Fairer Globalization

A Conversation with Thomas Pogge

2012-01-23T11:46:00.006-05:00

Last week, philosopher Thomas Pogge spoke at Carnegie Council. Our intern Sarah Aston summarizes his talk below:

Today’s international and economic system is founded on the principle of “profit maximization at any cost” and our challenge is to change this attitude argues Thomas Pogge of Yale University. Talking with Carnegie Council as part of the Ethics Matters series, Pogge reflected on his education under the guidance of political philosopher and advocate of universal justice John Rawls, and how seemingly abstract theories of justice can, and should be, applied to areas of international and social politics.

Pogge is known for his bold comparisons of today’s population in the developed world with the German population of 1930s Nazi Germany. Like the latter, we are, according to Pogge, part of a huge organism that allows for terrible atrocities to happen to our fellow mankind. Statistics show that one-third of all deaths today are premature due to poverty and yet we do not actively seek any solution to this problem in our system.

Drawing on this comparison, Pogge explained that he was compelled to develop Rawls’s theory of justice and practically apply it to areas of society. Rawls argues that there are two principles of justice that must be met within society and that all rational human beings would agree to these principles under a “veil of ignorance” in which they are unaware of their position in society. The first principle of Rawls’s theory is “First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others” and this is where Pogge develops on Rawls’s work.

While Rawls argued that it was up to economists and politicians to satisfy this principle, Pogge argues that there must be clear instructions and guidance in order to change the system. His work with the Health Impact Fund is an example. Talking to Carnegie Council, Pogge explained that during research into the pharmaceutical industry he saw that the industry was driven by profit margins and competitive pricing rather than aiding those in need of the drugs. Pogge’s proposal to change the incentive system with a government - sponsored scheme of rewarding those companies that provide drugs to the most people with the highest impact and the lowest prices is a way of providing guidance on how to satisfy Rawls’s first principle of justice.

Pogge has chosen to focus on the pharmaceutical industry, but he told the Council that his work could be applied to all areas of the international system and that the system itself needed to address its system of incentives. When asked if he was optimistic about the future of the system he responded by saying we needed to design an economic system that meets the basic requirements of everyone and the way to do that is through education which will take a long time to filter through. The crisis we face today, however, offers an opportunity to reevaluate and re-structure our system.

- Sarah Aston

The Silicon Standard for Human Rights

2011-11-09T12:20:00.004-05:00

The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference put forth a statement of 15 principles this past October for guiding the behavior of ICT companies in relation to human rights. According to the organizers at Access, "The document is designed to complement other existing frameworks and uses the international human rights framework as its foundation." There's a lot to chew on here. I'll let the principles speak for themselves:

1. Technology and Revolutions: Technology companies play an increasingly important role in enabling and supporting the end user's capacity to exercise his or her rights to freedom of speech, access to information, and freedom of association. ICT companies should respect those rights in their operations and also encourage governments to protect human rights through appropriate policies, practices, legal protections, and judicial oversight.

2. On Human Rights: In both policy and practice, technology companies should apply human rights frameworks in developing best practices and standard operating procedures. This includes adhering to John Ruggie's Protect, Respect, and Remedy framework outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

3. Frontline Lessons from Other Sectors: Technology companies should look to the innovative examples and incorporate important lessons from other sectors, such as the apparel and extractive industries. The experiences of these sectors can and should guide them as they develop their human rights policies. These must be reflected in their operating practices in a transparent and accountable manner.

4. On Internet Regulation: To ensure innovation and the protection of human rights, internet regulation should only take place where it facilitates the ongoing openness, quality, and integrity of the internet and/or where it enables or protects users' ability to freely, fully, and safely participate in society. To achieve this end, it is critical that ICT corporations engage in multistakeholder dialogue.

5. Human Rights by Design: During the research, development, and design stages, technology companies should anticipate how and by whom their products and services will be used. Developing a human rights policy and engaging in due diligence at the earliest stages helps companies prevent crises, limit risk, and enable evidence-based assessment of company activities and reporting.

6. Encryption of Web Activity: Effective internet security is essential to ensuring freedom of speech, privacy, and the right to communicate. Technology companies must provide a basic level of security (e.g., HTTPS and its improvements) to their users by default and resist bans and curtailments of the use of encryption.

7. Getting Practical: Technology companies should implement human rights-respecting policies and practices in their day-to-day operations. These companies should utilize multi-stakeholder and cross-sector dialogues to review challenges faced within their markets with a view to improve their best practices.

8. Coding for Human Rights: Recognizing the human rights implications in code, engineers, developers, and programmers should ensure that technology is used in the exercise of fundamental freedoms, and not for the facilitation of human rights abuses. Technology companies should facilitate regular dialogue between engineers, executive leadership, and civil society to ensure that all parties are informed of the potential uses and abuses of their technologies.

9. Social Networking: Social networking platforms are both increasingly important to their users' capacity to communicate and associate online and are most used when customers trust the service's providers. When companies prioritize the rights of their customers, it is good for the long-term sustainability of their business, their brand, and their bottom line.

10. Intermediary Liability: In an era of computer-mediated communications, freedom of speech, association, and commerce increasingly depend on internet intermediaries (e.g., broadband service providers, web hosting companies). These intermediaries should not be required to determine the legality of, or held liable for, the content they host.

