Military DREAM

An article at The Hill asks whether Democrats should support a version of the DREAM Act that only includes military service. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney claim to support that, though of course Romney only did so on his way to Florida.

Striking a compromise would allow Republicans to earn some points with Hispanic voters and lessen pressure on Republican lawmakers to support more comprehensive immigration reform. 

Walking away from possible common ground, however, could leave Democrats open to criticism that they missed a chance to make incremental progress. 

I don't think Democrats have much to fear. Latinos overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act, but my hunch is that support would drop like a stone if it meant only funneling people into the military.

We actually just had this discussion in my Politics of Latin American Immigration to the United States class. There are several points to keep in mind (and some of these ideas, I should note, came from a student discussion).

First, the DREAM Act is not intended to grab desperate military recruits who don't really want to be there. If you make the armed forces the only option, then that's what it becomes. Immigration and militarization is a delicate mix.

Second, the military is downsizing as we try to end two wars. Therefore it makes little sense to have it be the only option.

Third, through no fault of their own many people are ineligible for the military but are primed to go to college. They are out of luck under this plan.

Politically, Democrats likely have more to gain by insisting that the DREAM Act--which has majority support in the country--be passed in its entirety, and let Republicans explain why they refuse. I hope someone is putting out some polls as we speak to see how all this is perceived.

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Proposal to reform binomial system

Yesterday I blogged about the likely reform of Chile's electoral system. Miguel Centellas asked about existing proposals, so I poked around a bit.

Here is a PDF link from La Tercera with the brief proposal submitted by the presidents of the Christian Democratic Party and Renovación Nacional. They envision a semi-presidential system with the following characteristics:

1. The president can dissolve the legislature

2. The president chooses a prime minister who must be approved by a majority in the legislature

3. Proportional representation in the legislature (with specifics to be worked out later)

4. Term limits for all positions

5. System of primaries

6. Public financing of political parties

If you take this basic formula and add it to the recent passage of the voluntary vote and automatic registration, then you end up with a potentially radical change to the status quo. Chile would have a large number of new, mostly young, registered voters, along with a system that allows for small parties to gain representation. Those parties, in turn, will receive some sort of public money to help support them.

Details will matter. Having a prime minister doesn't automatically mean all that much. Can you name the current prime minister of Peru? It does, however, mean that coalitions will still be necessary.

And the details of proportional representation will matter a lot. There are any number of ways to construct it, that put more or less power in the hands of party elites versus voters.

Here is Ignacio Walker, president of the PDC, calling on President Piñera to act on the proposal: Here is Carlos Larraín, president of RN, explaining why he believes there needs to be a change. It is a-comin'.

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Piñera and the binomial system

In Chile, the electoral system is so tightly bound to a particular historical era--the dictatorship--and a particular political group--the far right--that it generates tremendous conflict. It is, in fact, even dividing the right. Sebastián Piñera, currently the least popular president in Latin America, recently announced that he did not consider the binomial system a priority.

From the Santiago Times:

In a continued show of bipartisan politics, the center-right National Renewal (RN) and center-left Christian Democrats (DC) held a meeting Monday to appoint Andrés Zaldívar and Jorge Burgos to head their initiative on binomial reform. 

Zaldívar, an RN senator, and Burgos, an RN deputy, will attempt to work with President Sebastián Piñera, who is an RN member himself, on the reform and hope to have a formal bill submitted to Congress by March. 

Along with DC Sen. Ignacio Walker, the two parties want to take the proposal their parties had previously submitted and turn it into a concrete political blueprint for changing the binomial system.

It is only a matter of time. The far right is not happy, but consensus has slowly grown over the years. Piñera's passivity will do him no favors. It would seem to cost him very little to endorse a reform that is going to happen anyway, unless he feels he needs that nod to UDI is necessary to get other things passed.

Update: Twitter response noted that Zalvídar and Burgos aren't RN. Excellent point, which I missed. Basic idea, though, remains the same.

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Primaries and Latin America

Michael Shifter throws up his hands with regard to the campaign rhetoric on Latin America during the Republican primary debates, and the stubborn refusal to have anything resembling a rational conversation about the region. He gets this just right.

