Public Opinion on Trade Policy

I'm surprised to find here that more people still support free trade than oppose it. This despite the supposed recent increase in protectionist feeling.

For the friendly reader who (a) isn't a grad student in Poli. Sci., and (b) doesn't know my soap box on this, my opinion on this issue is as follows:
1. Free trade is good, but
2. Switching to free trade hurts some people.
3. The rich countries can afford to compensate these people through social welfare programs and education.
4. The poor countries usually can't afford to help these people.
5. Therefore, the IMF and World Bank and other international organizations should work to compensate the losers in these free trade agreements in the poor countries. Could hardly hurt their reputations, too.
6. Finally, we should engage in more preferential trade agreements, in which the poor countries get to export stuff to us duty-free, but we still allow them to tax our exports, while these countries develop export industries. Over the long term better for everybody.

Heading back to the coast...

...after far too little time in the jungle. I figure, though, I'll have a lot more in the way of jungle opportunities down in Bolivia, which is on the agenda for the week after next, I think.

I've been reading through my survey data for Bolivia and taking a look through the Lonely Planet book at a couple of the places, and there are some really interesting-looking places to visit, so I'm getting pretty excited about it. My only regret: nowhere on Lake Titicaca is in the survey, and I was hoping to make it there. I had planned to do a case study on the Peruvian side, near Puno, but I think I'm going to cut it out, in the interest of getting more time in Bolivia. I have, after all, been in Peru, effectively since early October.

Hopefully, I don't have any trouble getting over the border, with this pig flu nonsense going on.

Anyways, my plane leaves Pucallpa tomorrow morning at the ridiculous hour of 5:40AM. Why they leave at that time, I have no idea, since there are only two flights a day out of this town.

I'll be in Lima for two days, then back to Cusco, then (I think) by bus to the Bolivian border, and ultimately, La Paz. There's also a very small possibility that I'll find a cheap flight from Lima to La Paz or Santa Cruz and be able to do it by plane, instead (really, can't have too many stops in the Lima airport, right?).

I'm going to miss the Inka Kola, but I'm looking forward to the Salvietti.

Sweet pizza and centralized government

I've been talking to Krister about some papers he wants us to write together--I told him in an e-mail today that he needs to give me deadlines, or I'll spend my time doing interviews and trying out exotic Amazonian pizza toppings. I am, of course, half joking, but I want you all to know that my Quechua lessons came in handy today when I spotted the "Misky Pizza" on the menu at the local pizza joint. "Misk'y" is Quechua for "sweet." The pizza has fruit toppings on it (pineapple, peach, banana) and sweet condensed milk. It was good.

In other news, I got in another couple of interviews today--I'm not totally over this non-pig flu I've got, but I'm feeling a lot sharper, mentally, even though I probably sound like hell. At least this cold has given me the opportunity to use up the Cold-Eeze cough drops that Emily gave me way back in October and I've been dragging around with me since then.

Anyways, my thoughts about Pucallpa (the current case study) go like this:

Pucallpa is a pretty good case of a municipality where poor centralized government decision making has led to bad stuff happening. The central government has passed some laws that are just silly--making forestry concessions too big to permit local firms to compete, for example. The end result is that, well, they can't really not afford to be in the game, and nobody's really watching, anyways (they would be the ones watching, since they're the ones with a long-term stake in the region), so they pretty much do whatever they want.

And the result is lots of deforestation.

Pucallpa, in a phrase, could use a little bit more decentralization.

The good news is that there are a number of well-organized forestry users' groups in the city which are working pretty hard to get the government to change the policy. Hopefully, they'll be successful.

Waterfront pictures

Got some new pictures up of the Pucallpa waterfront--you can click on the link in the sidebar, or here.

Sick

When I headed back on the plane from Denver on Tuesday, I had a pretty good idea that I'd wind up catching a cold from all the people hacking and coughing on the flight. At least I'm not squandering a couple days of a 10-day vacation or something! The poor people.