11. Legal Jurisdiction in a Borderless Virtual World: To foster the continued growth of an open and interconnected internet, technology companies should work alongside governments and civil society to ensure that users' rights are protected to the fullest extent possible. Governmental mandates that infringe upon freedom of expression and other human rights should be interpreted so as to minimize the negative impacts of these rules and regulations.

12. Visual Media and Human Rights: Technology companies should pay special attention to the unique human rights challenges of visual media technologies and content—especially on issues such as privacy, anonymity, consent, and access.

13. Social Media in Times of Crisis: Technology companies should resist efforts to shut down services and block access to their products, especially during times of crisis when open communications are critical. Blanket government surveillance of corporate networks should be resisted. Moreover, the burden of proof for privacy-invasive requests should lie with law enforcement authorities, who should formally, through court processes based on probable cause and rule of law, request a warrant for each individual whose information they would like to access.

14. Privacy: Technology companies should incorporate adequate privacy protections for users by default. Furthermore, technology companies should resist over-board requests from governments to reveal users' information, disclose no more information about their users than is legally required, and inform their users so that they can choose to legally respond to these requests. Furthermore, technology companies should be transparent about how user data is collected, processed, and protected—including disclosures of unauthorized access to user data.

15. Mobile and Telcos: Telecommunications companies must protect their users' fundamental human rights, including support for the protection of human rights in their operating licenses, and ensure that the free flow of communication is not curtailed or interfered with, even in times of crisis.

The big thing missing here is the subtext: While it's incredibly important to ensure that human rights are fulfilled in the use of information and communication technologies, it does us no good to simultaneously ignore abuses in their manufacture. My hope going forward is that this framework can be deepened to explicitly include the supply chains and labor rights problems associated with the ICT sector. The freedoms these magical gadgets enable must extend all the way down to the minerals.

What Does Accountability Mean to You?

2011-11-07T11:59:00.007-05:00

There was plenty of finger pointing last Tuesday morning as WNYC's talk show host Brian Lehrer led a spirited discussion with a live audience on the subject of "Occupy New York." The most contentious topics were accountability for U.S. income disparity, and the causes of our financial crisis. Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer accused the Federal Reserve of lack of oversight; New York Federal Reserve Deputy Chairwoman Kathryn Wylde blamed international economic pressures; and Occupy Wall Street protester Jesse LaGreca blamed a non-representative democracy.

Yet despite their bickering, the panelists agreed that the income disparity in America is unacceptable; that the economy needs to improve; and that accountability is lacking. Amid the rapid-fire disagreements, there was a common struggle to grapple with the complex, systemic causes of our country's wobbly moment.

In an effort to poke a hole in LaGreca's arguments, business columnist Greg David asked, "What does accountability mean to you?" It's a fair question. Accountability is often vaunted as the unimpeachable principle missing from our country's response to recurring recessions and the widening income gap. And when we look at past bailouts of "black swan" level crashes and the moral hazard inherent in having institutions that are "too big to fail," it's clear that our system of accountability needs to be reconfigured. But how? In the heat of the debate, LaGreca defined accountability as investigations of bankers and corporate leaders, rather than a more global approach.

When Lehrer drew out LaGreca on the decision-making process underway at Occupy Wall Street, it became clear that LaGreca envisions the movement as a testing ground for a new form of accountable government. LaGreca is looking for a unicameral legislature (similar to Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly) where a 51 percent majority would be enough to pass a bill, thus ending the filibuster. He wants to eliminate political parties entirely and convert our system into a direct democracy.

With such a system, LaGreca contends, we would cut out the problems of campaign finance, party platforms, and special interests that stand in the way of true democratic consensus. Without party platforms or corporate interests to consider, he says, leaders would be accountable to their voters. With this new idea on the table, the meaning of accountability and its place in society has shifted.

LaGreca's plan is idealistic, and maybe impractical. Still, while parsing blame is a necessary step towards injecting accountability into the political-economic climate of the United States, it is clearly insufficient. We need more of the big-picture discussion that Lehrer was able to spark on Tuesday in order to truly confront and deal with the systemic lack of accountability.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Timothy Krause (CC).]

Uncertainty is the Strength of Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-05T14:01:00.008-04:00

Now seems as good a time as any to start reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He writes in a passage on negative empiricism that "you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right." This statement resonates with me as the ethical backbone of the "occupation" style protests that have swept the world this year.

What do they want? is the common refrain in the media. It's OK that nobody knows yet. In fact, it would be sheer arrogance to assume that a small cadre has all the answers. The point is that when even in rich societies like the United States tens of millions of people are living in poverty, new processes are needed for people to debate the actions, rules, and directions of our societies.

The protesters in lower Manhattan have opted for a process of collaborative consensus. We shouldn't expect them all to be policy wonks (though even a Nobel laureate economist has stopped by). They are instead what Paul Hawken calls our social immune system. Here is their first statement:

STATEMENT OF THE NYC GENERAL ASSEMBLY

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

[PHOTO CREDIT: David Shankbone (CC).]

Speaking Values with Confidence

2011-07-06T15:51:00.004-04:00

This is a guest post by Diana Santana and Alberto Turlon from the Carnegie New Leaders program.

