Fidel Castro is Dead (Really!)

It's not propaganda, fake news, or anything else. Fidel Castro has died. I don't recall anyone else having so many rumors of demise swirl around them so much. I've made more jokes and Weekend at Bernie's references than I can remember.

At this point it's not terribly interesting to debate whether he's "good" or "bad." There will be plenty of that elsewhere. Suffice it to say that he's the most important and consequential Latin American political figure ever. The Cuban revolution changed Latin America and had a massive impact on the United States. Fear of Fidel Castro is the key reason military dictatorships justified their existence and were so repressive, while love of Fidel Castro and his example sparked revolutions across the region, including successfully in Nicaragua (and so he's also the reason Daniel Ortega is president now).

People in the United States can't tell you the name of a single Latin American president, but they know who Fidel is. He brought the US and the Soviets as close as we ever came to nuclear war. He changed the outcome of U.S. presidential elections by the influx of Cubans into Florida, and it's not a stretch to say that as a result he helped George W. Bush beat Al Gore in 2000. He's deeply embedded in U.S. popular culture, including The Godfather II.

It's also about me and my career. The revolution is what sparked U.S. government funding of Latin American Studies in the 1960s, though the vast majority of scholars quickly used that funding to launch criticism. UNC Chapel Hill received such funding, which brought Lars Schoultz to work under the direction of Federico Gil, and then 20 years or so later I worked under Lars.

So really, Fidel Castro is partially responsible for this blog post.

Editor's note: the original version of this post had The Godfather, when the correct movie is The Godfather II. Apologies for any confusion.

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Venezuelans Migrants Are Like Cubans

Nick Casey has a remarkable article in The New York Times (accompanied by some excellent photos) about Venezuelans emigrating to Brazil and to Caribbean countries. Venezuelans have become Cubans, but with no asylum options. They want to stay and want to work, but there is too little work and food scarcity. So they pay smugglers on get on boats, sometimes never to be hard from again. Possibly 200,000 Venezuelans have emigrated in the past year.

This made me think of the conversation I had with Quico Toro a few days ago on my podcast. I wanted to get his view on when the Venezuelan people would finally say they'd have enough. He said it was just impossible to determine when the tipping point would be. But what this story also reminds us is that desperate people don't necessarily look to politics. Albert Hirschman famously wrote about the choices of exit, voice, or loyalty. We can make the mistake of thinking people will choose voice when exit is also an option.

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Obama's Problematic Immigration Record

This post seems appropriate for Thanksgiving, a day characterized by an idealized view of immigration.

Franco Ordoñez has a good story about how President Obama failed a lot on immigration, to the point that Donald Trump inherits a deportation machine. Obama is the "deporter-in-chief," to a degree never seen in U.S. history (Snopes even felt obligated to confirm this!). Earlier this year I wrote about this in frustration and have blogged about it quite a bit. Over 400,000 people a year, including targeting kids (including here in Charlotte).

What makes me even more frustrated is Obama's failure to admit it. Trump hammered on him for months and months, and at any time Obama could've fessed up. "We're deporting record numbers of people" or "We've already put it 700 miles of fence."* But he didn't want to admit to it, and never has.

This makes no sense to me. He has three options:

1. Admit that he is aggressively pursuing undocumented immigrants and saying this is just following the law. This appeals to conservatives (or at least takes the wind out of the sails of criticism).
2. Reduce the number of deportations and say so, thus appealing to progressives and potentially energizing at least part of the Latino/a population.
3. Deport aggressively while pretending he's not, which makes everyone mad.

Obama chose #3. This means he contributed to Latino/a cynicism about the Democratic Party, doing terrible damage to many people's lives and hurting Hillary Clinton's campaign, while conservatives remained convinced he was soft and so felt more attracted to Trump.

DACA is an excellent policy based on common sense, and I give Obama credit for it. But we should not praise him for things he does not deserve.

*Though I am also aware that Trump said fences were useless during the campaign and now says they're part of his plan.

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Podcast Episode 13: Understanding Dialogue in Venezuela

In the latest episode of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with Francisco "Quico" Toro, Executive Editor of Caracas Chronicles, about Venezuela, especially the state of the dialogue between the opposition and the government. What can it accomplish? What is the opposition doing? What are the alternatives? The only question we can’t answer is why Nicolás Maduro is dancing salsa while the country falls apart. That one seems to be impossible to figure out.

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Rolling Back Cuba Policy

Mauricio Claver-Carone, an outspoken critic of President Obama's Cuba policy, has been named to Donald Trump's transition team. If Otto Reich likes it, then you know it's a hardcore choice.

Claver-Carone's appointment to the transition team “is a clear signal … that the president-elect will carry out the promise he made to the Cuban American community,” former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich told the Nuevo Herald. 

Reich added that the appointment does not automatically mean Claver-Carone will get a top job in the new administration, although Reich predicted that he would accept it if offered. “In my opinion, not many other people know as much about Obama's mistakes on Cuba policy, and how to change them, as Mauricio,” he said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article116289068.html#storylink=cpy

Claver-Carone just published an op-ed attacking Obama's policy, rather bizarrely comparing it to supporting United Fruit.

The president has repeatedly described U.S. policy toward Cuba as a “relic of the Cold War.” He had to dig deeper into the archives to derive this provision, so reminiscent of an era when U.S. foreign policy famously teamed with Latin American dictators and American corporations, like the United Fruit Company, to negotiate away the economic future of those nations. 

There’s no longer any rational strategy behind President Obama’s “Cuba policy.” It has gone from what it initially portrayed as a noble purpose to pure sycophancy in pursuit of “historic firsts.” Unfortunately, those Cuban dissidents who recognized Obama’s intent from the beginning and labeled it “a betrayal” of their fight for freedom have now been proven correct. Their foresight has come at a terrible cost.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article115155568.html#storylink=cpy

That the embargo failed miserably is not mentioned, and likely he does not care. But he will clearly have influence over the president-elect, and whatever he has will be geared toward rolling back current policy and keeping the embargo.

At this point I don't think embargo supporters even bother defending the policy itself. That it strengthens the regime is immaterial. Instead, what's important is not engaging, which provides a sense of higher moral ground even if you're ultimately helping the regime.

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Trump and Macri Talk Buildings

According to Argentine journalist Jorge Lanata, when Donald Trump called Mauricio Macri, he asked if he could build a Trump building in Buenos Aires.

