistic nature of American culture include the spread of products from

1

Özlem Sandıkçı and Güliz Ger, “In-Between Modernities and Postmodernities: Theorizing Turkish Consumptionscape,” Advances in Consumer Research 29 (2002), 465.

2 Robert J. Lieber and Ruth E. Weisberg, “Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (Winter 2002), 274.

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brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Levi’s and retail spaces such as shopping malls and “Disney-like complexes.”3 Globalization in the Middle East can be seen as an extension of the modernization and Westernization many countries in the region have undergone.

Americanization Americanization is another concept that can work hand-in-hand with globalization.

Americanization is the “act, or the process, of conforming to America’s culture, ideologies, and material goods.”4 Americanization essentially takes globalization one step further, past “basic” integration of American products and services, and has the ability to transform entire societies.

Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Levi’s are often regarded as icons of American mass culture and are therefore often the focus when discussing Americanization. It is important to know that Americanization also represents the dissemination of American culture, norms, and values, and goes beyond just the availability of American products and services. It entails the development of retail mechanisms and modes of consumption including supermarkets, shopping malls and credit cards, all “designed to enhance and rationalize consumption.”5 The most prominent example of growing Americanization and dependence on the United States can be seen in Israel. From a local perspective, Americanization entails appropriation and imitation of the American way of life and the consequent local cultural transformations. From the American perspective, Americanization represents the export of habits of American mass culture, especially those of consumption, entertainment, and leisure, into a foreign culture. There is a globally perceived notion of the United States as economically thriving, technologically

3 Özlem Sandıkçı and Ahmet Ekici, “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection,” Journal of Business Research 62, no. 2 (February 2009), 212.

4 Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman, “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel: A Demographic, Cultural and Political Evaluation,” Israel Studies 5, no. 1 (2000), 65.

5 Moaz Azaryahu, “McIsrael? On the ‘Americanization of Israel,’” Israel Studies 5, no.1 (2000), 44.

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advanced, and culturally rich, which “makes it a model for emulation for the rest of the world.”6 While this desire for emulation may welcome globalization, modernization, or in some cases Americanization, these concepts can only truly be accepted if and when they are seen as helping the local society to thrive.

Glocalization A final fundamental concept to the discussion of American globalization in the Middle East is the process of adoption of elements of global culture into local cultures, known as glocalization or cultural heterogenization. Glocalization can be thought of as the interpretation, integration, and fusion of the global and the local, which often results in unique outcomes in different geographic areas.7 Anti-globalization advocates allege that global popular culture dominated by American products and ideas destroys the diversity of cultural production unique to each nation. In a specific case study on Israel, scholar Uri Ram asks a vital question in regards to globalization that we can apply to any nation: Does globalization lead to universal cultural uniformity, or does it leave room for particularism and cultural diversity?8 As I explore American globalization specific to Israel, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab world, the varying effects of the global on the local, and vice versa, reveal feelings of both acceptance and opposition.

American Globalization in the Middle East Israel Ties between Israel and the United States have been strong since the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. Relations between the two grew stronger due to Israel’s excellent military performance in the June War, when the United States came to view Israel as a strategic ally in 6

Ibid., 45.

Safarnia Hasan et al., “Iranian Consumers’ Purchase Intention Toward Global Brands,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business 5, no. 8 (December 2013), 362.

8 Uri Ram, The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, jihad in Jerusalem (New York: Routledge, 2008), 11.

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the Middle East. The United States began supporting Israel economically and militarily as the Soviet Union was strengthening ties within the Arab world during the Cold War, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in aid per year.9 Continued conflict between Israel and the Arab world, and continued U.S. support of Israel, involved the United States in all aspects of Middle East relations, which continues to this day. An extremely beneficial relationship to Israel, U.S.Israel ties have been under scrutiny since their establishment and have been the cause of disruptions in American globalization throughout the Middle East.

In Israel, American influences have become increasingly more tangible in the everyday lives of citizens, with Americanization beginning in the 1990s. Israelis are constantly exposed to American culture, patterns of consumption, and lifestyles. It is said to “reflect the aspiration for the abundance and freedom embodied in the American ethos.”10 This “cultural revolution” meant the introduction of consumerist behavior and values, leisure activities, and entertainment patterns into Israeli culture.11 Television broadcasts contributed to U.S. influence in Israel, as most of the programs broadcast were imported from the United States, and even local programming was influenced by American television. This resulted in a change in the daily lives of Israeli people: they began to dress differently, eat differently, enjoy themselves differently, speak differently, think differently, and feel differently. For a time, people became more involved in politics and social problems.12 But television also made Israelis much more aware of themselves as individuals, and they began to discover themselves as individuals distinct from the national collective.13 Segev goes as far to say that “America has become Israel’s alter-ego, politically, 9

William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 2017), 337.