So, I started feeling ill yesterday or the night before. Runny nose, sore through, etc. At least I don't have the severe respiratory symptoms of pig flu--I realized this afternoon that I was sitting next to a Mexican guy on the plane from Atlanta to Lima. But he was coming from the US and had a US passport, anyways. And he didn't look like he would have been in recent contact with any pig except the deep-fried kind (does that count as porcine profiling).

The idea of having to go to a hospital down here in the jungle is a little scary. If I were in Lima, I have no doubt that my medical care would be as good as anything I could get in the states, but down here... who knows?

All in all, there's never a good time to be ill (except, you know, when you're rhymin' and stealin') but at least I've got the weekend to feel better.

Texas

Survey results on the number of likely Texas voters that support secession here. Nearly 40%!

Selva musings

First, when your inerviewee launches immediately into an explanation of his efforts to convert cocaleros to legitimate crops, despite the fact that you never even brought up coca, does that mean he thinks you're in the DEA? Because I would think that my moustache pretty much disqualifies me.

Second, why are random people on the street here so talkative, while all of my interviewees clearly have no interest in talking to me?

Third, how can the local forestry chamber of commerce afford air conditioning? Maybe #1 has something to do with it?

Fourth, what's a conversation with a Shipibo native guy worth? Because I think I spent about $9 on junk, but had a pretty good conversation.

Fifth, why would you buy a hummer H3 down here, even if you were involved in the coca trade?

Sixth, to echo my comments the other day on facebook, the pizza I had this evening makes me wonder, "what food products aren't made better by putting fried bananas on top?" Although I could have passed on the egg, sunny-side up.

Seventh, I wonder what Bolivian war hero I will be compared to when I'm over there. I'm "¡Admiral Grau!" here. Weird, because that dude had sideburns.

More on Pucallpa

Pucallpa is hot. But I guess I'll get used to it.

Slept a little bit late to catch up on what I missed the other night--felt good to sleep in a bed. Got up and got the desayuno Americano up on the Plaza de Armas--apparently, Americans eat fried eggs and french bread. All in all, not the best I've had. Much more entertaining when they get it completely wrong.

In general, breakfast options in Guatemala tend to be better.

After breakfast, got in an interview with the folks at the provincial office. I was surprised to find that the huge provincial capitol building holds only two people involved in agriculture--surprising, since this municipality is right on the regression line for the provision of agricultural services. They described a number of types of training the province sponsors for agricultural producers, but admitted to me that, basically, the province isn't as heavily involved in agriculture as the region.

So I went out this afternoon to the regional government's ministry of agriculture compound. It's on the outskirts of the city, out on a dirt road. Wasn't able to interview the director, but did meet with the head of the local farmers' union (does that make him the representative of the Peruvian grange?) He gave me his spiel for about an hour, which was great. It does really sound as though the region has gotten into agriculture, big time, and maybe the result is that the regional government satisfies these demands, while the local governments play other roles in this region(?)

In general, agriculture here appears to be much larger-scale. Producers down here seem to produce one or a small number of crops in large quantities, and many of them seem to have very large farms. Rice, palm oil, and other staples are produced in great quantities.

Going to try back tomorrow, to try to catch the director. And tomorrow morning, think I'm going to go to the province again, to try to catch the participatory budget guy.

First impressions of Pucallpa

Made it to Pucallpa this morning after a largely sleepless night one
planes ans sitting in the Lima airport. Why is it that I can only sleep
easily on planes after 3AM?

The airport was amusing. Plane lands, you walk down some stairs and
walk across the runway to the passenger terminal, then some guys hand
pull the luggage carts over to the terminal and put it on a rotating
baggage carousel. Why they have a rotating baggage carousel, I have no
I idea. I also have no idea why they don't have a vehicle to pull the
baggage carts. Although I suppose it isn't really necessary, either.

