More on Ignatieff, Please

Really?  Ok, not by popular demand, but one other thought drove my reactions last night: as a former leader of the Liberal party, should he not be just a wee bit cautious about what he says about Canadian unity?  I don't think one has to take out of context his statements to suggest that he, a former candidate for Prime Minister, does not believe in the future of Canada as a united country. 

Ignatieef hems and haws a wee bit, but the statements here are pretty controversial.  It is not just me and not just the headline driving this.  The man has a heap of stature in Canada, so he needs not only to think about what political science might have said about whether separatism spreads (it does not) but also what his works might mean for his fellow Liberals back in Canada, ESPECIALLY since he recognizes what is likely to happen to the Labour Party in the UK if Scotland secedes.  What would be the future of the Canadian Liberals if Quebec goes away?  Probably not good, eh?

When Scholar-Politicians Fail to be Philosopher-Kings

Michael Ignatieff represents a proud tradition of scholars who run for office and fail.  Ignatieff famously spent much of his time outside of Canada as a scholar in the US, working on nationalism and other stuff with a history background.  So, I guess I cannot blame him if he is a lousy political scientist in his latest statements.  He says:

It's a kind of way station [devolution]. You stop there for a while, but I think the logic eventually is independence — full independence," Ignatieff said in an interview in his home last month.

Quebec has been in this way station for forty years.  Not too shabby for a temporary condition.  In discussing Scotland and Quebec, he sees parallels but not the ones that I see.  What I see in both places are separatist movements that capture the imagination of a significant hunk of their desired audience but not enough to get a majority in favor of secession.  Yes, it ebbs and flows, and as long as Canada/Quebec use a ridiculously low standard of 50% plus one, a referendum might pass some day. 

I think Ignatieff is over-generalizing about Canada, but what do I know, I have only lived here for the past ten years?  I tease, of course, since that still puts me ahead of him in terms of recent experience living in Canada.  But I don't know where he is getting his "facts" of mutual indifference.  Yes, Canadians and Quebeckers have been burned by years of this stuff, but frustration with the politics of it does not mean that either side is now close to saying "let's divorce."  At least, that is how I remember the past few years of polls.

Anyhow, he then is quoted as saying:

"I think if Scotland goes independent a lot of other smaller nations in Europe will start accelerating their quest for independence," singling out national minorities in Spain and Belgium.

If only folks studied nationalist movements and assessed how contagious these processes are.  Oh wait, there are.  Perhaps I am miffed that Ignatieff has not read my work.  Perhaps I am miffed that he has not remembered or read much of the post-Soviet work that addressed the question of contagion.  The reality is that separatist movements do their own thing.  They may learn tactics from elsewhere, but their motives are almost entirely their own.  The ebbs and flows of these movements are due to their relations with their host country and maybe they push their claims farther if they get more support from outside (see Erin Jenne's work). 

The key bit of reality that I have mentioned in my blog before is that motivated political actors learn what they want to learn from elsewhere and not much else.  So, Quebec separatists looked at Montenegro's secession and said how wonderful it was that a referendum would produce independence, ignoring the 55% threshold the EU had set.  Likewise, Quebec separatists said that Kosovo got to have independence with a referenda, so why not Quebec, ignoring the very different processes and stakes involved.

Scotland is already ignoring the Canadian/Quebec experience (or learning the wrong lessons) by pushing for a complicated question, by pushing for a referendum at all when the polls show it to be a loser, and so on.

Perhaps I tweeted a bit strongly when I called Ignatieff an idiot.  But that is perhaps because I had high expectations.  That a politician who is also a scholar of nationalism might think twice about what we have largely learned over the past couple of decades--that separatism is not contagious, that federalism is not so unstable, and so on. 

So, he spoke without considering what we have learned, triggering my hasty label of "idiot." 

So, tell me what would be a handy label for a scholar of nationalism who seems ignorant of the scholarship of nationalism?

Modest Protest Proposal

The student groups leading the protests against higher tuition in Quebec are complaining that they are being lumped in with the violent actors that have interrupted Metro service, damaged offices and what not.  I understand that they are in a hard position: that either they support the violence but cannot say so or that they do not support the violence but cannot control the people who show up at the protests.

