Two Weeks Notice: A Latin American Politics Blog

Drug war and policy termination

2012-01-30T10:09:00.001-05:00

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.

Rubio on immigration

2012-01-30T07:28:00.001-05:00

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.

Innovation in Latin America

2012-01-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

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

Stephen King's 11/22/63

2012-01-28T16:28:00.000-05:00

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.

Presidential re-election in Latin America

2012-01-27T09:02:00.000-05:00

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.

Latinos in Florida

2012-01-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

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.

Bad Cuba policy

2012-01-26T07:08:00.000-05:00

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.

SOA and Bolivia

2012-01-25T11:05:00.000-05:00

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

Immigration in the SOTU

2012-01-25T06:54:00.001-05:00

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.

Brazil and Iran

2012-01-24T07:07:00.000-05:00

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.

La promesa de Obama

2012-01-23T07:31:00.002-05:00

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.

Tanks a lot

2012-01-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

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.

Rethinking WHINSEC

2012-01-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

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.

Newt goes Fidel on Mitt

2012-01-20T15:36:00.000-05:00

Ah, Florida, where the "Latino" vote is very different from elsewhere. Mitt Romney already started Spanish-language ads there, and now Newt Gingrich has a Spanish-language radio attack ad that veers well into the insane. He says Mitt is soft on Fidel.

The ad opens with the phrase "Fatherland or Death, we will prevail," which uttered by Castro in Spanish said: "Patria o muerte, venceremos!"

"Unlike Romney, who uses statements from Castro, Newt Gingrich has fought against the regime with Lincoln and Ileana to approve Helms-Burton," the ad says in Spanish, referring to two Florida GOP Cuban-American members of Congress. "He supported the formation of Radio and TV Marti; and is in favor of holding the Castro brothers accountable for the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue airplanes."

Yes, Mitt screwed up the reference back in 2007. Obviously, though, he did not intend to somehow endorse Fidel Castro.

There is a long tradition of Fidel-baiting for presidential candidates visiting Florida, though it has become more muted in the general election. For a primary, however, you want as much red meat as possible. The major problem with this particular attack is that "Lincoln and Ileana" already endorsed Mitt in his ad.

Romney immigration myths

2012-01-19T07:52:00.001-05:00

So many myths, so little time. From the Mitt Romney campaign:

"We have to follow the law and insist that those who have come here illegally ultimately return home, apply, get in line with everyone else" to gain legal status, Romney said. "To protect our legal immigration system, we have got to protect our borders and stop the flood of illegal immigration."

Romney also rejected the idea that his position would alienate Latino voters, provided his message is coupled with a vow that he will improve economic growth. "As long as we communicate to the people of all backgrounds in this country that it can be better, and that America is a land of opportunity, we'll get those votes," he said.

First, "get in line" is a farce wrapped in ignorance. The backlog of cases is so massive, so daunting, and judges are so overburdened that we can talk of a line only if in the same breath we acknowledge that the line barely moves. The current system punishes virtually everyone.

Second, there is no flood of illegal immigration. It is hard to imagine Romney not knowing that, given that it has been splashed across all major news outlets. He uses it anyway because he figures it will rile people up who do not know he's wrong.

Third, it is true that Latinos--like all other groups--are focused on the economy, not immigration (this, incidentally, is a myth held by many on both sides of the issue) when considering who to vote for. But Romney is missing the point, because Latinos and immigration reform supporters are listening more to his tone, which is too often bordering on (no pun intended) or crossing over into acidic or at best indifference.

In the abstract

2012-01-18T10:38:00.002-05:00

Over the past several years, for my upper level courses I've developed an assignment requiring students to engage the scholarly literature. As I will in this afternoon's lecture, I spend a good amount of time explaining how to use abstracts to quickly determine the hypothesis, methods, and conclusion of academic articles--I put them up on a screen and we sort them out. This is especially important and useful when utilizing the online library databases, which provide lists of abstracts for any given search. The upshot here is that researchers should be able to use abstracts as a way to determine very quickly whether a given article would be of use. As scholars, we all write them, and we all use them.

So why are so many abstracts so poorly done?

In this indictment I include my own, or at least some of them. It occurred to me that I was never taught how to make one. When a journal or conference needed an abstract, I spent 2-3 minutes copying and pasting until I had about 100 words that conveyed the basic idea of the paper. Now as I try to teach undergraduates how to use them, I can see very clearly that all too few even state the hypothesis/main argument. They can often even be vague about conclusions. So many abstracts say something like "the effects of immigration are assessed" in the passive voice without explaining what the conclusions are.

All abstracts should state the main argument front and center, then the basic data/methods used, and the conclusion(s). Not only do you not need a lot of detail, you should avoid it. I've read abstracts that are something like 200 words, or two dense paragraphs. A Google search reveals many university links about how to write abstracts (such as my alma mater) advocating for 200 word abstracts, but that is not the norm for articles and in my opinion is too long. American Political Science Review, for example, limits them to 150 words.

That's my rant for the day, and an example of how teaching contributes to my own work.

Latino vote in NC

2012-01-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

From the Republican Party's Director of Hispanic Outreach:

“It comes down to swing states and small margins. Hispanic voters are going to be swing voters in these very important states,” including Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and North Carolina, she said.

Those are the very places some party strategists, activists and immigration experts argue Republicans will have the biggest challenge.

With regard to North Carolina, this is something we normally hear from the Democratic side, so it's interesting to hear it from a Republican. I've written before about how the Latino electorate in North Carolina is currently tiny, and the real key for Democrats in this swing state with small margins is to get African Americans to come out rather than stay home.

However, the future Latino vote will definitely matter a lot. For the GOP it actually makes political sense to campaign now as if it represented a swing vote. Heated talk of immigration will hurt him and the Republican Party, but will help him relatively little.

Why? Because the 2012 presidential election will be won or lost largely on the economy. Assuming Mitt Romney is the candidate, then President Obama will definitely go after him on immigration--he also wants to make sure Latinos don't just stay home--but that's not the heart of either campaign.

Romney, though, has only a short time horizon, and doesn't care about 2016 or 2020. The question will be whether he does believe that Latinos might represent a swing vote in North Carolina now. We'll have to wait and see what tone he brings.

Frost/Nixon

2012-01-17T07:21:00.001-05:00

One thing I don't like to say in polite company is that I have a long-standing Richard Nixon addiction. This isn't to say I like him, mind you, but the combination of insecurity, criminal inclination, indecision, aggressiveness, political acumen, intelligence and many other seemingly contradictory characteristics are fascinating. Back in 1994 I sucked down Fred Emery's book on Watergate, and watched the excellent documentary that was linked to it.

I hadn't had much time for it in recent years--remission, you might call it--but on a recent trip I rented Frost/Nixon, which I had not seen before, and subsequently I bought the book of the same name that David Frost wrote about his interviews. More than anything, it is illustrative of how Nixon convinced himself that he was always in the right, and could do anything he wanted as a result. That culminated in the famous quote, "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Criminality simply melts away in his mind.

There is a chapter dedicated to a transcript of the interview that focused on Chile. It underlines the fact that a) his knowledge of Chilean politics was sketchy; b) he didn't think knowledge of Chilean politics was particularly important; and c) all that mattered was that there was a government friendly to the U.S. Frost accurately pushed back, but Nixon just didn't care, and mostly wanted to emphasize that LBJ had acted against Allende too.

I enjoyed the movie, but it does divert from the book for dramatic purposes. In particular, the Jack Brennan of the movie, played as an authoritarian figure by Kevin Bacon, does not match the Brennan described in Frost's book. Nixon did ask Frost if he had "fornicated" recently, but the movie shows it as a way Nixon tried to throw Frost off, whereas Frost's own recollection was that Nixon clumsily wanted to be one of the boys, and had no idea how to do so. At the very least, if you liked the movie I would suggest taking a look at the book.

Reading more about Nixon these days is also a reminder that, bizarrely, he would likely be considered too liberal in many areas to win Republican primaries.

Inflation and presidential approval

2012-01-16T09:48:00.001-05:00

The fight over reporting inflation in Argentina continues to rage, with the opposition claiming 2011 should be 22.8 percent while the government will soon report something less than half of that. Venezuela has the highest in the region, at about 30%.

What's notable, though, is that it does not seem to drive down presidential approval. After a dismal period for a while, Cristina Fernández is now very popular, with approval of 67 percent. Her approval has actually increased in the context of double-digit inflation. Meanwhile, Hugo Chávez has decent approval--hovering around 50 percent--and it's fair to say inflation is not the top reason others view him unfavorably.

Meanwhile, there are unpopular presidents, such as Sebastián Piñera of Chile, who preside over low inflation.

So people obviously care about inflation, but they care about a lot of other things more when taking the measure of their president. I wonder, then, if there is any way to determine a tipping point. At what point do people start feeling disgruntled enough to start aiming their ire at the president?

It is worth noting that the constant media and political opposition attention to the higher levels of inflation in the region don't tell us much about popular reaction. Presidents have been ousted because of hyperinflation, but they may not even be voted out because of 20-30% inflation.

Romney's Chavismo

2012-01-15T09:40:00.000-05:00

The ultimate in populism is to hand people cash directly. You make sure that the individual then feels connected and politically beholden to you, rather than a faceless government bureaucracy. That person will then vote for you, and convince others to do so as well.

Hugo Chávez's Aló Presidente follows that principle. The president hears the cry of the individual, and directs his ministers to address it immediately.

Apparently Mitt Romney likes the model as well.

Mitt Romney gave a handful of cash Saturday to a woman who had told him she was struggling financially after an event in Sumter, South Carolina.

An aide said the GOP candidate gave the supporter "what he had on him" - about $50 or $60.

The woman, Ruth Williams, met Romney earlier in the week and told him she was having trouble making ends meet. On Saturday, Romney recognized Williams while he was shaking hands with supporters after a rally, an aide said.

Romney spoke to the woman and handed her several bills.

"He was kind to me," Williams said. "He held onto me and he made Gov. [Nikki] Haley and them come see about me."

It is exactly the same as Chavismo.

The non-problem of trade trends

2012-01-15T08:46:00.001-05:00

Andres Oppenheimer repeats the same old, tired, and unconvincing story that Latin American countries increasing trade ties with countries other than the United States constitutes a problem, perhaps even a crisis. Why this is the case is never made clear. I refuted the general idea in a December op-ed.

China's economy is doing very well, while the U.S. economy is still struggling. No amount of "attention" is going to change that fact. What's more, the diversification of trading partners is entirely good for Latin America, which then reduces its dependence on one partner. So what exactly is the problem?

Oppenheimer hands himself his own rhetorical sword by quoting someone from ECLAC:

While Washington in previous decades launched ambitious regional initiatives, such as the Alliance of Progress, the Initiative of the Americas, or the Free Trade Area of the Americas, today no such grand plan exists. Washington has bilateral ties, but no regional plan, she said.

Anyone with even a vague knowledge of U.S.-Latin American relations knows that those initiatives were failures. They were bloated visions of impossible futures that paid no attention to political realities within the countries they hoped to attract. The Initiative of the Americas is so obscure and non-influential that I never bother even mentioning it in my U.S.-Latin American relations course.

In short, the current state of affairs should not be considered a problem, and this non-problem should not be compounded with another regional initiative that will be doomed from conception.

But there is little question that for the first time in decades, there is no U.S. regional plan to increase trade ties with Latin America. It’s ok for Washington to look East, but it should also look south. Unless it does so, the bleak ECLAC forecasts for 2020 will come true.

The bleak forecast of what? He never says, and no one ever does.