Consider a time in your career when you were asked to do something that went against your values. First, recall an instance when you acted in favor of your values. How did you do this? How did you communicate in ways that created change? Now, consider a time when faced with a similar challenge that you failed to voice your values. Why didn't you voice your concerns? Jot down these two stories.

Mary Gentile, educator, author of Giving Voice to Values (GVV), and creator of the GVV curriculum, opened a discussion of her work at a recent Carnegie New Leaders event by asking participants to call on their experiences and consider "A Tale of Two Stories." Adding to this exercise, Gentile recounted the Harvard Business School welcome speech that instructs incoming students to "look to the left of you, look to the right;" know that these are the people that you will call on for the rest of your life when faced with a values conflict. Drawing on one's network and reflecting on previous experiences are just two GVV tools that empower the individual to voice values in the workplace.

The GVV curriculum was born of observations and experiences that led to what Gentile referred to as a "crisis of faith." After Gentile's 10-year tenure at Harvard she began consulting with other top business schools on their business ethics curriculum. Scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s involving MBAs were reminders that something in the classroom wasn't working. Despite attempts to change business school structure or course offerings, MBAs still exhibited unethical business behaviors. Survey studies released at the time also demonstrated that students were less ethical after completing business ethics courses.

Gentile keenly observed that relying on one's professional network and studying different models of ethical reasoning was not enough to ensure ethical behavior in the future. Something was lacking in the way students were being taught business ethics.

Gentile went on to become a consultant for a project at Columbia Business School. The project invited incoming MBA candidates to write an essay describing their experience with a situation where they were asked to act in a manner that conflicted with their values. The result of perusing some 1,000 essays, in light of earlier research conducted by Douglas Huneke and Perry London on altruism, created the foundation of Giving Voice to Values.

Gentile discovered that individuals who succeeded in communicating their values had at some point communicated their ideal response to another person they admired—a friend, a family member, a mentor, a work ally, a spouse, etc. She determined that this opportunity to pre-script the communication was essential to speaking up for their values in difficult situations.

Giving Voice to Values provides such an opportunity. It is a post–decision-making curriculum that enables individuals to hold strong to their principles and communicate their thoughts in a manner that best suits each individual's personality and communication style. The curriculum does not instruct students on what is right. Rather, it assumes that a values decision has already been determined and instead focuses on equipping people with the confidence to communicate their values.

Gentile recognized in her research that individuals in a professional setting tend to develop "preemptive rationalizations" that serve as excuses when faced with a values conflict. "Maybe I don't have all the information," one might claim. Another might think "this is just the way the industry works." Such excuses, coupled with the individual's sensitivity to their position in the hierarchy, stifle the individual from thinking through other possible scenarios and outcomes. The individual succumbs to the conflicting request despite uneasiness. GVV provides students the opportunity to observe others that have ignored these excuses and have found ways to express their values.

The curriculum encourages students to self-assess how personal goals align with organizational goals, provides exercises that ask the student to communicate their values in challenging situations, and gives students the chance to practice their communication with feedback. Armed with confidence, scripts, and values awareness, individuals are more likely to act on their values and enact positive change within an organization.

Gentile's presentation on GVV development and curriculum was convincing. She demonstrated the need for such a practical curriculum and showed its worth to students and society. It is no wonder the GVV curriculum is employed in organizations and universities all over the world. GVV provides the tools necessary to communicate personally while potentially making positive organizational and systemic change.

The exercises and examples Gentile mentioned were developed primarily for those in business and lacked specific application for those working in government, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations, the primary audience members at the Carnegie New Leaders event. Positive examples of non-business professionals communicating their values in challenging situations would have augmented the already powerful presentation.

Nonetheless, audience members understood that many of the values conflicts that arise in professional situations transcend industry. Each participant understood Gentile's broader message: Every values conflict has a remedy that varies on the individual's professional position, sensitivity, personality, and communication style.

GVV is an innovative approach that explores self-awareness of personal values and communication style. It provides the opportunity to construct and practice responses for a variety of situations. Giving Voice to Values gives values-driven individuals confidence to speak up for what's right, no matter the circumstance.

How the Disaster May Help Japan's Brand

2011-06-30T23:22:00.007-04:00

The March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear accident have led some to question the health of Japan's "brand." Japanese products, services, and business partnerships in recent years have enjoyed a halo effect emanating from Japan's reputation as a land of safety, efficiency, and trustworthiness. As renowned Japanese columnist Yoichi Funabashi put it this week, "Instead of viewing Japan as a haven of immunity from danger and inconvenience, many around the world now perceive the country as fraught with peril and discomfort." The impact of the recent disasters on Japan's reputation or brand has been one of the focal points of experts who worry that the disaster would damage the prospects of Japan's strategic growth industries such as cuisine, tourism, and services. But this is not the whole story.

Rather it is the perseverance and calm that Japanese society demonstrated during the crisis that remains the enduring image of Japan in the minds of many people. This positive story was featured widely in the U.S. media immediately after the earthquake and remains relevant today. A case in point today is in Vietnam, a country I visited last month to conduct research on attitudes toward Japan and the United States. Every Vietnamese expert I spoke with told me that their impression of Japan had been further enhanced since the March 11 earthquake. In Vietnam, Japan's reputation was already positive in part due to Japan's vital role in Vietnamese economic development, for example as the largest contributor of foreign aid after the World Bank.