To be sure, there are ample reasons to debate Cuba, along with other fiery issues like Venezuela and Iran's growing role in the region. But such debates should be anchored in facts and realities, and put in perspective. Across Latin America, there is a broad perception that Cuba occupies a disproportionate place on the U.S. policy agenda, the product of pressures from Florida's Cuban-American community. Washington is viewed as similarly obsessed with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who may be a nuisance and not a terribly constructive force in his country but whose regional influence has markedly declined in the past several years. 

Latin Americans believe Iran's moves in the region should be closely watched, but that, given their hard-earned democratic peace and prosperity, they do not offer fertile terrain for nefarious, destabilizing acts. They further believe that Washington should be careful not to exaggerate Iran's influence in the region, as Santorum did when he said, "Iran is organizing a Latin terror network." Within an increasingly self-confident and assertive Latin America, Newt Gingrich's reference in Florida to Iran's "overt violation" of the (long-defunct) Monroe Doctrine must have sounded especially outlandish and insulting.

The strong message being sent is that there are huge threats and the United States must swoop in and face them to save Latin Americans. Chances are very high that following such a strategy would make the U.S. less secure and more isolated.

Maybe I'm a hopeless dreamer. In the current political climate, is it even possible to have a serious debate about what the United States should be doing in Latin America? Does anyone care? It surely didn't happen in Florida, but perhaps it will in other primary contests, or in the general campaign. Like Newt Gingrich, we all have the right to fantasize.

The answer, sad to say, is no. Taken as a whole, it is foreign policy based on facts long past their expiration date and conspiracy theories.

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Drug war and policy termination

Renee Scherlen, "The Never-Ending Drug War: Obstacles to Drug War Policy Termination." PS: Political Science and Politics 45, 1 (January 2012): 67-73.

Abstract:

Why does the war on drugs continue after 40 years? This article combines theories of policy termination and prospect theory to explain the drug war's persistence. After reviewing the case for termination, the article turns to policy termination theory. As previous case studies have demonstrated, rationality and economic reasoning alone fail to persuade politicians to end existing policies. In the case of the drug war, specific characteristics of the drug policy and the current political environment, as well as typical institutional and bureaucratic constraints, create substantial obstacles to end the drug war. Perceptions of the risks and benefits of drug war termination also create difficulties. The article concludes that a number of factors need to shift before drug war policy termination can take place.

As Scherlen notes right away, it's hard to terminate any policy. In the case of the "drug war," this takes on greater significance because it is a policy that has failed according to every single metric you can conjure up.

Using prospect theory, Scherlen argues that use of language is key for understanding not only why a policy continues, but how possibly to terminate it.

The analysis of the drug war policy termination process highlights the role that opinion about drugs, drug use, and the consequences of policy termination are central to the drug war's persistence. In terms of prospect theory, drug war framing is the crucial element. There is presently a low probability of policy termination; the public and politicians prefer the status quo to the risks of policy termination. However, if domain perceptions can be altered, the prospects for termination grow stronger. Policy termination entails risk; the future is an unknown while the present is not. If pursuit of the present course were presented as leading to sure loss (in prospect theory terms, shifting perceptions to the loss domain), then people would become more risk acceptant. Another method would be to offer an alternative policy as a “sure bet.” The result would be to place perceptions of policy change into the gains domain. Again, this would lead to greater support for policy change. 

How can proponents of policy termination change public perception? Prospect theory experiments review that language is central. Highlighting prospective gains (for example, emphasis on tax revenue to be generated by policy termination) while emphasizing current losses (for example, persistent failure to achieve goals) could prove to be effective.

I don't see it changing soon, but the importance of language is interesting. The debate itself has to be reframed so that people see less risk with termination. However, it is difficult to imagine how any alternative could successfully be framed as a "sure bet," because, of course, none of them are.

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Rubio on immigration

Marco Rubio, the main name being tossed around for Republican VP and who finally figured out his own immigration story, namely that his family fled Fulgencio Batista rather than Fidel Castro, is talking about immigration as the Florida primary nears. However, he has done so in a fashion that answers very little:

Rubio stopped short of calling for comprehensive immigration reform. 

"How about everybody else? I don't have a magic answer for you," he said. "There is not political support for the notion of granting 11 million people citizenship or a path to citizenship. It's just not there. On the other side you can't deport 11 million people."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/27/2611305/immigrant-advocates-target-rubio.html#storylink=cpy

This, as you might guess, is not particularly helpful. But when you want to be chosen then platitudes framed as complex truths are what the doctor ordered, especially when the favorite has already come out against immigration reform. Rubio says he won't be the nominee, though of course that's also the perfect thing to say when you want to be the nominee. No presidential candidate really wants someone dying to be VP. In fact, I don't want a VP who really wants to be VP.

