Evo cree que EEUU filtró archivos secretos · la-razon.com

We can't win; Evo Morales believes that Wikileaks is part of a US government plot to sow dischord in the Latin American region.

Evo cree que EEUU filtró archivos secretos · la-razon.com

W.T.O. Upholds U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Tires - NYTimes.com

Wow... after all that, the WTO rules on our side. I'm really surprised!

W.T.O. Upholds U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Tires - NYTimes.com

AFP: Mogadishu's 'first tourist' puzzles immigration officials

Hilarious.

AFP: Mogadishu's 'first tourist' puzzles immigration officials

What’s the most effective development intervention we know? – Chris Blattman

A fascinating and brief post on the role of immigration in promoting economic development.

What’s the most effective development intervention we know? – Chris Blattman

The Fair Trade Challenge to Embedded Liberalism1 - Ehrlich - 2010 - International Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library

An interesting paper here that argues that fair-trade advocates shouldn't be treated as traditional protectionists, because, in fact, they have different concerns from protectionists. Something that intuitively makes a great deal of sense, but which I had never considered very deeply.

The Fair Trade Challenge to Embedded Liberalism1 - Ehrlich - 2010 - International Studies Quarterly - Wiley Online Library

Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions

An interesting paper here that, like other work by Daron Acemoglu, uses military action--in this case, by the Japanese prior to the second World War--as a natural experiment examining the effects of property rights on later economic development. They find that the creation of formal property rights are associated with economic growth and infrastructure improvements around the Pacific basin.

Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions

New cables reveal frank U.S. views on Latin America, from Argentina to Venezuela | La Plaza | Los Angeles Times

More incredible revelations about US foreign policy, including:

1. Cuban intelligence has a lot of influence in Venezuela

2. The US is concerned about Iran's influence in Bolivia and Venezuela, and

3. Everybody thinks the Kirchner family is nuts, including the Chileans.

Any actual _news_ coming out of this?

New cables reveal frank U.S. views on Latin America, from Argentina to Venezuela | La Plaza | Los Angeles Times

Santa Cruz será sede del cuartel del ALBA · la-razon.com

Haven't blogged in a long time, but this seemed worthwhile to highlight; Bolivian newspaper _La Razon_ is reporting that the city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, will be the military training headquarters for Hugo Chavez's ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America) left-wing alliance, including a new military academy.

The irony is that Santa Cruz is the center for right wing anti-Morales types.

We'll have to follow this in the weeks to come.

Santa Cruz será sede del cuartel del ALBA · la-razon.com

Blanning on Coffee

The percolator is, as we should all know by now, both the foundation and fountainhead of Anglo-American liberty:

As the number of public spaces proliferated during this period, so did opportunities for the exchange of information, ideas and criticism.  An exemplar was the coffee-house.  Within fifty years of the founding of the first in Europe--in Venice in 1645--it had spread across the continent, reaching London in the early 1650s.  By 1659 Samuel Pepys could record that he had been to the Turk's Head coffee-house in New Palace Yard, close to Parliament, and had heard 'exceeding good argument against Mr Harrington's assertion that overbalance of propriety [property] was the foundation of government'.  For the price of a cup of coffee (although many other beverages were on offer), anyone decently dressed could join in debating the issues of the day.  The newly restored Charles II took a dim view of the freedom expression that prevailed there...

The notion of "public spaces" and the way they permit civil society to function may be the most important part here.

The recent controversy involving Starbucks and the open carry folks (crazies?) may be a good modern example of the ways in which public spaces (though privately owned) can promote political mobilization. 

Blanning on the American Revolution

Another interesting quote from Tim Blanning's book The Pursuit of Glory:

On the American side, there was some confusion, or at least disagreement, as to whether they were conservatives fighting to defend old liberties in the plural or revolutionaries fighting for liberty in the abstract.  Sensibly, the Continental Congress put the two together in  their Declaration of Rights of 1774, appealing to 'the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters and compacts'.

So, the American revolution was both religious and secular, and both radical and conservative?

Late 18th century elections in Britain

Haven't blogged in a long time; intended to start again over the summer, but just haven't had the energy for it.  Have been wanting to start again for a couple of weeks or two.  Maybe I'll start to get back into it again now.  Although I've written that before and not followed through!