Here is my modest proposal: take a breather from organizing big, confrontational street protests for about a week.  Announce you are doing this so that anarchist fish that swim within your sea of students cannot hide themselves, at least for a week.  This would show that you care about Montreal and about Quebec and not just about yourselves.  Yes, it would take some steam from your movement, but it would demonstrate a real interest in doing what is right for Quebec. 

As it stands now, it seems as if the groups doing the organizing do not seem to realize that putting hundreds or thousands of people on the streets might not be just a bit problematic at a time of escalating violence.  The only way to de-escalate is to do less.  Condemn the violent actors, be creative in organizing protests where the possibility for violence will be minimized (including violence conducted by the cops), and seek other ways to persuade the public of the rightness of your cause.*

*  Of course, I do not support the tuition protesters as I have repeatedly protested here.  Still, I do believe that they have a right to engage in dissent.  I just want it to be thoughtful, peaceful dissent that does not provide provocateurs with more opportunities.

The real risk of continuing on the present course is that the groups will alienate the rest of the province--those that have thus far not been alienated. 

On a related note, I agree with Don Macpherson that Pauline Marois has painted herself into a corner: that by adopting the red square (symbol of the tuition protesters), she now either stands with the violence or abandons the students.  I am perhaps more openly gleeful about this outcome than Don, but perhaps not.

Everything is Relative Even The Terrorists

The past week has seen a bunch of pieces arguing that Al Qaeda is stronger now than ever before or weaker now than ever before.  As someone who does not study AQ at all or terrorism much, I feel I am especially qualified to comment.  This is why twitter is great--no need for citations.

My first take on this debate is that the folks arguing that AQ is stronger confuse opportunity with strength.  Yes, there are all kinds of events/processes/dynamics that are opening the window for AQ--more opportunity:

• 9/11 fatigue--countries and populations are tired of being alert and spending heaps of resources and energy on fighting terrorism.  Much of this is actually quite appropriate as the over-reactions have probably been less than helpful.
• Arab Spring and other dynamics have reduced state capacity to fight terrorism.  Feeble democracies may not be energetic or competent when it comes to chasing terrorism, when compared to the autocracies that they replaced.  And autocracies focused on political opposition may take their eyes off of the terrorism effort.  Of course, weak democracies may cause fewer folks to seek extremist solutions like joining terrorist groups that promise to kill their new adherents via suicide terrorism.
• The fiscal crises and Great Recession mean that the advanced democracies have less money to dedicate to the CT battle.  On the other hand, with fiscal restraints, perhaps less money will be wasted?  Sorry, forget my foolish optimism.

Second, the question is of AQ now vs when?  I picked 1998 as semi-random date for AQ's peak:

1.  Pre-9/11 AQ had a very useful base in Afghanistan and had cells in Germany and elsewhere that were quite useful, as we realized during the 9/11 investigation.
2.  Somalia now vs Somalia 1998?  Pretty much the same in terms of haven for terrorists, with more US drones/SOF attacks now.
3. Antagonized Muslim world for past ten years with realization that AQ kills more Muslims than anyone else.
4. Democratic alternative seems to work, at least thus far in North Africa.
5. Bin Laden is still dead as are most folks who have been appointed #3 in AQ. Lots of lost principals and agents, which means less preferred folks are now in key spots.  If they had been preferred, many of them would have had top spots before.  This does not bode well for command and control.
6. a decade of antagonizing Muslim world, death of leader and 47 #3's, more unity in anti-AQ fight, lost base in A-stan hurts 1/2 

It may be that the West is weaker, but that does not mean that AQ is stronger now than before.  It just means that the West may respond poorly to the next attack. 

Game Shows as Game Theory

A very interesting way to elicit cooperation.

Three Worst Decisions in Afghanistan

Here is my latest at CIC: http://www.opencanada.org/features/blogs/roundtable/the-three-bad-decisions-made-in-afghanistan/   My big points are: in effort to figure out what went wrong, Canadians need to think beyond Ottawa (that is a different conversation), that the big three folks to blame would be the US, Pakistan, and, well, my favorite target, President for Life Karzai.

your thoughts?