Qualitative v. quantitative

2012-01-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

The qualitative vs. quantitative divide in political science annoys me. It annoys me even more when people use the cutesy "qual" and "quant" as pronouns (as in "quant" for "person who uses quantitative methodology"). It annoys me because in my opinion it should be self-evident that either method can be used really well or very poorly. I've read reams of both, and found some interesting and some banal, some downright terrible. Why so many people want to self-segregate is beyond my comprehension.

This is why I felt compelled to comment on Andrew Gelman's post at The Monkey Cage. He mocks David Brooks and then equates journalism with qualitative work:

Just to be clear: my point here is not to pick on Brooks, it’s more to demonstrate the gap betweenthe quals and the quants. Statisticians such as myself see sweeping statements and immediately think, “Yeah? Really? Why do you say that?”, while journalists such as David Brooks or Samantha Power seem to think deterministically and don’t seem to let data get in the way of their ideas.

Paradoxically, it is the quants who can be more accepting of uncertainty, while the quals are always ready to think that some simple formula can explain the world.

He makes fun of those who make sweeping statements, and then makes the sweeping statement that all qualitative analysis is inferior. The idea that qualitative research looks for "simple formulas" is absurd and has no empirical foundation.

I just don't understand the sneering, combined with the need to proclaim superiority.

Colombia and Mexico

2012-01-14T08:36:00.002-05:00

Elizabeth Dickinson has a worthwhile article in the Washington Monthly on Alvaro Uribe's security policies in Colombia and how they are not translating well to Mexico. The basic reason is that Uribe did not win the war against narcotrafficking. He dealt a devastating blow to the FARC and broke up the paramilitaries, but drugs continue to reap huge profits.

Across many of Colombia’s cities and towns, the violence looks less like the end and more like a new beginning of conflict. “Lots of people think that Uribe ended the paramilitaries, that narcotics trafficking went down,” says Salcedo. “But when you look, it’s really only been a reconfiguration [of the armed conflict].”

To be sure, this reconfiguration has been kind to many Colombians in many parts of the country, especially elites, who no longer fear that FARC is about to topple the state. But residents in parts of Medellín and Buenaventura, among other places, now say that the calm of the mid-2000s was little more than a cruel illusion. “There is permanent dispute for control” of the narcotics trafficking routes, says Victor Hugo Vidal, an activist for the Process of Black Communities working and living in Buenaventura. “When that fight for dominance is ongoing, the violence increases. And when someone becomes dominant, the violence goes down.”

And from a regional perspective, nothing has changed much at all. The intensity of the violence just varies from country to country over time from the balloon effect.

In its time and place, democratic security was an inspired strategy, albeit far from a perfect one. Until the demand for drugs dries up, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras— even far flung narco-conflicts like those in Guinea-Bissau and Afghanistan—will have to find their own medicine.

Yet if there is a lesson to be learned, perhaps it is as much for the United States as it is for these theaters of the drug war: the violence won’t stop until the narcotics trade does. Short of that, all that Washington—or anyone—can hope for is damage control. Off the main streets of Bogota and Mexico City, the damage is real. And not even Uribe knows the cure.

Feds vs. States

2012-01-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

Good article by Peter Schrag in The New Republic on how federal inaction has prompted state activism on immigration, focusing on California. There's nothing exactly new, but the argument is well articulated. This quote is perfect:

It’s long been obvious that, as it’s currently designed, the law can’t work

And that's the bottom line. Making laws that cannot be enforced is irrational from a policy perspective, even if believed to be useful in political terms. Either way, the result is an endless loop of law-breaking and complaints of law-breaking that create new unenforceable laws that expand the scope of law-breaking.

He also nails this:

If nothing else, it would be a challenge to Obama, who’s spent the past three years dithering between brave rhetoric about bringing the undocumented out of the shadows and, until recently at least, presiding over an enforcement regime—including a record 400,000 deportations in the past fiscal year—that’s tougher than anything under George W. Bush. The deportations almost certainly cut into the enthusiastic political support from Latinos and other backers of legalization that Obama enjoyed in 2008. COPA and the California laws favoring illegal aliens that preceded it indicate that in the face of Washington’s inaction on immigration individual states could go left as well as right. More important, it makes the need for federal action all the more urgent.

I've argued along similar lines as well.

The Lexicographer's Dilemma

2012-01-13T07:07:00.001-05:00

If you like words and writing, then go read Jack Lynch's The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park. It is a history of the power of words and how people have struggled to control them. He emphasizes that the book is descriptive rather than prescriptive, and in fact some of the best parts are his descriptions of others' prescriptions. There is no ruler across the knuckles here.

Lynch documents the many unsuccessful efforts to codify and control the English language. Jonathan Swift wanted an academy (as exist for French, Spanish, and Italian) to control the entrance of new words. These days, fortunately we still have no rigid and elitist academy, but Merriam-Webster's Dictionary gets plenty of media attention for its decisions. In 2011, for example, new words included tweet, cougar, and robocall. Words also get removed, like snollygoster. We may get sick of new words, like sexting, but language is far beyond anyone's control so these new words go in regardless of whether they think they're unworthy:

English has been growing and changing haphazardly for fifteen hundred years and has never taken kindly to attempts at regulation (p. 70).

He gives countless examples of how language develops because of custom, yet people get very up in arms when someone breaks the rules. That includes me, since I cringe when I read student papers confusing its and it's, or there/they're/their. Read aloud they are the exact same, but they hurt my eyes. I care because it's wrong, yet being "wrong" just means that lots of people think it's wrong.

And thinking of wrong and right, who knew how much fighting there has been over what to include in the dictionary, with new dictionaries written to counteract the evils of other dictionaries? Etymology can be so odd--some words are so offensive that people have been wary of them for centuries yet we don't even know for sure where they originated or why. At the same time, some words are controversial now, yet in a generation or two we will forget there was a dispute (did you know that "finalize" was roundly denounced as indicative of English's decline back in the early 1960s?).

Of course, no discussion of word regulation can exclude George Carlin, whose stand-up routine on the seven words you can't say on television took on a life of its own as the FCC paid attention. (For something a bit less raunchy, his take on the language of football versus baseball is classic). The entire chapter on obscenities alone is worth it--both illuminating and funny.

I've reviewed other books about words in the past. I am a sucker for these things.

Counting undocumented crossings

2012-01-12T08:30:00.002-05:00

If you weren't paying close attention, you couldn't be blamed for thinking no one crosses the border illegally anymore. I almost choked when I read the patently false headline in The Atlantic: "Latino Immigration to the U.S. Could End This Year" and then watched as it zipped all over Twitter. Incidentally, it was a perfectly good article by Shannon O'Neil that does not make such a claim, and I am sure she had no control over the headline. This op-ed in the New York Times is more accurate, noting the net number of Mexicans crossing illegally is zero. That echoes the widely cited quote by Douglas Massey at Princeton.

“No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

What has arisen is confusion between flow and net flow. The flow will never stop. Because of enforcement, circular migration is no longer as prevalent as it once was, but the idea that people have stopped crossing illegally is absurd. No matter what we do at the border, people will always cross. We can slow it, but we can't stop it.

The net flow, however, does not mean people stop crossing. If it is zero, that means the number of people entering matches the number of people leaving. This is historic and important, but not the same as no flow. If you had read a certain book, you'd have been clued in a long time ago about how demographic shifts in the United States and Latin America would have this effect.

I like finding evidence that supports ending the wasteful and obsessive spending on enforcement, and I support the policy suggestions of the NYT op-ed. However, I want the evidence to be empirically valid. Pretending that undocumented crossings have stopped gives the false impression that a long-standing historical reality suddenly ceased while no one was paying attention.

Why do I care? Rational immigration reform must acknowledge the never-ending flow of people and embrace it. Otherwise it will fail. In particular, we have to remember that demographic trends are always shifting, as are economic (the fact that bankers screwed up our economy plays a big part here) and political conditions. Together, they determine how many people will be trying to cross illegally in any given span of time. Good policy has built in flexibility. To say that the flow has stopped is to say that history has ended, and that doesn't get us to good policy.

Mexican candidate numbers

2012-01-11T09:43:00.001-05:00

Enrique Peña Nieto has a hard time keeping his foot out of his mouth, which may account for a dip in the polls. Still, he has 42 percent support versus Josefina Vázquez at 21 percent (other PAN hopefuls are much lower than that) and AMLO at 17 percent.

With that kind of lead, along with disaffection with the PAN and the general sense that AMLO is off his rocker, it is hard to see Peña Nieto losing regardless of his too-frequent gaffes (this is a particularly funny one).

I can't help but wonder what the scenario would be if the PRD's candidate were Marcelo Ebrard.

See also Americas Quarterly blog.

Boehner's trip

2012-01-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

John Boehner is leading a small congressional delegation to Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico to talk trade. Two things caught my attention in particular. First:

In particular, the delegation will assess the implementation of the Colombia free trade agreement and its impact on job creation in the United States, and look at steps taken by Latin American countries to foster jobs and economic growth at home.

Much of this isn't actually possible. The FTA has not even gone into effect, so there is no way to measure its impact on anything. The connection between FTAs and jobs in the U.S. is difficult to measure in any case, and is fraught with correlation vs. causation confusion (and impossible for members of Congress being ushered around countries).

Second, after visiting a heavily militarized favela:

“What’s happening here is a great example of how they can bring everyone into society as a whole, and where everyone has a chance to be treated equally,” Boehner said.

He has it exactly backwards. The reason the Rousseff government, like Lula before, has to send troops into neighborhoods is because the inhabitants still are not being treated equally. I hope "pacification" leads to equality of opportunity, but they are not synonymous. Let's see after the Olympics and World Cup are over, and it's no longer necessary to worry quite so much about what foreigners think.

Ahmadinejad's trip

2012-01-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed by a reporter for Al Jazeera this morning on Ahmadinejad's trip to Latin America. Anyone who's been reading this blog at all knows more or less what I said. Really, the more I think about it, the more I feel it is much ado about nothing. We'll hear lots of bluster about the empire and about grand development projects that will never materialize. Then in the U.S. we'll hear lots of bluster about Iran trying to attack the United States from Latin American bases.

Venezuela, of course, is the centerpiece of the trip. When push comes to shove, though, neither Iran nor Venezuela has much to gain from each other beyond symbolic alliance against the United States, and that can only take you so far. Neither president has domestic support for sticking his neck out too far for the other.

Accusation vs. hypothesis

2012-01-08T08:37:00.000-05:00

Hugo Chávez says he did not accuse the United States of spreading cancer to South American leaders. Instead, he just hypothesized it.

"Lo que he dicho es que me parece muy extraño que en tan corto tiempo nos haya dado cáncer a (Fernando) Lugo, a Dilma (Rousseff), a Chávez, Lula (Da Silva) y después a Cristina. Yo no he acusado a Estados Unidos, ni a nadie, sólo lancé una hipótesis"

This is a distinction that made me think of academia. Was he planning on figuring out a way to test his hypothesis? It's not clear to me where the line is between an accusation and a hypothesis. With both, you have reason to believe a causal relationship and you look for evidence to support it. I plan to use this in articles--I am not accusing you of having a faulty argument, I am just hypothesizing it!

At any rate, as it turns out Cristina Fernández does not have cancer (nice presidential doctors!) so the hypothesis is not testing well.

Political effects of protest

2012-01-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

Roger Burbach has an article in NACLA about protests in Latin America that raises an interesting question: what political effect will they have? At least to this point, the answer appears to be different from what the article suggests.

These movements are highly diverse in their social and political composition, and they are anti-systemic, raising fundamental questions and challenging the existent order.