Although my hotel is a separated by a few metaphysical degrees from the
ideal travelers hangout, Pucallpa so far is an interesting place, and
quite a change from the places I've visited so far in Peru. It's down
in the Amazon, and is hot and humid. The hotel itself is secure and
clean, and although I could pay extra for air conditioning, I've got a
room with a ceiling fan and cold water. So far, seems comfortable enough.

The city itself is something of a low-altitude version of Huaraz. It's
a newer place, with metal roofs and brick and concrete (and shanty)
construction, and no visible signs of the colonial era. Although there
are some people walking around the streets in indigenous (Amazon
indigenous) clothing, the population here seems mostly mestizo, or at
least acculturated to Spanish/Gringo/European ways of doing things.

Pucallpa is located on the shore of the Ucayali river, which is a
tributary of the Amazon. Boats depart from here for Iquitos, and it is
apparently possible to work your way down to the Amazon and to the
Brazilian coast from here, though it would be a long trip, and with few
of the comforts of, say the Alaska Marine Highway system's M/V Leconte
(That's a joke, I think. Although I kind of miss the Leconte.)

My mission this afternoon is to find the district government building.
I hope to get started with interviews tomorrow.

Some good advice...

...from Blattman, of course, here.

I agree with all of this advice--he's recommending a packing list for students going off to do fieldwork. I can't yet vouch for the need for a mosquito bednet--but I did take my malaria meds last week. No crazy dreams yet. First time I'm really going to the jungle for any length of time.

My only quibble is with his recommendation of a "dorky" hat that keeps the sun off your neck. I'm wearing such a hat at the moment, but I think it's awesome, not dorky. I felt silly until all the indigenous highland guys started trying to get me to give it to them, or trade. I'm keeping it.

Bass Pro Shops--good for classy hats, speedloaders, and pants with flaps on the back pockets.

Some pedagogical thoughts

I've been doing some thinking about teaching in the fall, and how I'd
plan out courses--especially have been thinking about trying to teach
the Environmental Policy class I taught a year ago once again. I really
wasn't satisfied with the way the course turned out, and I'm hoping I
can do a better job the second time around.

I've made some half-hearted attempts to put applications for writing
fellowships together for next year, but really haven't had the time, and
to be honest, I'm really looking forward to teaching again--I miss it.
Of course, who knows if it will even be an option? I may yet be
press-ganged into TA-ing "Intro to Comparative Politics: for the seventh
(?) time. Or grading. Terrible.

Nevertheless, I've been giving some thoughts to pedagogical technique.

Conventional wisdom in teacher circles suggests that students retain a
very large percentage of material (something like 90%) of material they
teach to other students several weeks after they've taught it. On the
other hand, students retain a correspondingly low percentage of material
which they are "taught" in a lecture format (something like 10%). This
seems to imply that we should be doing a lot of student-centered
learning (students presenting in front of the class and whatnot).

There may be something to this, but I have large concerns.

First, where do these figures come from? Statistics like this are
rampant in the secondary education community, but I've never read a
study or seen a citation. Maybe the figures are true, but maybe they're
not.

Second, these figures don't take into account variations in learning
styles, and variations brought about by varying student techniques. For
example, students who actively take notes, versus students who stare
into space, students who attempt to become actively engaged through
discussion and questioning versus students who don't and variations in
lecture styles (certainly, some lectures are more memorable than others,
right?)

Finally, these figures fail to take into account (a) the fact that while
one student is teaching in front of the class, others are learning, and
(b) students' teaching techniques are typically not as good as, say, 30
year-old former secondary school Social Studies teachers with
ostentatious moustaches. Often, students give poor quality
presentations/lectures, and even when they're trying hard, they often
fail to impart the most important parts of a given topic.

Further, in large classes, student presentations and other types of
student-centered learning take up large amounts of time. In the
environmental policy class I taught, for example, there were about 80
students--trying to do presentations can take weeks (and usually does)!
This is an awful lot of crappy teaching for one class.

So, where do you draw the line?