"Macri llo llamó. Todavía no se contó pero Trump le pidió que autorizaran un edificio que él está construyendo en Buenos Aires, no fue solo una charla geo política", contó Jorge Lanata en su monólogo del programa Periodismo para Todos. Trump le pidió al Presidente el permiso para poder formalizar la obra de su nuevo desarrollo inmobiliario que, según contó LA NACION estaba interesado en hacer hace muchos años pero no lo hicieron antes por las dificultades que imponía el cepo cambiario y las trabas a las importaciones.

If this is accurate, then it's ridiculous (we do know, however, that Macri used business ties as a way to connect to Trump, so it's a plausible story). Sadly, however, I think there will be many such examples while Trump is president. He is more interested in making money than actually governing, and there will be no shortage of politicians and investors eager to curry favor.

Update: Trump denies the story. So does Macri.

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Knausgaard's My Struggle Book 5

Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle, Book 5 is mostly about his late teens and into his twenties. He's at a writing academy, then university and compulsory national service in Bergen, Norway, before finally publishing a novel.

He details how he's trying to figure out who he is. His sole goal is to be a writer, but when he writes it comes out hollow. He's given work to do with radio interviews and book reviews, but it is also depressing because it seems to mean he can write about writers and not be one. Realist style is his strength, which of course eventually becomes the basis for these very books. But back then, he saw his friends publish their first novels and he had nothing but a single short story in print. Only toward the end of the book does he succeed, but even then he finds no solace.

As with the other books, shame is ever-present. No doubt much of it stems from his abusive father (who is only sporadically mentioned in this one until the end, when he comes back with full force). Knausgaard never feels he's living up to his potential and tells people that freely. Dangerously, he also blacks out while drinking and does self-destructive things, not just embarrassing himself but also injuring his brother, cheating on his girlfriend and later his wife, and getting arrested. Then he feels shame about that too. It can be painful to read.

He captures mood so well. His emotional gears shift up and down, and as a reader you can feel them, especially because he is so painstakingly honest. He's fumbling forward with a tremendous amount of emotional baggage and trying to get you to feel it with him. As he notes, he was searching for "future and meaning" (p. 527).

As for Book 6, which is the last, as of June 2016 the translator was saying publication would be sometime in 2017. It'll be about 1,200 pages long and I am looking forward to it.

Here are my reviews of Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and Book 4.

Update (3/29/17) Now it seems Book 6 won't come out until Fall 2018, which is a long time. I'll check out his seasons books when the first comes out in August 2017.

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Trump Pushing Latin America to China

The Wall Street Journal looks at how Latin America may be reassessing China in the light of a protectionist Trump presidency.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 78-year-old former Wall Street banker who chose to visit China on his first official trip, joked earlier this year that he would “grab a saw and cut” ties with the U.S. if Mr. Trump won. Mr. Kuczynski was more serious recently, warning about protectionism and saying he would support a Pacific trade accord that added China and Russia if the U.S. pulls out. 

His trade minister, Eduardo Ferreyros, said this week he was hopeful Mr. Trump wouldn’t scrap the deal, but Peru was now interested in joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a Chinese-led free-trade agreement of 16 countries seen as a rival to the TPP.

PPK is the sort of pro-business leader the U.S. would typically connect to. Now it seems intent on alienating him. Up to this point, leftist governments had been very active in seeking out economic relationships with China and to a lesser extent Russia. Now our president-elect is encouraging rightist governments to do the same.

And of course they will. They want to trade, and if the U.S. is not interested then others will be. Obama is trying to get Latin America to wait, hoping that Trump doesn't fulfill his many unwise campaign promises. But why should they? In a time of uncertainty, look for the most certain deal. And it's not Trump's.

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The Performance of Becoming Human

I encourage everyone to buy Daniel Borzutzky's The Performance of Becoming Human, a collection of poems linking the United States and Latin America. Borzutzky just won the National Book Award for it. He is also the son of my friend and longtime co-author Silvia Borzutzky. Here's how he sums it up:

When I wrote this book, I was thinking about Chicago, a city I’ve lived in for nearly 20 years and care for very deeply. I was thinking of how Chicago destroys itself, abolishes public services, closes psychiatric hospitals, privatizes or shutters its public schools, and militarizes its police,” said Borzutzky, who is of Chilean ancestry. “I was thinking about how Chicago is like the Chile my parents left behind in the 1970s, which destroyed itself in many of the same ways. I was thinking about immigrants, refugees, and workers in the U.S. and abroad who give up their lives to survive in economies that exploit them and make them invisible.”

Go check it out!

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Podcast Episode 12: Trump in Latin America

In Episode 12 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast I talk with Chris Sabatini about the Trump administration's possible policies in Latin America. One conclusion is that maybe the best case scenario is that the foreign policy bureaucracy takes over. Note: he was in Canada as we talked but that is entirely coincidental.

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Trump and Maduro on Twitter

Lying on Twitter about how your political opponents are lying, while also lying about your accomplishments, is now a staple for Donald Trump. He's late to this game, though, as it's already a common practice for Latin American presidents, especially Nicolás Maduro. Given how both hate the opposition press and want a direct line to the people, we can expect both to keep it up as long as they're in office (and, like with Alvaro Uribe, we can also expect them to continue once they're out of office).

There are some differences. Maduro (or at least Maduro's account, because like Trump sometimes it's him and sometimes not) retweets like mad, which Trump has slowed. We'll have to see whether he retweets more admirers--retweeting flattery or false claims--in the future. And as yet, Trump has not started a salsa radio show. But Trump TV may well be around the corner.

Both have a conspiratorial bent. Maduro sees economic war, assassination attempts, and the Empire everywhere he looks. Trump sees the media calling him out for the often false things he says, which drives him crazy. For both, facts are negotiable, which makes Twitter a perfect medium. Press conferences just wouldn't work because they involve follow-up questions and give questioners the ability to frame the topic.

We'll also have to see whether Trump follows the Maduro model of saying increasingly unhinged things while your approval ratings plummet, holding on to the hope that all these admiring followers are actual indications of popular support.

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Could Latin America Unite Against Trump?

Reporters at Reuters say that Central American countries are looking to join forces with Mexico to form a joint strategy to respond to Donald Trump's victory. Remittances are critical to all these economies, and mass deportation will cripple them. They say they could expand this beyond Mexico and Central America as well.

On Wednesday, the day after a regional meeting in Honduras, the three countries released a joint statement asking their respective foreign ministries to join forces and formulate positions on jobs, investment and migration to deal with the new U.S. administration together, though the statement did not refer to Mexico.
 But Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, Guatemala's Jimmy Morales and El Salvador's leader Salvador Sanchez Ceren, have agreed to seek support from Mexico, said Hugo Martinez, El Salvador's foreign minister, confirming what another government source told Reuters earlier.
 "What the presidents told us was that aside from this group ... we could expand to look for contact with Mexico, at first, and then also with the other Latin American countries," Martinez said.