To be fair, even though he offers no real policy suggestions, Rubio goes much farther than any candidate in recognizing reality:

"You find it in the faces of the men outside of Home Depot ... the women who work long and hard hours sometimes without documents," he said. 

Speaking to a potential audience far beyond the mostly Hispanic crowd of 600, he added: "I ask you what if you were them? Let me tell you-if I was there, there are very few things I would not do. There is no fence high enough; there is no ocean wide enough that most of us would not cross to provide for them what they do not have."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/27/2611305_p2/immigrant-advocates-target-rubio.html#storylink=cpy

Rubio's chances have to be good for getting the nod. Republicans want the Latino vote and they want Florida. They also want tea party supporters, who tend to like Rubio. Add young and telegenic, and you're looking at a five-tool player.

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Innovation in Latin America

Andrés Velasco, the very popular former Finance Minister of Chile, wrote an op-ed very critical of the way business is done in Chile, and in Latin America overall. A tiny  and closed elite, often made up of an extended family, makes it impossible to move beyond the traditional commodity extraction model.

However good your startup business plan may be, obtaining the necessary financing is nearly impossible if you do not have the right connections or did not attend the right school. Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lima, and Santiago have their networking parties and incubators. But all too often they resemble an alumni reunion for posh academies, rather than a gathering of hungry, lift-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps types. 

And, if their startup fails, young entrepreneurs don’t tell the story with pride at the next party, as they might have done were they in Palo Alto, Helsinki, or Tel Aviv. In Latin America, bankruptcy and fraud are still inextricably linked in too many people’s minds.

Quite a bit to ponder. One problem, though, is that it is not simply "culture" we're talking about, but rather a deeply entrenched, historically rooted socio-economic system based on inequality. This isn't just about changing people's ideas. It also highlights the fact that a "free market" is not really very free.

But it is a good thing to have elites like Velasco talk more openly about how the apparently wonderful growth in Latin America is ephemeral and marks much less economic advance than claimed. In 1960, Chile had a small political and economic elite, and depended on copper. In 2012, Chile had a small political and economic elite, and depends on copper. And Chile is supposed to be the economic model for the region.

h/t Tuerto Magazine Twitter feed

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Stephen King's 11/22/63

I hadn't read a Stephen King book for years, maybe even twenty. I received his latest novel 11/22/63 as a gift. It's very long, about 850 pages, and absorbing. Its central theme is the quest of a man to save John F. Kennedy. He has a way of going back in time to late 1958 (and only that time, though he can do it over and over, resetting each trip) and he embarks on a complicated plan to kill Lee Harvey Oswald.

At first I was afraid it would be a version of Back to the Future. There's a little of that--he makes money by betting on sports--but it's minimal. The main character knows he is creating a butterfly effect, but despite warnings from the person who first found the time portal, he starts getting close to people and changing things. He also find that the past doesn't want to be changed so roadblocks keep popping up at him. The changes he does cause--with good intentions--don't tend to have good effects. He falls in love and that screws things up even more.

I won't spoil anything, but his quest to follow Oswald in Fort Worth and Dallas is a great story, including an effort to make sure he is acting alone before trying to kill him (after all, murdering him would be useless if someone else was trying to kill JFK).

The book does not wallow in nostalgia, and paints the late 1950s and early 1960s in what seems a realistic light. There is still violence and hatred, and people smoke constantly (I was reminded of this not long ago when I toured an old Air Force One, with ash trays everywhere).

Anytime a book is long, it will get reviews saying it needed editing down. This novel, like George R. R. Martin has put it for his own books, is immersive. King's afterword describes the research that went into making it as historically accurate as possible, while also admitting some creative liberties. You live the world, or really worlds, and people in the book. I found it to be a great ride.

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Presidential re-election in Latin America

Michael Penfold (who is critical of Hugo Chávez) has an interesting look at Henrique Capriles Radonski and the Venezuelan opposition in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Beyond the Venezuelan political context, however, he makes the following point:

Incumbents in Latin America rarely lose reelection bids. In the last three decades, there have been only two: Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Hipólito Mejía in the Dominican Republic.

Is this true? Augusto Pinochet lost his referendum to remain president, though it was not a re-election bid because he'd never been elected in the first place. In some countries, like Mexico and democratic Chile, presidents either can only serve one term or must wait one term before running again (thus making it impossible to be an incumbent).