But more interestingly, many Vietnamese admired Japanese discipline, order, and perseverance during the recent crisis. Some Vietnamese want their society to resemble that of Japan as a leading Asian Confucian society, described in T.R. Reid's classic book Confucius Lives Next Door.

Vietnam is no outlier on this view. According to a survey conducted May 9-18 by the AIP-Hakuhodo Earthquake Recovery Project on the "Image of Japanese Products Internationally," positive attitudes of those surveyed toward Japan and Japanese products outnumbered negative ones. A total of 2,700 people were surveyed in China, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil. Most people were aware of the earthquake and nuclear accident but wanted to see Japan recover quickly (62.8 percent) and felt sympathy for Japanese people (56.8 percent). As for products, more people responded that their desire to purchase Japanese goods had increased compared with one year ago than those who said it had decreased.

These positive attitudes stand in stark contrast to those in Vietnam toward China. Vietnam's relationship with China reached a "critical mass" in 2008 and has deteriorated since then, reverting to the previous unfriendly relationship that prevailed for the past millennium. Vietnam's brief friendship with China in the 1990s was seen as naive by many of the experts I spoke with. I was in Hanoi during which China's maritime aggression was on display in the South China Sea, when one of its ships cut the underwater cables of a Vietnamese gas survey ship. These episodes have pushed Vietnam closer to the United States and Japan.

China's approach in other areas also has resulted in bringing Vietnam closer to Japan and the United States. Delays in the construction of power plants by Chinese contractors and Vietnam's reliance in its territorially-sensitive northern provinces on China for hydroelectric power have also had this effect. Meanwhile, the appetite for nuclear power and cooperation with Japan in this area remains strong in Vietnam despite the Fukushima crisis. The immediate need in Vietnam is for reliable, affordable electricity, and nuclear power will be a major source in providing that electricity.

Another area is the export of rare earth supplies, which China has restricted, sending prices skyrocketing recently. These strategic metals are used in the production of batteries and high-tech electronics. Demand for rare earths in Japan will increase as its economy recovers in the short-term and as it explores alternatives to nuclear power in the longer-term. China began restricting exports of rare earths to Japan in September 2010 in response to the detainment of a Chinese fishing boat captain by the Japanese coast guard.

Chinese manipulation of the rare earths market again has pushed Japan closer to its neighbors. It has led the Japanese government and companies to promote exploration of rare earths projects in Vietnam and other countries. But one Vietnamese expert told me that he believes that China will begin dumping rare earths on the global market once other countries attain the capacity to produce the metals. This perception that China plays a zero-sum game is common in Southeast Asia and has convinced many that Japan represents a more trustworthy partner that values a positive-sum business ethic.

Many Japan watchers have called the March 11 earthquake a pivot point for Japan's future trajectory. Japan could very well seize this moment to promote innovation, for example in the areas of clean energy and efficiency, and build stronger relationships with its neighbors. But it is a step too far to say that if Japan fails to take advantage of this situation fully, the other path is ruin. It is rather more likely that Japan will face more of the same, with its long-term problems persisting. As one of the most coherent nation-states on Earth, Japan isn't going anywhere. Even if its government fails to come up with a winning strategy, Japan will remain one of the world's most influential economies for years to come.

It is certain, though, that the disaster and the country's response have humanized Japan and shattered stereotypes, making it a country that is more accessible and closer to the rest of the world.

Also published in the Huffington Post.

Photo by Marc Veraart.

Iceland Writes an Information Age Constitution

2011-06-22T16:31:00.011-04:00

Few things are as exciting and periodically necessary for a democracy as writing a new constitution. Iceland is in the process of doing just that, and they are doing it with a social media twist.

The Icelandic Stjórnlagaráð or Constitutional Council has solicited public feedback from citizens and is adjusting its drafts accordingly. The Council explains its method and rationale as follows:

The Constitutional Council is eager to make sure the public can be up to date while the work is in progress. It's possible to see the developments in the text of a prospective proposition and make comments. Furthermore, the Constitutional Council has made it possible for the public to send messages and already numerous messages have been sent to the Council. All messages are published on the Council's website under the sender’s name (anonymous messages are not accepted) and the public can read and comment on each of them which has already created a lively discussion on the website.

In this way the Constitutional Council emphasises an open communication with the Icelandic nation and has given the people an opportunity to participate in the formation of a new Constitution of the Republic of Iceland. The Council's work can also be seen on the major communicative media such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Every day short interviews with delegates are put on YouTube and Facebook. On Thursdays at 13:00 there is live broadcast from the Constitutional Council meetings on the webpage and on Facebook. There are also schedules for all meetings, all minutes from meetings of groups, the Board and the Council as well as the Council's work procedures. The webpage also has regular news from the Council's work as well as a weekly newsletter. Advertisements are published in the media encouraging the public to keep track of what is going on and to make comments.

That Iceland chose the digital route should come as no suprise—the country has one of the highest internet penetration rates in the world, and its voter participation rates are roughly double what is common in the United States. Still, it's an impressive maneuver for a country whose legislature, the Althingi, dates back to 930, making it the oldest existing parliament.

Should we expect any substantive surprises from this process? Perhaps it is too soon to tell, with the drafts still shifting wiki-style, but already some interesting ideas have emerged. (The current official English version is machine translated, so some of the following quotations may be awkward.)