10 Rebhun and Waxman, “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel,” 65.

11 Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 49.

12 Ibid.

13 Tom Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 68.

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economically, and culturally. America has become the teacher, the giant father figure hovering over us [Israel]; in fact, it holds the keys to life in Israel, the keys of existence.”14 Some say that the most obvious sign of the Americanization of Israel is the abundance of McDonald’s restaurants throughout the country. Other reflections are seen in the spread of suburban communities and suburban shopping malls, the infusion of English into the Hebrew language, and the growing preference for American television programs, clothing styles, music, and art.15 The first bottle of Coca-Cola appeared on the Israeli market in 1968 and soon replaced local substitutes, and while jeans and Coca-Cola were already available in the late 1960s, Israel saw its first shopping mall open in Tel Aviv in 1977 followed soon after by the spread of fast food chains.16 An icon of Americanization worldwide, McDonald’s opened its first hamburger outlet in Israel in 1993.17 The golden arches of McDonald’s quickly became symbolic of cultural reorientation in Israel and its reputation as an icon of the “American way of life” caused public fascination to grow.18 McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, “both flagship American brands, conquered front-line positions in the war over the Israeli consumer.”19 In addition to McDonald’s, chains of American stores and restaurants such as KFC, Office Depot, and Ace Hardware can be found in Israel.20 The arrival of McDonald’s also inspired a local hamburger chain to open in 1972 called Burger Ranch.21 Burger King, at the time the world’s second-largest hamburger chain, opened in 1994 and between McDonald’s arrival and the year 2000, sales in the Israeli hamburger industry increased by 600 percent. McDonald’s, Burger Ranch, and Burger King shared the majority of 14

Ibid., 49.

Rebhun and Waxman, “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel,” 80.

16 Uri Ram, The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, jihad in Jerusalem. Globalizing Regions (New York: Routledge, 2008), 180.

17 Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem, 58.

18 Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 56.

19 Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 12.

20 Rebhun and Waxman, “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel,” 81.

21 Uri Ram, “Glocommodification: How the Global Consumes the Local—McDonald’s in Israel,” Current Sociology 52, no.1 (January 2004), 12.

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the market share.22 Demonstrating that the acceptance of American products was, to some extent, selective, Budweiser and Miller failed to assimilate to Israeli culture in the 1980s, and Starbucks closed all six of its stores in Tel Aviv just two years after their opening in 2001.23 Israel’s intellectual and cultural elite were open to Western fashions, ideas, and lifestyles and endorsed the Americanization of Israel “as an unavoidable aspect of the Westernization and modernization of Israeli society.”24 The adoption of the latest American cultural innovations seems to be more prevalent among secular Israelis who are the quickest to absorb American culture in both material and non-material aspects.25 The “arrival” of McDonald’s in Israel raised questions and concerns about the survival of the local cultural tradition. Critics of the Americanization of Israel see McDonald’s as a representation of a secular Israel and see Americanization as a threat to Israel’s cultural distinctiveness.26 Having an established presence in Israel, McDonald’s experienced resistance in the late 1990s with its plans for expansion into highly cultural areas of the country. For locals, it gave the impression that McDonald’s had little respect for local sensitivities and gave the notion of McDonald’s as an agent of “cultural imperialism.”27 A symbol of global American consumer culture, McDonald’s has raised concerns about the survival of the local national culture.28 Despite expansion plans perceived as “insensitive,” McDonald’s was sure to add special menu additions to conform with Israeli preferences, including introducing a new type of hamburger called the McRoyal, as well as opening a kosher

22

Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 181.

Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 62.

24 Ibid., 52.

25 Rebhun and Waxman, “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel,” 85.

26 Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 54.

27 Ibid., 59.

28 Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 182.

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restaurant to cater to religious customers.29 In another example of assimilation attempts by American brands, the Israeli franchise of Domino’s Pizza inaugurated a new falafel chain. Even Coca-Cola was adjusted to Israeli demand, and the famous logo was transcribed in Hebrew letters.30 The careful encounter between McDonald’s, other prominent American brands, and the local culture has contributed to the cultivation of a successful relationship between Israel and United States, and specifically their globalization efforts.

Israeli brands and companies have also had to react and adapt to the entrance of American brands to the market. The spread of fast food chains such as McDonald’s and even the local Burger Ranch challenged Israel’s distinct national equivalent to fast food, the falafel.