Latin American unity has always been an elusive target. It's been too hard to break through traditional rivalries, ideology and nationalism despite having many things in common. It will be interesting to see whether Donald Trump serves this purpose. There has never been an existential threat commonly faced by all Latin American countries at the same time.

South America does not face the same issues with regard to immigration. However, U.S. protectionism would be a problem, and Michel Temer asked Trump not to restrict trade. U.S. trade policy could slow economic growth and also drag down Latin American currencies. Meanwhile, Argentina is looking more closely at Canada in anticipation of negative change.

But could the governments of, say, Rafael Correa and Michel Temer join forces in some way against the negative effects of a Trump presidency? It would be historic, but chances are low.

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Will Trump Bully Latin America?

Stars and Stripes asks what the changes to U.S. security policy toward Latin America will be under a Trump presidency. The bottom line, really, is that no one knows, beyond the obsessions with the Mexican border.

But something caught my eye. The reporter interviewed a law professor whose website shows that he believes in conspiracy theories about Muslims. Actually, he also wrote a book on human rights, published by the Peruvian army during the Fujimori years.

And the article concluded with this:

He is critical of the Obama administration, which he believes has not led with strength in the region. That will change next January, he believes. 

“I think our goal should be for countries to respect us, not like us,” he said.

There you go. That sums up a highly possible outlook for a Trump presidency. The problem, however, is that in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations U.S. hard power leads to lack of respect and dislike. Bullying doesn't compel respect.

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What Would Gandalf Do?

Eric Grynaviski has a great post at Duck of Minerva using Lord of the Rings to frame the discussion political scientists are having (versus what perhaps we should have) about the election.

Political scientists remind me of Isildur, who refused to throw away the ring when he gained it from Sauron. The political science blogs I regularly read—the Monkey Cage, Political Violence at a Glance, and the Duck of Minerva, for example—have yet to publish any reflections by political scientists about the meaning of the election. The Monkey Cage second post-election post’s “Lesson 1” showed that they forgot they predicted a Trump win but now remember so it’s ok (this is a friendly jab at a colleague who I respect greatly). My bet is there will be a lot of analysis and discussion by political scientists about why Trump won, what he will do and what the effects could be, and how limits on Trump’s use of power might curtail his policy flexibility. At the moment, however, finding ways to make political science relevant by trying to better understand the ring strike me as empty. The first lesson of this election should not be about forecasting.

Further:

Instead, political scientists should ask “What would Gandalf do?” One part of the magic of the characters is that they consistently remember their values: Sam and Frodo think about home and hearth, the Dwarves think about their halls of stone, the Elves think about their role in protecting nature and care of the world, and Aragorn remembers a time when the king used a model of rule that relied on autonomy and good government. These reflections on the prospect for a different world with a different politics motivated the characters. 

Political scientists need to think seriously about how to incorporate the study of politics, traditionally conceived as the study about right and justice, into our classrooms, turning them, in part, into fora where we can discuss and debate the justice of mass deportations, sexual violence, racism, policing, and a host of other issues. I also hope the next four years will include more reflection on the nature of political power, the study of electoral reform, and more experimental thinking about alternative ways to think about democratic governance. Using the Trump election as a springboard for inquiry would return us to questions of ethics as central to discussions in political science.

I like this argument, and I am not at all sure I am really doing it. At the moment, I feel like political scientists are focused a lot on who was "wrong" or "right," defined largely in terms of defending one's own predictions. The issue of estimating the Latino vote is downright annoying in this regard, with deep methodological discussions intended solely to prove the other person wrong. It's just academic turf war stuff.

At the same time, thinking about likely futures isn't quite so bad as he says. Latin America is waiting to see what's going to happen, and it makes sense to sort out possible outcomes. I have undocumented students currently protected by DACA, and their lives literally depend on it. So it's not bad to consider what political calculus might be going on.

So let's not ditch consideration of what President Trump might do, but maybe our discussions could break away from the turf wars and include a little more introspection. He's going to make policy that will affect people in very real and sometimes very scary ways, and it should our job to help people understand what's going on. I don't know if that's what Gandalf would do, though we should remember that even he made educated guesses about the future: "But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.."

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Senator Ernst Wants Latin America to Focus on Terrorism

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) wrote a letter to President Obama on the even of his visit to Peru, requesting that he try and make sure Latin American countries are as obsessed with terrorism as we want them to be. It is basically boilerplate calls for more securitization of U.S. policy toward Latin America.

These calls have been happening for many years, though the focus shifts (for example, sometimes it's Iran, which curiously not mentioned in this letter, and sometimes it's ISIS or Hezbollah). I don't think the essentials have changed. There is no sign of an imminent threat and there is little support within Latin America for drastic measures, but it's something to keep an eye on. And I think we are.

The obvious next question is what steps the Trump administration takes. I would assume he will appoint hardliners to key Latin America policy positions. Assumptions about what he'll do are often wrong, but it makes sense as a strategy for an area of world he has no interest in. But if he starts pushing Latin American leaders hard on something they don't feel is the same level of threat, then he'll end up like the Bush administration, which was unpopular and lost all leverage in the region.

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How Do You Define "Mass" Deportation?

Paul Ryan says there will be no "mass deportations."

“We’re not focused on, we are not planning on erecting a deportation force,” Ryan said, adding: “Donald Trump’s not planning on that.”

So how many is mass anyway?

On 60 Minutes, meanwhile, Trump said that he was going to quickly deport 2-3 million people. That is the number he chose to denote violent criminals.

According to The Washington Post Fact Checker, Trump likely gets these estimates from a Department of Homeland Security fiscal 2013 report saying there were 1.9 million “removable criminal aliens.” However, that figure includes undocumented immigrants and people who are lawful permanent residents, or those who have temporary visas.

No matter how he arrived at the number, it's definitely "mass." If we give Ryan the benefit of the doubt, he is referring to undocumented immigrants who have committed no offense other than being in the U.S. illegally.  But the problem with creating a deportation force, which this clearly is, is that many other people will be targeted. Indeed, in the violent nationalist mood the country is in, targeting will become sport. When a high level presidential strategist is from Breitbart, then xenophobia will be part of it. And it will be "mass."

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New Colombian Peace Deal

The Santos government and the FARC signed a new peace deal. Some key changes appear to be eliminating the legislative seats, using FARC money for reparations, and being more precise about the restrictions on where sanctioned FARC members could go. That had previously been more vague. There are some other issues as well, such as limiting the time there would special jurisdiction (Jurisdicción para la Paz) rather than the regular Colombian courts.