I don't think this is true, by which I mean the protests have not attempted to destroy the system, but to increase their leverage with it. Take the Chilean and Mexican examples, which he examines in depth. Looking toward presidential elections in both countries, all the likely candidates are establishment, with no one else in sight. The only anti-establishment candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been making up with the establishment (e.g. no longer constantly using the word "mafia") ever since he became the PRD's official candidate.

The comparison to OWS are particularly instructive. Except perhaps at its very small core, OWS is not anti-systemic, and in fact would have zero influence if it were. Rather, it is pointing to problems that the system should fix. The exact same is true with the Chilean education protests. This could change, but it is premature to lump Latin America (or OWS) in with the Arab Spring (as he does).

One important point the article makes, however, is that ideology does not explain much. For all the over-simplified "good left, bad left" rhetoric, there are protests against all different types of governments, even supposedly radical ones like in Bolivia or Ecuador. If anything, the protests have revealed conservative tendencies in leftist governments.

Advice for academic bloggers

2012-01-06T07:27:00.000-05:00

Chad Black links to some advice for academic historian bloggers. I've read some other similar posts elsewhere recently, and I think it's fair to say there is a steady trickle of them as new people start blogging. Collectively, they reminded me that I find myself disagreeing with the typical "list of tips for academic bloggers" that I come across. In general, I dislike blogging rules because they seem to negate the precise reason I really enjoy blogging, which is that I can do whatever I want, following only my own whims, which can and do change.

So my first piece of advice is to ignore lists of advice. Seriously. Almost every list warns you to publish often, but you can forget that. Write when the muse hits you, and don't bother yourself if it lags. People read blogs largely through RSS readers, and your post will show up even if it is not frequent (I don't actually go directly to blogs all that often, unless I am commenting or want to look at something specific--in Google Reader I have plenty of blogs that update once a week or less, and I read them when they pop up). If I felt I was on deadline, I would hate it, and the only reason I blog is because it's fun. I get all sorts of benefits from it, particularly in terms of connecting with people I otherwise would never know, but I would stop on a dime if it ceased being fun. For me anyway, blogging rules aren't fun.

Write long posts, write short posts. Post pictures, or don't. Write book reviews, or don't bother. Give your views on controversial current events, or don't. If you want your own domain name, go for it, but you don't have to. Promote through Twitter, or don't. All the rules about such things bewilder me.

My second, and last, suggestion is to begin by copying the style of blogs you read a lot and enjoy. As you get going, you will think of your own new things to do. How do they link up to other blogs? Is the tone a little stuffy, too snarky, too dry, or just right? How do they handle comments? Be your own Goldilocks and by reading others you can decide what feels just right. Blogs should grow organically without submitting to arbitrary dictates.

Actually, I have a third point, namely that you should feel absolutely free to ignore everything I just wrote.

More on Iran in Latin America

2012-01-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

I recommend Stephen Johnson's (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs under George W. Bush, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) take on Iran in Latin America. The conclusion:

A lot of what we think we know about Iran’s activities in the Americas is based on sketchy evidence, such as newspaper reports of a jointly constructed missile base planned for Venezuela’s Paraguaná Peninsula. Overstating the case for action could set back relations with friendly neighbors and make cooperation, when needed, less likely. Instead, U.S. and friendly intelligence services should boost efforts to understand the degree to which Iran is circumventing sanctions, transferring technology and materials, establishing an Iranian Guard presence, and engaging terror groups for possible attacks. Obtaining reliable information is a necessary step in mounting an effective defense. After that, maintaining links by offering a competitive relationship advantage, even with disputatious neighbors, is the best way to minimize the appeal of competing powers.

That echoes more or less my recent post on the topic. What people claim to know about Iran's activities in the region is based on weak sources. This does not mean Iran isn't doing anything dangerous, but rather we know much less than many people claim to know. This is really important when making policy decisions because bad policy can isolate the United States, which is the opposite of what we need.

Authoritarian terminology in Chile

2012-01-04T12:37:00.000-05:00

A controversy is brewing in Chile because of a decision to replace the word "dictatorship" with "military government" in primary school textbooks.

When I was interviewing military officers in the late 1990s, I quickly realized how much language mattered. They used "military government" exclusively. It is in fact strictly accurate, since the president was an army general and many government positions were held by military officers, but of course it is much more generic than "dictatorship" and does not convey the same obvious image of repression.

Also important to the military was use of the word "pronunciamiento" rather than "golpe." From their perspective, there was a constitutional removal of a government, not an illegal coup, since the Chamber of Deputies had declared Salvador Allende to be violating the constitution and asked the military to take action.* Again, it is the use of a fairly bland term instead of one that immediately conjures up certain negative images.

More generally, it is a reminder of how much textbooks matter in every country, and certainly we hear about this pretty much constantly in the United States. Even if children don't bother reading them, their teachers will be using them to frame their own discussions in the classroom. They are a critical part of the construction of national identity, so revisions--subtle or otherwise--are a high-stake endeavor.

*The rationale of the Honduran military in 2009 was very similar.

Darkness at Noon

2012-01-04T08:38:00.001-05:00

Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon is one of those classics that I had always heard about but until now had not read. What a great novel. You can click on the link above for the plot, but it is an examination of how the Communist Party, particularly under Stalin, worked to eliminate all independent thought, to destroy the "first person singular."

What's especially interesting is that the main character, Rubashov, is not even particularly likable. He had wholeheartedly embraced the party line to the point of having people killed for failing to follow it or even questioning it. What we see is how a grain of doubt spread and became a cynicism and skepticism that he could not longer hide. In the novel, as in real life, that led inevitably to execution. Individuals, even thousands or millions of individuals, were unimportant compared to the greater good of the party, which in turn was directed Stalin (referred to always as "No. 1" in the novel).

Overlaying the novel is a sad sense of resignation. Writing in 1940, Koestler could not have known, though maybe he assumed, that for Eastern Europe there was no end in sight for repression. Only later, much later, would it be clear how wrong all this was:

There was no certainty; only an appeal to that mocking oracle called History, who gave her sentence only when the jaws of the appealer had long since fallen to dust (p. 12).

Koestler died only a few years before the Soviet Union fell apart.

Brazil and ethanol subsidy

2012-01-03T08:12:00.001-05:00

I heard on NPR this morning the argument that the end of the ethanol subsidy in the U.S. will not affect Brazil because Brazilian domestic demand is outpacing supply to the point that Brazil is actually already importing from the U.S. Indeed, that is the case, by about 25 percent, to the point that it will take two years for the imbalance to change. I take it that all of Brazil's complaints--which included going to the WTO--were based on the past when this wasn't true.

Romney: Stop Dreaming

2012-01-02T07:21:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney is using anti-immigrant rhetoric to compensate for other problems he has with conservative primary voters. Not only does he not support the DREAM Act, but now he hates it so much he would veto it.

“If I were elected and Congress were to pass the DREAM Act, would I veto it?” Romney said, repeating the question a voter asked him at a campaign stop in Le Mars. “The answer is yes.”

Expect this to come back if Romney becomes the candidate. A majority of Americans support it, so it will be easy for Barack Obama to frame Romney as heartless, as Rick Perry has already done. This won't necessarily change the minds of many voters, but could be part of a general negative image that turns off moderate voters.

Revolution anniversary

2012-01-01T12:04:00.000-05:00

Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have begun 2012 by paying homage to the Cold War, namely celebrating the 53rd anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Seemingly without irony, the Venezuelan government lauded the revolution as a source of inspiration for oppressed people. Daniel Ortega also had kind words to say, and probably was also thinking that without Cuban support, there's no way he would have been in a position to get so much booty from the Piñata.

Dealing with Iran in Latin America

2011-12-31T08:25:00.000-05:00

Media and politician attention on the Latin America-Iran connection is not new, but seems to be getting more frantic. There are lots of vague pronouncements about how the U.S. needs to do more. More! Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is up in arms, and wants the U.S. to do more. Even Barack Obama seems to be telling himself to do more. We can resolve everything if we just do...MORE.

The end of this Reuters piece leaves us hanging, but points to the essential question that I have yet to see addressed, namely what policy change toward Latin America would "more" entail?

Obama and Clinton have yet to spell out the consequences of flirting with Iran against Washington’s wishes.

In all of these analyses, there is the unquestioned assumption that the U.S. can and should punish Latin American governments for doing things it doesn't like. Even setting aside the clear sovereignty implications, there is also the assumption that the U.S. can obtain by force or pressure the political outcome it wants. In this case, it is a decrease of Iranian influence and punishment of Hugo Chávez for acting in ways the U.S. government does not like.

But what policy will achieve these outcomes? In short, what is the "more"? Sanctions will undoubtedly a) push the affected countries more firmly into the arms of U.S. adversaries; and b) generate considerable sympathy in Latin America for them. Given the history of U.S.-Latin American relations, U.S. intervention is viewed with suspicion, even by allies, and especially when aimed at democratically elected governments. That will mean a marked decrease in U.S. image and influence precisely at a time that everyone claims we need to be increasing them. What about use of force, either overt or covert? A and B still apply, only in much greater measure. CELAC is now a shell organization, to take one example, but could in fact be given new life by bad policy decisions on the part of the United States.

If you want to take punitive action, then be open about it, and at least discuss the fairly easy to discern negative outcomes that will go along with it. At least up to this point, I have not seen anything resembling that. Instead, the all-inclusive "more" is aimed at the Obama administration without any specific pros and cons, or specific anything. No matter what you think of Iran's presence in Latin America, however, it is critical to remember that doing "more" blindly can produce the opposite outcome of that desired.*

This reminds me so much of the Cuba embargo, where supporters never articulate a connection between policy and political outcome, in no small part because it is not possible. Action for the sake of saying you're doing something is bad policy making, and will lead to something you don't want.

* It is also worth noting that U.S. policy toward Iran from the 1940s to the 1970s helped to produce the exact opposite outcome of what we wanted.

Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding

2011-12-30T15:52:00.000-05:00

I can understand why Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding has received so much acclaim. I couldn't stop thinking of Richard Russo as I read it because there are a lot of similarities. A small liberal arts college town (though in Wiconsin rather than the northeast), painstaking character development, out-sized characters doing sometimes out-sized things, and injection of humor all come together as people's lives crisscross and are transformed by different kinds of traumas.

Baseball is a major theme of the book, though you wouldn't even need to care about baseball to enjoy it. Two of the main characters are teammates on the college baseball team, and one of them--who sees baseball in Zen-like manner--develops Steve Blass Disease, meaning that you suddenly cannot throw accurately (given my generation and the fact that he was an infielder, I immediately conjured up Steve Sax). That sets in motion a whole series of consequences on the field and in the characters' private lives that ripple out. But another major theme is Moby Dick (for reasons the novel goes into, the college's sports teams have the name Harpooners) and literature more generally. This is a group of people who are unusually well read.

It is a coming-of-age story, since the majority of the main characters are college-aged, but I found it went beyond that. Death, marriage, homosexuality, drug addiction (albeit mild), academic success and failure, and even baseball rituals are all examined in interesting ways.

For another take, I think the NYT does a good job reviewing it.

Parties and voters in Chile

2011-12-30T09:04:00.001-05:00

The November-December 2011 CEP poll has nothing but bad news for Sebastián Piñera, who at 23 percent approval is one of the least liked presidents in Latin America. Chileans don't like much of anything he's doing. One consequence is that more Chileans than ever do not identify with any existing party coalition. That has been one of Piñera's "accomplishments."

This is important in the context of the recent reform that makes registration automatic and voting voluntary. These "ni nis" (ni gobierno ni oposición) will be now be voting. However, there is a major disjuncture because the country still has the binomial electoral system at the legislative level. This means a load of new voters in an antiquated system that precludes new parties from becoming involved.