Despite experiencing a decline during the 1970s and 1980s following the emergence of the hamburger industry, Israel witnessed a modernization of the falafel in the 2000s. In order to adapt to the changing and newly “Americanized” market, the falafel was transformed into a standardized, trendy option in Israel as well as other countries. The falafel chain Ma’oz operates twelve falafel eateries in Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona in addition to Israel.31 This kind of relationship, in which the global (McDonald’s) doesn’t eliminate the local (falafel), but restructures it, is typical of the global-local relationship between American brands and the Israeli market.32 This relationship is a positive outcome of the inevitable and continuing globalization in the Middle East and an example of how it can work peacefully.

Turkey Turkey embarked on a massive industrialization process beginning in the late 1950s that saw social, economic, and religious changes that transformed the composition of cultural life.

29

Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 62.

Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 14; Azaryahu, “McIsrael?” 62.

31 Ram, “Glocommodification,” 14.

32 Ibid., 15.

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Stimulated largely by American aid and foreign investment, the faces of cities in Turkey changed drastically during the late twentieth century.33 This period saw rapid urbanization and globalization of the Turkish economy and the entrance of multinational companies to the Turkish market.34 Shopping malls, five-star hotels, high-rise buildings, entertainment centers, foreign cuisine, and fast food restaurants emerged in big cities like Istanbul and Ankara, making many products that were once foreign to Turks commonplace.35 The growth of this new consumerist society caused mixed reactions in the majority Islamic nation. Research conducted in Turkey on consumer resistance revealed overall feelings of animosity toward many global brands including Coca-Cola, Nestle, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Marlboro, Nike, Starbucks, and Shell.36 Soon after its introduction to Turkey in 1964, Coca-Cola was the target of various factions of society who associated it with American imperialism, and through research one can quickly see that “no other commercial product in Turkey has been so identified with and boycotted to protest against American foreign policies.”37 In July 2003, the Turkish food and beverage group Ülker, known for its Islamic leanings, launched Cola Turka as a local competitor to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and by 2005, it rose to the second rank, after CocaCola, with 20 percent market share.38 Turka was the first and only brand to explicitly declare itself as an authentic local alternative to American cola brands.39 Cola Turka took advantage of the growing anti-American sentiment in Turkey following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, presenting a

33

Sandıkçı and Ger, “In-Between Modernities and Postmodernities,” 466. Özlem Sandıkçı and Güliz Ger, “Fundamental Fashions: The Cultural Politics of the Turban and the Levi’s,” Advances in Consumer Research 28 (2001), 148.

35 Sandıkçı and Ger, “In-Between Modernities and Postmodernities,” 467.

36 Elif Izberk-Bilgin, “When Starbucks Meets Turkish Coffee: Cultural Imperialism and Islamism As ‘Other’ Discourses of Consumer Resistance,” Advances in Consumer Research 35 (2008), 808.

37 Dilek Kaya Mutlu, “The Cola Turka Controversy: Consuming Cola as a Turkish Muslim,” in Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption, edited by Johanna Pink, (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 115.

38 Kaya Mutlu, “The Cola Turka Controversy,” 105.

39 Ibid., 119.

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subtle critique of Westernization through its promotion tactics that, according to Ülker officials, promoted positive nationalism rather than hatred, antagonism, or anti-Americanism.40 Strangely enough, this animosity isn’t demonstrated toward all American products, as many Turkish citizens report consuming other products like Marlboro cigarettes and Walt Disney movies.41 Brands such as McDonald’s, Levi’s, and Starbucks, that one could argue exemplify globalization just as much as Coca-Cola, haven’t received the same degree of criticism and rejection. In Turkey, Coca-Cola is seen as having presented itself as an attractive alternative to the local brands, and those consumers who are highly critical of American culture see its consumption as nothing but harmful to the local culture.42 Some radical Islamic circles ended their Coca-Cola and Pepsi boycotts with the emergence of Cola Turka, noting that “Muslim countries were betraying themselves by consuming 60 percent of the world market of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and American cigarettes.”43 Others rejected Cola Turka’s claim of authenticity and perceived it as an imitation of the American brand. In similar opinion, a liberal-Islamist group affiliated with the AKP remarked that Cola Turka was “localizing the international instead of internationalizing the local.”44 In general, Cola Turka was accepted by the Islamic portion of society while secularists accepted Coca-Cola. The strongest reason for rejecting or boycotting Coca-Cola is the popular belief that they are “supportive of Israel” and “anti-Muslim,” which stems simply from the fact that it is an American brand.45 As McDonald’s, Domino’s, and Coca-Cola did in Israel, Coca-Cola has attempted to portray a locally sensitive image in Turkey as well. For example, during the month of Ramadan, 40

Ibid., 106. Özlem Sandıkçı and Ahmet Ekici, “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection,” Journal of Business Research 62, no.

