Freedom at Issue

Weekly Governance Links: Miscellaneous

Because sometimes interesting governance developments just don’t fit into one particular theme...

Human Rights Watch has released an extensive report detailing the suffering of HIV positive women in Zambia, where generally weak rights for women have had a negative impact on their ability to cope with the disease.

A Reuters article notes that the chief of the anticorruption unit has stepped down. The woman, Suzanne Rich Folsom, was associated with former World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz and had come under increasing pressure ever since last year’s Paul Volcker-led commission suggested her unit for further investigation. Another quality report related to corruption comes from the Center for Global Development, which reports on ways to combat deceptive partnerships that companies in the industrialized world use to issue bribes in developing countries.

Two scholars at the Carnegie Endowment analyze the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s draft party platform. In other Egypt news, Human Rights Watch describes the recent repression of a demonstration, thereby providing yet another example of the enormous obstacles the Muslim Brotherhood or any other prospective Egyptian party will face on the path to a democratic opening in Egypt.

An ongoing crackdown in Iran has received significant attention of late. With parliamentary elections scheduled for March 14, the New York Times notes that, once again, reformists are being disqualified in large numbers. Another Times article details the increasing pressure being put on a group that had managed to evade harsh treatment, the radical left. Meanwhile, Amnesty International decries the continued use of stoning as a method of capital punishment.

With Georgia’s presidential election now complete, attention turns to its neighbor Armenia, where elections will be held on February 19. Transitions Online has two articles providing some context to the election.

Given the troubling findings detailed in the release of Freedom in the World 2008, a timely paper from the Center for Global Development on how the international community can work with troubled young democracies to firm up their institutions in ways that promote further democratization and resist backsliding.

In the context of rising tensions related to immigration throughout the world, Human Rights Watch blasts the Libyan government’s decision to deport all of its undocumented workers, many of whom could be exposed to persecution at home. Note that the New York Times had an interesting article in December about the rise and effects of increased immigration within the developing world.

A September post noted the announcement of Chile’s extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and provided links detailing some of the many evils associated with the regime. Good news: the legal process is not going well for the former strongman. He has already been convicted and sentenced in one case, and recent damning testimony has been received in several others. For continued monitoring, visit the Fujimori on Trial website.

Clash of the Charismatic Titans

The last month has witnessed a serious escalation of tensions between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The two leaders have taken quite divergent paths since the release of two high profile hostages on January 10th by the FARC rebel army, with Uribe remaining largely silent while Chavez went on the attack. Aside from declaring his respect for the FARC’s “Bolivarian” project, Chavez has sent a strong message by sending his Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín as his surrogate to the hostage release. At the release the minister shook hands with the FARC guerillas while telling them to keep up their struggle because Venezuela supports them (whether he meant in their struggle or with hostage negotiations was unclear but plenty of room was left for misinterpretation). The strain on the bilateral relationship is obvious. But the ever more tangled relationship between the two countries could also have specific effects on governance in each.

The Colombian people have loudly rejected any recognition of the FARC or ELN as “belligerents” rather than “terrorists.” Tragically, the day after the release the FARC kidnapped six more hostages, giving them a net gain of four captives to be added to the approximately 700 still being held in the jungle. Since Chavez’s diatribes against Uribe, the Colombian people have rallied to support him. In a new Gallup poll, Uribe’s approval rating has jumped up to 80%. While Uribe is an extremely popular president, this is the highest his ratings have ever reached. This can be seen as a repudiation of Chavez and support for Uribe in the face of criticism and perceived meddling on the part of Chavez. However, the governance risk is that Uribe will view this support as a mandate for his democratic security policy, which has strongly emphasized military confrontation over negotiation with the FARC, a strategy that many observers think will never end the conflict. What remains to be seen is how both the government and the guerillas will move forward. Historical swings between confrontation and engagement have created a cycle of mistrust that will be hard to overcome, even with more tactful mediators than President Chavez or more dialogue-amenable leaders than President Uribe.

