Debate: Identifying the Winners

Our final live session involved a debate between two teams, both of which were tasked with identifying the biggest threat to the United States. I was a member of "Team 2" and we identified various internal threats as the largest threat to the future of the United States. "Team 1" summarized the largest threat to the United States as being economic in nature. While both teams presented a persuasive argument, I agree with my team that the greatest threat is internal.

Even a quick glance at American politics can shed quite a bit of light on our argument. The American electorate is increasingly polarized. Under normal circumstances, each of the two major political parties is somewhat moderate, but it is alarming to see that even the two major parties are drifting apart.

Additionally, we are not preparing upcoming generations to be prepared to handle these issues. Our schools are increasingly taking on new requirement that ultimately do not help to educate students. Our high schools are sending students to college and into the world who haven't learned to think critically and make sound decisions.

Indeed, the economy is a major concern regarding the future of the United States, but until we can come together and prepare future generations to make more educated decisions about how we want to handle economic issues, we really have no hope.

Team 2 definitely presented a valid argument and continue to agree that the greatest threat to the future of the United States comes from within.

-SC

The Debate

In our in-class debate, there were two very different sides on Team 1 and 2. Team 1 was more concerned about the external threats of emerging economies, while Team 2 was worried about the increasing fractionalization of the US government.

Though I may be a bit biased, I fully agree with Team 1. The US government has withstood worse domestic struggles and political strife and made it out just fine. Domestic politics rarely have strong bearing on the international level unless serious violations are occurring, and while the US political situation is far from ideal at the moment, it will certainly not plunge the US into the Dark Ages if things do not go as expected. We have a sophisticated (if somewhat broken...) political system to account for these types of things, and the reality is that almost all nations have internal political strife.

I agree with my teammates that the fact that we can have this type of discourse is a sign of a functional democracy. We have the resources to deal with a less-than-ideal political climate, however, "the rise of the rest" is something new in our history that we haven't prepared for. Underscoring this threat would be a mistake.

The debate was a little back and forth repackaging of the same thing but in a different light.  Team one made some fair points about the economy, but, in the end, their points went under the umbrella of our team’s overall stance of internal conflict as the U.S.’s biggest threat.  There really was no defense against the Team 2 offense.  If the government shuts down and decided to take its drama overseas, which it has done in the past, it could effect everything.  Economy, government and policies are all connected. 

At some point we were all wondering what came first the chicken or the egg.  Can the economy be separate from everything else?  I do not think so and I do not believe the other team made a very strong case to counter our argument, but it is true that no one can truly predict the future.  Who knows? America may very well survive the outcome of this year’s election.

Team two won the debate.

Celebrity Intervention

A recent discussion in class focused on celebrity intervention in global crises, and much of the discussion was about "why" they feel the need to get involved and about their effectiveness.

I had several thoughts on this topic. First of all, I feel like celebrities overstep their boundaries in many cases. They approach many crises and issues with a very superficial understanding of the matter. If I learned anything at all earning my B.S. in political science, it was that I previously had an extremely elementary understanding of international issues and was better served learning more about the issues before voicing my opinions. Celebrities would do right learning this important lesson. International affairs are seldom black and white and most of the time the truth of the situation --and a solution-- is found in the gray area. Celebrities who get involved often bring a matter to public attention, but the issue is only presented in a very superficial and overly-simplified version. This draws attention to the issue, and the public usually grows angry because they "don't understand why we don't just do something since the solution is so clear." Unfortunately, the solutions are rarely so simple.

I think that celebrities get involved because they have an inflated view about the reach of their voice, or maybe just a large ego. "I'm a celebrity. People care about what I say." Unfortunately, in the United States, many people do care about what they say. I raised the point in class that it's ironic that when we want learn about an issue we turn to the celebrity "voice." Why don't Americans look to the experts on issues? If we want to learn about refugee crises, why turn to Angelina Jolie when we could turn to any one of the scholars who spend a lifetime studying refugee crises and have a much clearer understanding of this issue. A quick browse on the website www.looktothestars.org is evidence enough of this point. The mere existance of the above mentioned website it ample evidence of my point. We in the United States look to celebrities for guidance, rather than the experts.