2 (February 2009), 213.

42 Ibid.

43 Kaya Mutlu, “The Cola Turka Controversy,” 115.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

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the company runs commercials that present Coca-Cola as the appropriate drink for the postfasting dinner, connecting the American brand with a practice of Islam. However, those strongly opposed to the brand portray localization attempts like this as “phony.”46 As McDonald’s, specifically, is seen as a symbol of American culture in Israel, Coca-Cola serves this role in Turkey, though reactions lean toward rejection in Turkey rather than overall acceptance.

However, despite existing animosity, consumers break their resistance by consuming global brands in the absence of satisfactory local alternatives, though this consumption of global brands often entails great reluctance.47 The Arab World For decades, the United States has been the prime agent of modernization in Saudi Arabia, and relationships between American businesses and government agencies and Saudi Arabia have played an integral role in the life of the nation. Saudi Arabia and the United States have maintained a stable political and economic relationship rooted in the military and economic aid the United States has extended to Saudi Arabia and the supply of oil to the United States from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. This relationship extends beyond just commercial ties in the oil industry, as Saudi Arabia’s substantial and modern industrial and commercial infrastructures have been built up since the 1930s with great influence from the United States.48 Positive relations between the United States and many nations in the Arab World, namely Saudi Arabia, has resulted in the influx of American brands such as McDonald’s, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Marlboro, and Proctor & Gamble. In the Gulf region, franchisees of American chains have close connections with the local ruling regimes. For example, most

46

Sandıkçı and Ekici, “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection,” 216.

Izberk-Bilgin, “When Starbucks Meets Turkish Coffee,” 809.

48 Josh Pollack, “Anti-Americanism in Contemporary Saudi Arabia,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 7, no. 4 (December 2003), 30.

47

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McDonald’s locations in Saudi Arabia are owned by the royal family.49 Kuwait Food Co., which holds 13 franchises and 543 fast food outlets including KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee’s, Subway, and Baskin Robbins in eleven different Arab countries, is owned by influential billionaire Jassem AlKhorafi, who is the Kuwaiti parliament speaker.50 Despite heavy saturation in the market, many American companies have been targeted and boycotted in Arab countries due to political ties as well their inherent ties to the United States. McDonald’s experienced backlash in Egypt because of its CEO’s alleged links to Israel, Starbucks experienced setbacks because of its CEO’s comments on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and similarly, Amazon was boycotted due to its ties to the Jerusalem Post.51 Arab boycotts and overall consumer animosity has affected profitability for many American brands operating in the region. The president of Coca-Cola Africa acknowledged that the Arab boycotts in Egypt and Morocco had affected business in these countries.52 The majority of American companies, however, have overcome this backlash to continue operating successfully in Middle Eastern markets.

Several companies have reacted to this Arab consumer animosity through charitable contributions and by emphasizing local connections. In the first few weeks of the second Intifada, McDonald’s saw sales plunge in Saudi Arabia. Franchisees’ reacted by announcing plans to donate a portion of sales during the month of Ramadan to Palestinian children’s hospitals. In Egypt, McDonald’s started donating profits in 2011 toward building Egypt’s first hospital for children with cancer. They also introduced the McFalafel to their menu in Egypt, and locations throughout the Middle East introduced the McArabia. Similarly, in 2002 in Jordan, the 49

Ibid., 34.

Kjell Knudsen, Praveen Aggarwal, and Ahmed Maamoun, “The Burden of Identity: Responding to Product Boycotts in The Middle East,” Journal of Business & Economics Research 6, no. 11 (November 2008), 23.

51 Ibid., 21.

52 Ibid.

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company donated a portion of sales to the Hashemite Relief Fund, a Jordanian government charity that gives aid to Palestinians.53 McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have both put forth emphasis on local connections and their impact on local economies by introducing new, locally inspired products, offering localized promotions, and even by de-emphasizing their American brand name. McDonald’s branches in Egypt and Morocco published ads and press releases emphasizing local connections and emphasizing that they employ local citizens. In an effort to integrate itself with Arab consumers, Coca-Cola sponsored the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Saudi national soccer teams.54 These glocalization attempts by American brands have kept the business to consumer relationship mutually beneficial in the Arab world, but by no means has the concept of globalization been accepted. However, as we saw in Turkey, despite consistent criticism and consumer animosity present in the Arab world, patterns of consumption of American brands continue.