My research, this summer, has been about private and public goods provision in Peruvian municipalities, and the democratic dynamics that tend to drive greater or lesser public works spending around the Peruvian countryside.

One of my findings is an interesting interaction effect.  What I've found is that greater electoral competition is associated with greater spending in public works, but only when there are substantial checks and balances present in municipal governments.  These checks and balances, in Peru, consist of municipal council seats controlled by opposition parties.

My argument is, in effect, that all politicians would prefer to seek the support of voters by targeting reliable supporters with private goods than public goods, and only veto power by opposition groups will keep them from doing so.  After all, private goods are easier to provide to supporters while excluding non-supporters.  In the presence of a strong opposition, however, politicians will pursue the next best course; they will attempt to provide public goods to win support, even though non-supporters may experience some benefits of their policies. 

In Peru, "private goods provision" comes at election time, and generally consists of political hopefuls using private or state funds to buy seed, fertilizer, durable goods, food, and (most often) alcohol for their supporters.

For obvious reasons, then, I was struck by the following quote, which describes British elections to Parliament abound the end of the 18th century in The Pursuit of Glory, a history text I'm working through on Europe before 1815:

When a contest did take place, no holds were barred and no stratagem thought too base in the quest for victory.  Treating to food and drink, outright bribery and intimidation were all commonplace, greatly encouraged by the public ballot. 

...and later...

Among the innumberable anomalies that could be found, the practice of bringing back registered "freemen" of a borough for the vote, even if they had moved to other parts of the kingdom, deserves a mention.  When an officer of marines learnt that a number of sailors had been given special leave to return to their home town of Coventry to vote for the government candidate, he did his friend the Duke of Portland a good turn by having them hastily transferred to a ship outward bound to Guinea.  
 
Indeed, it rather sounds as if modern Peruvian elections are substantially cleaner than their 18th century British counterparts.

Thoughts on Theory of the State

So, I've finished posting pictures from Emily and my vacation around Austria; if you're interested, you can click the link in the previous post or the picture in the sidebar.  Most of the pictures are new, and up since yesterday (earlier today, for you folks in Colorado).

Curtis' take on the Treaty of Westphalia has me sold, but being here and going to history a couple history museums (which has taught me enough that I can develop plausible but totally incorrect ideas) has me thinking…

Is it too simplistic to think of the Treaty of Westphalia as the birth of the modern nation-state?  States like the ones we know today existed much earlier.  For example, the Imperial state of Rome, the Greek city-states, and feudal states in Europe with strong bureaucratic and military apparatuses, like the Holy Roman Empire and other Hapsburg territories. 

Organizations which were not states in the modern sense of the world also controlled territory long after the Treaty of Westphalia.  Examples that come to mind include insurgents in Vietnam in the 1960s, groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s (and groups like Villista and Zapatista forces during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1030) and the "Prince-Bishops of Salzburg," who were evidently bishops who became so wealthy off the nearby salt mines that they came to control substantial amounts of territory (much of Western Austria), build fortresses (including the the impressive Salzburg fortress which was never taken by assault or siege) and control military forces. 

Is it more accurate to think of states as simply one of many types of organizations that control territory with greater or lesser degrees of effectiveness?  

New pictures up.

Some of my pictures from Salzburg and Vienna are now up on my Picasa site.  you can click on the link in the blog sidebar (the picture), or here. 

European Rail Service

As pretty much everybody knows, European rail systems are very efficient, comfortable, and well-designed.  I'm jealous, even though train tickets are way more expensive than I thought they would be.  Of course, everything here is more expensive than I thought it would be. 

I used to think that European rail service was so much better than rail service (and bus service, and every other kind of US public transport) because US rail carriers (Amtrak) had been subsidized.  I learned recently, though, that European and other mass transit systems throughout the developed world are heavily subsidized, which is the only thing that keeps them running.  Maybe we need more, not fewer rail subsidies in the US.

Not sure why I didn't assume that European rail was subsidized; only makes sense.  Europe = government intervention in economies, right?