This week’s topic came brings us back to the Leviathan and the true power of the state.  What I found interesting about this was the concept of a state’s finite time as the proverbial top dog.  In the lecture, the professor makes the point that not all states stay exactly where they are and it is true.  States that were once weak or behind the times are now big powers or bigger than they once were and strong powers are either not as powerful as they once were or one of the weakest of powers.

This brings me to the idea of America as one of the high rollers of the international community.  The country lost its top credit rating, so many large companies are selling their businesses to China, and, in fact, China owns a lot of prime land in America.  Plus, China holds the bill for most of America’s loans.  In an old class back in high school (maybe college), a teacher posed and interesting point about how the U.S. has been likened to the Roman Empire and he asked us if we thought the same.  If we did, we had to explain whether or not America was heading to a fall, like its Roman predecessor. 

My answer to that question is that in some ways there are similarities to America and Rome.  That includes the presumption that we know what is best for other countries and cultures.  We have a bad history on that front.  However, are we falling?  That, I do not know.  From a big picture standpoint, America is like a hormonal teenager that is finally starting to see that it is not the center of the universe and bad things can and will reach across the big blue sea and find you.  Other powers are emerging from all over and attacks from foreign powers on mainland is something the rest of the world is accustomed to. 

This all goes back to the question of whether or not we now have a global community.  It is hard to say we do not with technology, international businesses, and NGO’s that find ways to grab the world’s attention and show what we could never see in our backyards.

"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world" - Napoleon

This week's readings on the rise, fall, and role of great powers were extremely interesting and enlightening. The US's role as a hegemon on the international stage has been widely debated and contested, and as all empires must fall, the world is looking to see which state will be the next great hegemon. With the world's largest population and one of the largest, if not the largest, economy in the world, China has seemed a more and more likely candidate in the past decade.


However, many scholars don't see this as a likely outcome. In his article "Hegemonic transition in East Asia? The dynamics of Chinese and American power" Mark Beeson outlines several reasons behind China's meteoric rise to power, such as favorable US foreign policy, multilateral regional engagement, realist military policy, and "soft-balancing" their foreign policy toward cooperative international behavior. While these policies may have encouraged their strong economic growth, Beeson argues that they have their limits when it comes to complete international hegemony. Beeson cites China's lack of cohesive values and vision, the US's continued dominance over international financial institutions, and China's own limit when it comes to finite resources in economic development as reasons why China isn't quite ready to take on the role of hegemon.


Though China may not be on the path to hegemony yet, the US-China relationship is one of the most important bilateral international relationships that exists today. This strategic economic partnership is responsible for China's booming economy and the US's reliance on consumerism. As both economies continue to grow, it will be interesting to see what the future holds.








Beeson, Mark. "Hegemonic Transition in East Asia? The Dynamics of Chinese and American Power." Review of International Studies Rev. Int. Stud. 35.01 (2009): 95-112. Web

Non-state actors and norm development

This week, we looked at the Risse and Sikkink article and how human rights norms turn into domestic practices for nations. Risse and Sikkink present a spiral model of stages nations go through in human rights norm development - repression, the first stage of human rights violation, denial, to other states, tactical concessions, in which the violators appease other states in order to get what they way, prescriptive statues, in which human rights norms begin to take hold, and rule-consistent behavior, in which the violator finally has their human rights norms in line with the rest of the world. It was an interesting look at how other nations and non-states actors institutionalize norms across the world and how and why violators go about implementing these norms. It brings us back to the first few weeks of class where we talked about ideas vs. interest in policy decisions. We agreed that these two were intertwined, and in this, we can see how interests can evolve into ideas.

These ideas are incredibly powerful, and for my memo this week, I examined the ONE campaign, an extremely influential poverty alleviation NGO. ONE's message, propagated by various celebrities and its millions of volunteers around the world, has inspired new legislation, new grants, and billions of dollars in aid to the world's poorest nations. While an organization as solid as ONE is hard to critique, I suggested they empower their volunteer base to do more direct lobbying with their elected officials to turn ONE's ideas and goals into even more concrete legislation. Even though ideas are powerful, influencing those who have the power to make a direct change is incredibly important.