Although the official negotiations are taking place in Havana between the Santos administration and the FARC, there is a third party in Bogotá. As soon as Santos had a document (which has not been released to the public as far as I know) he got it to Alvaro Uribe. Uribe released a statement saying the "No" side would read and make comments on it within a short amount of time. This cannot go forward without Uribe's imprimatur.

Also unexplained at this point is how this moves forward. Given Uribe's stature within the right and the "No" vote generally, we could plausibly see his approval as sufficient. Otherwise this would go to another vote, which would seem to be a colossal waste of time and resources. If Uribe still doesn't like it--and that's certainly possible--then it is dead on arrival.

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Podcast Episode 11: The Nicaraguan Election

On Episode 11 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talked with Christine Wade, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College, about the recent Nicaraguan presidential election. We even discuss how to define "cheating" and "democracy." Naturally that leads us to how a Trump administration might approach Nicaragua.

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Podcast Episode 10: Venezuela in an International Context

In Episode 10, I talk with Tim Gill, who is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University, and who finished his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2016. The topic is Venezuela, particularly the international factors involved in Venezuelan politics. The discussion ranges from the Venezuelan government’s view of foreign NGOs to the likely policies of the Trump administration to the possible outcomes of the dialogue between the government and the opposition.

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Venezuela and Trump: No Joy in MUDville

During the campaign, Donald Trump had this to say about Venezuela:

“The next President of the United States must stand in solidarity with all people oppressed in our hemisphere, and I will stand with the oppressed people of Venezuela yearning to be free,” he promised.

You might reasonably expect that the Venezuelan government would respond indignantly to Trump's victory and the opposition would celebrate him for his strong stance. As it turns out, practically the opposite happened.

From the government:

El Gobierno bolivariano de Venezuela felicita al Presidente electo Donald Trump, y hace votos para que se pueda avanzar en un futuro donde impere el respeto a los principios y propósitos de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas, que consagra la igualdad soberana de los Estados y la autodeterminación de los pueblos, entre otros, mediante relaciones políticas y diplomáticas bilaterales respetuosas.

Quite measured, and not an ounce of bluster. Uncharacteristically, at least for now the Maduro government is in wait-and-see mode and is not interested in picking a fight.

From the opposition:

"We come from this disaster - the fantasy of politics driven by a single leader, these hegemonic and totalitarian projects," Jesus Torrealba, spokesman for the opposition's Democratic Unity coalition, said in a statement. "(Now) others appear to be heading toward that cliff," he said, adding that U.S. institutions "will be put to the test."

The opposition is actually more disgusted by how Trump appears to be like Hugo Chávez than by the prospect of getting a harder line U.S. policy.

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Initial Thoughts on Trump and Latin America

The effects of Donald Trump's victory depend a lot upon how committed he actually is to following his campaign promises. U.S.-Latin American relations were part of some of his most repeated promises, which suggests they're likely to become policy initiatives. It also depends on Congress, where at this point I figure anti-Trump Republicans will be afraid to go against him.

1. The Mexican peso is getting hit, and its economy will be hit if Trump goes after NAFTA or tries to build more wall, which he has promised.

2. Cities on the U.S.-Mexico border will be damaged economically if Trump follows through with campaign promises limiting trade.

3. We will see some serious hardliners appointed, who will drive Trump's policy toward Latin America. Trump has no interest in Latin America beyond making fun of Mexico.

4. Cuba policy will be rolled back to some degree, perhaps entirely, as promised. This depends on how much he responds to counter-pressure from business.

5. Attacks on Latinos, especially immigrants, will likely increase. Trump's victory has made racism more acceptable to so many Americans.

6. Venezuela policy will veer off the tracks. I can see Nicolás Maduro hunkering down and looking for regional support to hang on.

7. The "Slumbering Giant" of the Latino vote needs to be rethought. I said as much for North Carolina.

8. Immigration reform is dead and buried.

In short, U.S. policy toward Latin America will change, and it is unlikely that change will be positive.

Update:

9. Adam Isacson's post led me to realize that I had forgotten Colombia. The RNC platform explicitly opposed the peace talks. And Alvaro Uribe was really excited by Trump's victory.

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Daniel Ortega Wins

Daniel Ortega won a third consecutive term as Nicaragua's president yesterday. Current numbers show him at about 72%. The government says turnout was 66% while the opposition claimed abstention was 70%. Either way, he's president and has been carefully setting up a dynasty.

I had written at Latin America Goes Global about why Ortega felt the need to do so much cheating when he was going to win anyway. I still think this is a critical question.

Meanwhile, Mercedes Hoffay and Chris Sabatini discuss what the U.S. policy response should be. I am a bit dubious on some of these, like how easy/desirable it is to mess with CAFTA-DR. But it's useful to think about what kind of response the U.S. should have.

I'll be talking to Christine Wade tomorrow on my podcast. She's a go-to political scientist for Nicaragua.

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Cristina Henríguez's The Book of Unknown Americans

I read Cristina Henríquez's The Book of Unknown Americans (2014), a very fitting novel to counter the anti-immigrant Trump message we're bombarded with now. It is the story of immigrants--the unknown Americans--from a variety of Latin American countries who live in an apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. It centers in particular on two teens: Maribel, whose parents brought her to the U.S. after she sustained a head injury in Mexico, and Mayor, a teenage boy who lives near her. Their relationship drives the narrative.

Each chapter is in the first person, switching between different characters. I liked the second half of the book more than the first, as it took a while for the narrative to gain traction. Once it did, it was both sweet and melancholy. There is one character, a white boy who is troubled (e.g. he tells the principal he hasn't seen his father in three days and has no idea where he is) and bullying, whose voice we never hear. That was disappointing, because it perhaps could've provided a sense of why people like Trump resonate with people, a fear and hate that would contrast with the immigrants' own experiences.

Overall, though, it's a good read.

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Tom Shannon on Venezuela

Tom Shannon had a press briefing about his trip to Venezuela. A few points:

First, the good cop/bad cop tactics of the Obama administration, where targeted sanctions are accompanied by discussions, are effective in keeping lines of communication open while isolating key members of the government.

Second, it struck me how the U.S. and everyone else openly uses the phrase "political prisoners" and no one bats an eye. There's not even a pretense anymore that these arrests were legal.

Third, the U.S. is all-in with dialogue because it figures there is no other peaceful option, and violence will be bad for everyone involved, including the United States.

Absent this dialogue process, Venezuela will find itself in a state in which both the government and the opposition will have to measure themselves through their ability to put people onto the streets. And while mobilization can be an important part of a negotiated – a negotiation process, absent a negotiation process, mobilization is unpredictable and can be very dangerous.