Iran Up until the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Shah of Iran was the United States’ strongest ally in the Gulf region, and the United States had been supplying Iran with billions of dollars in military aid in order to combat Soviet influence and protect U.S. oil interests. With the onset of the revolution, the new regime cut ties with the United States and pledged to eradicate U.S. influence within Iran, condemning Israel as well.55 U.S.-Iranian relations in the decades to follow proved shaky, as the United States efforts to reestablish communications seemed to worsen rather than improve the relationship. In 2012, the United States imposed an economic embargo

53

Ibid., 23.

Ibid.

55 William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 2017), 355.

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on Iran, which has helped to write its history of globalization and modernization explaining the acceptance or rejection of American brands.

Despite ongoing political, economic, and military tensions between the United States and Iran, Iranian consumers are actively engaged in the global marketplace. While the United States imposed economic sanctions that lasted from 2012 until 2016, the Iranian government had no restrictions against the import of American goods, and there were many intermediary companies operating from other parts of the Middle East that played a role in getting American products and brands into the Iranian market.56 A consumer study conducted with 902 Iranian consumers suggested that Iranians are open to purchasing foreign-made and American-made products, and that the tension these two country’s governments share has not transferred to the Iranian consumer.57 Due to cultural globalization, Iran has seen an influx of foreign brands to the market, which has caused its economy to grow at one of the fastest rates in the developing world.58 In large metropolitan Iranian cities a variety of American brands are present, such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Levi’s, and GE.59 Iranians are willing to import some U.S. products such as medicine, medical equipment, personal computers, and automobiles, mostly products deemed “necessary” to a modern lifestyle. This is thought to be due to the positive image of the brands in these categories. For instance, names such as Microsoft, Apple, Dell, GM, and GE invoke images of quality and reliability.60 In general, foreign-made products, especially those from the United States and Europe, are often preferred over local brands in countries like Iran because they are thought of to be

56

Mahmood Bahaee and Michael J. Pisani, “Are Iranian Consumers Poised to ‘Buy American’ in a Hostile Bilateral Environment?” Business Horizons 52, no. 3 (June 2009), 224.

57 Ibid.

58 Hasan, “Iranian Consumers’ Purchase Intention,” 361.

59 Bahaee and Pisani, “Are Iranian Consumers Poised,” 224.

60 Ibid., 229.

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higher quality than their domestically produced counterparts, due to the general lack of ability to manufacture within their own borders.61 One study examined Iranian consumers and the impact of individual characteristics and brand-specific variables on purchase intention toward global brands versus local brands. The results indicated that the “Iranian consumers’ need for uniqueness positively influences attitudes toward foreign products.” These attitudes positively affect the perceived quality of foreign products while negatively impacting perceptions of the local brands.62 Iran’s overall openness to foreign-made products is generally linked to its historical and cultural makeup, from the diverse population of subcultures to the country’s geographical location situated at the crossroads between East and West.63 The overall willingness of Iranians to import and consume foreign-made products is interpreted as demand for quality products, and therefore represents their distaste and dissatisfaction with the poor quality of domestic products.64 Despite economic and political dispute between Iran and the United States, Iran is an example of overall success of the globalization of American brands in the Middle East.

Globalization Opposition American globalization, and therefore economic and social change, combined with the crisis of traditional societies many countries have faced and continue to face in the Middle East can and has led to backlash and consumer animosity. In this context consumer animosity represents the remnants of antipathy related to previous or ongoing military, political, or

61

Ibid., 224.

Hasan, “Iranian Consumers’ Purchase Intention,” 361.

63 Bahaee and Pisani, “Are Iranian Consumers Poised,” 227.

64 Ibid., 228.

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economic events impacting consumers’ willingness to buy foreign-made products.65 The prestige and quality associated with global brands such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Nike often make them the focus of consumer desire in developing countries. However, their association with powerful nation states and multinational corporations can also result in diverse consumer interpretations. Often global brands are perceived as symbols of cultural imperialism and threats to national sovereignty. Such interpretations often manifest as various consumer reactions, ranging from individuals refraining from a particular brand to full blown brand boycotts and market rejection.66 Consumer culture, consumerist ideology, and trends of excessive materialism and controversial marketing strategies are prominent in American culture. Consumer animosity and resistance can be thought of as negative reactions against these elements of a globalized society. A related and more specific, concept also seen in the Middle East is politically motivated brand rejection, which is defined as the “refusal to purchase and/or use a brand on a permanent basis because of its perceived association to a particular political ideology that the consumer is opposed to.”67 These concepts of consumer animosity and brand rejection are ongoing in the Middle East and play important roles in the American globalization framework of the region.