The global public sphere is an incredibly powerful motivator in international relations policy today
as ideas and information can spread around the globe in seconds. If nations want a spot on the international stage, staying in line with global norms is incredibly important for security, economic and political reasons.

This week we went into a lot of discussion about celebrities in politics.  The overall opinion seemed to be that while the famous are good for making people aware, it would be best if their involvement on specific issues were kept at a superficial level.  Once they are taken seriously by the public as actual authoritative figures on a big issue like the issues in Africa, then things get more complicated in the public eye and for the people involved with these issues firsthand.

That is why I would like to do my project from the standpoint of a well meaning celebrity that might oversimplify what an NGO needs to do in order to make their voice heard more in the community.  So many of them work hard to keep issues at the forefront, but the idea of a campaign that makes them more mainstream accessible is an interesting notion.

Human Rights Watch has a very noble objective and the way they go about getting their information and their dedication to keeping themselves completely pure of any form of government involvement is an even more of a noble endeavor.  However, I cannot help but wonder how much it actually gets accomplished with simply shaming governments into submission.  Do not get me wrong.  There are few tactics more powerful than using shame as a form of coercion.  It plays into herd mentality and is probably 9 out of 10 mother approved. But, should there be more commercials and news pieces pushed into the public eye?

Here is my question to you.  Do NGO’s need better PR to be more effective?  Could more high celebs be the answer?

Fame and Development - More Harm than good?

This week we had a long, active discussion on the role of celebrities who champion development causes. Angelina Jolie and Bono come to mind as celebrities who are well-known for their philanthropic and humanitarian work. However, do development and fame work well together, or can more harm come when well-meaning celebrities step outside their usual roles?




As celebrities are almost never people well-trained in development economics or policy scholars, their main contribution to the cause is money and awareness. While money is certainly a necessary tool, money and aid have been given to developing countries for decades with little change or success, suggesting that it is maybe a deeper structural issue when it comes to poverty that money itself can't fix. The only exception to this would be humanitarian aid, when large sums of money are needed quickly in an emergency for an unanticipated disaster. Awareness is another important component, as people are far more likely to donate and care about a cause that their favorite celebrity is supporting. However, awareness can only go so far. If someone is inspired to actually learn about a cause and do development work based on this, then of course it is a success, but does this happen very often?


A recent example of  "awareness" causing a frenzy in the Western world was the Kony 2012 campaign that many of us saw all over our social media that year. Kony 2012 went viral on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and people were appalled to learn of the horrors of Joseph Kony and his actions in Uganda. However, Invisible Children, the company behind the campaign, was found to be questionable and the issues the campaign was bringing awareness to had long since died down in Uganda. Ugandans were afraid that this would cause a resurgence in violence when they were just beginning to heal.


All this being said, is there a way for fame and development to coexist? Awareness can be a very positive factor if those influenced by celebrities use their newfound awareness to learn about their world and lobby for the changes they want to see. However, beyond that, should there really be a role for celebrities in development? I honestly think they're a non-factor - I don't think any celebrity has radically changed any developing nation and really can't - their talents lie in entertainment and not economic development.

Multinational Supply Chains and Governance

In light of what I posted last week about the new means of global production, I read an article from The Atlantic about the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, who have credited themselves as an ethical company that only deals in fair trade and labor. Gillian White's article, "All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploited Labor," explores the supply chain of Patagonia and illustrates just how difficult ethical practices can be with so many international inputs.


Internal audits of Patagonia found several instances of human trafficking and forced labor in the first-tier suppliers - the mills that produce the raw materials and fabrics that then go on to other factories. The mills were found to employ labor brokers, who engaged in human trafficking in order to staff the mills. Even the second-tier factories, where the clothes are actually made, employed workers who were victims of human trafficking.


Patagonia has been transparent about their audit findings and after the violations were discovered, cut down on the number of their first-tier suppliers and increased their international labor audits. However, their discoveries are rather commonplace in the clothing industry, where there are so many international inputs that is it difficult to ensure fair labor practices. With many companies operating in developing nations to cut costs, the sheer volume of factories and suppliers across the globe is difficult to monitor. Additionally, consuming responsibly can be near impossible - even if clothes are made in a developed country with fair labor practices, ensuring that the fabric was made by fairly paid workers, ensuring that the metal for zippers was mined responsibly, and monitoring the countless other factors that go into the products we consume can be a dauntless task.