I've been thinking of moving to individual student presentations (or
small) group presentations which students present to a smaller group of
students, basically so that the students have the benefit of presenting
and teaching, but so that the presentations don't take up so much time.
If I break an 80 student class into groups of about nine (three groups
of three) and then have each group of three present to two other groups
of three (basically in a circle), we could presumably have everyone
present 10-minute presentations in a class period, and 20-minute
presentations in a class and a half.

Any of you pedagogical wizards out there have any thoughts on this nonsense?

Heading back to Peru

At the moment, I'm back on a plane bound for Lima. Passed over Cuba an
hour or two ago, and it looks like we're about ready to cross the
Panamanian isthmus. I'll arrive at about 11PM in Lima, then leave again
at about 4AM for Pucallpa, down in the jungle, after spending a night in
the airport. Not my preferred way to spend the evening, but all in all,
it's hard to imagine a nicer place to sit awake through the night--if I
had more time, I would be tempted to get a hotel room at the airport
Ramada, which is right across the parking lot from the ticketing area,
but there simply isn't enough time to get any sleep, even if I only have
to walk right across the street.

I had a great visit at home--just a couple of days, really, but it's
always hard to head back to the field after a visit with Emily. This
flight back to South America is made easier, though, by the fact that
I'm really in the home stretch now. Just a couple more months, and I'll
be done and back home.

I shouldn't imply that I'm not happy to be doing this fieldwork--it has
been fantastic, and a really excellent edumacational experience, but
it's hard to to away for so long. From beginning to end, this fieldwork
experience will have been over a year. The fieldwork, I've really
enjoyed, but not having to be apart from Emily.

Met with Krister twice, which was productive. He seems to be pretty
satisfied with the way my fieldwork is going, which is a pleasant change
from the way I felt things went at my prospectus defense a couple of
months ago. Doing the defense over my cell phone was just weird. Poor
connection and all, plus all of the weirdness of trying to read people
without the benefit of body language.

Anyways, sounds like Krister has some further ideas for papers to put
together for the ISNIE conference at Berkeley in June, which he wants me
to attend. I believe I'll go--and I may figure out a way for me to get
a visit with Emily in while I'm there, though that's still pretty up in
the air.

In the meantime, enjoying the sunset over the Caribbean, and the (not
terrible) airline food. Pretty impressed by their service in general,
though their preflight safety video is terrible.

Turnitin

Blattman quotes the NYTimes here on an ethical query regarding Turnitin.com. A parent complains that his or her child was surprised to find a professor would be using turnitin as an anti-plagiarism tool only when he/she handed in a paper.

The times' "ethicist" suggests that maybe students shouldn't be cheating in the first place, and Blattman himself notes how shady it is that he isn't allowed to use turnitin (along with other Ivy League professors) for some (questionable) reason.

Although I agree with "The Ethicist" that the kids shouldn't be cheating in the first place, and think the professor has a right to be using the tool in this way, aren't we really only asking for trouble when we don't let our students know ahead of time that they'll be held to account for plagiarism through turnitin.com? Further, if the knowledge that we'll be using turnitin is commonplace, won't that prevent cheating in the first place, thus making it more likely that (a) students will do the work, and therefore (b) learn something from it?

Headin' Back

Heading Home:
Heading home on an 11:35PM flight from Lima to Houston, then arriving in Denver at about 9:30AM tomorrow morning. Don't have much time this visit--only about a week and a half--but it's enough time to visit Emily. We've been apart this time for about three months, which is the longest we've ever been apart (just keep breaking those records, unfortunately).

Although my flight doesn't leave until late tonight, I decided to head to the airport quite early, since I didn't have anything planned for the day, I needed to be checked out of my hostel room and the airport is pretty comfortable. I was hoping that I could check my bags when I arrived, but perhaps predictably, the Continental counter doesn't open until much later tonight, so I'll be hanging around for a while.

Meeting with Jaramillo:
Had a really good meeting with Dr. Miguel Jaramillo, my Peruvian contact down here. He seemed to be impressed with my field research. In truth, I can say that's the first time an academic has responded positively to the results of these interviews. Most of the other responses I've been (from David Brown and Krister, among others) are primarily skeptical.