Dreaming of Waste

Pauline Marois spoke yesterday, strategically removing her red badge identifying her support for the striking students, to a crowd of folks interested in foreign policy.  The big news was that she imagined that an independent Quebec would have an army to do only peacekeeping.  Ah, the idealism of nationalists.   Makes them seem so .... silly?

What Marois seems not to have learned is that contemporary peacekeeping does often involve violence, so the ideal of just helping out folks is nifty but unrealistic.  But forget that.  No, the real fun is imagining how a province that cannot build bridges that last, that has a corruption fiasco on a regular basis, that has a huge deficit can possibly build and sustain an army.  Because I am pretty sure the Canadian Forces will not simply turnover its troops and material to the new Quebec army.  Armies are expensive, even if they just hang out at home.  Oh, and who will pick up this Quebec army to go to Haiti-like places?  Oh, you would need a navy and air force.  So, who would pay for that?

Independence would be costly, so I am glad that Marois has done her share to remind us of some of the costs that we were not even imagining.

Turtles and Bad Agents

The old myth is that the world sits on the back of a turtle (wouldn't it roll off, with a sphere on top of a round thing?) and the turtle is standing on a turtle.  What is that turtle standing on?  Well, it is turtles all the way down.

Same is true for principals and agents (alas, my latest project has finally made me drink the UCSD koolaid).  Any hierarchy (government or business or union or whatever) is a series of bosses and underlings or principals and agents.  The big problem is how do the bosses get their underlings to do what they want, no more and no less.  The agents will always know more about what they are doing than the principals because the principals have other things to do.  This information asymmetry is at the heart of the P-A problem. 

Most of the work that migrated to Poli Sci, as far as I can tell, focuses on oversight--being able to monitor the agents and detect violations.  The classic distinction in oversight is passive vs active--police patrols vs. fire alarms.  Active means going out and inspecting, looking for violations.  This serves to deter as finding a violation is more likely, but is also expensive as the inspectors have to spend much/all of their time doing oversight.  The alternative is to wait to hear about a complaint--when someone pulls the fire alarm.  Usually, the form this takes is someone tells the media.  So, this is cheaper because inspectors don't have to be paid and so forth, but it is reactive and far more public. 

The Dave and Steve book look at other aspects of the P-A problem besides oversight: selection processes that shape whether the most appropriate agents are chosen (those who think more or less like the Principal?), discretion--how much decision-making is delegated to the agent, and incentives. 

Why talk about this?  Because in doing this project, I keep being reminded that control of one's agents is never perfect, and so we find out that soldiers pose with dead Taliban, Secret Service agents hire prostitutes, that members of a protest movement may throw bricks onto the tracks of the metro and engage in other acts of vandalism.  We have higher expectations for the US Army or the Secret Service than the student groups protesting tuition in Quebec precisely because the former organizations spend a great deal of time, thought and energy trying to manage their P-A problems through training, discipline, doctrine and all the rest. 

But the systems do not always work.  Size of organization obviously matters--the more agents there are, the harder it is to monitor and the harder it is to provide incentives that matter.  Given how big the US Army is and how stressed its agents have been during a decade of war, it is perhaps surprising how few violations have occurred--that we know, of course.  Perfection is not possible, but active oversight is the key for Army since learning about violations from the media is very costly as Abu Ghraib and other such disasters have revealed.  Failures occur when the intermediate principals do not do their job.  Andrew Exum, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, always asks: where were the non-commissioned officers and the lieutenants and the captains?  Obviously, it is also turtles all the way up--did the more highly ranked officers fail to instruct and discipline the lower ranking ones?  I don't know in this case.  In the case of Abu Ghraib, it was turtles (crappy principals) all the way up: Sanchez to Rumsfeld.

The good news: some training centers are recommending the right readings, so perhaps we can at least understand this stuff better.

Parodized Revenge is Sweet

I think Santorum served his purpose--that Romney will have a hard time walking back to the center.

But revenge is sweet or funny anyway: see here.