THE POWER OF GOV 2.0

The statement on transparency couldn't be clearer: "Governance must be transparent." The new constitution also requires that all "matters and documents held by government … be publicly accessible," which includes complaints made to the government as well as procedures for their redress. That Iceland would uphold press freedom and freedom of information—"anyone is free to gather and disseminate information"—is in keeping with the strong laws they passed last year to protect journalists and anonymous sources, with implications for WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers.

EDUCATION A PRIORITY

Education is a high priority, and the opening section has a passage on academic freedom: "It should be ensured by law the freedom of science, education, arts and education." There is also a guarantee that everyone will receive a public education, free of charge at the primary level. The spirit animating the education section falls in line with the tradition of civic humanism: "Education shall aim at the full development of each individual, critical thinking and awareness of rights and duties."

WITHOUT NATURE, NOTHING

By far the most interesting language so far comes in the sections on ownership and natural resources. The overall sense of property rights is that "ownership is inviolable," while "exercise of ownership should not go against the public interest." At the same time, the "natural resources of Iceland are common and perpetual property of the nation. They should be utilized in a sustainable manner for the benefit of all citizens. No one can get them for permanent ownership or use." These clauses are driven by a belief that "Icelandic nature is inviolable. Each person must respect and protect. The utilization of common resources of the nation must act so that they are not diminished in the long term and the right of future generations is observed."

It would definitely be nice to see the "right to healthy environment, fresh water and unspoiled natural land, air and sea" enshrined in a new U.S. Constitution. As it stands, the current crop of Republican candidates has staked out a bizarre stance against environmental protection, despite the fact that the American public consistently supports clean air, clean water, and more renewable energy.

So the new Icelandic constitution may not be as radical as Bolivia granting rights to Mother Earth, but with its procedural innovations and a focus on sustainability and civic humanism, Iceland is certainly showing the world what twenty-first century democracy looks like:

[PHOTO CREDITS: Althingi by vovchychko (CC); Stjórnlagaráð by Stjórnlagaráð (CC).]

WindMade Public Comment Period Opens

2011-06-15T10:54:00.013-04:00

I recently biked 300 miles over five days from New York City to Washington, D.C. as part of the Climate Ride, a semiannual charity event that raises money for bicycle and environmental organizations. My primary motivation in riding all the way to Capitol Hill (with 120 bright people from the sustainability sector) was the opportunity to meet with legislators to discuss climate change, clean energy, and transportation policy.

Vested interests in the coal, oil, and gas industry would likely characterize such a voyage as quixotic, and they would be correct in one sense: I saw some windmills along the way, each one representing a different phase in America's energy history—Past, Future, and Present.

Windmill 1: The first type of windmill I encountered was actually a windpump. The old beast was motionless and looked something like this:

Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic has a great chapter in his book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology, on how innovative businesses and American DIY culture combined to dot the Great Plains with these pumps, making settlement and agriculture possible in arid regions. The technology is still incredibly useful, but it symbolizes the Past.

Windmill 2: The second creature I spied was perched on an Amish rooftop, spinning madly, and looked a bit like this sleek species:

As Kevin Kelly notes in his tome What Technology Wants, the Amish are not adverse to technology as long as it doesn't distort their cultural ethics. They even have social procedures for testing and evaluating new devices, and abandoning them if they are deemed inappropriate. Small modern wind turbines thus symbolize a possible energy Future where innovation is encouraged.

Windmill 3: Finally, I encountered this monster in Morgantown, PA:

I didn't go rooting through the restaurant's trash to find its electricity bill, but the probability is high that this decorative windmill is powered mostly by dirty coal, as Pennsylvania represents 5.3 percent of America's annual coal consumption. This windmill symbolizes the profligate Present.

I bring this up because a consortium of partners has just launched an innovative initiative to label organizations and products as "WindMade." It is a new chapter in what my colleague Michael Conroy calls the certification revolution, one of the primary forces driving branded companies to improve their environmental, social, and governance indicators. It also builds on the legacy of other "trustmarks" such as Fair Trade, Organic, Forest Stewardship, and Marine Stewardship.

In order to qualify for WindMade certification an organization will have to prove that it is getting at least 25 percent of its electricity from wind power. This can be accomplished via on-site turbines, long-term power purchase agreements, and renewable energy credits. The WindMade standard will roll out later this year, starting with certification of whole organizations and specific locations such as factories, while phase two will expand the process to include product certification.

In an innovative crowd-sourcing move, WindMade has opened up its technical standard for a 60-day public comment period to solicit feedback and advice on how it can be improved.

The primary sponsor of this project is the Danish wind company Vestas, the world's leading turbine manufacturer. Vestas has agreed to fund WindMade as an independent nonprofit for its first three years, and going forward support is expected from all partners as well as the participating companies. When asked at a press briefing whether compliance costs would discourage adoption, Vestas representative Bragi Fjalldal indicated that the expense would be "negligible," especially for carbon-conscious companies that are already monitoring emissions.

Bloomberg is the data partner in this endeavor, providing market research, and Curtis Ravenel of their sustainability group estimated that some 100 companies would already qualify at the 25 percent level.

Clearly Vestas has a business interest in promoting wind power through a labeling system, but they also recognize that wind will never provide all of the world's energy needs. For this reason an alternate WindMade label will be available to companies that want to express the mix of energy they receive from wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal sources.

