George Michael and Democracy

So I was reading the nice little bit from The Economist, and lo and behold, I found it to be talking about the same sort of issues I brought up in my Cabaret-esque post. The article is mainly a skeptical look at Freedom House and its inherent US bias, but it also challenges their ideas of "free", "partly free", and "free".

As you can see from the image above, there are many countries that became free from 1982 to 2007, but there are just many that went completely backwards in their freedom ratings. My theory on why that is, The Cold War and its aftermath, oil politics, and then finally the war on terror. There are probably other factors involved as well in the various countries, but those I think are the most shared reasons.

So the really really interesting bit I wanted to point out from it is this:

"How much freer do people feel when they have a few roubles or yuan in their pocket (and access to other goodies like computers and compact discs)? That is an endlessly debatable question. By contrast the sort of liberties and non-liberties measured by Freedom House (multi-party elections, due process and so on) are relatively tangible and easy to assess. That alone may be quite a good argument for having at least one index whose stated purpose is to assess formal freedoms—to vote, speak, assemble and so on. That does not imply that other factors, such as prosperity, have no bearing on how free people feel."

Like the good constructivist I am, I like to focus a lot on how people feel, and so the importance of how free populations feel is paramount. Its whether or not these feelings match up with empirical definitions of the democratic system is the really question, at least for me. China is a great example, and one the article mentions as well. It is poorly ranked for civil liberties, yet its a pretty stable and prosperous country.

You may have discovered at the end of this post that I have deconstructed a particular set of ideas, but I'm not really sure what to construct in their place. Well, I'll figure it out soon enough.

Take a moment, think about it, listen to this wonderful little 90's ditty about Freedom from George Michael, and then make a comment.

Money, money, money...

I just read an article on Time.com that talks about the inverse relationship of oil wealth and democracy, citing Bush's visit to the UAE as the latest example. In the Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan dropped some srrrious bling on Dubya. (That's right, I went there). Anyone who's been to the UAE, like me for not an example, can also testify to the decadence of the place.

"It may now be possible to propose a corollary theory: countries that greet American presidents with the gaudiest displays of oil wealth tend to be the least democratic. In Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed presented Bush with an obscene necklace consisting of a number of increasingly large solid gold stars encrusted with scores of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Though Bush talked up his "Freedom Agenda" there, his aides dodged questions about the fact that 50% of the country's parliament is appointed by Sheikh Khalifa, who is also the lifetime "President." Saudi Arabia, the most repressive of all the countries Bush visited on his trip, tried to outdo the "President Sheikh" Monday evening with a jewel-laden gold medallion dangling from a chain encrusted with rubies and emeralds."

However, as the article goes on, this isn't to say that all countries with oil resources are doomed. Its only when oil dominates a state's economy that the correlation becomes stronger.

So my interesting thought of the day, reminscent of an earlier post I made about Russia, if populations feel that they are economically better off, who cares what kind of government is in power? I don't know too much about any democratic movements in UAE, but from all outside appearances, everyone seems fairly happy. I'm not saying authoritarianism is acceptable if your people are richer than before, I'm just musing on how relevant Fosse is in this particular area of foreign policy.

Watch this video with Liza Minelli and Joel Gray singing the song "Money" from Cabaret. Maybe you'll start singing it at your next international development class.

Pootie Poot

Vladimir Putin has been proclaimed as Time's Person of the Year 2007. Not a bad choice. I make no excuses, I don't know too much about Putin, other than that Bush calls him "Pootie" sometimes, or modern Russia, other than they and China are making trade deals with Iran that make the US government kind of sad. What I found particularly fascinating about the article was the discussion of whether or not Russians wanted freedom, or at least our definition of it. (Mostly, we're talking about freedom of the press). It then went on to describe Putin as the next Russian tsar, which may very well be true, even though the label of tsar will never be used. Elections in Russia don't mean very much.

My first reaction was to say that was a very xenophobic way of looking at things; believing that the Russians are so backwards that they have this desire to be dominated. But could it actually be true? The Russian economy is doing very well, perhaps people are more accepting of less freedom if they can meet their basic economic needs. Maybe money can buy happiness. I think this must be the case. It certainly sounds a lot nicer than assuming the Russian people are drawn to autocrats.