Fourth, the U.S. election matters a lot. I shudder to think what President Trump would do.

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Summing Up the Venezuela Crisis

Chris Sabatini just published an article at Foreign Affairs on Venezuela. He gives a good overview of the situation and then rightfully focuses on the failure of Latin America to come to grips with the crisis.

The threat of broad social conflict or collapse in Venezuela is real. Seventeen years of chavista government have hollowed out and corrupted the state, sent the economy into a downward spiral, brought food shortages and malnutrition, and turned Venezuelans against each other. With no other means left for Venezuelans to express their frustrations and demand accountability for the humanitarian disaster they now face, citizens will increasingly take to the streets, but they have no clear end goal. At some point, the standoff between the government and its citizens could explode. Until now, Venezuela's neighbors have been largely silent bystanders, hoping that the crisis will somehow resolve itself. As the electoral council's announcement and the failed mediation that followed showed, it will not.

For now, we await the results of the dialogue, however long that takes.

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Donald Trump and AMLO

David Agren writes at Americas Quarterly about the similarities between Donald Trump and Andrés Manual López Obrador. More important than the comparison itself is the recognition that Mexicans are talking about this. A lot. And Agren concludes that it may well be that Mexican elites fear AMLO more than they fear Trump. This makes sense, because AMLO directly threatens the positions of Mexican elites, while Trump does not.

AMLO himself doesn't see any similarities with Trump, though no sane person would.

As for AMLO himself, he thinks the comparisons to Trump are simply an attempt to associate him with the foreign villain du jour. Following the third presidential debate, he was dismissive of any claims of similarity. “No manchen,” roughly translated as “gimme a break,” he tweeted. 

Now who does that remind you of?

Touché.

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Contradictory Environmental Debate in Bolivia

Really interesting new article in LASA Forum by Nicole Fabricant and Kathryn Hicks about the contradictions of the environmental debate in Bolivia. Evo Morales and the MAS are vocally critical of developed world polluters and label themselves as dedicated to the earth, but in practice focus on extractive industries that pollute badly and endanger indigenous groups.

The Bolivian context illustrates the impossible set of choices for nations in the global South between a noninstrumental relationship with nature and protection of the rights of Mother Earth, and using large-scale resource extraction to finance social welfare, all the while hoping that the largest carbon emitters will act in time to prevent imminent ecological disaster.   

There are political consequences as well. For example, mining cooperatives have fought against what they call the "neoliberal" policies of Evo Morales.

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Latino Vote in North Carolina

I just published a piece in Latin America Goes Global about the Latino vote in North Carolina. The upshot is that at this point I do not see it being a major factor in the presidential race. Someday it will be, but not right now.

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The OAS and Venezuela

I've written a lot about how Latin America has remained very hands-off with regard to Venezuela, which in my opinion has exacerbated the crisis. One vocal president has been Peru's Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who has called for invoking the OAS' Democratic Charter. In return, Venezuela's Foreign Minister argues that he is a tool.

In an official response to the statements last Sunday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry accused its Peruvian counterpart of “obeying the interventionist rulebook of Washington to justify intervention in Venezuela, in concert with opposition groups”.   

The communique also stated that Rodriguez had demanded respect from Kuczynski during the summit’s closed door lunch, while reminding “the Peruvian government that mutual respect, sovereign equality amongst states and non-intervention in the internal matters of another state… are some of the cardinal principles of international law”. 

As always with Venezuela, there is a contradiction between one function of the OAS--protecting and promoting democracy--and "non-intervention." For Venezuela, recognizing there is a dire crisis is intervention, and certainly calling for multilateral solutions is as well. Too many Latin American leaders are too intimidated to do anything.

Latin American dithering, however, has prolonged the crisis. Non-intervention now means watching countries fall apart while you stand around. Or dance, as the case might be.

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Podcast Episode 9: The Venezuelan Mess

On Episode 9 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast (iTunes version will be appearing shortly), I talk with John Polga-Hecimovich, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Naval Academy, about the crisis in Venezuela. Among other things, he says to keep an eye on Vladimir Padrino-López. We also discuss whether targeted U.S. sanctions will likely work and what the role of other Latin American countries might be.

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Blocking Change in Venezuela

David Smilde has a pretty devastating op-ed in the New York Times about Chavismo.

Hence Chavismo has come full circle. From a movement that showed how nonelite actors could use the instruments of electoral democracy to upend an entrenched elite, Chavismo has itself become an entrenched elite preventing those same instruments from upending it.

That sums it up. It sums up so many governments over the years that came to office with a message of change, which becomes impossible once you are the one in power defending your own interests.

His conclusion is also true:

Any dialogue that occurs should not be seen as an alternative to the referendum but should focus primarily on restoring the people’s right to choose their leaders. Debate regarding the economy, education and crime would serve only as a red herring for a government that is doing whatever it can to prevent change.

The government's refusal to allow a vote has delayed things to the point that if a recall is held, it will be too late for a new election if the government loses the vote. Instead, the Vice President would take over. The opposition will have to decide whether this is an acceptable alternative. If it is, then the dialogue has a logical goal. If it isn't, or if the opposition is too divided even to decide, then I'm not sure what dialogue will accomplish.

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When Protests Turn Violent in Venezuela

Jonathan Pinckney, a doctoral student at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, has an interesting post at Political Violence at a Glance about how protests turn violent. He doesn't mention Venezuela, but one part of his discussion caught my attention.

2. Concessions also present challengesGovernment concessions are also associated with more breakdowns in nonviolent discipline. While data limitations kept me from digging into the mechanisms behind this in this piece, previous scholarly work suggests that concessions may split movements between moderate and radical factions, pushing radicals to “prove themselves” through violence.

Periodic concession, especially dialogue offers, have vexed the Venezuelan opposition, which cannot agree on whether to participate. There are clearly moderate and radical factions, with the more radical members wanting more action.

What I wonder, however, is at what point the moderate factions become so disillusioned with concessions that they accept the radical side's plans. In Venezuela this has not yet happened, but as legal avenues of change are choked off, it's not difficult to imagine it developing.

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Nobody Voted In Favor of the Cuba Embargo

Imagine you have a policy so unpopular that even you don't vote in favor of it. For the time first time ever, not a single country voted in favor of the U.S. embargo against Cuba at the United States. Not the U.S., not Israel, which were the two countries last year that voted against the anti-embargo resolution. This year the vote was 191-0 with the U.S. and Israel abstaining.

This is, then, the U.S. Congress against the entire world. Maybe that's a distinction that they enjoy. At this point, the embargo is hanging on only because the Helms-Burton law specified that Congress had to decide whether it would be lifted. The president cannot do so unilaterally.