My feelings on my research:
After doing this kind of research, I have to say that I'm a lot less skeptical of the approach, myself. There are some problems with the way the incentive structure of the field wants us to find results--and we can't put in all kinds of time doing research, then get anywhere by saying, "nothing's going on," but in general, I feel as though I really can say that my results, in a qualitative way, are pretty strong. When you can see the same thing over and over again, in municipality after municipality, and the manifestations of a given mechanism manifest themselves in so many ways, I would have to say that the results of those findings are pretty strong.

Participatory Fora and Qualitative Research
Participatory fora, for example, seem to work through (among other things) an information dissemination mechanism. People attend these meetings, and in the meetings, they find more out about what policies the government is going to pursue. They can then pretty much decide for themselves, as the years go on, whether the municipality is doing its job. For example, in two of the districts I visited near Cusco, the municipality had promised to build an irrigation system over the course of three years. In each of those districts, the people in the district were able to ask detailed, educated questions about the way in which the irrigation system was being built, indicating that they already know a great deal about how the system is being built. And if the system was not being built, they would know it.

I saw the flip side of the process in Carhuaz, near Huaraz. There, the municipality wasn't doing its job, and all of the local citizens knew it. They were aware that certain projects had been budgeted for, and that they had not been completed (or, in some cases, even started).

I would contrast this to Guatemala, where there is primarily a one-way process of information flow regarding the decisions the municipality. Citizens pass information to their municipal governments through their COCODEs and COMUDEs (those are community and municipal development councils), but the information flow regarding the priorities set by the government, and regarding which projects they are supposed to carry out, doesn't flow back down to the citizenry as easily (these councils are not intended as two-way transmission mechanisms, and fewer citizens are involved), which means that there is a lot more uncertainty among the voters regarding how well the government is doing its job.

In general, it would be difficult to observe these differences in a quantitative way. Possible, yes, but time consuming and expensive: you would probably need to have surveys at the local level. Further, it would be difficult to extract these conclusions from a quantitative survey without having some theoretical basis for them in the first place--and how are you going to come up with the right ideas on your own, without some qualitative observations to start from?

Krugman, partisanship, and inequality

Like Paul Krugman (see here), I am interested in inequality.

Is he missing the boat on this one? He seems to be blaming inequality for a (supposed) rise in partisanship in the US. Red state, blue state nonsense aside, I have two questions for this, in case there happen to be any Americanists reading my blog (doubt it).

First, is partisanship really on the rise? I guess I buy this, but I seem to remember reading a book by Fiorina in McIver's American Politics class that disputed this notion. True? I have a feeling that there is a rather large debate in American Political Science about this nonsense. Typically, I ignore this stuff, because it's boring, but as soon as you tie in inequality, I get interested.

Second, if partisanship is on the rise, isn't this really about the demise of the Southern wing of the democratic party, and not really about inequality?

Furthermore, if I'm right that it is mostly a story about the demise of the dixiecrats, doesn't this imply that an increase in partisanship is desirable? It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to assume that we are (and should be) in favor of the demise of the primary political force in congress working against equal rights for African Americans.

Finally, even without the demise of the dixiecrats, isn't partisansip really desirable? Partisanship, to me, implies strong, ideologically-motivated political parties. This is, to my mind, one of the primary problems with Peruvian politics--weak parties with little or no ideology. Makes it hard for voters to know what they're voting for. Not helped by the fact that all the party names are meaningless ("Somos Peru," "Peru Posíble," "Peru Popular") or misleading ("Andean Popular Revolutionary Alliance").

Not that this matters much to me, as a newly-minted anarcho-communitarian.

More on Fujimori

First off, the update is that Fujimori receives 25 years in prison for his role in massacres and kidnappings during his rule. He's 70 now--you can do the math.

No visible sign of the verdict in the part of Lima I'm in, although many people were intently watching the sentencing when I was in the airport this morning. I also should note that I'm not in a part of the capital where you'd expect protests to break out. But it does look as though all is calm here. Papers aren't reporting anything sketchy. Always good.