The apparent efficiency of these systems seems like proof that subsidized or public systems can provide a quality of service that can be unmatched by the market. 

Government intervention in rail markets may help providers coordinate and benefit from economies of scale which are necessary in order for transport systems to work efficiently.  If you don't subsidize, using rail transport will cost more, so many fewer people will use rail, so it will be more costly, an so on…  Subsidies probably also make it possible for transport providers to provide services to places that wouldn't be economical destinations otherwise; keeping rural communities alive, despite economic inefficiencies, may be an outcome we value intrinsically. 

Also, it seems hard to argue that the car-centric US culture is more efficient, even in a purely economic sense, than the fast, clean, convenient, and energy-efficient public transport here, even if it's subsidized. 

Of course, private transport is also heavily subsidized in the US (most roads are public, for one thing, and there are many direct and indirect subsidies to auto manufacturing and gasoline production).  So our system may well be the result of heavy subsidies to the automotive industry and smaller subsidies to rail.  Perhaps we would get something like the European system in a purely market-driven economy where nothing was subsidized at all. 

Financial Sanctions on Iran, and missing flights in Europe.

The NY Times discusses the possibility of financial sanctions against Iran's central bank here. 

What I know about this approach is relatively optimistic--sounds like the approach we tried against Sudan during the Clinton administration, after the first World Trade Center bombings--these were the financial sanctions that drove Bin Laden and his cronies from Sudan to Afghanistan.  Though it also sounds like there's a lot to be decided here. 

Anything I'm missing?

In other news, after nearly missing our connecting flight in Houston, Emily and I made our flight to Frankfurt, then, once in Frankfurt, missed our flight to Vienna.  So, we should be in Vienna on a later flight at about 9:30 tonight, unless we can hitch a ride, standby, on a flight that's leaving in about an hour. 

I'm no stranger to long flights, but I haven't crossed this many time zones in a single trip ever in my life before, except for once.  It's weird.  It's 2:15PM here, and I'm just starting to get hungry for breakfast.  Feel like I should be a lot more tired than I am.

In other news, Frankfurt is my new least favorite airport.  As byzantine and poorly signed as O'Hare or the airport in Mexico City, without the charming modernist architecture of O'Hare or the shininess of D.F.

Will Sanctions Work?

The New York Times reports a deal on international sanctions on Iran here. 

Although the jury is still out on whether or not sanctions "work," (some say yea, some say nay, and for a range of different reasons), one thing that we know is that, if sanctions work, they are most likely to work before they're imposed.  That is, sanctions work primarily as a threat, ahead of time.  If a target of sanctions--Iran, in this case--is going to cave, they'll do so after threatened with sanctions, but before sanctions are imposed, to avoid the potential costs.

One problem is that countries (like Iran) might be threatened with sanctions in private, ahead of time.  So it's often to know if private threats of sanctions work in changing the behavior of targeted countries.

However, if there's one thing that democracies are good at, it's clearly signaling their intentions; in this case, to punish Iran for pursuing nuclear power.   Unfortunately, the United States probably isn't the critical player in this case of sanctions, and the most important players--Russia and China--aren't democratic.  So we'll see what happens.

For what it's worth, I do think that sanctions work sometimes, and are worth trying before stepping up to something else (like, say, cruise missile strikes or something like that).  I would also argue that an important normative consideration is for us to reduce our own nuclear stockpile, which is something we're already doing under the Obama administration.  That's probably helpful, if you believe in soft power, the power of persuasion, and the teaching of appropriate norms to "deviant" states.

Academic exploitation?

Via Chris Blattman, a discussion, here, of how "exploitative" academic job markets exist.

I find this whole discussion laughable.  As an academic, even as an adjunct in most places, you still get paid more, and work far less, than even the laziest of public school teachers.  Academia is a great deal.  End of story. 

If I wind up in academia (and I may not--I have this Boren fellowship government service commitment), and if I end up in a low-end job in (say) Leadville, Colorado, it won't be because I've been "socialized" into believing that academia is better than everywhere else.  Sure, there are people who believe that.  There are also people that believe that the pipeline welding industry is better than everywhere else.  It will be because I'm willing to trade off some salary for the benefits of being a full-time college instructor. 