I assume Donald Trump will tweet about this at some point, since he just recently tweeted about visiting veterans of the Bay of Pigs. Criticizing the Obama administration for the abstention will garner him somewhere around zero votes (because the most intensely anti-Castro voters long ago decided not to vote for Hillary Clinton) but it's still fodder.

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Venezuelan Military and Crisis

As is so often the case in Latin America, the Venezuelan political crisis has brought in the military. Already the government had militarized a lot of functions, and now it has trotted out the leadership to warn the opposition and signal that the military leadership was on the government's side. Francisco Toro argues that Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López's speech may well also have been signalling that the armed forces were not tied to any political faction and therefore (perhaps) would remain neutral.

Significantly, he reads out the constitution’s Article 328, which establishes the Armed Forces as apolitical and in the service of the nation rather than any political partiality. This is one of those “inconvenient articles” chavista propaganda has banished from the public sphere, so to hear a Defense Minister cite it is highly significant. But then Padrino López goes on to argue that the Commander in Chief is not “a political partiality.” He closed the whole thing with a ¡Chávez vive!, but his speech steered clear of the kind of highly divisive language that’s the hallmark of chavismo.

Either way, the military is getting sucked in whether it wants to or not. It has already been in the business of making arrests. A question I always have, especially given Hugo Chávez's origins, is whether there are ideological gaps between the leadership and the rank-and-file. The latter don't have the political and economic access of their superiors and are more connected the hunger and shortages on the ground.

It is depressing that years after we spent so much time studying "consolidation" of democracy and what that meant, we're back to reading the military tea leaves.

Update: go check out this analysis of the Venezuelan military by Brian Fonseca, John Polga-Hecimovich, and Harold Trinkunas. Basically, it's complicated. But we also just don't know what these junior officers are saying to each other in private.

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Podcast 8: Ambitious Reform in Latin America

In Episode 8 of the podcast, I talk to Ali Stoyan, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kansas State University, about her work on how executive with ambitious reform agendas sometimes use constituent assemblies. We talk about Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, with a dash of Honduras. What long-term political effects do they have? Listen to find out.

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Trump and the Mexican Peso

I heard this on NPR: Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz have a paper showing how markets respond positively during the first presidential debate when Donald Trump seemed to be doing poorly. What jumped out at me is that the Mexican peso rose during that time.

[T]he Mexican Peso rose sharply during our event window, and indeed, it rose more dramatically than any other currency. In light of Mr. Trump’s threats to restrict both trade and immigration from (and thus, indirectly, remittances to) Mexico, this also suggests that the markets were responding to election-related news.

A Trump victory, then, is not just bad for U.S.-Mexican relations. Markets would also respond negatively, which would make things worse.

Extrapolating, this suggests that the Peso would be worth nearly 30 percent more under a Clinton presidency, and the Canadian dollar would be worth 10 percent more.

So the stakes for Mexico are extremely high. It is unfortunate, then, that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is such a bumbler. Now he says that visit could have gone better. Ya think?

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NPR on Cuban Immigration

NPR has a story on Cubans trying to get to the U.S., fearing (reasonably) that immigration policy may soon change. However, it's a misleading story.

The headline is "Improved U.S.-Cuba Relations Are Creating a Surge of Cuban Migrants." This confuses proximal and distal causes. The proximate cause is the shift in U.S. policy, but the underlying problem is not Obama's policy shift, but the dysfunctional Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which undergirds U.S. immigration policy. I think it's hard to argue that set foot/dry foot (which is a 1995 amendment to the law) functions well.

Further, I wonder about this:

You might assume that with the thawing of relations between Cuba and the U.S., Cubans would see positive change at home, and less reason to attempt the perilous water crossing to Florida. You'd assume wrong.

This is a straw man. No one thought there would be rapid change in Cuba, or claimed it would happen. Economically, the embargo blocks a lot of change, and even the changes happening now (flights, that sort of thing) take a long time to develop. The logic of opening up to Cuba was not based on the notion that Cuba would suddenly change. Instead, it focused on how current policy was completely ineffective no matter how you looked at it.

So basically Obama is blamed for how any effort to change U.S. policy runs up against a crappy law passed 50 years ago. The answer is better immigration policy. Sadly, this is a bad time to expect it.

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Trump and the Bay of Pigs

With regard to Cuba policy, Donald Trump moved back in time when he used a pro-embargo argument in Miami. That is how presidential candidates did things 15-20 years ago. Now he's moving back even further than that:

He is scheduled to visit the 2506 Assault Brigade museum and library on Tuesday, the Miami Herald reported. The Brigade, veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion, emailed its members over the weekend to inform them that "we were contacted by his campaign to coordinate a visit...to discuss the Cuba issue," the Herald reported. 

What demographic is he going for here? The very old Cuban American vote? This strategy goes directly against all logic. The Cuban American vote is increasingly young, diverse, and distant from the Cuban revolution. The Bay of Pigs is relevant for only a tiny minority.

Further:

Recent polls show Trump splitting or only narrowly defeating Clinton among Florida and Miami-Dade County Cuban Americans, a sign that he has been unable to shore up support like his Republican predecessors have. Cuban Americans make up more than 70 percent of Miami-Dade's registered Republicans.

Not sure how the Bay of Pigs is going to bridge that gap.

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Twitter as Global Office Hours

Patrick Iber has a piece in Inside Higher Ed about the benefits of academics using Twitter. I've blogged about this quite a bit, but had not thought of how, as he quotes Princeton historian Kevin Kruse, that it is like having "global office hours." I love that notion because it's accurate. I talk all the time to people from all over the world about Latin American issues.

He has some good suggestions. I disagree a bit about all the things he says you should not do (years ago I wrote a post saying the main rule of academic blogging was not to follow any rules). Twitter is mostly anarchic, which is one reason it's so fun, so my advice is to be yourself. If you're a jerk, Twitter will eat you up, and you will deserve it. Mike Allison writes that if you're a jerk, you won't enjoy it anyway, which is true.

Finally he says it's important not to be on Twitter all the time. I've actually never tested that rule.

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Understanding Latin American Politics on Google Play

My podcast Understanding Latin American Politics is now accessible on Google Play in addition to iTunes. Just click here.

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Latin America Watches While Venezuela Burns

The Venezuelan government announced the end of the recall campaign and prohibited major opposition leaders from leaving the country. This comes on top of postponing the December state elections. That came on top of stripping the legislature of any power. So there is no democracy in Venezuela. Your past votes are being ignored and your future votes are being denied.