As for Venezuela, whatever the mix of Chavez’s motivations with regard to the FARC, the dispute has clearly led to increased militarization along the two countries’ long, porous border. In the past few days Chavez has sent thousands of troops to the border to control the illegal smuggling of goods. Many Venezuelans have been entering Colombia illegally to sell everyday goods such as milk and sugar because the Venezuelan government has been restricting the price of these products, hampering vendors’ ability to make a profit. A further concern about the border relates to a problem that could have even more pernicious effects. According to some – disputed – sources, Venezuela’s importance as a drug transshipment point has increased in recent years. In an October 2007 interview, Venezuelan Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez admitted that corruption has seeped into high levels of the government. He insisted that only individuals are to blame and not institutions, although as followers of U.S. policy on detainee treatment are aware, there is a fine line between the two. Many military officers want to be sent to the border region because they know that there they will be able to increase their income by accepting bribes by smugglers. Venezuela will have to monitor the new troop deployment with extra diligence; if closer relationships are fostered between smugglers that already operate on the border and military officers, both general corruption and drug trafficking could get worse at a moment when rampant crime and corruption are already threatening the popularity of Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution.

Alvaro Uribe photo by Flickr user Center for American Progress used under a Creative Commons license

Hugo Chavez photo by Flickr user Que comunismo! used under a Creative Commons license

Chavez=Correa=Morales?

The Washington Post chimes in with an article about the attempts to draft new constitutions currently taking place in South America. The piece is primarily geared around developments in Bolivia and Ecuador, but Venezuela is mentioned as well in the context of the failed referendum that, had it passed, would have resulted in 69 far-reaching constitutional amendments. There are a couple of different themes in the article that deserve to be unpacked a bit.

First and perhaps is the issue of how much value there even is in discussing the processes in the three countries in one article. On the surface, it makes sense: three leftist presidents, allied with one another, seeking to exploit their personal popularity to carry out far-reaching changes constitutional. Nonetheless, without adding more substance regarding the political context in each country, the piece obscures as much as it illuminates.

Venezuela for instance, is shoehorned in despite the fact that the package of proposed amendments already failed. Of the three cases, it was probably the most straightforward case of centralizing power in the hands of the executive. Its failure does not spells the political end for Hugo Chavez, nor will it necessarily prove more than a temporary check on the construction of 21st century socialism. However, the fact of the referendum’s defeat makes the country an awkward fit for an article about increasing presidential power through constitutional change.

Ecuador, for its part, receives a relatively perfunctory treatment in the article. The first sentence specifically addressing the country reads: “Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa's supporters advocate permanently dismantling the country's opposition-controlled legislature.” This is technically true, but it puts a somewhat negative gloss on what is a common outcome of constituent assemblies. Moreover, it is difficult to overstate the degree to which the Ecuadorian congress was discredited. Opinion polls consistently measured the body’s disapproval ratings at over 90 percent. While it was democratically elected, it is hardly a case of an august chamber being martyred at the hands of a budding autocrat. Indeed, after the smoke cleared from Ecuador’s early 2007 confrontation between the various branches of government, all of the country’s institutions were largely obliterated, as described in the introduction to the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report. Correa’s personal popularity was the only thing holding together the government. Correa has indeed demonstrated a troubling inability to distinguish dissent from conspiracy, and the constituent assembly process may yet concentrate power in the executive to a degree that negatively affects governance and governability in Ecuador. But the breezy explanation of what is happening provides inadequate context.

Bolivia’s process is discussed the most, and both President Morales’ side and the opposition’s viewpoints are noted (though mostly the opposition). However, critical background is again missing. For an explanation, see this earlier post. Essentially, the Bolivian context features much stronger checks on untrammeled executive power than the other two, both from the opposition prefects and from within Morales’ own MAS party/movement. In fact, the very ferocity of opposition is what has driven Bolivia toward the abyss, as both sides play a game of brinksmanship in which the MAS’ rather undemocratic method of passing the draft constitution was only the most dramatic move.

Quibbles about country summaries aside, the question remains: what the point is of the constitutional changes? See this post at Bloggings by Boz for a good discussion, including comments. The Post article’s first sentence frames the issue adequately, noting the “bitter debates over whether new charters will benefit future generations or simply serve the political ambitions of current presidents.” Then there is quote from a Venezuelan oppositionist who claims that "In all of these cases, the constitutions will only last as long as the ruler does." This is perhaps wishful thinking. After all, even a president with dissimilar ideological predispositions is likely to enjoy the power wielded by a strong executive. In Peru, for example, militants from President Garcia’s APRA party have called for a return to the 1979 constitution, which APRA played a critical role in drafting, rather than the executive-heavy 1993 Alberto Fujimori-influenced one. The president, however, seems to be content with the current charter and the discussion seems to have been blocked.