It blows my mind that there are so many people out there who are willing to sing the sad song of labor exploitation, even when it's ridiculous, on its face.  Emily had a law professor who loved to talk about how exploitative the partnership track law firm jobs were. 

Those are the same jobs that start at $125K/year. 

Steel yourself to face the revolutionary vanguard of overworked personal injury attorneys. 

Elinor Ostrom make it to Jeopardy!

This is from April 30.  A $200 question (which, I think, makes her really famous).

Realists catching up.

Is Stephen Walt just now discovering that the United States' relative power is in decline?  Seriously?  This brilliant insight, coming in 2010, could only come from the same people who believe in the stopping power of water. 

The X-men and economic development

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything; I've been leaving it up to my students to do the heavy lifting for a long time.  Maybe I'll get back into it a bit now.

The other night, Emily and I watched "X-men: Origins."  A copy that I picked up in Peru when I was there.  I have a pretty low bar for movies, so although I've heard that it wasn't that good, I really enjoyed it.  Movies are escapism for me, so the comic book films really work for me pretty well.

After we finished up the DVD, though, I was thinking about what the world would look like if there really were mutants wandering around with indestructible skeletons and superhuman strength and the ability to self-heal and stop bullets with their hands and stuff like that.  Seems unlikely to play out the way the Marvel comic books suggest it would.  So, in the style of Dan Drezner (but with more of a comparative twist), I decided to blog about it. 

The universe of the X-men resembles our world in most ways, right down to the fact that there is a US presidency with control over the armed forces, etc.  If indeed there were mutants with superpowers that were able to prey on humanity, however, it's much more likely that the world would be a lot poorer, there would be a lot less capital-intensive industry, and non-mutant government would play much less of a role than it does in our world.

One thing that political economists know from the work of Barry Weingast, Douglass North, Avner Greif and other institutionalists is that trade, capital accumulation, lending, contracting, and therefore, industrialization and much other economic activity (the activity that makes the wealth of the developed world possible) is due to the presence of institutions--rules--that keep people from taking wealth away from other people.  If I'm stronger than you, and you can't trust that I won't take your wealth away if you save it because there are no rules or mechanisms for rule enforcement (such as laws, police forces, and judicial systems to protect my wealth), you simply won't accumulate much wealth for me to take away.  Better to spend it as soon as you get it (and probably better to spend it on things that are quickly consumable, like beer, chips, and bottle rockets) than to save it or invest it in some business-building scheme such as new equipment or a new store or other facility.

Likewise, if judicial systems don't work very well because there are people who can use force or corruption to manipulate others (like diamond-hard adamantium talons or rapid healing abilities or the ability to corrupt others through threats or the ability to bend their minds) you get a country that is very poor, crime-ridden, and relatively unstable.  One good modern day example is Guatemala, which has an extremely high crime rate, high birth rate, fragmented economy, and high rate of retributive justice. 

A high crime rate, because the criminal justice system isn't any good at catching and punishing lawbreakers.  A high rate of retributive justice, like lynchings, that are an imperfect substitute for a functioning justice system.  A high birth rate, because the absence of unbiased government which might otherwise provide a social safety net leaves the poor with little choice but to have many children who can support them in their old age.  And a fragmented economy, because firms are afraid to get too big, lest they become a target for racketeering and other criminal rent-seeking activities. 

Finally, we also know that where one group has power or control that another group lacks, like disproportionately large political influence, more arms (weapons) or more arms (grasping rubber tentacles), or the ability to teleport or move metal objects with their minds, they will likely be able to manipulate existing government institutions to their material benefit (like wealthy European elites in resource-extractive economies like Bolivia, Brazil, or Mexico) or become the government, themselves (like early European states). 

Further we know that if there are two groups of elites with a great deal of force fighting one another, the weak don't tend to get left out, and they don't tend to get to carry on their lives like usual.  Just ask Peruvian rural peasants caught between the shining path and the government, the Sudanese, or rural Mayan Guatemalans during the '80s. 

Basically, if there were mutants, our lives would much more likely resemble the lives of poor rural agriculturalists in the developing world.