So when will we hear from the rest of Latin America? There's not much to discuss with regard to the end of democratic rule in Venezuela. Unfortunately, presidents across the region are mired in their own problems or in ideological unity, which makes any real response highly unlikely. Luis Almagro will give it his best shot, I think, but will he meet just stony stares while Venezuela claims this is all a right-wing conspiracy?

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My 2016 Vote

This morning I arrived to vote early, just after 8:00 am when the lines opened at my local library near UNC Charlotte. The line was already pretty long, and I was tempted to just try some other time, but I had no morning meetings and really just wanted do it.

There were several TV news reporters talking to voters. One of them interviewed an older African American woman just a bit ahead of me, who said she hadn't even slept well last night because she was so anxious to vote. Despite the long wait, the mood was very good, with strangers chatting. They just wanted to do this.

The line was deceptively long. Even once they confirmed who I was, I had to go wait in a second line to get an open voting machine. All told, I waited two hours. But as I stood there, I kept thinking that voting felt like the equivalent of a shower after watching the three debates. Finally, I got to my machine and started choosing. As readers of this blog will know, I tend toward being both skeptical and cynical about politics, in no small part the result of having studied it intensely for so long. Yet more than I can ever remember I felt like I was doing something important.

Then, with the shower comparison in my head, on my way out I ran into Jim Morrill from the Charlotte Observer, who was talking to voters. He asked if I had anything to say about the election. Well, yes.

Update: Must be the location. A tweet from just before noon indicated the wait at the library was four hours! I can see the line is quite a bit longer than when I was there.

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Ecuador Pulls Assange's Plug

Ecuador announced that it had cut off internet access for Julian Assange, who of course is holed up in that country's embassy in London. This is all kinds of interesting. Here is the official statement.

Some thoughts:

1. Rafael Correa does not want to have any fingers pointed at him about facilitating interference in the U.S. election. I can't blame him because it is a mess. But he also does not want any future U.S. administration doing a quid pro quo.

2. Wikileaks says John Kerry pressured Ecuador to make this decision. The official statement makes a point of saying the country makes foreign policy decisions on its own, a clearly annoyed reference to this.

3. I don't know what "pressure" there was, but there certainly was communication between the U.S. and Ecuador, and the U.S. got what it wanted. This marks a success of President Obama's overall engagement strategy in Latin America. One of the hallmarks of this strategy is to engage even with countries that at times (or even often) are adversarial.

4. Assange is becoming a headache for Correa, who has not reaped many benefits of his presence. I figure he'd like to kick him out, but the costs of that are even higher.

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Podcast Episode 7 on Colombia

I talked to Steven Taylor today about the aftermath in Colombia, with the general title, "Colombia, What the Hell?" If you don't already know him, he is Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Troy University. There's no way at this point to come up with firm conclusions but we do some informed speculation.

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Who Will Pay Venezuela's Taxes?

The Venezuelan government says its new budget (which the legislature is not allowed to touch) marks a radical shift away from oil.

He added that 83 percent of the national budget – estimated at over US$830 million – will come from taxes. Another 12 percent will be financed with revenue from socialist state enterprises and only 3.2 percent with oil exports, based on an average of the Venezuelan barrel price of US$30. 

Menendez said that the government is committed "to the breakdown of the oil rentier model, and (to) build(ing) another model, greater justice” and to “show how the horizon is raised in Venezuela.”

This is interesting but left me wondering who will be paying these taxes? Inflation is already eating away at wages so income and/or sales tax won't work too well, and there are already plenty of disincentives to invest in Venezuela, so corporate tax won't work too well. Am I missing something?

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Last Crumbs of Venezuelan Democracy Fading

Nicolás Maduro understands perfectly well that representative democracy entails disagreement, debate, and deliberation, all of which he opposes. So he has announced he will submit his budget directly to the Supreme Court and to a group of hand-picked cronies that he will call a "popular assembly."

As TeleSur notes approvingly:

Venezuelan Present Nicolas Maduro will present the country's 2017 budget, with the input of sectors of civil society, directly to the supreme court for approval on Friday, bypassing the national assembly, dominated by a contemptuous right-wing that is not offering any solutions to the country's economic problems.

This is, of course, false. The legislature--already illegally stripped of a super majority by that Supreme Court--has offered plenty of solutions. They are just being ignored.

For years, elections are what Chavistas hung their hats on. Disagree with us, they argued, but accept that this is what a majority of Venezuelans want. Under Chávez that was mostly true. Under Maduro that has almost never been true. He has ruled primarily by overturning or avoiding election results. 

At this point, there is almost no pretense at democracy.

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Podcast 6: Women & Representation

This week I talked to Jennifer Piscopo, Assistant Professor of Politics at Occidental College and currently a visiting scholar at the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. We discussed women and representation in Latin America, especially gender quotas and gender parity, which she's done a lot of research on. It was a great conversation.

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States and Human Rights Organizations

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa says that Latin America needs its own regional human rights system, free of the colonial bonds imposed by the United States. And his reasoning is interesting.

“Cuando se trata de casos de la oposición se despachan inmediatamente, y cuando son a favor del gobierno no se despachan nunca”, repisó el mandatario ecuatoriano desde la sede de la Unasur en la Mitad del Mundo.

La información y el contenido multimedia, publicados por la Agencia de Noticias Andes, son de carácter público, libre y gratuito. Pueden ser reproducidos con la obligatoriedad de citar la fuente.http://www.andes.info.ec/es/noticias/presidente-correa-urge-crear-sistema-ddhh-america-latina-sin-imposiciones-neocolonialismo

In other words, he is complaining about only the opposition gets attention, and the state gets ignored.

States have a monopoly of power, and that's why human rights organizations keep such a keen eye on what they do to their own citizens. I wrote about this earlier this year with regard to criticism of NGOs. It all depends on where you sit. During the Cold War, the right complained about human rights organizations, saying they were biased. Now leftist presidents say the same.

It is disingenuous for the state to complain about how human rights activists don't side more with the state. People are the victims, not presidents.

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A Russian Base in Cuba? Not So Likely

The Russian government says it is considering reopening a military base in Cuba. Raúl Castro has said nothing about it to my knowledge. I do not think the Cuban government would accept the Russian proposal. I've argued in an op-ed (and will be doing so more in a forthcoming article) that the U.S. opening to Cuba increased U.S. leverage. Once the process got going, Cuba wants it to continue. The United States can reverse it at any time. President Obama has ignored the domestic criticism levied at him for the fact that Cuba did not make concessions for normalization, but he will act if the Russians actually open a base in Cuba.

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Trump Trumps Latin American Elections

Last night Donald Trump said that if elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's email scandal, with the goal of putting her in prison.