That said, the Boz post legitimately notes that Latin American constitutions have recently tended to be somewhat cumbersome. Part of the reason is progressive in nature: an attempt to ensure that previously excluded groups have their rights explicitly enumerated. In addition, more articles allows for horse-trading, such as the Bolivian government and opposition are currently attempting to engage in. But the unwieldiness of the charters, which often comes at the expense of clarity of principles, can be a real problem. And the effects on governance of either an unclear constitution or one that inadequately respects the separation of powers are unlikely to be salutary. Overall, however, the bet here is that looking back in a year or two, the superficial similarities that the article is based around will be less important than the differences caused by the individual environments in the three countries.

Weekly Governance Links: Corruption

Where there is a state, there will be public corruption; namely, the use of public office for purposes of self-enrichment. Though it can never be wiped out entirely, it can be fought and its damage minimized. Developing countries are obviously a focal point for anticorruption efforts, as graft’s effects are especially insidious in conditions of concentrated poverty. There are two major forms of corruption that are harmful in different ways. Petty corruption generally involves a small payment intended to facilitate some type of transaction, such as avoiding a police officer’s ticket during a traffic stop or even receiving a service that should be free. In many cases, government employees view petty corruption as a way to supplement meager state salaries. In some countries, this type of activity eats into poor peoples’ incomes in a meaningful way. Petty corruption also undermines the rule of law by weakening its normative power.

For the more ambitious public official, however, grand corruption is where the big money is. The forms are innumerable: an administrator who takes kickbacks from state contractors; the setting of regulations to benefit specific individuals or companies; outright theft. The following are links to both examinations of corruption and corruption-linked stories that have recently made headlines.

The study of corruption and its effects is a topic of ever-increasing interest for political scientists and economists as it provides the opportunity to examine the interplay of various forces, including regulations, individual incentives, social norms, and the effects of institutional strength and weakness. It can also be combative, as everything from the definition of corruption to the analysis of its effects is disputed. This overview by the head of Transparency International and, on a more theoretical level, this paper from Australian National University lay out some of the basic reasons why, as the title of the latter states, corruption is bad. This Management Systems International report, meanwhile, provides an accessible overview of the corruption literature. On a more empirical level, two interesting World Bank articles describe the effects of corruption of private firms, which are in most places the key building blocks of economic development. One focuses on the specific case of Mauritania, while another compares African and Latin American countries, concluding that the weakness of African states and institutions result in corruption being considerably more damaging there than in Latin America. Finally, a Latin America-specific report focuses on corruption’s effects on the region’s democratic governability.

On a more concrete level, scandals involving grand corruption are daily news in many countries throughout the world. Some of the most controversial current cases are occurring in Africa. In South Africa, the future leadership of the country may be at stake as corruption charges proceed against newly elected ANC party head Jacob Zuma. Meanwhile, Jackie Selebi, the head of the National Police and an ally of President Thabo Mbeki, has also now been charged in a separate case, further roiling South African politics. In Nigeria, the country’s most vigorous and effective anticorruption investigator, Nuhu Ribadu, has been relieved of his duties apparently due to what the Economist describes as high-stakes political maneuvering. Ribadu was famous for his estimate that corruption has cost Nigeria up to $380 billion in oil revenues since 1960.

Asia has also witnessed a number of corruption-related developments in recent weeks. In Thailand, the wife of former President Thaksin Shinawatra returned to the country to face the same corruption charges that Thaksin would confront should he decide to also return. In the Philippines, the ZTE telecoms scandal continues to hit officials all the way up to President Gloria Arroyo, who is now viewed by Filipino citizens as even more corrupt than former dictator Ferdinand Marcos! In Bangladesh, a report focuses on progress against corruption a year after the military takeover government; as described in the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report, the need to fight corruption was one of the military’s prominent rationales for taking power. With respect to Pakistan’s current muddle, a New York Times article from late December described how corruption has had a dramatic impact on the effectiveness of U.S. military aid. Finally, in Indonesia, one of the all-time titans of public corruption, former authoritarian President Suharto, is on the verge of death; he was never held to account for his well-documented corruption and human rights abuses.

There are a number of prominent international institutions focused on corruption that provide excellent resources. The most well-known is Transparency International, which produces the oft-cited Corruption Perceptions Index and Global Corruption Barometer. Another good resource for country-level summaries is the Business Anti-Corruption Portal, which focuses on 50 important developing nations. For evaluations of Latin American countries, the Organization of American States has a committee charged with monitoring adherence to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. The country reports found at the site are comprehensive, though somewhat technical. Lastly, one of the currently popular areas of focus is the use (or waste) of energy resources, which is critical since many energy-rich developing countries (see Nigeria above) have failed to translate resource abundance into sustained development. Two major international efforts, the Publish What You Pay campaign and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, aim to change that by convincing corporations and governments to make public the contracts governing the hydrocarbons sector; these can then be analyzed by outsiders, hopefully deterring corruption.