Another key stakeholder and participant in the WindMade process is WWF. According to Stephan Singer of their global energy policy division, climate change is the single gravest threat to species worldwide, which is why WWF has made the case that it is possible and necessary to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

Another positive aspect of the WindMade project is that it intends to aid renewable energy deployment in the developing world. The exact details have yet to be determined, but Angelika Pullen of the Global Wind Energy Council said the following:

WindMade is a global initiative and will reach out to companies in other significant markets such as India, China, and Brazil in the public consultation process to determine how emerging markets and developing countries can best be included in the program. Overall, WindMade strives to make an impact beyond countries where wind energy is well established. It is our intention to raise funds to catalyze wind power projects in countries with less developed renewable energy infrastructure. This is a longer-term goal, however, so the details of how this will be operationalized are still under development.

Complaints about wind being an intermittent power source always strike me as odd, as if that's somehow a fundamentally worse problem than global warming or gyrations in the oil market. The greatest inconsistency I see has been in U.S. policy, which periodically allows wind investment incentives to lapse.

Whether climate change is to blame or not, the world is getting windier, and perhaps this will accelerate construction of offshore installations, which should be competitive with natural gas within the decade. Solar, too, is approaching or has reached grid parity in the sunniest locations.

With its potential to incentivize the growth of renewable energy—which is far from certain at this early stage, given the somewhat "mythical" nature of the ethical consumer—the WindMade label is an innovation that deserves the old "Amish" test run, and early adopters will likely reap a reputational benefit. The success of the program depends upon a strong and transparent technical standard immune from greenwash, which is what makes the public comment period so important. If you have your two cents, now is the time to deposit them.

Solar Policy Innovation in New York

2011-06-14T15:56:00.004-04:00

The New York solar industry could soon get a big boost if the state legislature passes the Solar Industry Development and Jobs Act (they must be very excited about it, as the bill is typed in ALL CAPS). The video above explains the basic financing and Solar Renewable Energy Credit mechanism quite clearly.

The bill's goal is 5 GW of solar capacity by 2025, with participation from residential, commercial, and utility producers. The incentives and requirements would ramp up and be adjusted over the years to match a growing market and falling costs. Advocates predict that the bill will add some 22,000 new jobs and $20 billion of economic activity to the state, with the primary benefits being cleaner power, long-term reduction of peak power costs, grid reliability, and local generation to supplant the importation of fossil fuels.

This bill is a step in the right direction, but it's hard not to scratch one's head at the lack of ambition here. The target of 2.5 percent by 2025 looks paltry when compared to peer nations like Germany, which installed 7 GW in 2010 alone due to its feed-in tariff system, and that was a slow year! Energy and environment writer David Roberts notes that "German electrical ratepayers fund the program through a small fee that amounts to about 15 percent of their electrical bills," whereas one of the selling points of the New York bill is that it will add only $0.39
to the average residential electric bill. You get what you pay for.

Rise of the Rest: Japan and the World

2011-05-19T15:39:00.009-04:00

I just got back from giving a talk on a panel titled "The Rise of the Rest IV: Critical Regions in Crisis" at Carnegie Council as part of the rise of the rest series we launched with Nikolas Gvosdev five years ago. The panel included Nikolas Gvosdev, Dov Waxman, David Speedie, and me. It is amazing how relevant this series remains after five years. My remarks were based on a lecture I give at New York University and from a forthcoming book I contributed to on the recent earthquake in Japan.

Here are my remarks from today's talk:

Today, I will touch on some ideas on "the rise of the rest" since our first panel in 2007 at the Nixon Center, then offer my own theory (of convergence), and speak about how it relates to the crisis in Japan.

First, a tour of the horizon on the idea of "the rise of the rest."

The cliche has it that we went from a bipolar world during the Cold War to a unipolar world in the 1990s to a multipolar world today with the rise of the rest. Joseph Nye has added nuance by imagining the world as a three-leveled chess board with the traditional hard-power game on top where U.S. military power still dominates. The second level is the interdependent, complex world of economic globalization, which might be described as multipolar. The third level is the world of transnational issues where no one is in charge, necessitating cooperation between states, companies, organizations, and individuals. The importance of this bottom level has grown with the advance of economic globalization and the information revolution, and it raises the importance of moral power. The power of information in the world of globalization has appeared recently in places like Libya and Egypt as well as in the connectedness the world felt with Japan and the world's response since the recent disasters there.

Kishore Mahbubani and others have expressed dismay in the unfairness of today's international institutions. Although there is a huge shift of power toward Asia, 3 billion Asians do not qualify to run the World Bank or IMF, he noted. This story has certainly come to the fore with the arrest and jailing this week of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan.

The original 2007 National Interest article by Barma, Ratner, and Weber pointed to the growing economies of Russia, India, and China as well as the pace in which these so-called non-Western countries were engaging with one another. And the article argued that rather than a simple hub-and-spoke model of international relations, a new choice emerged: countries could route around the United States, as Nick Gvosdev put it. This argument was similar to Parag Khanna's idea that the rise of other states means that relative U.S. influence might decline. This argument also set up the notion that there might be a competing system out there, outside of the U.S.-dominated system.