As it happens, the CEP poll also shows that support for the binomial system has been dropping hard since Piñera took office. Sixty percent think it should be changed, while only 17 percent think it should be maintained. Depending on how it is done, that reform could really shake up Chilean politics.

Don't iPhone For Me, Argentina

2011-12-29T13:27:00.000-05:00

Here's one way to make economic policy: block sales of a popular consumer product:

Argentina has blocked the sale of iPhone and BlackBerry devices in a move that is intended to boost its ailing economy. The ban is part of a selective consumer electronics ban aimed at slowing inflation and balancing its own pesos currency against the U.S. dollar.

It is similar to traditional import substitution industrialization. If you want to sell, you need to build a plant in Argentina or partner with an Argentine company. And with other companies it actually may have worked:

Other manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia and Samsung have already moved part of their manufacturing to Argentina after the government passed Internal Revenue Law which nearly doubled tax levies for certain imported devices.

It seems like a game of chicken, particularly for a very popular product. The government doesn't want to anger its middle class, who want iPhones and BlackBerries, yet companies don't want to lose the large Argentine market. Thus far, apparently many companies are swerving.

The Wall Street Journal discussed this issue recently, and basically came to the reluctant conclusion that the Fernández government is very protectionist but that it was not suffering as a result. Somewhere there is a tipping point where companies stop swerving and just leave the market, but it hasn't happened yet.

Update: Punk'd. Apparently this was a joke and it is not really true. This deeply disappoints me, because I thought it was a cool story and I got to use the chicken game metaphor. It is also deeply disappointing to learn that not everything on the internet is true. Bummer!

Foreseen consequences

2011-12-29T09:51:00.002-05:00

The Chicago Tribune published an editorial about immigration reform that I almost entirely agree with. The conclusion:

The lesson here is that the one-dimensional, enforcement-only approach doesn't address the root of illegal immigration: Businesses need workers. When the system fails to provide enough visas to fill the available jobs, employers and workers find ways around it. Those needs should drive our immigration policy.

Absolutely true. But here's the one problem I have:

Crops don't get picked. Chickens don't get plucked. Kids don't go to school. And the line at the Department of Motor Vehicles is really, really slow. Those are among the unintended consequences of Alabama's overreaching immigration law.

I have come to dislike the phrase "unintended consequences" with regard to immigration because it suggests that these outcomes were never foreseen. But they were. In Alabama and elsewhere, state legislators heard from farmers and a wide variety of other groups about what would happen, but they chose not to listen. There were editorials in newspapers large and small about what would happen, and there were countless news stories about what was already happening in Arizona. And all were ignored.

Ultimately, any elected official who finds him or herself surprised by these outcomes is unfit to be making binding decisions on others. They chose to live in a bubble that repelled all contrary arguments, then found themselves with a new law that does terrible damage to their constituents. It wasn't that they wanted these consequences so much as they consciously steered the state in a direction that guaranteed them. That might be splitting hairs, and in any case the results are the same (such as punishing the elderly).

Pirates of the Levant

2011-12-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

I have an odd attachment to Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste series of novels. Some of them, including Pirates of the Levant, lack much of a plot. What they do, though, is to take pains to explain the exaggerated pride and twisted sense of honor that characterized Imperial Spain (the story takes place in 1627). The books focus on the common soldier, murderous types who feel a strong allegiance to a monarchy that they openly admit does nothing for them.The king does so little for them that soldiers feel the need to resort to piracy to augment their meager incomes (and the king gets a cut of that booty as well). All they do is fight--any other work, even rowing a galley to save themselves, is dishonorable. It is an image of empire built almost entirely on violence, without even a pretense of doing good for those being colonized and exploited. Captain Alatriste and the others are cogs in this machine, trying to create a sense of meaning for themselves.

Economic reform in Cuba

2011-12-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

I know that media and political attention on Cuba is focused almost exclusively on Alan Gross and other prisoners--free or not--but we should not forget the ongoing reforms that are going to transform the country. From The Havana Times:

At 500 bank branches throughout Cuba, on-going credit commissions are being set up to begin making loans for business start-ups and expansion.These commissions will be charged with conducting a risk analysis of each application received, which will be crucial since the law does not allow banks to confiscate collateral from debtors.

This provides a source of capital previously available only to those who obtained it illegally or with relatives who sent remittances, though it assumes people can successfully navigate the risk analysis (and do not need to pay anyone off to do so). Ownership will foster important changes in Cuba.

Electoral reform in Chile

2011-12-24T12:21:00.000-05:00

So what happens when you suddenly enfranchise millions of people, many of whom have not felt connected to the political system? With passage of automatic registration and voluntary voting, Chile will find out. I wrote about some of the background here.

So what does this mean for the next presidential election? My immediate thought is that this puts Michelle Bachelet in a good position. She has said nothing, but rumors are rampant about her running again (in Chile, you can serve two terms but not consecutively). The two coalitions are unpopular but she left office with a high approval rating and can attract many of those new voters. The sticky part is her establishment status, which as I've argued elsewhere can be problematic.

Regardless, this is good for Chilean democracy. Make it as easy as possible for people to participate but don't punish them if they decide not to.

Fighting Hugo

2011-12-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

If you call the government of Hugo Chávez a "radical Islamist regime" then you are loopy. There is no reason to do so unless you want severe policy changes. I think Stephen Walt sums up the logic nicely.

There is a simple and time-honored formula for making the case for war, especially preventive war. First, you portray the supposed threat as dire and growing, and then try to convince people that if we don't act now, horrible things will happen down the road. (Remember Condi Rice's infamous warnings about Saddam's "mushroom cloud"?) All this step requires is a bit of imagination and a willingness to assume the worst. Second, you have to persuade readers that the costs and risks of going to war aren't that great. If you want to sound sophisticated and balanced, you acknowledge that there are counterarguments and risks involved. But then you do your best to shoot down the objections and emphasize all the ways that those risks can be minimized. In short: In Step 1 you adopt a relentlessly gloomy view of the consequences of inaction; in Step 2 you switch to bulletproof optimism about how the war will play out.

To be fair, I don't think most of those who hate Chávez want war, but they do want him out and the author of this piece was a player in supporting the Honduran coup. As with Honduras, we have a stew of real problems, total fabrications, hatred, half-baked arguments, and politicians repeating the word "threat."

Mockingjay

2011-12-22T10:33:00.000-05:00

Mockingjay is the last book of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The novel is noteworthy for its refusal to paint anyone in simple or pure terms. War is dark and brutal, and no one can say with certainty how they will act when in its grip. More to the point of the trilogy, not only can no one protect children during wartime, but neither can they control how children act, for good or ill.

In this case, the context is civil war as the Capitol struggles to maintain control over the country. Both sides use TV as much as possible, staged representations of what they want people to believe. In fact, both sides are dictatorial, albeit in different ways. Even the "good" side is distasteful. The protagonist, Katniss, constantly worries that she is getting people killed and ponders how she is being manipulated by the leaders who are ostensibly on her side.

The plot twists constantly and violently, leaving you (or at least me) in doubt about how it would end. I'm not giving anything away by saying that, like war itself, the result is not rosy.

Asia and Latin America

2011-12-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

Mercosur's decision to impose high tariffs to protect itself from Asia should remind us that there is no simple "China is winning, the U.S. is losing" scenario.

In recent months, Argentina and Brazil have voiced fears that Asian exporters might seek to offset soft demand in the U.S. and Europe by flooding Latin America with cheap manufactured goods.Mercosur needs to step up efforts "to defend the Latin American markets from this invasion of goods," Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Monday.

Latin American governments are pursuing self-interest, and that does not mean throwing their economic doors wide open to any particular country. Their views of China are not unlike the way we tend to view China in the U.S., namely that we want your financing but are nervous about your cheap stuff.

Note to Hugo Chávez

2011-12-19T12:07:00.001-05:00

Note to Hugo Chávez: expressing condolences about the death of Kim Jong Il while also saying you support the right of the North Korean people to govern themselves is a pretty serious contradiction, and a direct insult to all the people suffering there because of totalitarianism. Saying that you have "plena confianza" in North Koreans to determine their own future is willful ignorance, which is really the most charitable way to put it. Finally, calling him "Comrade" is a pathetic joke.

Quote of the day: Cuba

2011-12-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

Kim Jong Il compartia el mismo "pecado original" con Raul Castro: no habia sido electo, heredo el poder por via sanguinea

Kim Jong Il shared the same "original sin" with Raul Castro: not having been elected, inherited power by bloody means

--From Yoani Sánchez's Twitter feed

Oil in Brazil

2011-12-18T08:44:00.000-05:00

We hear a lot about the need to engage Brazil more, which is perfectly reasonable. Beyond the diplomacy of the United States government, however, U.S. companies also need to be on board. With the case of Brazil's fine of Chevron, this Forbes piece illustrates quite nicely what messages are being sent. In short, we are going to spill oil, and not only will you accept it, but you should be grateful we're even investing in the first place.

No doubt the headline amount of this suit is just for show and Brazilian regulators are pragmatic enough to appreciate the risks inherent in forging a new generation of ultradeep oil exploration. If Brazil scares off the best operators in the business it will be a very long time before Petrobras is able to build out these offshore oil fields on its own.

In addition:

And vitally, no one died in Chevron’s spill, versus the 11 killed when the Deepwater Horizon blew up.

So if nobody dies, then really there's no problem, is there? Further, if a spill isn't as bad as BP's, then it's not really bad at all. The hubris is disheartening, though of course is nothing new.

Civil-military relations in Peru

2011-12-17T09:18:00.001-05:00

Maiah Jaskoski, "Civilian Control of the Armed Forces in Democratic Latin America: Military Prerogatives, Contestation, and Mission Performance in Peru." Armed Forces & Society 38, 1 (January 2012): 70-91.

Abstract:

This article presents a new framework for measuring civilian control of the armed forces in post-transition Latin America. Specifically, it builds on approaches that focus on military privileges and military protest, particularly in the face of government challenges to those privileges. Adding mission performance as a third dimension both helps us measure civilian control more accurately and provides causal leverage, as the three dimensions can interact. The paper demonstrates the utility of the framework through a close-up analysis of a critical case: civil–military relations in Peru since the 1990s.

I am glad to see more work done on civil-military relations in Latin America, since it is unfortunately--and inexplicably--common to believe that armies suddenly became non-political after the end of Cold War and dictatorships.

She argues the following:

In contrast to prior approaches, this article proposes adding another dimension to the privileges/pushback framework: mission performance. In response to a civilian command, the military may refuse to do the work (less control), conduct the mission as ordered (more control), or proactively conduct missions more intensively than instructed (less control). The paper demonstrates the utility of the framework through a close-up analysis of a critical case, civil–military relations in Peru since the 1990s. It shows the interaction of the dimensions of military mission performance and military privileges. Specifically, it shows how military inaction in the face of government orders to perform counterinsurgency triggered the government to reinstate military autonomy vis-a`-vis civilian courts.

It is remarkably hard to come to any consensus about how best to measure democratic civil-military relations, in Latin America or anywhere else. Heavyweights like Samuel Huntington and Alfred Stepan have left important marks, but there is always a stubborn sense that analytic holes still needed filling. That dissatisfaction fueled my own dissertation and first book (which, I hasten to add, may be bought used on Amazon for a mere $4, the perfect stocking stuffer). It is always nice to see a larger circle of people grappling with it.

Jaskoski's argument is buttressed by her 75 interviews with military officers, along with close examination of primary documents and of course the scholarly literature. Her main contribution is to argue that different features of civilian control interact, so that success in one may lead to less success in another. I like that interactive element, and more case studies could yield a more closely specified model.