If you're inclined to read up on the case, you can check out the (rather well documented) wikipedia page here. The short version of the story is this:

1. Alan García gets elected to the presidency in 1985. During his presidency, a few bad things happen. First, the Shining Path really kicks into gear. Second, El Niño kicks into gear. Third, inflation hits 7500%. Hard to blame him for El Niño, and there's an argument to be made that the Shining Path really wasn't his fault either, but the inflation was all him.
2. In 1990, two major candidates emerge. First is Peruvian author and all-around nice guy Mario Vargas Llosa. He's nuts. And he runs on a pretty conservative platform. The other candidate is this cute little japanese guy named Fujimori. He runs a campaign that makes him look like a mild-mannered Hugo Chavez. He wins, but (probably because he's effectively running as an independent) he doesn't get a majority of the congress.
3. Once elected, Fujimori implements Jeff Sachs-designed "shock treatment" program that's far more conservative than anything Vargas Llosa ever thought of. It hurts, but it works, bringing inflation under control.
4. People start appending "Fuji-" before every word they can think of. So, you get "Fujishock," "Fujigolpe," etc...
5. Fujimori organizes the "ronderos"--peasant patrols that start to get the Sendero Luminoso uprising under control. The uprising doesn't end until later, but it's on the decline by '92. Incidentally, this is a pretty similar strategy to that followed by, among others, the US in Iraq under the "Sunni Awakening," and the Carrancistas in the Mexican revolution. It worked in all three cases.
6. Fujimori decides that it's hard to run government when congress isn't controlled by your party (what party?), so he disbands congress and writes up a new constitution.
7. Under the new constitution, he's able to run again, so he runs, and wins.
8. The military captures Ariel Gúzman, head of the Sendero.
9. Fujimori runs again and wins in 2000, amidst widespread allegations of fraud.
10. Corruption and human rights scandals break, and Fujimori flees to Japan.
11. He comes back to Chile in 2005, with the idea of running for the Presidency of Peru again in 2006. Chileans arrest him at the airport, and send him home to Peru for trial.

By the way, Alan García is the guy who won the election in 2006, in case you don't remember. Funny how that works. He's about 85 pounds heavier now, as Evo Morales keeps pointing out, but apparently all the ceviche and papas huancaína has led to a better set of policies that has Peru well on the road to economic develoment.

The hard thing about this case is that Fujimori is definitely a complex character, who did a lot of good things (fixing the Peruvian economy, ending the Shining Path uprising), and a lot of bad things (corruption, human rights abuses). Most Peruvians think he should be found guilty, but I don't know enough about the details of the case to have a truly informed opinion. If this were the US, I would say something along the lines of, "but I trust the wisdom of the court system, and believe that the verdict is probably just." But Peru isn't the US, and I wouldn't be willing to vouch for the neutrality (or honesty) of the Peruvian court system.

In the end, though, the significance of the case probably goes beyond the sentence of one individual. Fujimori's trial also might be seen as (a) the end of impunity for corrupt, authoritarian leaders in Peru, or (b) the beginning of the next phase in the Fujimori family's political career.

My predictions (this is the part where I act all English School):
1. Fujimori is put in prison, and serves out most of his sentence.
2. A moderate right-winger wins the next election (Alejandro Toledo?), and Keiko Fujimori's candidacy doesn't go anywhere.
3. I start appending "Fuji-" to the beginning of words unrelated to Peruvian politics. Man, I could really go for a Fujirrito about now. Or a Fujiguesa.

Fujimori found guily

About half an hour ago, the Peruvian supreme court found Fujimori guilty of human rights abuses. Sounds like there's been a small confrontation between members of the Peruvian CGTP union peak organization and some Fujimori supporters, but nothing too crazy.

I'm no expert on this stuff--I probably know no more than your average Peruvian campesino (probably less, really), but I think this is desirable, as long as it doesn't result in any violence.