Perfect Storm: Nationalism, Corruption and Entitlement

Ah, spring in Montreal: the protests are blooming, the strikes are enduring, the corruption is blossoming, and the nationalism is need of some mowing..  I have really enjoyed Montreal, but living in this province has been a huge drag.  Why?  Let's take a quick tour of three very related stories over the past month: a poll about Anglophone assimilation, the tuition wars, and the corruption battle.

• While I was in San Diego, a French magazine published a poll run by a noted separatist. The poll basically "found" that Anglophones may be willing to speak French but not are not assimilating as much as they should.  Anglophones were found to be less aware of key aspects of French culture and, worse, not big fans of the various laws that enshrine French and marginalize English.  
• This has led to a big debate about the expectations placed upon the English folks.  While the poll itself was questionable with biased questions, the general finding is probably accurate--Anglophones and Francophones are not the same.  
• But are Anglophones Quebeckers?  I think if the survey had asked about poutine consumption, about rooting for the Canadiens, and which beers they preferred, they would have found more commonalities than differences.   
• Part of this new move to focus on assimilation is a product of the reality that Anglophones (with yours truly as an exception) have become quite bilingual and that most of the language battles were won a long time ago.
• The "crisis" over English usage in Montreal is hardly a crisis, but it makes more sense to focus on this than on the corruption battle.
• More revelations about how deep corruption is in the construction industry/political system.  We already knew the generalities, but the specifics are becoming more obvious.  With the centralization of this industry, serious penalties are hard because some of the companies are "too big to fail."  That is, heaps of projects would stop if the government seriously punished the big companies.
• It took the Montreal Gazette seven years to get the information about Montreal hosting a swimming tournament that cost far more than it brought it.  Montreal and Quebec cover everything with secret sauce so that people do not have to be accountable.  
• This is not entirely a Quebec thing to be fair, as the Harper government consistently overreacts and tries to control every message.  So much so that an effort by a journal to study a recent effort for joint research on improved technology to forecast snowfall met with much difficulty in Canada while in the US NASA was quite willing to talk to the media.
• Anyhow, back to Quebec, because construction is only open to Quebec companies, there is really no pressure to lower costs and every incentive to collude.  The Parti Quebecois should be making much about the corruption, but given that they were complicit the last time they were in power and given their ties to unions that are deeply involved, the PQ is better off banging the drums of "oppressed majority" and "endangered French."
• Only rarely has the PQ stood for good public policy--they find it more important to push for independence than to govern well.
• And then there are the students on strike.  Which actually is a misnomer since they are boycotting classes, not striking since they are not employees.   The students are protesting a tuition increase that would keep Quebec at the cheapest place in North American for a university degree.
• The movement is obviously a  mix of folks, but some of the folks involved have more radical aims--posing as anti-capitalists--and allegiances to ... the PQ.  The PQ has always been in bed with the student movements--good politics, bad public policy.
• Recently, the conflict has escalated with universities seeking injunctions to get relief and some members of the moment engaging in vandalism and sabotage, closing down the metro system for short periods of time.  Way to win friends and influence people!  Time is getting critical as many schools have not had classes in weeks, and if they don't start soon, students will lose the entire semester. That means that they will end up facing problems getting/keeping jobs without degrees, that they will finish a semester or two latter, meaning more money spent, etc.
• I am fairly convinced the iron law of oligarchy is at work here: the interests of the organizers and of the students in general are not identical.  Part of the problem is that when strike votes are held, not everyone shows up.  So, small numbers of voters determine outcomes.
• I have realized that the best thing that happened to McGill was the event of November 10th last fall: the occupation/riot police encounter.  It led to a mobilization of moderates who turned out to vote against a boycott.  So, McGill's students will graduate on time.  Folks have argued because there are more foreigners at McGill or more people who don't have a stake in Quebec.  I think the real difference is that McGill simply had a relatively representative decision process, and the majority of McGill students felt that a strike was not in their interests.  All my posts about McGill students not understanding the math were wrong.  They get it--getting through and getting done is more important than fighting against a tuition increase that actually might be good for their long term interests.  Even in the short term, as many are realizing, the costs are pretty high--as in a semester that will be lost.  Time is money.