Harry Harding went on to describe these two systems as two political parties: One was an elitist reform party (which promotes democracy and individual freedom and self-determination, conditional aid, universal norms over sovereignty, skepticism over universal membership organizations, and selective FTAs) and the other was the populist conservative party (which values stability, harmony, and order for domestic systems; strong sovereignty and order internally; cultural diversity over universal norms; looser FTAs, and universal membership organizations). The U.S. wants order internationally while promoting democracy in nations; China opposes hegemony but likes democracy internationally, between nations.

But what about the global public goods such as freedom of movement and safe trading routes? In The Case for Goliath, Michael Mandelbaum demonstrates that the world needs governance and the U.S. is the only country that has been able and willing to assume this role.

For years, U.S. troops have abroad acted as a "public health service" forestalling outbreaks of war and nuclear proliferation, and as a "pest control service" against rogue regimes." Mandelbaum's three famous closing predictions about the world’s attitude toward America’s de facto role as the world’s government: "They will not pay for it; they will continue to criticize it; and they will miss it when it is gone."

Is cooperation and conflict more or less likely? Richard Haass calls the current world one of nonpolarity--power is becoming harder to organize.

This view recalls Parag Khanna's mega-diplomacy in his new book How to Run the World and Ian Bremmer's concept of a g-zero world where there is no "go-to forum."

Harry Harding was more sanguine on this point of cooperation, saying that if the transnational problems of today are so grave, then cooperation will become more likely. Climate change and energy security compel countries to cooperate.

Fareed Zakaria and John Ikenberry seem positive on the American-led system despite shortcomings. Zakaria says we need to integrate the rest, which rose on account of American system.

Similarly, Ikenberry said the United States has set up inclusive institutions that will prolong a Western order. Three aspects of the Western order make it difficult to overthrow:

-Through non-discrimination and an open market, the barriers to economic participation are low and the benefits high, allowing for states to expand their economic and political goals within the order.

-Coalition based leadership allows for shifts in the balance of power between states without affecting the overall order.

-And deeply rooted rules and institutions lay the basis for cooperation.

Moreover, Ikenberry says the security trap that the United States faces--the use of its power creates a backlash--makes institutions more important.

John Mearsheimer, Robert Gilpin, and other realists see times of transition as dangerous because new powers will want to reorganize the rules for their own interests. In Mearscheimer's words, "Given the difficulty of determining how much power is enough for today and tomorrow, great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now." Mearscheimer believes trading with China is helping China gain power, which it will use to challenge the U.S.

Finally, some, including George Friedman and Minxin Pei, simply believe China’s power is hyped and focus on the internal problems that "the rest" faces.

Second, my view of convergence in international affairs.

Like the economic theory of factor price equalization, which observes that prices of factors converge as countries trade with one another, I would suggest that as China’s economy becomes richer and its international stake in the global system increases, China's overarching interests will resemble more closely those of the United States and offer less of a “competing model.” That means both more competition--for markets, allies, and resources--but the interaction between China and the U.S. will go both ways.

China's interests and principles in international affairs will change U.S. perceived interests and vice versa, pushing America to keep up in areas in which China excels, such as its advance in Africa and ASEAN, as well as education, innovation, and infrastructure domestically--the key words of President Obama's recent state of union in January 2011. Meanwhile China is racing to challenge American naval power and technology. In the long run, China will be compelled to adopt more freedoms and openness if it wants to continue to advance, I think.

The "West" must keep up with China's tools of statecraft; Japan has been considering launching a sovereign wealth fund and the U.S. has been pushing for more FTAs in Asia. While the U.S. didn't socialize its financial system after the 2008 financial crisis, the importance of regulation and the state was apparent as it is in Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis today.

It won't be a competition of competing ethics because in a practical sense the right moral principles generally prevail in history, and America's moral principles of universal liberalism have proven right over and over.

Some convergence is being witnessed already. China hand Evan Feigenbaum writes:

"Chinese employment practices [in Africa for example] have produced a backlash in many countries. And that makes me wonder whether Chinese commercial engagement might not produce greater convergence with the US and others in rough, tough investment environments."

But China faces a big dilemma. For China to leap from a manufacturing economy to an innovation economy--which will be necessary for the Chinese Communist Party to generate jobs to stay in power--it will require China to adopt openness and freedoms that threaten its very stability.

Maybe what we will end up seeing is what Henry Kissinger calls a Pacific Community, in which China and the U.S. "co-evolve."

Finally, on this point, where was Japan when we thought it was a threat to the U.S. economy? It had identifiable brands, a strong navy, an unbeatable corporate model, a stellar education system, and a society that prided itself on low crime, high literacy, and social coherence--as, for example, lauded by journalist T.R. Reid. We should put Chinese power in perspective.

Third, what about Japan's recent crisis?

As for Japan after the March 11 earthquake and its relations with the world, we don't know its future but there has been disruption and internationalization stemming from the country's needs since the quake.

Themes showcased during the earthquake and tsunami crisis include: Japan's interdependence with the world, need for leadership, a desire for further transparency in the economy and politics, stoicism and perseverance, and solidarity between the world and Japan.

It also may have dispelled some stereotypes.