Clinton responded first by calling Trump's comments about her emails false, then said, "It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country." 

Trump, as if continuing her sentence, added: "Because you'd be in jail."

Threatening to put your political opponents in jail is, of course, anti-democratic. It made me think of acrimonious elections in Latin America, none of which included this sort of language. The 2015 Argentine election was nasty, but Mauricio Macri didn't even say he'd put Daniel Scioli or Cristina Fernández in prison (and hasn't since, though his government has frozen her assets). Jimmy Morales did not talk about putting Sandra Torres in jail in Guatemala last year. I don't even remember that happening in the famous 1998 Venezuelan election. Hugo Chávez said he would rewrite the constitution but I don't think he said anything about putting Henrique Salas Romer in prison.

Now, in Venezuela the government is in fact putting opposition leaders in prison. And indeed it indicted Henrique Salas Romer in 2014. So Nicolás Maduro has that in common with Trump.

At this point, most Latin American democracies seem more mature than the United States.

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Santos Gets the Nobel Consolation Prize

It was just announced that Juan Manuel Santos has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does this matter? I actually had a former student, who is Colombian and is there, tell me that she had heard a lot of people derisively talking about how Santos had paid more attention to getting the prize than working to convince the Colombian people to vote yes. If you're opposed to the deal, does this statement by the international community matter, or could it possibly even be seen as unwanted pressure? Think too of President Obama's Nobel Prize, which if anything had a negative effect.

To really make a difference, the prize would have to give Santos leverage over Alvaro Uribe and his followers, which is difficult to see. I would assume the whole thing would be dismissed as a bunch of international leftists who don't understand Colombia's reality. And anyway, would this be enough to convince the "No" voters that the FARC shouldn't just be locked up, which is what they want?

Along these lines, I've heard a lot of comparisons to Brexit, which I think is tricky. There was a clear sense in Great Britain that many "Exit" voters regretted their votes and given a second chance would no longer vote that way. I am not getting that impression in Colombia, and I am not sure how a Nobel Prize would change that. Here is Alvaro Uribe's response.

That likely will be a common one.

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Joe Renehan's The Valley

Joe Renehen's The Valley (2015) really grabbed me and didn't let go. It is what you might call a "combat mystery" set in remote Afghanistan. Lt. Black is unlucky enough to get chosen to investigate what looks to be a minor infraction in the furthest outpost imaginable. As I read, I thought Apocalypse Now, which of course was based on Heart of Darkness. In the notes after the book, Renehen is asked about Joseph Conrad, which he says shocked him. Hard to understand why.

The book makes you feel the situation. Renehan served in Iraq and makes the military lingo sound natural and normal. Young kids are soldiers but barely understand what's going on. Those above them are involved in things they don't even know about. Confusion is constant. The sense of isolation is overwhelming.

I really got into the book. My only quibble is the overly mysterious parts of the mystery, where characters talk to each other but we aren't told what they say, where there are knowing glances we aren't allowed to understand, that sort of thing.

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Podcast Episode on Brazil

In episode 5 of the podcast, today I talked to Colin Snider, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Tyler (and also the book review editor for The Latin Americanist, which I realized I forgot to mention) about Brazil. Did the country experience a coup? Can the PT survive this crisis? Was the World Cup a terrible idea or just a bad one?

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Daniel Ortega as Richard Nixon

I have a new post over at Latin America Goes Global that among other things compares Daniel Ortega to Richard Nixon. The guiding question is why leaders cheat to win when they don't have to.

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Marco Rubio and Cultural Imperialism

I am trying to wrap my head around this. Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee are accusing the Obama administration of "cultural imperialism" against Latin America, by virtue of its funding for the Organization of American States. Here is the text of the letter. The idea is that by helping to fund the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the U.S. is forcing a feminist, pro-abortion agenda on countries that don't want it.

This is the same Rubio who previously derided the OAS as weak, with countries beholden to Venezuela. Now it is strong and beholden to...well, I don't who he thinks is behind all this. He doesn't even blame Obama for it--just the use of U.S. money.

But the "cultural imperialism" is a funny choice of words. It intentionally appropriates the language of the left for a conservative cause. If the OAS lawyers and judges are Latin American, then in fact this isn't cultural imperialism at all, but rather a Latin American debate. And that's what we should encourage.

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Problematic Counting in Colombia?

An economist and a physicist ask about the quality of the counting of the ballots in Colombia given how close the election was. Based on research about vote counting, they catalog the ways in which human error could have happened, especially as the counting was occurring quite quickly.

In total, therefore, the result presents as many as 400,000 opportunities for classification mistakes. That’s before counting any systematic human behaviours not listed above. This represents a numerical uncertainty that swamps the victory margin of 53,894.

Hmm. This raises the question of whether recounts are possible. That does seem to be the case, as votes in a senate race were recounted in 2014. The next question, then, is why have the "yes" supporters not mentioned this as a possibility? I have heard nothing.

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Historical Context of the Colombia Vote

Check out my latest podcast episode. I talked to Robert Karl, Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University (here's his website and you can also find him on Twitter). I had read his piece at The Monkey Cage from a few days ago, where he provided historical context for the "No" vote, namely suspicion of independent political enclaves in the country. We talked about that and more.

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Losing the Colombian Referendum

The Colombia peace referendum failed by a 50.2%-49.8% margin, with about 54,000 votes out of 13 million making the difference. Collectively we're going to be analyzing this result for years to come, comparing it other other yes/no referenda, etc.

One thing I've written about before is how this particular situation is different from other Latin American examples because the FARC is deeply unpopular. Guerrillas in other cases, such as in Guatemala or El Salvador, had a solid base of support and so could reintegrate. As I was discussing with Adam Isacson in my last podcast, the FARC will have a hard time winning any votes. A sizable chunk of Colombians do not even want to give them the chance because of the destruction they've wrought. And there's no domestic constituency the FARC can turn to for support.

What's ironic is that the FARC responded to the loss by blaming the "destructive power" of the opposition.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP) deeply regret that the destructive power of those who sow hatred and rancor have influenced the opinion of the Colombian population.

No, not really. The FARC had been spreading hate and rancor for decades, and now is reaping what it sowed.

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Novant Health 15K

I ran the Novant Health 15K this morning. I am much, much slower than I used to be, even when I was pushing my children (as I did in this same race back in 2008). Back then I was pushing my 6-year old son. Now he's 14 and stayed at home asleep.

My comments from those past races is the same for now--this is my favorite time of year for weather and it was a beautiful morning for running, so great for increasing my mileage. My only quibble is the volunteer at mile 6 who was telling everyone "you're almost there" when in fact we still had a 5K to go. Nice sentiment but a bit off!

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