The fun part has been to watch the PQ line up with the students, but then perhaps suffer for it as the public has turned on the students due to the inconveniences of closed bridges and metros.  I know the grass always seems greener, and I know that Ontario is mismanaging its budget because it over-promised to its students, but I cannot help but think it will be better in my new destination.  Why do I think this?  Because the overpasses do not require netting to keep the concrete from falling onto the roads below.

More on F-35

I had an op-ed in today's Globe and Mail on the F-35, putting it into context, as Canada is just one of several countries re-considering the decision to buy this aircraft. 

Ah, the comments have been quite interesting, as some folks think I am Conservative hack, some think I am a Liberal hack, and perhaps even some think I am NDP.  I am not going to respond to all of the stuff in the comments (158 and counting) here.

But a few points of clarification:

• Folks took issue that the F-35 would foster interoperability, arguing that other countries in NATO are buying other planes.  Yes, they are.  But this is mostly a non sequitur.  Why?  Because other countries in NATO may not be as concerned with interoperability, may have lower standards/comfort levels for how interoperable they would like to be, and/or have other priorities.  So, they may be buying planes that are less interoperable than the claims made by the F-35 manufacturers and fans.  Also, other than France, most of the countries listed as non-F35 buyers are those that didn't participate in the air strikes or even no fly-zone over Libya.  So, alliance obligations (or whatever) are not a key priority for Germany, Spain, etc.  
• Poland didn't fly over Libya and isn't buying F-35s, but I don't put them in the same class as Germany or Spain because of Poland's willingness to serve in the hard places in Afghanistan.  For the Poles, Libya was not Article V, unlike Afghanistan, so it was not as compelling.
• Buying a Euro-fighter (Typhoon or Rafale) is more interoperable than buying a Grippen (Sweden plane) 
• The title was not mine, so don't blame me for the "we".  But Canada as a country, with its government, made the decisions, so Canadians can take some frustrated ownership of the decision.  As an American, I cannot deny that we (the US) invaded Iraq.  But anyhow, again, not my title.  Mine was: Putting the F-35 Mess Into Perspective.I think the G&M did fine though as the piece got a heap of attention so Mission Accomplished.

Anyhow, I am pleased that folks are interested in the topic and in my views on it, but I also realize that the folks commenting already have strong beliefs and see in my op-ed what they want to see.  Not the first nor last we will be encountering our frenemy known as confirmation bias.

Canada's Not Alone in the F-35 Mess

Which is what I argue in today's Globe and Mail.

Point of Pride

Today, my last McGill grad student signed her contract for a tenure-track position.  I am very proud of this contribution to McGill: nearly every student whose dissertation I supervised has found a good tenure-track position.  Sure, it screws up my arguments that folks should not seek PhDs in political science, but I guess it is worth it.  This year, three of my students got jobs, making my total of seven in all, starting with the first (aside from my one TTU Phd student):

• Brent Sasley is at U of Texas at Arlington after writing a dissertation comparing Israeli and Turkish foreign policy. 
• Jonathan Paquin is at Université Laval, who was daring enough to aim his dissertation (and also a co-authored article) directly at my first book and publications.  
• Suranjan Weeraratne is at Southern Illinois U Edwardsville.  He was the first triple threat of my McGill students: a great research assistant, a great teaching assistant, and then as my head TA the first couple of times I ran the big Intro to IR class.  He suffered much without complaining as I learned how to manage a six hundred student class and eight TAs mostly by offloading the work onto him.  Then, his dissertation was on variation of targeting of Chinese in Indonesian riots with my favorite invented word: Scapegoatability.
• Ora Szeleky is now at Clark University.  She took took over Suranjan's roles as great RA, great TA, and head TA for Intro to IR.  Her project required hanging out with, ahem, terrorists, comparing the three major militias confronting Israel to determine what causes some to do succeed/fail more than others.
• Jessica Trisko will be starting at Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario) next fall.  She was most deft in developing networks that gave her two years of hanging out with scholars of civil war in that resort town of New Haven.  She is completing her dissertation on the fungibility of foreign aid and how it can be used to facilitate repression.
• Aisha Ahmad will be starting at the University of Toronto Scarborough, which means she joins the faculty of the largest graduate program in Canada or anywhere else, I think, at the U of Toronto.  She was never shy to criticize my take on Afghanistan.  Her dissertation considers the political economy of Islamic movements and state formation: why some Islamic movements succeed and un-fail states (at least temporarily) while others fail.
• Sarah-Myriam Martin-Brûlé will be starting next fall at Bishop's University.  She was also an excellent RA and TA.  Her work focuses on the conditions that facilitate or inhibit the success of peacekeeping operations, comparing a multitude of PKO's in Africa in Somalia, Liberia and Sierre Leone and beyond.