While many companies are actively trying to combat international labor violations, the only way for them to really control the cost of a product without compromising quality is to cut costs on labor, which creates a perfect environment for forced labor and human trafficking. Price increases could drive down sales and with the industry being so competitive, companies cannot afford that. Though there are organizations for fair labor and workers' rights, there is no concrete governance for these types of violations, as they tend to abuse legal loopholes to engage in these labor practices - labor brokers are not illegal in the countries where these factories operate. Governance of these practices could only come from complete cooperation - and with companies needing cheap labor and governments needing the jobs these companies bring, it may not come any time soon.










White, Gillian B. "All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploited Labor." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media, 3 July 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.

Last class we got into more specifics about international economy.  Suffice it to say that I am now quaking in fear of taking ECON this summer.  On that note, there was this interesting idea that came to my attention.  Has globalization turned international business into its own global government or could it lead to its own global government?

From my perspective, this could be its own form of global governance, but there is still that case of sovereignty.  I can definitely see China as a possible opposing side to that question because maintaining sovereignty has always been a top priority for that region.  This really goes back to the question of the “Leviathan” and how power can stay maintained.  However, with international businesses the way they are, maybe, just maybe, even nations with a more protectionist stance would see a use for some form of overarching global market, because, whether they like it or not, capacity seems to outweigh authority.  They may have the right, but they are losing their ability to oversee and regulate the complex web like systems that international business has become.

Governance, on a global scale, has become almost organic in that new organizations have grown out of a need for more governance in different forms.  For example, G20, in fact all the g-series, were made for the purpose of expressing ideas between heads of state in a more informal setting and that may be where we find ourselves heading more toward the attunement portion of the quadrant.

Conversation has been about corporate actors taking the place of the state sovereign and how they avoid answering to state authority by setting up shop overseas out of their respective sovereigns’ reach.  During the live session, it was no surprise that Wal-Mart came up as an example of this evil empire that evades any sort of accountability.  It really is surprising as to how old businesses like Wal-Mart have grown so far beyond the vision of their original creators.

My weigh in in all this is that the epitome of big business taking over as a political power brings up, for me, the image of Donald Trump as president.  Not to start any big debates or make anyone mad, but he is the picture of that big business, bottom dollar mentality and he brandishes those practices on the political floor.  His staff takes their cue from him and, low and behold, a political rally turns into a bar brawl.  And, in the end, Trump is never really held accountable for any of that.  In fact, he keeps gaining momentum from his supporters.

However, I do have a prediction on that front.  Your staff acting up at a rally is one thing, but what happens at the federal level when you, legally, cannot move without Congress’s approval is another.  That is also how, I believe , it works with these businesses.  These corporate actors can interfere with capacity to an extent and maybe even mix with authority, but they will never replace the authority of the state.  State authority can seize assets and look for any justifiable reason for invasive surveillance.  Look at what happened to Capone.  He got life in prison over one count of tax evasion.

It is important to remember that no matter where your company goes or who you pay off to keep your wheels of operation spinning, big brother is always watching and waiting.

Global Economic Actors - Can they be governed?

This week we took a look at global, non-state economic actors and their effect on the international realm. With so many corporations setting up headquarters in one nation and operating in many more, governance of these corporations falls in a difficult grey area. Can these corporations face legal consequences for transgressions committed abroad?

Unfortunately, they often do not. Corporations are easily able to take advantage of nations with weak governance to set up operations there that would probably break the law in their headquarter nation. They get cheap labor, can ignore safety codes, and face few consequences for doing so. As a result, they're able to provide cheap products for consumers. Even if they break laws abroad, the weak governments there often struggle to prosecute and the home country looks the other way.

Another difficulty faced is the new means of production in global commerce. If something is wrong with a finished product, where do we lay the blame if the raw materials come from several countries, it is manufactured in one country, and the corporation is in another? With so many international inputs in the production chain, it is difficult to tell where exactly a product is coming from and what to do if something is wrong with it. Multinational corporations know this, and when something does go wrong with a product, no one takes the blame.