US Youngsters are too fat to fight, warn generals

Jose Loera


Every day you probably do not notice the overwhelming number of obese youngsters but our generals have definitely noticed. Two generals in particular have made claims that obesity among our young Americans can undermine the future of the US military. The claim is that more than a quarter of young Americans are now too fat to fight. This claim suggests that military service recruits will have obesity as the overwhelming factor for medical dismissal.

The next step that the generals have taken has been to encourage congress to introduce laws to change the value of nutrition that the students are receiving in school. The generals have also joined a coalition of over 130 generals on this fight to encourage new laws. Two former Joint Chiefs of Staff have been quoted saying, “Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military.”

My question to the readers out there is are you one of this kids or is this your brother, sister, or cousin? Do you buy into the claim our future soldiers will not be able to fight because their belly is holding them back? What are your thoughts on the subject considering many school districts have decided to cut out Physical Education (P.E) programs due to budget cuts.

Recycling

Hannah Weinberger

We are coming upon an age where we need new innovation, and new attitudes towards the way we do things. Watch this clip and see how Hollywood, Florida is changing incentives for recycling, and how much of an impact it is having on the amount of recycling growth in the city.

Other cities around the country should start to think about programs that give incentives to recycling, besides just saving the planet. For many, that is not a worthwhile reason to begin to change their lifestyle.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/05/04/ac.zarrella.recycle.bank.cnn?hpt=C2

Immigration abuses in Boulder

It's frustrating to hear of immigration abuses like this. Right here in Boulder. Even legal immigrants on temporary work visas often have no recourse when mistreated by employers, because losing their job means losing their visa.

Our immigration laws need reform, no matter what side of the aisle you happen to sit on.

What does globalization do for individuals?

The title is a little bit misleading, but several of my students have expressed ideas in opposition to globalization that seem to sound like neo-dependency theory--ideas that globalization and world trade tends to disadvantage poor people in poor countries.  

If you're one of these folks, you might be interested in this post from Chris Blattman (a world-class development economist) on Mexican export-processing factories. He cites two studies examining the effects of participating in this labor market on individuals.

Effects are mixed.  The key passage:

1. Workers earn better wages than in non-export oriented industries;
2. Women who get jobs have taller children;
3. But youth drop out of school earlier to take the jobs; and
4. For those that drop out, their wages in the long term are lower than if they had stayed in school and gone to work for the factories later.

If you're interested in this stuff, you can also get to the papers through Blattman's blog. 

There is a longstanding debate about these issues--the effects of globalization on the poor--and we will talk about the environmental piece of this debate in PSCI 3206 later in the semester.  Scholars generally agree nowadays that globalization can be either harmful or helpful to individuals, though it probably does more good than bad, economically.

Of course, we don't just value economic outcomes, and there are good reasons to be concerned about the effects of globalization on particular groups of individuals.   

China releases environmental census

From the NY Times:

China’s government on Tuesday unveiled its most detailed survey ever of the pollution plaguing the country, revealing that water pollution in 2007 was more than twice as severe as was shown in official figures that had long omitted agricultural waste.

A few of you have been discussing how measurement isn't science. Which is, of course, true.  But measurement is important to all scientific endeavors, as well as policy analysis.  This environmental census may be a step in the right direction for China.  Or it might not.  China, as we well know, lacks the domestic mechanisms for downward accountability (like elections) that often make pressures for environmental reforms possible.

When dealing with policy issues, we are often tempted to just "do something," but without good data, often, the best we can do at knowing what the appropriate course of action is is just guesswork.  

For the whole story, see here. 

Pucallpa, Peru mayor acquitted of ordering political assassination

Pucallpa is one of the case studies from my dissertation research--a small city on the banks of the Ucayali river, a tributary of the Amazon.

One of the noisiest places I've ever been--more 2-stroke motorcycle taxis on the road than cars. But it quiets down nicely after about 9PM.

The mayor was accused of corruption by a commentator on a local radio show. He isaccused of subsequently ordering the murder of the commentator. Not sure if I buy the court's story on this one--"contradictory" evidence by the prosecution. The Peruvian judicial system works better than a lot of Latin American court systems, but it isn't exactly a shining example of transparency and the rule of law.

The full story (in English) is here.