Hegemonic fail

2011-12-16T07:19:00.000-05:00

I love Pato Navia's take on the U.S. and CELAC. The last lines:

Actual progress on the integration roadmap is certainly limited and presidential summits are becoming much-ado-about-nothing affairs. However, the fact that the US is no longer a part of the constant going in circles and not moving forward does signify a dramatic departure from the times when the US championed and promoted equally discreet and disappointing regional integration initiatives.

Latin American integration has always failed, but in the past the U.S. was usually part of the failure. Now we're not even part of the ongoing inability to get things done. Come on, Latin America, we still want to join you in non-accomplishments!

Punishing the elderly

2011-12-15T07:39:00.000-05:00

From Business Week, a look at the effects of the Alabama immigration law. It is really ugly.

Mobile County spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with a law designed to drive illegal immigrants from Alabama. Kim Hastie, the first-term Republican license commissioner, had an up-close look at the crackdown’s political cost....“I’m going to do what the law tells me to do,” Hastie, 52, said in Mobile last week. “But, as an elected official representing the taxpayer, I feel it’s my duty to say what I feel is unjust to the taxpayer. My concern is for the way the citizens of this state are being treated. This process has not been good.”

And the coup de grâce:

One World War II veteran had no birth certificate, an expired driver’s license and a military identification that the county couldn’t accept, she said.

“He was so mad he was yelling,” Hastie said. “He said, ‘I served my country and I can’t register my car?’”

This is broken record time, but these effects were all foreseen. It was abundantly clear that the law would be expensive and intrusive. And now it's even about punishing elderly veterans and widows.

It is also another indication that the deportation-oriented policy of the Obama administration is having no effect at all on state legislators, who still perceive the federal government as doing nothing. The number of state immigration laws are ballooning. No matter what the Supreme Court rules about Arizona, we will see a large number of inane laws until Congress restructures immigration policy.

Chile and Peru

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another reminder that the War of the Pacific is still not over. Chilean Defense Minister Andrés Allamand made comments about needing to retain a deterrent force in anticipation of a 2012 decision from the International Court of Justice regarding Peru's maritime claims.

Su apoyo cerrado entregó este martes el senador y presidente de Renovación Nacional (RN), Carlos Larraín, a las declaraciones del ministro de Defensa, Andrés Allamand, luego de que el fin de semana destacara la importancia de “mantener una capacidad disuasiva muy preparada”.

Of course, the Peruvian government immediately criticized the statement. It seems that Chileans gratuitously bring it up every so often, spark a debate, then it settles down for a while. Allamand's comments reflect concern that Peru will try some sort of land grab if it loses at the ICJ. I find that pretty implausible, especially since Presidents Humala and Piñera have made concerted efforts to warm relations. Plus, the risk of losing--both militarily and diplomatically--would be extremely high.

Regardless, it's hard to see the issue going away no matter what happens at the ICJ. The War of the Pacific has been going on for well over a hundred years, and probably won't end now. It reminds me of a controversial book by a colleague in the history department, Still Fighting the Civil War.

Click here for a previous post with a variety of links on the topic, including a map.

To jail or not to jail

2011-12-13T07:50:00.000-05:00

You could argue for compassion for Manuel Noriega from a, well, compassionate point of view. He's old (77) and has been in jail a long time. However, I have to disagree with COHA about going easy on him because the United States is entirely to blame for everything he did:

COHA calls for compassion. House arrest is the proper sentence to mete out to a man who was but one of countless U.S. officials and Central American operators who worked outside the law and would never qualify for a red badge of courage.

This type of argument bothers me not because the U.S. is blameless, since I agree with many of the accusations in the article, but because it robs Latin America of agency. Individuals are simply puppets, pulled by the all-powerful strings in Washington. In this view, domestic Panamanian politics fades into the background or disappears entirely and Noriega is simply a product of circumstances. Given the canal, of course the United States always played a large role, but it was not the only player. The article doesn't even mention Omar Torrijos.

Anyway, why go easy on a dictator just because he received support from the U.S.?

As an aside, Randal Archibold at the New York Times writes that there's far more fuss about Noriega outside Panama than inside.

Heating oil

2011-12-12T07:31:00.001-05:00

It seems to me that anyone who bashes Hugo Chávez's PR efforts to provide heating oil to the northeast should counter by making sure poor people in the northeast don't freeze. Instead, heating aid is being cut.

The Citgo program was suspended, at least briefly, but seems to be on again. It's just baffling. We're outsourcing poverty aid while constantly complaining about doing so.

Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire

2011-12-11T08:50:00.000-05:00

If you're not familiar with The Hunger Games, it is a trilogy by Suzanne Collins about a totalitarian dictatorship in the former USA that every year forces a group of children to fight to the death in a large arena, with the entire population watching on TV. There are twelve districts in the country, controlled by the Capitol. I just read the second book. The protagonist is a girl--16 years old when the trilogy begins--named Katniss.

The second book, Catching Fire, is great (the first was good, but a lot slower). I won't spoil anything, but suffice it to say Katniss and others have to do more fighting, though this time there is an added element of political rebellion. As such, I could see having fun using this novel in a political fiction class (which I will create someday, after doing a Latin American Politics in Fiction class).

First, there are the dynamics of dictatorship. How do they maintain control? The novel emphasize how the government uses extreme violence, intimidation and control in a totalitarian system to make people afraid to rebel. The Hunger Games themselves are a central part of that control.

Second, there is the question of how political rebellion begins. Travel is forbidden, organization is illegal, and media is state-controlled, so it is very difficult to bring people together. Repression per se does not necessarily spark rebellion (note how many rebellions there have been in North Korea, for example) but opposition leaders can emerge. In the case of the novel, that emergence is largely unintentional.

Third, there is even an IR angle because the games involve 24 people in an anarchic situation where they have to form alliances but ultimately only one of them can survive. So they have to work together to some extent but cannot trust each other. All alliances are therefore tenuous.

In short, a good read.

Another Iran conspiracy theory

2011-12-10T07:52:00.001-05:00

From the Miami Herald, here's a new alarmist conspiracy theory about Iran:

If we answer these questions in terms of the growing economic ties among these countries, and there are many, licit as well as illicit and covert, we would be basing our analysis on strict Western economic rationality. We mistakenly would be extrapolating our logical model to Castro, Chávez and Ahmadinejad.

A second analytical mistake is to scrutinize Iran’s influence in discrete country-by-country terms rather than in terms of the synergies and symbiosis of the Tehran-Havana-Caracas alliance.

We would further compound our error if we formulate U.S. foreign policy in similarly disconnected terms. As world events have repeatedly demonstrated, we eventually gain the Socratic insight that we know very little of the logical reasoning models of autocratic leaders like Ahmadinejad, Castro and Chávez.

Huh? Venezuela and Cuba aren't economically rational? And apparently they aren't "Western" either. And Socrates to boot? This is a big jumble of words. Come on, "synergies and symbiosis"?

The clear implication of the piece is that this triumvirate is going to attack us with nuclear weapons. There will, I suppose, be people who actually believe that. Hopefully none of them become policy makers with any influence.

For the most part, the Iran connection throws a lifeline to those who want to act more aggressively toward Cuba and Venezuela, but who have been thwarted by the fact that those governments don't pose any security threat to the United States. Put Iran in the mix and you can revive the Cold War, where grizzly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom. There is no doubt that Iran bears close watching, but the rhetoric is reaching pretty absurd levels.

Google Currents

2011-12-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

Seeing the post at Outside the Beltway about the brand-new Google Currents prompted me to add Two Weeks Notice. So if you download the Google Currents app you should add this blog to your library.

More on the US and Latin America

2011-12-09T11:20:00.001-05:00

Coincidentally, CNN ran an op-ed on the same day as mine in the Miami Herald that argues more or less the opposite. It echoes the conventional wisdom that the U.S. needs to do more because it is missing out in Latin America to China and other countries.

The main problem I have is that it provides exactly zero specific suggestions:

A respectful partnership, not one where one country dictates to others, could help the United States build a stronger diplomatic presence on the global arena, help it shake the blues and get ready for the tough challenges the young century has already thrown in its path.

I can't think of any policy change that will suddenly elbow out other countries. Most other countries are in Latin America because they have cash and are gobbling up commodities, which is the main source of all the vaunted GDP growth in the region. It just isn't clear to me how the U.S. can change that reality.

The fact is, the rest of the world is coming to Latin America no matter what the U.S. does.

op-ed on the U.S. and Latin America

2011-12-09T06:28:00.001-05:00

I published an op-ed in the Miami Herald. Regular readers of this blog will recognize the argument, which counters those who say U.S. policy could somehow have prevented Latin America from looking more to the rest of the world for trading partners. My argument is that it would have happened anyway.

Latin America links

2011-12-08T06:24:00.000-05:00

Here are some Latin America-related links:

--a nativity scene in Honduras

--the mysteries of money in Venezuela

--more on how immigration is not the third rail of Republican politics

--the scoop on CELAC

--another example of the staggering lack of understanding about Mexican immigration

--depressing numbers on Colombian kidnappings

Politics of immigration reform

2011-12-07T08:25:00.000-05:00

In the L.A. Times, Doyle McManus nails two important points about the politics of immigration reform that too often are ignored.

First:

Reagan would have been pilloried if he were running for his party's presidential nomination today.

I am glad to see this get into the MSM. I want to hear a question about that in one of the seemingly endless Republican debates.

Second:

To begin with, it's not what American voters are asking for, not even the bulk of Republican voters.

A Fox News poll last year found that almost two-thirds of Republicans believe that "illegal immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law" should be given a chance to remain in the United States under some kind of legalization program. A majority also favored tougher enforcement of the law, but only one-third said they believed that deportation was the solution to the problem.

That is also a critical point that the MSM should pick up on more. Especially in the general election, people are thinking about other issues, most prominently the economy. Republicans did not punish McCain in 2008 for his more liberal view on immigration, and they won't reward the 2012 nominee either for a restrictionist view.

On the other hand, we could argue that immigration is important to the Republican base, if not the majority of Republicans. Indeed, that is what Mitt Romney is banking on. I am not convinced of this--it's the economy, stupid--but haven't seen numbers.

The bottom line:

Latino support for Obama has remained solid, even though many Latino activists have been vocally dissatisfied with the president's failure to advance immigration reform legislation.

This is something I've argued in much more detail. Obama's main concern is not whether Latinos vote Republican, but whether they stay home.

Reagan is a foreign policy RINO

2011-12-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

It's odd how Ronald Reagan fits for the conservative story of U.S. Cuba policy. From recent remarks by Ileana Ros-Lehtenin (via Cuba Money Project) regarding how somehow Reagan would be better for Cuba:

President Reagan knew what it took to fight Communism without having to concede on our values or pander to demands from these tyrants.

First of all, it is important to note that Obama's policy toward Cuba is more or less identical to Reagan's (though, to be fair, Obama has not invaded any country as part of his Cuba policy like Reagan did in Grenada). Changes have occurred only at the margins.

More to the point, it is unfortunate that so many people believe that Reagan never negotiated with or conceded to U.S. enemies, including the Soviet Union. He did so all the time*. The Reagan-era Cold War is marked by meetings with both sides looking for avenues of negotiation and concession (i.e. "pandering to demands") though obviously with self-interest in mind. It is dangerous to pretend otherwise.

This is like immigration policy, where conservatives claim to channel Reagan without realizing that he and George H.W. Bush publicly advocated humane policies. Reagan triumphantly signed IRCA in 1986, and actually was much more moderate on immigration policy than Obama is now.

Imagine the intense beating Ronald Reagan would take in the Republican primaries now. His true foreign policy record, unlike his mythical record, was often extreme (just peruse his policies in Central America) yet still only RINO in today's context.