A Problem All too Easy to Ignore

That developing country prisons are often hellish places is widely understood. Conditions within them are often criticized for their essential unjustness. There is even the aphorism, attributed to Dostoevsky, that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." Yet the pernicious effects on governance of these broken institutions still receives short shrift in most countries. Given limited time and resources, after all, why not be concerned with people who suffer unnecessarily, rather than those who have presumably done something to earn their loss of liberty? If not for a sheer luridness that lends itself to (often sensationalistic) media treatment, they might merit even less attention.

But prison conditions matter a great deal, and the negative effects created by mistreatment often ripple throughout society. This can happen in lots of ways. Perhaps the most straightforward occurs when a petty thief enters an overcrowded, understaffed prison and is held in extended pretrial detention, all the while being exposed to the depredations of hardened criminals – and acquiring their skills. This occurs innumerable times a day, every day, throughout the world (and among supposedly advanced countries as well – the United States is notably retrograde in its attitude toward prison conditions).

Much worse results are possible as well. In many cases, human rights violations occur that lead to the physical and emotional degradation of prisoners, and often their deaths, which inevitably helps devalue human rights in society more generally. Latin America is notorious for violent, inhumane prison conditions*; while these to some degree reflect the reality outside, most observers agree that they also contribute to it.

More problematic yet is the scenario described in a fascinating New York Times article last week about the successful demands for special treatment carried out by Moroccan Islamists. Several things bear mentioning. One is that the worse the treatment the prisoners are subjected to, the worse the results can be for society. The tale described in the article of Abdelfattah Raydi is instructive: after being subjected to torture by Moroccan authorities, he blew himself up in an internet café. Correlation is not causation, of course, but the idea that the infliction of pain and humiliation upon an already troubled individual could lead to the final stage radicalization is all too plausible.

Another issue is the favoritism shown by authorities toward the Islamists. As described in the piece, the short-term, self-defeating nature of the strategy is evident. If prisoners determine that it pays to present themselves as extremists, that’s exactly what they will do. Moreover, such treatment clearly detracts from the (perhaps already feeble) deterrent effect of prison’s prospective privations.

The obvious answer to this situation is to improve prison standards and to focus on rehabilitation in order to at least prevent a trip to prison from leaving a person more likely to commit a (potentially more serious) crime than when he or she went in. A recent Economist article, based in part on a more detailed International Crisis Group report, describes one such effort being conducted in Indonesia, where ex-jihadis are being enlisted to counsel other inmates and convince them that attacks against civilians are wrong. As the piece notes, however:

[The ICG report’s] main [worry] was that the extreme corruption and disorder found in Indonesia's prisons may be negating all the scheme's attempts to persuade jailed militants that the system they are fighting is not utterly [un-Islamic].

This is the heart of the matter. Even if prisons fulfill their functions of punishment and prevention, if fundamental rights are violated and rehabilitation is not just ignored but actually reversed, prisons will fail to achieve their societal function. With crime rates rising in many parts of the world, including in states that are already fragile, developing countries can ill-afford to ignore the problems staring at them from behind bars.

*IPS articles sometimes require login but Googling the title usually leads to sites where the reports can be accessed.

Picture found at Time.com

Weekly Governance Links: China

As usual, there is no shortage of recent reports dealing with governance in China. Indeed, the enormous rise in attention as to how China is governed is one of the underrated virtues of China’s economic rise. The reasons for this go beyond the scale of economic growth or the country’s massive population (India is almost as big and receives significantly less international coverage of its government). While the pace of growth remains the primary factor, there are at least two other critical elements driving interest in Beijing’s actions. The first is China as threat. Leaving aside international security issues, the two forms of this brand of coverage have to do with fears about China’s economic impact on the rest of the world (they’re stealing our jobs! is the crudest expression of this) and, more and more, China’s impact on the global environment. The second factor driving the interest is more abstract: curiosity about how a system that, to Western eyes, is epically contradictory (repressive Maoist politics, semi-capitalist economics) manages to function. What follows are some links to articles and reports that describe and evaluate the huge task of maintaining political power and (relative) social harmony in China.