In the Middle East, opposition to globalization generally falls into one of three categories: political opposition, religious opposition, or social and cultural opposition. In parts of the developing world, especially in many Muslim countries, “reactions to globalization and to the U.S. as the embodiment of capitalism, modernity and mass culture tend to be much more intense.”68 Politically driven conflicts like the war in Iraq, U.S. support for Israel, and the Palestinian Intifadas contribute to the resistance of brands that consumers see as symbols of

65

Ibid.

Izberk-Bilgin, “When Starbucks Meets Turkish Coffee,” 808.

67 Sandıkçı and Ekici, “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection,” 208.

68 Lieber and Weisberg, “Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis,” 276.

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imperialism and have intensified the negative sentiment toward the United States and associated global brands.69 Major boycott efforts against Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s are generally always positioned on the basis of these companies representing American imperialism and economic dominance.70 Culture holds a pivotal position on the topic of globalization because of its significance to human identity in personal, ethnic, religious, social, and national dimensions.71 Each example discussed has experienced waves of opposition, whether political, religious, or social, the local and national culture has always played a significant role.

Israel Despite the tarnished image of the United States following the Gulf War and even more so after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Israelis continue to project a favorable view toward the United States. Israel topped the list of twenty countries, with 79 percent of respondents holding a favorable view of the United States, higher than the 70 percent result in England and much higher than the rest of the countries surveyed.72 Investigating the implications of globalization on Israeli social and cultural structure reveals a structure very similar to that of the United States. As the example identified with Americanization most closely, Israel has embraced the consumerist ways of the United States with little resistance, experiencing social and economic changes typical to a modern consumerist society. As a result, Israeli society has adopted similar modes of consumption and materialistic lifestyles. The effects of globalization on Israeli popular culture include a shift in the social trajectory of the country that began in 1990s with the spread of Americanization. An overall outcome of this process has been the exacerbation of income

69

Sandıkçı and Ekici, “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection,” 213.

Knudsen, Aggarwal, and Maamoun, “The Burden of Identity,” 20.

71 Lieber and Weisberg, “Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis,” 275.

72 Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 191.

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disparities and social gaps creating economic inequality, a phenomenon that also emerged in the United States during its period of industrialization and modernization.73 Turkey Research has identified “discourses of cultural imperialism and Islamism as prominent motivators of consumer resistance” in Turkey.74 In response, beginning in the 1990s, an Islamic marketplace emerged and soon Islamic businesses began to compete in almost all sectors of the economy by producing a variety of “Islamic” goods.75 These businesses built an alternative market for those who were religious and felt alienated from the Westernized goods that began to dominate the Turkish market. Summer resorts, hotels, fitness and beauty centers, popular culture and entertainment products, such as radio stations and television channels targeted specifically at the Islamists, became common place.76 Up until this time, Islamism in Turkey was considered “a mode of thought and a way of life that contrasted modernity.”77 This view was challenged under the administration and leadership of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, whose appearance in the media created an “image of modern and competent Islamist statesmanship.”78 Cola Turka is one case among many that underlines the changing consumption pattern of the Islamic population in Turkey. The unique combination of Islam and secularism in Turkey distinguishes it from Arab Islam, and the emergence of this modernized Islamic consumerist society in Turkey is one such distinguishing factor.

The Arab World

73

Ibid., 76 Izberk-Bilgin, “When Starbucks Meets Turkish Coffee,” 808.

75 Kaya Mutlu, “The Cola Turka Controversy,” 112.

76 Sandıkçı and Ger, “Fundamental Fashions,” 146.

77 Ibid.

78 Kaya Mutlu, “The Cola Turka Controversy,” 120.

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Due to close geographical proximity of the military intervention in Iraq, antiAmericanism in Saudi Arabia grew greatly during the 1990s and 2000s. General United States military presence in the Persian Gulf region attracts resentment as well, and is expected to continue to do so as long as the presence remains. Saudi conservatives have been a primary source of opposition and perceive social influences from the United States to be damaging and harmful.79 The call to boycott companies like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Marlboro, Proctor & Gamble, and Starbucks in the Middle East during the second Palestinian Intifada “was triggered in part by the resentment that people felt toward the United States’ foreign policy on the Palestinian issue, which is seen as pro-Israel by many factions in the Arab world.”80 As an extension of this resentment religious leaders and clerics across the Arab world from Morocco to Saudi Arabia have urged consumers not to buy products associated with the United States.81 American brands have continued to prosper throughout the Arab world despite occasional setbacks due to the overall improvement of political relations between the United States and the Arab world throughout twenty-first century.