* And, of course, pandering to Iran was a major part of Reagan's foreign policy toward Nicaragua.

Why not pardon undocumented immigrants?

2011-12-05T15:37:00.001-05:00

Gregory Koger asks at The Monkey Cage why President Obama doesn't just pardon undocumented immigrants.

As a scholar, I am interested in the political actions that don’t happen, and this strikes me as an interesting case of non-action. One explanation is that I misunderstand the scope of the pardon power and immigration is outside that scope. Or, perhaps the President is reluctant to intrude on Congress’s authority to (not) act on immigration, although that seems unlikely since the White House’s “We Can’t Wait” strategy is predicated on direct presidential action to combat legislative paralysis. So, I welcome comments to correct my interpretation of the law or the politics of immigration.

It's a really interesting question, and one I hadn't thought of. As I wrote as a comment there, I think the answer is that pardons only apply to federal criminal cases, and immigration violations are civil offenses. From DOJ's website:

Under the Constitution, the President’s clemency power extends only to federal criminal offenses. Executive clemency may take several forms, including pardon, commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, or reprieve.

Otherwise this could've fostered an even more inflamed political debate than the one we have now.

Local solutions to natural disasters

2011-12-05T08:50:00.001-05:00

Oliver Rubin and Tine Rossing, "National and Local Vulnerability to Climate-Related Disasters in Latin America: The Role of Social Asset-Based Adaptation." Bulletin of Latin American Research 31, 3 (January 2012): 19-35.

Abstract:

The Latin American region is particularly prone to climate-related natural hazards. However, this article argues that natural hazards are only partly to blame for the region's vulnerability to natural disasters with quantitative evidence suggesting instead that income per capita and inequality are main determinants of natural disaster mortality in Latin America. Locally, the region's poor are particularly susceptible to climate-related natural hazards. As a result of their limited access to capital, adaptation based on social assets constitutes an effective coping strategy. Evidence from Bolivia and Belize illustrates the importance of social assets in protecting the most vulnerable against natural disasters.

Of course, the poor get hit the hardest by natural disasters, but the focus on explicitly local solutions seems really useful. In my Latin American politics course, I always try to show the interaction between the local, national, and international levels. This article reminds us that national solutions aren't necessarily the most effective. There is a lot of capacity (and not just in economic terms) at the local level as long as attention is paid to the idiosyncrasies of local actors. Local solutions in one place may not work elsewhere, which just makes it all the more challenging.

However, since most disasters have local impacts, and since adaptive capacity depends heavily on local dynamics, it seems appropriate to also focus attention to the livelihood strategies of poor communities. On a local level, vulnerability is closely related with community assets, most notably social memory and the capacity for self-organisation, which are not easily captured by national indicators.

Piñera and CELAC

2011-12-04T07:57:00.001-05:00

Sebastián Piñera's trademark megawatt smile is all over the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). But why?

The purpose of CELAC is to have an organization that consciously excludes the United States and Canada, and eventually to replace the Organization of American States (OAS) entirely. Chile will hold the 2012 summit, which means Piñera will hold the rotating presidency.

Domestically, this cannot help Piñera, who is already very unpopular. The right may well get disgusted with the glad-handling of the Latin American boogeyman Hugo Chávez, while the left will not be impressed and will not think better of him as a result.

Internationally, I also don't see the benefit. Chávez is not particularly popular around Latin America, so Piñera gets no kudos for standing with him. Even Dilma Rousseff, considerably to the left of Piñera, departed early. Plus, Chile has no beef with the United States or Canada--to the contrary.

Finally, Piñera's own foreign minister publicly undermined any notion that CELAC will have any clout:

In a telephone interview from the summit in Caracas, Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno told me that CELAC will be “a forum, not an organization.” He added that it will not have a bureaucracy, “not even a Secretariat, like UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations).”

So he is embracing an entity that he does not expect to have any power, and which does not help him politically. Perhaps this is a clue:

Momentos después de haber llegado a Caracas para participar de la Cumbre de la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y el Caribe (CELAC), el Presidente Sebastián Piñera, declaró que uno de los objetivos de la reunión es “integrarnos en términos de inversiones, integrarnos físicamente, en el campo de la energía. Espero que este Celac recupere el tiempo perdido en materia de integración y podamos transformar a nuestros pueblos de América en pueblos unidos, que enfrentamos juntos el futuro”.

Chile suffers tremendously from energy dependence, so maybe Piñera figures this is a way to get more access to other countries' resources?

The Other Wes Moore

2011-12-03T07:56:00.000-05:00

I highly recommend Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore. The author happened to discover that someone with the same name and roughly the same age, who had lived not too far away from a neighborhood he used to live in, was sentenced to life in prison. He ended up meeting him, and the book is a reflection on how one Wes Moore escaped his environment and became very successful while the other did not.

He pulls no punches, either about himself or the other Wes Moore. They were both fatherless, both got into trouble as youths, and they both made terrible and sometimes violent mistakes. In the critical early teen years, however, one was pushed into a better direction.

The ultimate question, of course, is why? Why did one become a Rhodes Scholar and the other a lifetime resident of a maximum security prison? He probes that, but is not really sure himself so lets the reader ponder that. Some of it clearly boils down to contacts--do you know someone who can offer you good advice and suggest someone else to call? One Wes Moore did (in his case, suggestions for a military school to attend as a way to get out of his low-performing high school) and the other did not.

He's a good writer, and I really got sucked into the book. A lot of it is sad, not the least of which was the fact that the imprisoned Wes Moore had four children in rapid succession just before being convicted--the cycle of poverty and violence is depressing. It would be so easy to give platitudes, or easy sounding answers, but he refuses to do so.

Chiquita in Charlotte

2011-12-02T08:48:00.000-05:00

From Kevin Siers:

And here are all the details of how Chiquita got the city to cough up an enormous amount of money.

Here's my previous post on the Chiquita-paramilitary links in Colombia.

What Republicans and Fidel Castro Have in Common

2011-12-02T07:04:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that the humanities and social sciences are under assault, leaving supporters in the unhappy position of trying to explain why cutting them is bad for business (it is even a serious problem in Britain). Those who support the cuts argue that the so-called STEM disciplines are what we need instead. The overall argument is summed up very neatly by Florida Governor Rick Scott:

"You know, we don't need a lot more anthropologists in the state. It's a great degree if people want to get it, but we don't need them here," he said.

Scott said students need to focus on studying subjects that can get them jobs—specifically in high-growth areas such as STEM.

"I want to spend our dollars giving people science, technology, engineering, math degrees. That's what our kids need to focus all their time and attention on," he said. "So when they get out of school, they can get a job."

What's interesting is that these predominantly Republican calls to push everyone toward STEM are exactly the same as Fidel Castro's years ago, and for exactly the same reasons. We want people working, not thinking subversive abstract thoughts that don't lead to a trade.

University enrollments expanded greatly beyond the pre-1959 levels, and the focus of education changed, social sciences, and law, which prepared one for government positions, to the sciences, engineering, architecture, and agriculture to serve the larger needs of a socialist society (p. 93).
Thomas M. Leonard, Fidel Castro: A Biography

There was a strong technical bias to higher education that encouraged enrolment in engineering and discouraged it in the humanities (p. 483).
Leslie Bethell, The Cambridge History of Latin America

The essential problem both with anti-humanities Republicans and Fidel Castro is that they view education as a zero-sum game: if we want to support STEM then we have to cut non-STEM. The far better solution is to support both, and to acknowledge the importance of both technical and non-technical degrees.

Alabama law

2011-12-01T07:11:00.000-05:00

This is just truly embarrassing. Alabama authorities keep arresting people for being foreign.

"We understand he is working with authorities to resolve this matter," said Ted Pratt, spokesman for Honda Manufacturing of Alabama. He described the worker as "a Japanese associate on assignment."

Nice. Perhaps all foreigners should wear a convenient arm band to make it easier for police to see.

Amazingly, the co-sponsor of the law said it would create jobs, yet its main result seems to be arresting foreigners who brought jobs to your state, thereby likely deterring other foreign companies from doing the same. As I repeat endlessly, the only jobs being created are for lawyers.

As with other state-level immigration laws, these consequences were widely foreseen. It's like backfire, where people hold on to inaccurate beliefs even more firmly when presented with evidence against them.

Poverty in Latin America

2011-11-30T07:52:00.001-05:00

The good news is that according to ECLAC, poverty in Latin America has decreased over the past two decades, from 48.4% to 31.4%. What I found interesting is that although the top reducers reflect different ideological models, the clear losers are those with close ties to the United States and predominantly market-oriented policies since 1990:

Among the countries that saw the biggest drops in poverty are Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia.

Poverty increased only in Honduras and Mexico.

Well, and there that whole unconstitutional coup thing. Those don't tend to help the poor.

Safety in Mexico

2011-11-29T07:35:00.001-05:00

Quite sad, when the local population has to hope for a pact with gangsters in order to see holy relics without getting shot. Such is the case in León, Guanajuato.

Al respecto de la seguridad, el Arzobispo José Guadalupe Martin Rábago dijo que las reliquias estarán seguras, y de los pandilleros dijo que no hay problema alguno.

Estamos seguros de que se firmará el pacto entre los pandilleros y no habrá peligro alguno.

Very notable is that the article never mentions political authorities at all. The church just negotiates directly with the gang members.

North, not south

2011-11-28T12:39:00.000-05:00

Foreign Policy has a list of 10 stories you might have missed over the past year. This one is misleading: "Mexico's Drug War Moves South." It details how "Mexico's" war has started to hurt Central America.

Until now, the cocaine itself has been processed almost exclusively where coca is grown in the Andean region of South America. But in March, the first cocaine-processing lab ever discovered in Central America was found in Honduras. In El Salvador, which has also seen its crime rate skyrocket, Sinaloa and the Zetas are believed to have established alliances with local gangs such as the infamous Mara Salvatrucha.

This isn't just Mexico's drug war anymore.

The problem is that this is a crisis that has moved northward, not southward. Coca is not grown in Mexico, and cocaine is not processed--yet, anyway--in Mexico. We're just seeing more balloon effect, dating way back to the 1980s in Bolivia. As long as demand remains high, then various aspects of drug trafficking move around the region, with the constant creation and destruction of DTOs, both large and small.

Lastly, we always need to remember that drug demand in the United States largely fuels this, so it is not "Mexico's war" any more than it was "Colombia's war." Regardless, it did not start in Mexico and then flow south.

IMF and Latin America

2011-11-28T07:31:00.000-05:00

So let's get this straight. European governments want Latin America (and the BRICS countries more broadly) to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars to the IMF to prop up Europe. However, they refuse to give those countries any more influence in the IMF.

Now, as their economic weight increases, Brazil and the other so-called BRICS nations of Russia, India, China and South Africa, want reassurances that the IMF will push ahead with changes to quotas, which determine a member country’s voting rights and access to IMF funding.

“We want to know the plans for the next steps in the IMF governance reform, which is the discussion on the formula for calculating quotas,” Carlos Cozendey, the Brazilian Finance Ministry’s international affairs secretary, said by phone.

With many European countries still hesitant to yield power at the IMF, Lagarde will be unlikely to make specific pledges in her meetings with the presidents and economic officials of the three countries.

Remember that Agustín Carstens had been pushed for the IMF position but lost. I would expect some hardball, though it might be almost entirely behind closed doors. Maybe a pledge of money now, with announcement of some sort of reforms in coming months?

More on Newt and immigration

2011-11-27T08:37:00.001-05:00

From a 2004 letter to the Wall Street Journal, with Newt Gingrich as one of the signers:

“The president has shown courage by calling on Congress to place reality over rhetoric and recognize that those already working here outside the law are unlikely to leave,” the letter states. “Congress can fulfill its role by establishing sufficient increases in legal immigration and paths to permanent residence to enable more workers to stay, assimilate, and become part of America.”