To dispense with modesty for a moment, an indispensable starting point for understanding China’s inner workings is Thomas Gold’s China chapter in the 2007 edition of Countries at the Crossroads, which directly addresses the theme of contradictions in the current Chinese governance model.

Regarding more specific issues, Chinese repression of the press is always a popular topic, due largely to the Chinese government’s aggressiveness against reporters. The 2008 Beijing Olympics have provided the occasion for many awareness campaigns about conditions in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists provides background on the press freedom environment, as does Human Rights Watch, as part of a broader Olympics-linked campaign. Reporters Without Borders deals with the specific issue of internet censorship, while the Washington Post describes a class on “Marxist Journalism” which is, depending on one’s interpretation, either another form of ensuring submission to government standards or a clever way of attracting government funds to train Chinese journalists.

Rule of law and the almost incomprehensibly opaque Chinese legal system is also frequently analyzed. Despite the hierarchical nature of the Chinese Communist party, rules are bendable even at the highest levels, and as one continues down toward the local level the rules achieve ever-increasing arbitrariness. For a comprehensive view, see this report from the NGO Human Rights in China. Meanwhile, a Council on Foreign Relations op-ed describes the politics of why achieving the rule of law poses such a dilemma for the Chinese Communist party. For the Chinese perspective, an audio file is linked to this CSIS event, where a member of People’s Supreme Court describes reform efforts. Finally, a China-centric legal blog, focused on business but with discussion of many other subjects.

One symptom of a weak rule of law is, of course, corruption, a problem that has become increasingly unbridled in China. A Carnegie Endowment report provides an estimate of the staggering costs. The Chinese government, perhaps finally spurred to action by the report’s harsh conclusions, established an anticorruption website – which promptly crashed.

Workers rights are yet another controversial topic in China, with conditions in many factories, mines, and sweatshops famously inhumane, which ought to be of particular embarrassment in a communist workers’ paradise. The Economist has two recent articles describing efforts to mildly reform workers’ rights, while also adjusting holidays – with the effect of further diminishing one of the valued symbols of socialism.

Finally, as mentioned above, environmental degradation has become a critical issue for Chinese governance, and one that is increasingly a driver of social unrest. The New York Times has been running a monster series of articles about the costs of environmental growth, while the Washington Monthly chips in with an article that asks the key question: is effective environmental stewardship even possible in such a closed political system? Indeed, that question can be applied to most of the above issues. China aspires to great things, but its outsized population creates outsized problems. The possibility of achieving what are viewed as absolutely necessary reforms while retaining iron-fisted political control remains very much in question.

Picture found at The Economist

Kenya Update

The post immediately below clearly requires some updating with respect to the election results in Kenya. As readers are undoubtedly aware, a tragedy is now unfolding as supporters of “defeated” candidate Raila Odinga (not that Odinga necessarily won, but given the close outcome and the reports of fraud there is no way of knowing) riot and battle with Kenyan authorities and members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe. The most complete coverage can be found at the BBC website. Particularly interesting is the article about tribalism, which gives some background to the current disaster and emphasizes that African politicians can be all too quick to resort to tribalism-based demagoguery when they perceive it to be to their electoral benefit (this happens in other areas too, of course, but the extremely multiethnic character of many African countries and tensions over scarce resources make the region particularly vulnerable).

On some level one has to wonder what Kibaki is thinking. Though his government is viewed as somewhat underperforming on governance issues (especially regarding equal treatment of citizens from all tribes), Kenya has generally remained stable in comparison with many of its neighbors. Kibaki is considered an intelligent leader, and had to know that victory in such a tainted election would spell trouble for his reputation and, more importantly, his country. The obvious answer to why victory was declared is a fear of losing the privileges that accrue to government leaders, as well as concern that a new government might be inclined to cut off privileges and possibly even prosecute members of the previous regime if corruption or other misdeeds are uncovered. But the blood of hundreds of dead Kenyans is now on the government’s (and partially on Mr. Odinga’s - see his statement in this article) hands. How could that be worth it? One suspects that a psychologist might be more useful than a political scientist in explaining such behavior.

Picture found at the BBC website (scroll to bottom of article)

UPDATE: For another good discussion of the context and potential repercussions of the current upheaval, please see this Dec. 31 Newshour transcript featuring Countries at the Crossroads Africa adviser and CSIS fellow Joel Barkan.