Iran Politically, the United States and Iran have a shaky past. The United States support for Israel, the continued conflict in post-Saddam Iraq, and our close eye on Iran’s nuclear program have all led to political, military, and economic tensions, and open hostility between the governments. The United States imposed economic and trade sanctions against Iran in 2012 that may have further increased these tensions, but had little effect of the consumption patterns of Iran. A study conducted by Bahaee and Pisani reveal that Iranian consumers held very low to

79

Pollack, “Anti-Americanism,” 39.

Knudsen, Aggarwal, and Maamoun, “The Burden of Identity,” 19.

81 Ibid., 20.

80

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neutral consumer animosity toward American-made products.82 This indicates that the political and military hostility between the governments doesn’t translate to the “private sphere of Iranian household consumption.”83 Overall, Iranian consumers are open to foreign-made products, and don’t carry much animosity toward the United States in their product purchasing decisions, and their desire for quality products trump the political hostility between governments.84

Overall Trends Rejection and Acceptance The four dynamic examples discussed show varying ways American brands and the overall idea of globalization has been rejected and resisted in the Middle East. However, rejection doesn’t mean that globalization failed to permeate society. As the examples of Turkey, Iran, and countries in the Arab world such as Saudi Arabia show, the spread and consumption of American brands remains consistent despite consumer animosity caused by political, religious, and culturally inspired opposition. A society can, and often does, still consume despite objections to globalization, imperialism, and the consumerist culture of the United States. This is precisely what we find by analyzing globalization patterns in Islamic countries in the Middle East. In contrast to the case of Israel, where there is no significant public resistance to the penetration of American culture, it can be concluded that Islamic societies are often more likely to be opposed to globalization.85 To fully understand the Islamic opposition that American globalization has experienced in the Middle East we must understand the relationship between Islam and the concept of

82

Bahaee and Pisani, “Are Iranian Consumers Poised,” 228.

Ibid.

84 Ibid., 230.

85 Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem, 57.

83

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globalization, and ask what the religious implications of the mostly economic transformations of Turkey, Iran, and the Arab world are. The size and structure of the Islamic community in these nations often build a religious, and therefore cultural, ‘wall’ against many aspects of globalization. Often, elements that define globalization contradict the Islamic vision of a proper society. The alternative worldview held by many countries in the Arab world, often with an intense focus on Arab nationalism and Islam, feeds the opposition of globalization.86 Under these circumstances it has proven difficult for not only the global to adapt to the local, but more often the local is unwilling to accept and adapt to the global.

Glocalization It can be argued that global capitalism always penetrates into the local and can gain legitimacy and acceptance only through glocalization, a hybridization with the local.87 It is entirely possible to blend a society’s existing or traditional structure with something new to create a stronger society in economic terms. In turn, this means that the broader concept of globalization is accepted if and when it is perceived not as destroying the local society but helping it to survive and flourish in the modern world. Ram asks the question: does globalization leads to universal cultural uniformity or does it leave room for particular habits and cultural diversity? To answer, one could argues that globalization does leave room for particular habits and cultural diversity, as was the case in Israel, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab world. While the global often transformed the nature of the local, the local, in turn, inspired modification of the global to account for the cultural and societal diversity unique to each nation.88

86

Barry Rubin, “Globalization in the Middle East: Part One,” YaleGlobal (January 2003).

Sandıkçı and Ger, “In-Between Modernities and Postmodernities,” 470.

88 Ram, The Globalization of Israel, 15.

87

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Works Cited Azaryahu, Moaz. “McIsrael? On the ‘Americanization of Israel.’” Israel Studies 5, no. 1 (2000): 41–62.

Bahaee, Mahmood, and Michael J. Pisani. “Are Iranian Consumers Poised to ‘Buy American’ in a Hostile Bilateral Environment?” Business Horizons 52, no. 3 (June 2009): 223–32.

Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder: Westview Press, 2017.

Hasan, Safarnia, Mollahosseini Ali, Mohammad Javad, and Saeedi Garaqani. “Iranian Consumers’ Purchase Intention Toward Global Brands.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business 5, no. 8 (December 2013): 361–71.

Izberk-Bilgin, Elif. “When Starbucks Meets Turkish Coffee: Cultural Imperialism and Islamism As ‘Other’ Discourses of Consumer Resistance.” Advances in Consumer Research 35 (2008): 808–9.