It is simply beyond bizarre that something so commonsensical and self-evident is now the object of scorn by the right.

So much for unity

2011-11-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

Should we be too surprised that Latin American countries can't agree on currency swaps or pooling reserves? The same logic about monetary union applies. The governments of the region get along quite well--which really annoys Alvaro Uribe--but are very hesitant to link their economic fortunes together too tightly. Indeed, coming to some sort of broad agreement would be a major accomplishment. There is always going to be a collective action problem (assuming, that is, that a collective approach is the best strategy, which I suppose is up for debate) but Latin America already has a long history of failing to establish regional unity.

Luis Sepúlveda's The Shadow of What We Were

2011-11-26T08:13:00.000-05:00

Luis Sepúlveda's The Shadow of What We Were (translated 2010) is a quick and funny (including a quick rant about café con piernas, which I had never thought of in political terms) novel about former militants in Chile trying to figure out their lives long after the Allende and Pinochet governments--which defined their very existence--are long gone. Sepúlveda himself was imprisoned for two years and then fled to Europe, where he still lives. He knows of what he speaks.

They've lost their revolutionary fervor, but they still want to fight against the postauthoritarian protection enjoyed by those who ruled during the dictatorship, especially those--like Pinochet himself--who looted the treasury with impunity. So they remember the past and plot one last mission.

Although they remain dedicated to their cause, there is also the sense that much of what they liked was the camaraderie, since in retrospect so many of their actions appear self-indulgent. As one character remembers:

There in the middle of the assembly, Coco Aravena felt euphoric. The commission for agitation and propaganda of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Revolutionary Party Mao Tse-Tung Thought, Enver Hoxha Tendency, which was very different than the liquidationist clique that called itself the Marxist-Leninist Communist Revolutionary Party, Mao Tse-Tung Thought, Red Flag Tendency, had commissioned him to read a resolution from the central committee, a resolution destined to change history (p. 98).

It's odd, but for some reason I thought of a movie as I got to the end of the book, a movie I have not seen in some 25 years. This image clinched it:

The four men looked at each other. Fatter, older, bald or with graying beards, they still cast the shadows of what they were.

"Well, are we in?" Garmendia asked, and the four men clinked their glasses in the rainy Santiago night (p. 110).

The movie is Going in Style, a 1979 film with George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg as old men who plan a bank robbery to "go in style." Even if Sepúlveda doesn't know the movie, I get the feeling he would appreciate it. Same type of dark humor, with the common theme of bank robbery to boot.

Automatic voter registration in Chile

2011-11-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

In Chile there is of course a considerable gulf between politicians and youth. A group of Chilean academics and politicians hopes to make it easier--indeed, automatic--to register to vote, thereby forcing politicians to pay attention and giving young Chileans a way to participate that doesn't just involve going to the streets. From Robert Funk:

Automatic registration was actually part of 2009 constitutional reforms, but Congress has not approved the law necessary to implement it. Here is a good summary. The upshot is that young Chileans don't register--not only is that typical of younger people, but the fines associated with compulsory voting give them an incentive not to register in the first place. Why register when you're going to be punished for it for the rest of your life? The new law would end that.

Overall, some five million people, most of them young and not well off, would suddenly be more empowered than they previously were. That could have much more political impact than street protests. Electoral law doesn't seem as exciting, but it can be a game changer.

The Chilean Library of Congress has a nice summary of the 2009 constitutional reforms, along with then President Bachelet's praise for them (btw, did anyone know that until 1969 the blind could not vote in Chile? I did not.Yikes.). On this point, she is exactly right:

En tiempos actuales, la democracia puede verse amenazada no tanto por quienes quieren imponer una tiranía, sino por la indiferencia y el escepticismo de los ciudadanos. Porque la automarginación de grandes sectores, equivale a dejar los asuntos políticos en manos de poca gente, y eso sí que debe preocuparnos.

Yet two years later the "poca gente" have yet to release their grip.

More on Gingrich and immigration

2011-11-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic gets Newt Gingrich and immigration half right and half wrong. The idea that Mitt Romney will try to prove his anti-immigrant credentials, which the DNC can then try to use against him makes sense:

If Gingrich and Romney publicly argue over immigration, the DNC and Obama 2012 will do everything they can to reproduce this debate before college-educated white voters in Virginia, North Carolina, the Rust Belt and elsewhere. It's a perfect time, because the national electorate is starting to wake up and pay attention to the race. Now is the time when Mitt Romney, the guy who Chicago expects will be the nominee, is at his most tender, most doughy, and most mold-able.

But I have not seen any evidence that college-educated voters--or very many people in any category--in North Carolina or Virginia will vote based on immigration. I know the media loves that angle, but polls never support it. I cannot see this affecting the race more than marginally in those states. I could be wrong, but my sense is that there are few eligible voters unaware of how the immigration debate is portrayed by both parties. Are there any voters out there who in coming months will say, "I wasn't sure before, but now I realize what Mitt Romney thinks about immigration and I am going to vote accordingly?"

He notes studies of how there will be more non-white eligible voters in these states, but African Americans will not vote based on immigration, and the Latino electorate is currently extremely small in new gateways like North Carolina. So at least for now I see more smoke and less fire.

Fake facts at the debate

2011-11-24T07:45:00.001-05:00

Boz writes about the mentions of Hezbollah in Latin America during the Republican debate. Turns out the candidates' sole sources of information are Roger Noriega and José Cárdenas, both of whom routinely make stuff up (read that last link, where Noriega admits how much his argument is speculative). It is a classic case of unsupported assertions being repeated to the point that people don't realize the original argument provided little evidence. A bunch of prominent Republicans repeated it, so it must be true.

What am I thankful for? Facts, accuracy, and arguments made in good faith, all of which are lacking here.

QOTD: Immigration

2011-11-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

The whole thing is a colossal waste of money.

--Douglas Massey on immigration enforcement. Read the Economist article.

Republicans on immigration

2011-11-23T08:17:00.001-05:00

Newt Gingrich was open about how he disagrees with the restrictionist wing of the Republican Party. From yesterday's debate:

"I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century," Gingrich said at the CNN debate on foreign policy in Washington, near the White House.

"And I'm prepared to take the heat for saying, let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families," Gingrich said.

The former House speaker said recent immigrants should be sent home if they are found out, but "if you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out."

Good for him. As I've written before about Perry, you can win the Republican nomination even without catering to restrictionism--immigration is not nearly as salient a topic as the media likes to claim. Gingrich has next to no chance of being that person, but in fact the view laid out above is pretty much identical to Ronald Reagan, who given many public statements on the matter would clearly disagree with the Republican base on immigration.

Austerity and populism part 2

2011-11-22T15:34:00.001-05:00

I mentioned earlier today that the potential for populist backlash to austerity doesn't get much attention, then very soon thereafter read this article in The Economist addressing that very issue. What's odd, though, is that it only focuses on the fringe right:

These movements are sometimes described as neo-fascist. Some of them indeed are, and all of them embrace odious and intolerant views of one sort or another. But to dismiss them as fascist, and thereby safely rule them out of European political life, offers the liberal mainstream false comfort. Over the past few years populists have found ways to set themselves apart from a neo-Nazi ideology. Many support gay and women’s rights (all the better, they think, to bash the Muslims), and many are fervently pro-Israel. They are here to stay.

Europe’s populists are not likely to form governments; they lack the votes and are completely unequipped for office. However, mainstream politicians do not know how to see them off. So their obsessions and their resentments have seeped into the debate, even among those who would never vote for them.

Latin American populism is predominantly leftist. Are the majority of European populists on the right, or are they just the attention-grabbers? Say all you want about left-wing populism, but the European right is more ugly, more dangerous, and more violent. So that's even more scary.

Anyway, European populism is increasingly popular, as the article notes. Be as dismissive as you want, but when people suddenly lose their jobs, see prices of previously subsidized goods increase, watch their safety net evaporate, experience wage stagnation even when they're employed, and hear that this is shared sacrifice, then naturally the status quo loses its luster.

Austerity and populism

2011-11-22T06:23:00.001-05:00

I know Juan Manuel Santos and every other Latin American president tingle with the irony of Europe facing severe debt problems yet not wanting to impose austerity measures. From Reuters:

Santos, who is visiting London to boost trade and investment in Latin America's third most populous country, said his biggest worry was "that the industrialised countries are not capable of taking the correct decisions and showing the world they can get out of their crisis".

Asked what those decisions were, Santos said: "The same decisions that those same countries told us in Latin America to take a few years ago. Exactly the same ones."

OK, but also remember that Latin American populism did not come of an economic vacuum, which is something no one seems to be discussing when they call for politically insulated technocrats to run economies and do "what's necessary." Those who call for structural adjustment in Europe should keep that in mind.

Imagine a scenario where a government that used to be flush imposes severe austerity measures, thus prompting riots. It even decides to bring in the army. Then it turns out factions of the army aren't so happy with fat cat government officials enacting policies under international pressure that increase poverty. Some of those officers in turn try to overthrow the government. When they fail, one in particular decides to go ahead and run for president on a revolutionary platform. The ruling class is in such disarray and so delegitimized that it can't do much more than watch as he wins. In the absence of shock therapy, that sequence of events would not have occurred.

Job opening

2011-11-21T11:00:00.001-05:00

For readers from academia, please pass the following along to anyone who might be interested. As Director of Latin American Studies, I am on a search committee for the Department of Africana Studies. The position is open to all humanities and social sciences.

The Universityof North Carolina at Charlotte

Department ofAfricana Studies

Assistant Professor, African Diaspora/Latin American Studies:

The Department ofAfricana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte invitesapplications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position withspecialization in the field of African Diaspora in Latin America to beginAugust 2012. The position is open to all disciplines in the humanities andsocial sciences. Applicants are required to have a Ph.D. at the time ofappointment, show evidence of a strong potential for professional developmentas a scholar and teacher, and demonstrate commitment to promote diversity andcommunity engagement as a value in the department and College of Liberal Artsand Sciences. Desired qualifications include interest in environment,health and/or digital humanities.

This hire is oneof two new positions in the Africana Studies Department and the Department ofHistory, as part of an initiative to enhance the study of Latin America and theAfrican Diaspora in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The College currently houses and supports twoscholarly associations dedicated to the study of Latin America: theSoutheastern Council of Latin American Studies, and the Conference on Latin AmericanHistory.

The successfulcandidate will have his/her tenure home in the Africana Studies Department.He/she will teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in both AfricanaStudies and Latin American Studies, including courses in his/her areaof research. He/she is expected to maintain regular high-quality publication,seek external funding, advice students, and contribute to the governance of thedepartment and the university. The Africana Studies Department is an interdisciplinary academicunit focusing on the study of Africa and the global African Diaspora with emphasis onculture, history, social policy, and entrepreneurship. More informationabout the department can be found at http://africana.uncc.edu.

Screening of applications will begin December 11, 2011 andwill continue until the position is filled. Applications must be made electronically at https://jobs.uncc.edu (position#1501) and should include a cover letter, CV, and a writing sample not toexceed 30 pages. Three letters ofrecommendation should be mailed separately to Chair, African Diaspora in LatinAmerica Search Committee, Department of Africana Studies, UNC Charlotte,Charlotte, NC 28223. Informal inquiriescan be directed to the department chair, Professor Akin Ogundiran at ogundiran@uncc.eduor to the search committee chair at africana_studies@uncc.edu.

The University of North Carolina UNC Charlotte isan urban research university, anEqual Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, and an ADVANCE Institution.