Latin American presidents who might have lost a re-election bid have tended to resign or otherwise leave office (sometimes by force) before facing voters. Or they simply steal the election. Alberto Fujimori did both--he stole an election and then later resigned. The lack of a no-confidence vote means a string of coups, coup attempts, and forced resignations. Overall, it's a pretty depressing statistic.

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Latinos in Florida

Ruben Nararrette gets this right about Florida:

The estimated 10 million Latinos who are expected to cast ballots in November care about the same issues as other voters: jobs, the economy, health care, education. But with one major difference: Immigration tends to float to the top of the list when tensions flare, as they did last year when Arizona started a trend with a tough immigration law that all but requires the ethnic and racial profiling of Latinos.

A recent Latino Decisions poll confirms the basic argument for eligible Latino voters in Florida. Immigration is a distant third as a voting issue, but it is there.

Nonetheless, it is interesting that Mitt Romney is currently ahead for that same cohort, 35%-20% over Newt Gingrich, whose message on immigration is more centrist. No other Republican candidate received double digits. Romney favorables (very favorable + somewhat favorable) add up to 40%, and Gingrich's 33%. The main two issues for Latinos are the economy and jobs, so they may be holding their noses about immigration while believing Romney is the better choice for the economy (or, maybe, they agree with many Republicans who are repudiating Gingrich because of his problematic ethics past). Obviously Romney's goal in Florida is to avoid hostile language about undocumented immigrants, and he is already backtracking to consider the DREAM Act for people who serve in the military. Mr. Flip, please meet Mr. Flop.

On Cuba, both have tried to be anti-Castroier-than thou so that issue may simply not be on the table. For those who hate Castro, either candidate will do.

Another interesting tidbit: 7% of Florida Latinos have never even heard of Marco Rubio.

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Bad Cuba policy

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney talk Cuba. Some excerpts (note: it doesn't even matter who is saying what--their messages were identical).

"I don't think it occurs to a single person in the White House to look south and propose a Cuban spring," said Gingrich at an event sponsored by the FIU College Republicans....He said he wanted to send "a clear message to the younger generation of Cubans that there will not be a successor to Castro."..."If I'm to become the next president of the U.S., it is my expectation that Fidel Castro will finally be taken off this planet,"..."I will use the power of America to spread freedom in Latin America," 

The problem here should be abundantly clear. The Arab Spring was not proposed by the United States, and would have failed miserably if it had been. We did not tell Arab countries what would happen, or send messages demanding regime change, at least not until citizens of those countries had already determined the direction they were taking.

These points are critical for Cuba, because its history is rife with the United States telling it what to do. When the Castro regime falls, and someday it will, the optimal role for the U.S. is not to step in and propose the direction it takes. Sadly, chance are good the U.S. government will do so anyway, thereby complicating an already volatile situation.

The assumption that the United States can and should decide the fate of other countries is deeply ingrained in our collective psyches. It also has led to some of the most disastrous policy decisions of the last century.

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SOA and Bolivia

Following up on my recent WHINSEC post, here is an intriguing story. Juan Ramón Quintana is coming back to Evo Morales' cabinet as Ministro de la Presidencia. Who cares? Well, he took a few courses at the School of the Americas.

This contradicts the main argument of most opponents of SOA, which is that the graduates almost by definition are reactionary thugs. So having a leftist president make one a key adviser doesn't fit the prevailing narrative.

I keep thinking that the entire WHINSEC/SOA debate is stale. We know how terrible parts of its past (especially post 1959) were, but there are not simple causal arrows between participants and their later behavior.

h/t Eddie Avila on Twitter

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Immigration in the SOTU

Pretty substantial mention of immigration in the State of the Union.

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. 

That doesn’t make sense. 

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. 

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

This follows the basic administration strategy for 2012. Make the case (even with militaristic "boots on the border" imagery), fail in Congress, blame Congress, and tinker administratively to show that you're taking some sort of action.

Taking credit for the decrease of illegal crossings is a stretch, given that the poor state of the U.S. economy and demographic change play huge roles.

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Brazil and Iran

Who knew that Iran itself would undermine all the crazy arguments about how Iran is making dangerous inroads into Latin America? One of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisers went public about how Brazil isn't playing ball the way it used to. Not only that, but Iran appears to get testy when countries don't stand by it.