What do they all share?*  What is the key to their success?  Some had publications and were done with their dissertation before they got a tenure-track position.  Others did not.  I think what they do share are intense curiosity, really interesting questions, some fun and provocative answers, and they worked really hard.  Only a couple really addressed anything close to my expertise, with one of those arguing that I was/am wrong.  Hardly Saideman disciples.   

* I was reminded when responding to a tweet about the future of Saideman students dominating Canadian IR that my students do share a common approach to Political Science--as positivists seeking to answer questions and to generalize. None are post-modern--I would not be able to provide good advice to anyone that seeks to upset the "normal science" in which I dwell. So, don't count on any of Team Steve ending up at York University to name just one outpost of Post-modern IR.

I had the pleasure of dining with those who were attending the ISA two weeks ago as the first and hopefully annual meeting of Team Steve.  I am most proud of what they have accomplished and take far more credit than I deserve. While I had the most fun at McGill in the classrooms with the undergrads, I learned the most and gained the most satisfaction from my work with McG's grad students.

The funny thing is that success has consequences--I went to Carleton on Friday to my first supervisee's dissertation proposal defense.  Yes, even before I start, it has started.

Repatriate This!

Since moving to Canada, I have always been confused by the whole Repatriation of the Constitution.  Since I come from a country that revolted from Britain, I never really got the idea of what it meant to somehow gain control of one's constitution any other way. 

The big time irony here is that Jean Chretien, who was widely known for being inarticulate:



neatly explains the politics, process, and implications of Canada's constitutional hijinks here.

Constitutional machinations are always confusing, providing ample room to folks to spin the perceptions in a variety of ways.  The majority of Quebec folks (much more than 50% plus one!) supported repatriation thirty years ago, but the nationalist discourse has turned the event into a betrayal--the night of the long knives.  As Chretien argues quite well, the Charter of Rights and all that came with out has been mighty, mighty good for Quebec.  Indeed, in many ones, it makes secession much less necessary or attractive, which, I guess, is a good reason to trash it and spin myths about the events of the time. 

I love how Chretien spins in this interview the Charter into being pro-gay marriage, showing the Quebeckers that the Charter is good protection against the vagaries of Conservative governance without even saying that directly.  He also takes credit for a law that makes amendments very, very difficult:

“To try to do anything with the Constitution without the consent of either Ontario, Quebec or B.C., you will have to change the law. [I] wish good luck to the prime minister who will go to Parliament and will say, ‘I want to take away the veto rights from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.’ He will have a hell of a problem, don't you think so?”

 I only experienced the last year of Chretien's time as Prime Minister.  It must have been a great show.

Merit Badges R Us

Andrew Exum, former Ranger and current CNAS blogger/twitter/man about town, posted today about medal inflation in the military.  James Joyner argues that such medals matter, perhaps more in peacetime when there is greater need to recognize minor service.  My first thoughts on this are: if I get a medal for one year's work on the Joint Staff, then you know that the standards for service for some of these things are mighty low.  I mean, I am proud of what I did in that year, and working with the military did make me think of such things as service, but I do have some perspective--that what I did was just ordinary desk-work. 

On the other, I am not above adding a line or two to my CV for such service medals.  I am still more proud of my departing gift, a picture of the Pentagon signed by my fellow JS dwellers, than of the medal, but I cannot squeeze that on to my cv.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Govt Accounting

Ok, this table would seem to clarify things:


Except the very first line means that the F-35 would be costing less than $100 million per plane.  If you believe that, stand on your head.  I am still frustrated that the numbers debate in Canada is ignoring the flying elephant in the room--that we do not yet know what the plane will cost anyone.  Plus with more countries cutting the orders, the economies of scale will become diseconomies of not so much scale.

Oy.