With so many global governance organizations, it is interesting that we do not have one governing commerce (I am not counting the WTO because they don't govern corporate behavior). Would this type of organization violate state sovereignty, even though corporations exploit state sovereignty to maximize profit? It would be interesting to see if this type of organization develops in the future - and since so much of the economic sector is globalized now, I would be very surprised if it didn't.

Interests and Ideas in Global Security

In this module, our activity was to examine the effect of interests and ideas through the lens of global security. We found that overwhelmingly, interests dominate decisions made about global security - whether it is to protect citizens or investments, nations have a vested interest in global security.




This was most apparent in the field of nuclear weapons. In the Gustafson article, he makes a good point that Western nations keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of any nation that they see as an "other", with often questionable motives behind this decision. He argues that this creates an unfair security binary in our world between Western and non-Western nations. While he rightfully addresses the point that expanded nuclear proliferation is dangerous, he glosses over the very concrete political differences in developing nations. Gustafson does address the issue of political stability, and argues that we are buying into a false narrative that third-world political systems are inherently more unstable. While he may not be wrong, it is far easier to cooperate with shared political values (in this case democracy) and the trust necessary for nuclear proliferation is of paramount importance. Finally, even if these nations were politically stable enough for nuclear weapons, the cost of the weapons themselves, and the scientists needed to maintain, is beyond prohibitive for most nations.


In the Blair article, he makes a case for de-alerting nuclear weapons and offers a four-point plan for doing so. While the risks he mentions are very real and certainly compelling reasons to de-alert, the lack of trust among nations is still the strongest reason not to. We couldn't ensure that everyone did their part and de-alerted, so we would need to make sure we were still prepared for anything that could happen. In a perfect world, we would be able to execute this plan, but at this point, we're stuck with our imperfect world - maybe one day in the future, we'll be luckier.

In this module, we talked about modern day security, more specifically, security of the state.  It was established that security is no longer in the hands of the sovereign alone.  Non state actors, now, have more say in the sovereign’s capacity to use coercion as a means to protect its authority.

One of the most underrated non state actors, that does not get as much attention as it should, is the observer/individual.  They are the real game changers when it comes to undermining the sovereign’s capacity for coercion.  Now that information can be spread at such incredible speeds, observers from across the globe can weigh in on decisions. 

A historical example would be Ghandi’s movement in India.  The British made themselves look bad on television broadcast across the globe by attacking unarmed people (physical coercion).  Technology made it possible for a mass public shaming and the government was forced to stop its actions.  The sovereign was without the capacity to coerce the native people of India.

Social media has further increased transparency.  Sites like Wikileaks and individuals like Snowden are further proof that the common people are becoming more actively involved in state business.

Even though observers have the power to interfere with capacity and, at times, the authority of the sovereign coercive power is still controlled mainly by the sovereign.  However, as technology evolves, that position of power becomes more tenuous.

The Privatization of Global Security and the Economic Impact of Organized Crime

This week, we looked into private security corporations and their interaction effect on the international environment. Nations as different as the United States and Sierra Leone rely on private security corporations for much of their national security, yet the difference in how they are utilized is remarkable. In the United States, private security corporations are a billion-dollar industry offering their research, innovation, and labor in the field of national security and defense. In Sierra Leone, they are hired to protect the nation’s valuable natural resources and the corporations involved from criminals. In both instances, private security companies are filling a void that state security cannot, whether it be due to lack of investment, infrastructure, or the inherent government structure. However, the role of these modern-day mercenaries has been challenged, arguing that they interfere with state power by operating by their own set of rules.

        States are facing challenges in another direction as well, with organized crime becoming more sophisticated than ever with our more permeable international boundaries. While organized crime is nothing new, the ease of conducting illicit activities such as drug smuggling and human trafficking gets easier every year. Corruption and organized crime have been shown to have a measurable negative impact on a nation’s economy, yet many nations tacitly accept organized crime when government officials can benefit from it, particularly in weaker states. As international initiatives to fight organized crime begin to take root, it will be interesting to how states come together to tackle this challenge.