In recent months, however, trade ties between the two nations have frayed somewhat. Brazil’s exports to Iran climbed to $2.1 billion in 2010 from $1.2 billion a year earlier. But now some Brazilian companies have complained that it has become harder to obtain Iranian import licenses, curbing what had been an otherwise dynamic market for Brazil. 

“Since October, we noticed an abrupt break in purchases by Iran,” said Francisco Turra, president of the Brazilian Poultry Union, a trade group. He said that officials at Iran’s Embassy in Brasília and at Brazil’s Embassy in Tehran had assured his group that Brazilian exports were still welcome in Iran. Mr. Turra said he was awaiting the release of the new export statistics to determine how to proceed.

This strategy sounds quite similar to the United States during the Cold War. If you get all non-aligned on us, then we'll find a way to make you pay. Unlike the U.S., however, Iran has no political influence and limited economic leverage so these gestures carry little weight.

Dilma Rousseff has shown herself to be less interested in inserting Brazil into Middle Eastern politics and more interested in human rights abuses in Iran than Lula. Strangely enough, the Iranian government keeps saying that Ahmadinejad plans to visit Brazil this year. As sanctions tighten, Iran really wants to showcase how it has ties to major countries like Brazil, but I wonder whether Rousseff wants to stick her neck out that far.

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La promesa de Obama

The White House's latest strategy is to hold meetings as a way to explain the tortured process through which the administration tinkers with immigration policy while remaining unable to pass anything substantive.

The discussions track with one of Obama's 2012 re-election campaign goals: connect with a key voter bloc that may sway the outcome of November's election. 

And one of the issues being addressed at the meetings is what's been commonly referred to in the Latino community as la promesa de Obama - Obama's unfulfilled promise to Hispanics to pass comprehensive immigration reform. 

"Every conversation we've had around immigration lasts over four hours," said Jose Rico, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, who was part of the Evergreen session Saturday. Voters understand Obama's position better, Rico said, "when we spend the time with community leaders, explaining to them the process the president has taken."

This doesn't sound too inspirational. But it's what I argued would happen. The Republican debates have helped.

But Republican candidates may have so alienated Latino voters with their harsh rhetoric against illegal immigration during GOP debates that Obama's best weapon "may be the mouths of the Republican candidates," said Gary Segura, a professor of political science at Stanford University. 

Even Obama himself appeared to acknowledge that during a meeting with Latino journalists last month. "We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won't even comment on them," he told them. "We'll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds."

Obama's main strategy for immigration is simply to convince supporters that he is trying but Republicans are blocking, just enough to prevent them from staying home rather than voting.

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Tanks a lot

I am always repeating how Latin American countries rely too much on commodities, so I need to be fair. Chile, for example, does not only sell copper. It also might sell used European tanks to countries that, really, don't need them. Like Colombia, which is buying 60. Colombia needs plenty of tanks to fight a guerrilla war in the jungle as well as the phantom menace of Venezuela. Or maybe Colombia figures it can play with the tanks for a while, then still get some resale value by later selling them to an even poorer country that doesn't really need tanks.

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Rethinking WHINSEC

José M. Marrero and Lee A. Rials, "WHINSEC: Forging International Relationships, Strengthening Regional Democracies." Military Review January-February 2012: 55-58.

I think the topic of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, famously formerly the School of the Americas, is ripe for scholarly re-evaluation. I did a little bit, but it's been almost a decade. Too much of the literature is still stuck in the Cold War. WHINSEC needs to be critically examined as it exists in the 21st century, not for its past.

Supporters of the school can certainly play a part, but I was disappointed by this article, written by two members of WHINSEC's staff. It contains no references, and is just a repetition of the type of information already available at WHINSEC's website. It would be great for Military Review (and even its Spanish-language version) to publish something meatier in defense of the institution, something that engages the scholarly literature as opposed to assuming that SOA Watch typifies those who study it.

For now, unfortunately, objectivity is mostly absent. Academics who write about WHINSEC tend to dislike it--and often even the idea of military-to-military contact more broadly--and want it closed, while its supporters become defensive and proclaim its glories. Indeed, one of this article's authors rather angrily commented on this blog back in 2007 and accused me of never visiting a class at WHINSEC (when in fact I made two separate trips and did sit in classes, then wrote an article about the school's curriculum). Anyway, it's a sign of how the debate typically goes.

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