Fujimori's daughter is talking about running for president in the next election--her platform effectively consists of "Free my father--remember what a great president he was?" It doesn't seem to be getting too far with the Peruvian electorate, but down here, Lord only knows what wackiness can occur between now and election time.

Heading out again

I head to Lima tomorrow on a 10:30 flight. Normally, I would take a bus, but as it's a 24 hour ride, and the ticket was on sale (and cheaper than a round-trip bus ticket), I succumbed to luxury and paid up. I'm adding more in the way of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but until they solve the collective action dilemma which is carbon emissions, I'll make these decisions based on economic, not altruistic, factors.

I'm going to miss the family here. Lucy and Ricardo, my evangelical protestant hosts, have been fantastic to stay with, including connecting me up with some interviews that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

I'm also going to miss puffed quinoa cereal, the beautiful Cusco architecture, and the sense of history that pervades the place. I've been asked a couple of times why I like Cusco so much, and there are a couple of reasons, but the one I usually give has to do with history.

Cusco, for those of you who have never been here, is one place everyone should go to. It's made easy by the presence of a bustling tourist trade, it's pretty affordable, and it's not too far away.

Much of the center of the city is literally built on Incan foundations--when the Spanish showed up, they tore down Incan palaces and temples, but were smart enough to leave the foundations in place. Incan stonework is better designed for the occasional earthquake that hits the area.

Cusco was the capital of the Inca Empire. The founders of the empire came from Titicaca, and the story goes, they tried to sink a golden rod--given them by their father, the sun--into the ground as they wandered, until the ground eventually swallowed the rod easily, signifying that that was the place they should settle. The place where the rod eventually sunk is Southwest of the current center of the city, near where my last set of pictures were taken ("Barbecue Time").

Nowadays, you probably see as many gringos in the center of the city as native Peruvians, but if you go a couple of miles outside of the city, you're pretty much seeing life the way if was lived two hundred years ago or more. Some things have changed--cellular phones are pretty common, and growing numbers of villages have electricity, potable water, and (in some cases) sewage, but the houses I've visited have been, for the most part, mud brick homes with dirt floors and holes for windows. Sometimes, they have fiberglass roofs, and sometimes, they still have thatch (or ceramic tile), but the farm animals often share the home with the family, and rural rhythyms still form the backbone of country life. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man... well... parasite-ridden, exhausted, under-educated, and maybe illiterate.

There's a lot of poverty, of course, but there's also a lot of hope. Rural governments are starting to play a strong role in economic development (including promoting industry in a way that Chalmers Johnson would love to see) and there is a lot of optimism. A lot of frustration, and fear, too, but I think things are moving in a good direction.

If all goes well, I'll be back before too long, if only for a couple of days. We'll see how it goes, but I should be back here briefly at the end of April, then on to the Titicaca region, and then on to Bolivia.

Never enough time, but trying to use it as efficiently as I can.

New pictures up

Hey all,

Some new pictures are up--click on the links in the sidebar to take a look.

Down with farm subsidies!

Our handsome and well-dressed president deserves credit for trying to get rid of our ridiculous farm subsidies: check out the NY Times article here.

I was just having a conversation with a Peruvian guy here who is something of a dependencista--believes that the rich countries are extracting the wealth of Peru and not permitting Peru to develop, so that we can stay rich ourselves. He's pretty deterministic about it, and I don't agree, of course, with the deterministic type of dependency theory. However, you can see his point, to a degree.

One good example of this is US agricultural policy. The US wants "free trade," but free trade would consist of Peruvian agricultural producers competing with heavily subsidized US agricultural products--corn, wheat, and rice. The Peruvian government, of course, can't afford to subsidize Peruvian agriculture the way we can in teh US, so they get the short end of the stick--and maybe a lot of people get driven out of business and into (even worse) poverty.

"Free" trade? "Fair" trade?