Jorge Castañeda's Mañana Forever

2011-11-21T06:28:00.000-05:00

Jorge Castañeda's Mañana Forever? Mexico and the Mexicans (2011) is an effort to explain underdevelopment and democracy deficiency in Mexico. It is mostly about how Mexicans are too individualistic. I found it unsatisfying, in large part because of a contradiction that he lays out in two separate sentences in the very first page of the preface:

This is not a book about the Mexican national character, but about some of the country's most distinguishing origins or features, and their consequences.

Then three sentences later:

It seeks to explain why the very national character that helped forge Mexico as a nation now dramatically hinders its search for a future and modernity.

The book is therefore simultaneously about and not about national character. This causes analytical problems all along the way. He notes something the colonial government did, says it is silly to claim Mexicans still follow the same patterns, then argues that they do. He really does not want to over-simplify a la Samuel Huntington or Lawrence Harrison, but consistently does so anyway. For example, Mexicans are bad at soccer and that helps explain why the Chiapas uprising went nowhere (seriously, that is not much of an exaggeration).

There's more, such as the idea that Mexicans avoid confrontation and controversy, and so democracy has been very slow to take hold. There just seem to be so many counter-examples--AMLO in 2006 being a very prominent one. That was my reaction to much of the book.

I also kept thinking about how the U.S. is considered highly individualistic yet has a different political and economic trajectory than Mexico. Thus, the independent variable is not convincing. It also complicates his conclusion, namely that emigration to the United States may help change Mexican culturally for the better: "it should be enough to detonate basic modifications in Mexican individualism" (p. 258). But how does one type of individualism detonate the other?

Who will woo who?

2011-11-20T08:54:00.001-05:00

In the "wishful thinking" category, from the Associated Press:

Hispanics emerged as a pivotal vote in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Florida in previous elections, but this cycle the Latino focus has extended to Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina, where Hispanics grew by up to 90 percent in the past decade. Those swing states will not only decide whether Obama stays in office, they are also home to the nation's most competitive Senate races.

The thrust of the article is that the Democratic Party will court the Hispanic vote. I will just comment on North Carolina. The problem with this argument is that it equates population growth with registered voters. In North Carolina, about 1.2% of registered voters are Hispanic. In my home county (Mecklenburg County), which went for Obama in 2008, that percentage was up a bit, to 2.2%. Any wooing that occurs will therefore be aimed more at the future than the present. Don't get me wrong--Democrats will spend money on Spanish-language media, etc. but from a hard-headed outcome-based perspective I wouldn't expect that effort to extend too far.

For states that have seen a dramatic increase in their Hispanic population only in the past decade or so, we will not see a high percentage of registered voters for the following reasons:

1. Many people are in the country illegally
2. Their children, many of whom are citizens, are not old enough to vote
3. The Latino population overall is relatively young, and the young register in smaller numbers

This will change every year, and the Latino population in NC will become more politically influential. But in 2012 that population will not decide much. It is notable that the reporter did not actually ask anyone about North Carolina or Virginia, but just mentioned them without any evidence.

In North Carolina at least, look for the Democratic Party and Obama himself to focus on the African American population. That population turned out at a higher rate than whites in 2008, which is remarkable and will be tough to replicate while the economy is in the tank. But he needs it.

Bare knuckles or velvet gloves?

2011-11-18T16:29:00.001-05:00

Great question: in order to defeat Hugo Chávez in 2012, should the Venezuelan opposition presidential candidates bloody each other with bare knuckles in primaries rather than maintain unity by using velvet gloves? Juan Cristóbal Nagel says yes. Some commenters, including co-blogger Francisco Toro, say no. Others are in between.

Juan argues that going at each other gets all the bad stuff out in public early, so everyone knows about it well before the general election. He notes that Barack Obama was hammered by Hillary Clinton but still won the general election. On the other hand, Americans are used to the system and Venezuelans have never experienced a presidential primary process. Will they react the same way?

For some context in the U.S. case, consider this 1998 article by Lonna Rae Atkeson in American Journal of Political Science:

Theory: The divisive primary hypothesis asserts that the more divisive the presidential primary contest compared to that of the other party the fewer votes received in the general election. Thus the party candidate with the most divisive primary will have a more difficult general election fight. However, studies at the presidential level have failed to consider candidate quality, prior vulnerability of the incumbent president or his party, the national nature of the presidential race, and the unique context of each presidential election campaign. Once these factors are taken into account presidential primaries should have a more marginal or even nonexistent effect in understanding general election outcomes.
Hypothesis: Including appropriate controls for election year context in a state-by-state model and creating a national model that controls for election year context, candidate quality, and the nature of the times should diminish the effect of nomination divisiveness on general election outcomes.

In other words, it may not matter much.

Tinkering at the margins

2011-11-18T07:01:00.001-05:00

You just cannot win over immigration reform advocates by saying that you'll try to tinker at the margins with your enforcement-oriented immigration policy. From the L.A. Times:

Administration officials say the goal is to focus enforcement on deporting people who have committed crimes. But the effort also has a political context. Obama has been criticized by Latino activists for deporting a record number of illegal immigrants even as the president has publicly called for reforms. With Congress unwilling to approve immigration legislation, administration officials have been looking for actions they can take on their own.

As I've argued, it is highly likely that this is really all Obama has to offer, and it's not much.

U.S. and Brazil

2011-11-17T06:57:00.001-05:00

Dan Runde at Shadow Government is 100% correct that the U.S. should work more closely with Brazil, but I'm not so sure about his arguments to that effect. He says it should be a priority to name a high level ambassador, seemingly not knowing there already is one (Thomas Shannon). He says Brazil has been too self-involved to have a good relationship with us, not seeming to realize that insulting the country is not the best way to generate cooperation. He labels Dilma Rousseff as "Pro-American," seemingly not understanding that the term is simplistic and misleading. Finally, he says we need more government bureaucracy in order to have a good relationship, which is odd given that the blog is conservative.

But maybe U.S.-Brazilian relations could be a bipartisan project, even if there is disagreement on specifics.

Actually, one last point. Is "influencer" a real word?

Cuban economic reforms

2011-11-17T06:50:00.000-05:00

Collin Laverty at the Center for Democracy in the Americas has a great (and lengthy) analysis of Cuban economic reforms and optimal U.S. responses: Cuba's New Resolve: Economic Reform and its Implications for U.S. Policy. It is a highly detailed (including 127 endnotes) and quite balanced analysis of why the reforms are occurring, how likely it is they will last, and how Cubans perceive them. Their main conclusion is that the reforms are halting, imperfect, and difficult, but are here to stay.

The following is a great way to sum up how U.S. policy toward Cuba should be formed.

We believe the right way for the United States to assess the reforms is to ask whether they will enable Cubans to lead more prosperous lives and then determine how our country can best support this process. Economic stability in Cuba would allow its citizens to better share in civil society and in participatory politics (p. 60).

For those who support continuing the embargo, Cubans becoming better off right now is actually viewed as bad--we've been trying very hard for decades to keep them impoverished. If they become more affluent, this argument goes, they will support the dictatorship more. That is, of course, the exact opposite of what the U.S. argues for every other country moving away from Communism.

Nominating to lose?

2011-11-16T07:58:00.000-05:00

Imagine the following. After a close race in 1960, Richard Nixon goes nuts, starts living in a tent with his followers in Washington, DC, and then travels around the country telling everyone he sees that John F. Kennedy is not the real president. Given that situation, do you think he'd have a chance to win again in 1964 or 1968?

That is essentially what the PRD is hoping for now, because the party nominated Andrés Manuel López Obrador as its presidential candidate for 2012.

The person who is likely the happiest with that outcome is the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto, who now solidifies his position as favorite. We've got another year to go, so a lot can happen, but AMLO starts in a deep hole. There is a large chunk of the electorate that simply won't vote for him. A recent poll showed 35% of Mexicans had a negative or very negative view of him.

Migrant leaving or not

2011-11-15T06:22:00.001-05:00

This headline from Fox News Latino caught my attention: "Growing Number of Migrants are Leaving US for Latin America." This didn't make much sense to me. There has been abundant evidence that migrants are not leaving in large numbers, and we just learned that remittances to Latin America are up, which means people are staying abroad.

So what is the evidence that they're leaving?

When the United States economy tanked after the real estate bubble burst, undocumented immigrants returned in droves to Latin America, especially those who worked in the construction sector, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute. Since then, the return rate has decreased but is still higher than usual, advocates say, citing anecdotal evidence.

Ouch. News stories should never be based on advocates citing anecdotal evidence. Circular migration is eternal, which means you will always find people who are leaving, but that is not equivalent--at least yet--to a trend of more people deciding to leave and never return.

In other words, this could be a trend, but the article fall far short of providing evidence for it. It would, in fact, be a welcome one since it would indicate confidence in Latin American economies. But I am not yet convinced.

Latin America links

2011-11-14T07:23:00.000-05:00

Some Latin America-related links:

--Feet in 2 Worlds looks at the fallout of the Russell Pearce recall

--Joshua Keating at FP about how bad Mariela Castro made herself look on Twitter

--Yoani Sánchez gives her version of the exchange

--Robert Funk on student politics in Chile

--COHA concludes unsurprisingly that the UK doesn't care much about Latin America

--Juan Cristóbal Nagel on the opposition's debate in Venezuela

The US and Latin America

2011-11-13T08:16:00.001-05:00

Charles Shapiro at UCSD's Institute of the Americas has an op-ed in the Miami Herald about how the United States ignores Latin America. I recently commented on another similar type of argument, and have the same reaction. I do not agree that Latin America's reaching out to Asia and other parts of the globe have much to do with the United States. That process was occurring regardless of what the U.S. did.

One of my objections to these arguments is that they implicitly (or perhaps even explicitly) suggest that if the U.S. had somehow paid more attention, it could have prevented China from becoming more influential. I don't see how. Does anyone really believe that if the U.S. Congress had ratified the Colombia FTA in 2006, that China would be less influential?

Such an assertion is too U.S.-centric for my taste. China wants commodities and will pay well for them. The United States cannot do anything about that capitalist reality. If George W. Bush had paid tons of attention to Latin America, that reality would not have changed one iota.

Obama's immigration problem and what it means for 2012

2011-11-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

If in your spare time you write about Obama and immigration, but the result is much too long (5000ish words) for a blog post and much too pitched at a general audience for an academic article, then what to do? The answer: see if you can sell it. If you have a Kindle or a device with the Kindle app, then my Obama's Immigration Problem and What it Means for 2012 can be had for 99 cents through Amazon. Whether anyone buys it remains an open question, but it's a fun experiment.

More from Roger Noriega

2011-11-12T08:31:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday I referred to Roger Noriega, and by coincidence today saw this short paper he just published about Hugo Chávez. There is so much wrong in so few pages that I hardly know where to start.

First, he cites anonymous sources, which he's done in the past with truly ridiculous claims. Why should we trust these supposed sources? Because, he says, they have given him "reams of documents." Make of that what you will.

Second, he claims that in 2003 he started the policy of not antagonizing Hugo Chávez. That is frankly laughable. The early part of the Bush administration was a disaster in that regard until Thomas Shannon took over. You will not find many people outside Roger Noriega who think it was due to Roger Noriega.

Third, he claims that Venezuela is at war with the United States. That is too absurd to comment on, really.

Fourth, he claims that both China and Russia are in a "conspiracy" (Noriega's term, not mine!) against the United States. He does not explain what this conspiracy is all about, but says they want to do "bad things." That is a direct quote. What these "bad things" consist of is left to our paranoid imagination.

It seems the main idea for the article was to discuss the political implications of Chávez's cancer, which is a good topic, but Noriega spins out of control within the first few sentences.