Kaya Mutlu, Dilek. “The Cola Turka Controversy: Consuming Cola as a Turkish Muslim.” In Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption, edited by Johanna Pink, 105–27.

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

Knudsen, Kjell, Praveen Aggarwal, and Ahmed Maamoun. “The Burden of Identity: Responding to Product Boycotts in The Middle East.” Journal of Business & Economics Research 6, no. 11 (November 2008): 17–25.

Lieber, Robert J., and Ruth E. Weisberg. “Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis.”

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (Winter 2002): 273–94.

Pollack, Josh. “Anti-Americanism in Contemporary Saudi Arabia.” Middle East Review of International Affairs 7, no. 4 (December 2003): 30–43.

Ram, Uri. “Glocommodification: How the Global Consumes the Local—McDonald’s in Israel.”

Current Sociology 52, no. 1 (January 2004): 11–31.

––––––. The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, jihad in Jerusalem. Globalizing Regions. New York: Routledge, 2008.

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Rebhun, Uzi, and Chaim I. Waxman. “The ‘Americanization’ of Israel: A Demographic, Cultural and Political Evaluation.” Israel Studies 5, no. 1 (2000): 65–87.

Rubin, Barry. “Globalization in the Middle East: Part One.” YaleGlobal (January 2003).

Sandıkçı, Özlem, and Ahmet Ekici. “Politically Motivated Brand Rejection.” Journal of Business Research 62, no. 2 (February 2009): 208–17.

Sandıkçı, Özlem and Güliz Ger. “Fundamental Fashions: The Cultural Politics of the Turban and the Levi’s.” Advances in Consumer Research 28 (2001): 146–50.

––––––. “In-Between Modernities and Postmodernities: Theorizing Turkish Consumptionscape.”

Advances in Consumer Research 29 (2002): 465–70.

Segev, Tom. Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel. Translated from Hebrew by Haim Watzman. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002.

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About the Contributors

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Ben Kannenberg Ben Kannenberg graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in the spring of 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Biosciences. During his undergrad, Ben served as a co-founder and president of OUr Mental Health, OU's only mental health advocacy group. In fall 2018, Ben will be returning to his home state of Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison for medical school, with dual emphases in public and global health.

Jamie Franzese Jamie Franzese is a senior pursuing her Bachelor of Arts/Master of Arts in International Studies with a minor in Spanish. Her research interests include democratic theory, violence, the rights of disadvantaged groups, and gender equality. Through OU, Jamie participated in international programs in Oxford, England; Alcalá de Henares, Spain; and Kathmandu, Nepal. She expects to graduate summa cum laude in December 2018. After graduation, Jamie will complete a fellowship on OU’s Research Campus.

Ashleigh Stevens Ashleigh Stevens is an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma who will graduate in the spring of 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and International Business and a minor in Spanish. While studying at OU she spent two semesters abroad in Argentina and Spain, and she is a member of the Multicultural Business Program within Price College of Business.

Evan Schleicher Evan Schleicher graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in Fall 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in International and Area Studies and minors in Environmental Sustainability and Intelligence & National Security. While studying at OU he was a traveling member of the Policy Debate Team, and he is beginning a master’s program in Security Policy Studies at George Washington University in Fall 2018.

Colin Olson Colin Olson is graduating magna cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in May 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Security Studies and minors in Intelligence and National Security as well as Asian Studies. During his time at OU, he emphasized his academic focus on East Asia and energy security. Colin worked through the Honors College as an undergraduate research assistant and studied abroad in China during the summer of 2017.

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Tasden Ingram Tasden Ingram graduated from the University of Oklahoma during the spring of 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. During his time at OU he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) fraternity and studied abroad in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Following graduation, Tasden is pursuing a Master of Arts in International Relations through OU's Global Security Program.

Jeremiah Gentle Jeremiah Gentle graduated with a major in International Studies from the David L. Boren College of International Studies. He studied in Limoges, France and spent extensive time overseas during his undergraduate career, volunteering in Mongolia, India, and Lebanon, to name a few. Since graduation, Jeremiah has been advising students to study in Spain through the University of Oklahoma, and he seeks to more fully connect the OU family with the international community, both in Norman and abroad.

Sindhoora Garimella Sindhoora Garimella studies international relations and evolutionary biology, and is particularly interested in gender relations and environmental conservation. She is a Global Engagement Fellow and spends her free time conducting research in a variety of fields or tutoring ESL at the local library. She plans to graduate in the spring of 2018.

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