Of course, it puts another twist on the complaints a lot of US citizens have about NAFTA--the Mexicans have a lot of the same complaints. That isn't to say that I'm opposed to free trade--but if it's going to be free, it really needs to be free.

And by the way, it should be accompanied by deeper political institutions that ensure nobody gains an advantage by exploiting child labor, slave labor, or other forms of exploitation.

Globalización and Local Markets

Yesterday, I was walking down Avenida Garcilaso here in Cusco, stepping around indigenous women in traditional clothing selling bootleg DVDs on blankets on the street, and I got thinking about the kinds of imported goods which make their way here to Cusco, versus the things that don't. In some ways, it's amazing what you can get here, but it's also remarkable how imperfect markets sometimes are here.

Why, for example, is it easy to buy Japanese-made rice cookers in the grocery store, but impossible to find a Crock Pot (in Cusco, the beef is the toughest I have ever had. God only knows, they need Crock Pots here!)

Why is it next-to-impossible to find Mexican-style tortillas, but simple to find bread products from the amusingly-named Mexican bread company "Bimbo"?

Why does Guinea Pig cost 45 soles (about $15 US) in the center of town, but about 5 soles (about $1.75) five blocks away?

Why, on God's green earth, can I buy imported rice from Asia and the jungle here in Cusco, but cannot buy puffed Quinoa cereal in Lima?

Participatory Fora

Being as I'm out of people to interview up in Pucyura, but I don't fly out of belly-buttonville until Tuesday, I've been doing a little bit of writing, trying to get started on this "participatory forum" stuff that I'm supposedly supposed to be researching. I feel like I've made some progress on that front--I've written about some of these ideas before, so I won't repeat them in depth, but I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the way these fora function:
* transmitting information to politicians about citizens' needs and preferences
* transmitting information to citizens about politicians' performance
* promoting changes in local political culture)

...and why they're created:
* to bind successors to a given set of policies
* to promote transparency in order to convince voters that you're really not the crook that they assume all politicians to be
* to promote the development of local industry based on ninja fighting skills and the production of high-quality, locally manufactured cheeses

So now that I've got that all figured out, and have a little bit of evidence, all I have to do is write it up, right?

Ward Wins

Mmm... One dollar...

In related news, Emily tells me in a post-trial news conference, Lane, his lawyer, claims that they will sue again if he is treated poorly by the university, including (among other things) if he receives an office in the basement.

You guys all remember where Ward's office was before, right?

And do we not all agree that in Ketchum, the floor with mid-August sub-90 degree temperatures and a men's bathroom is not the least desirable place in the building? Maybe he would prefer 401?

Globalization, migration, and the peasant economy.

I've often wondered if the great urban in-migration you see around Latin America is a result of free trade and other pieces of economic globalization. While the shantytowns around Lima grow, in some places in rural Peru, the female to male ratio is eight to one, as all the men have moved away to get better paying jobs in the city.

The optimistic explanation for this is that, although life in the shantytowns of Lima is very hard, insecure, and unhealthy, it's a damn sight better than the life of the rural peasant, tilling the fields out in the sun, rain, and wind all year. Thus, people get away to find a better life.

On the other hand, if you're or a pessimist (or a hippie) you probably think it's ol' man globalization rearing his pasty white head--low-priced agricultural imports driving local agriculture out of business, and forcing the producers to the city to support their families. Though city life is terrible, it's the only option many people have to keep from starving. In the second scenario, globalization may be a strong countervailing force against human and economic development.

Although the second scenario is kind of attractive because it's slightly counter-intuitive yet compelling, I've come to believe more strongly in the first story. Although many rural Peruvians are market-oriented, most peasants in the most rural (and poorest) parts of the country--the places where there has been a large amount of migration to the cities--mostly produce only for their families. Basically, they exist in a subsistence economy.

If this is true, it's awful hard for global economic forces to have any impact on these people at all. Hence, my optimism that rural out-migration is really a desirable phenomenon.

Take that, hippies...

The New York Times reports that Uncle Ted's off the hook, because of "prosecutorial misconduct."