Stereotypes about Japan have gone through many phases in the American imagination. During World War II, Japan was a foreign enemy and afterward it was the occupied. In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan was seen as a mystical place offering "exotic" traditions such as tea ceremony, karate, geisha, and Zen Buddhism. Whereas in the past to study Japan was something specialized, learning about Japan is now considered part of becoming a globally minded person. In that sense, the recent disaster may have helped extend the trend of Japan becoming a place people relate to.

A new door to the world also has opened for Japan. One potential impact on how Japan views itself in the world may come from the effect of Japan's experience with and participation in Operation Tomodachi, the deployment of 18,000 U.S. personnel who helped with disaster relief and the delivery of emergency supplies.

Other international connections are being made through the introduction of foreign companies helping with the reconstruction and the surge of good will from nonprofits, charities, and foundations helping from abroad and in Japan. In the months following the disasters, many Japanese companies will consider pushing more of their operations abroad--to the United States, China, or Southeast Asia--to hedge against risk, further internationalizing corporate Japan.

On the other side of the coin, interest in Japan has reached new heights with searches for and mentions of Japan on Google and Twitter reaching records since those data have been collected. A Pew poll said during the March 14-18 period, 64% of blog links, 32% of Twitter news links, and the top 20 YouTube videos were about the disasters in Japan.

But these social networks are only a tool or a process. They don't constitute a galvanizing issue to change Japan.

One possible galvanizing issue could be the need for more green technologies and alternative energy in Japan. The nation went through a dramatic shift in energy policy after the oil shocks in the 1970s, and perhaps the nuclear crisis could push the country into another revolutionary shift. At a press conference last week, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government will conduct a fundamental review of the nation's basic energy policy.

A second issue that the nuclear crisis has highlighted is the need for transparency broadly speaking. Japanese have looked abroad for foreign sources of information in frustration with their country’s press and the current dissatisfaction in the government's handling of the crisis has a lot to do with a sense that officials, politicians, and companies were holding back information.

Transparency could become a rallying cry that weaves all of the issues in Japan. Whether Japan takes this chance for change is uncertain. But most people agree that this is probably Japan's last chance in our lifetime to shift its course away from comfortable decline.

Photo: Japanese Woman with Mirrors from George Eastman House

Deceptively Simple: The Political Art of Francis Alÿs

2011-05-11T13:38:00.004-04:00

"Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception" opened recently at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York and visitors will find that the show delivers poetics and politics in equal doses. Alÿs is a globalized artist with sensibilities to match. Hailing from Belgium he set up shop in Mexico City in 1986 and his work reflects the development divide between those two nations.

The piece that strikes you upon entering the exhibition is Cuentos Patrióticos (Patriotic Tales). It is a black and white video of a man (Alÿs) walking in a circle around a flagpole or monument in a public square. He is accompanied in his circulation by sheep that trace his same path. The video is hypnotic and repetitive. As the sheep enter and leave one by one the viewer finds that sometimes the sheep are following the man, sometimes the opposite. The plaza depicted is the Zócalo in Mexico City, and while this knowledge adds a layer of meaning, the video is rich as a timeless meditation on the cycles and rituals of leadership.

Another captivating video is Paradox of Praxis I (Sometimes Doing Something Leads to Nothing), where Alÿs starts pushing a large block of ice around town in the morning, only to have it dissipate into nothing by early evening. While the piece echoes the myth of Sisyphus, as many have noted, I see in it one fundamental difference: the element of choice. The labor of Sisyphus was a punishment whereas Alÿs has chosen to demonstrate a work ethic of focus and endurance, and this theme unites him with On Kawara's Today series and the performances of Marina Abramović. Another crucial difference is that the Sisyphus story gains its potency and absurdity from the infinite, whereas Alÿs connects us to the post-mythical hubris and heuristic of praxis: Yes, you will dissipate like an ice cube one day, so throw your back into what you're doing now.

By far the most complex and provocative work in the show is Politics of Rehearsal. In it an exotic dancer rehearses on a stage with an incongruously operatic musical accompaniment. Mixed with this is footage from Harry S. Truman's 1949 inaugural speech where he sets forth the capitalist case for development aid and democratization. Alÿs describes the piece as "a metaphor of Latin America's ambiguous affair with Modernity, forever arousing, and yet, always delaying the moment it will happen." A narrative voice-over is added in Spanish to flesh out some of the political ideas behind Latin America's constant flirtation with development policies. Central to this text is the sense that a history without victories is dispiriting, and that in such a situation productive work is reduced to mere labor.

We thus start to see a chain of concepts running throughout Alÿs: Rehearsal, Effort (maximal), Result (minimal), Repetition, Reenactment. They lead us not to absurd despair, but rather to a way of life and a means to reflect on it: art as a political science.

The most charming aspect is that while remaining high concept Alÿs exhibits a democratic minimalism. The materials he employs are available to most: shoes, walking, coins, the city, shovels, the natural elements. Friday nights are free admission at MoMA—perhaps the perfect time to see his show. Make sure to catch Tornado.

Who Lost the WikiLeaks Information War?

2011-05-10T17:16:00.004-04:00

Reporters need a new ethical framework in order to deploy technologies that can expose business and government misconduct, without creating unintended victims. This was the lesson from a Columbia Journalism School debate last week on "Life after WikiLeaks: Who won the information war?"

The event, a collaboration with the British organization Index on Censorship, brought together a wide spectrum of commentators to hash out the benefits and drawbacks of Julian Assange's decision to share more than 200,000 classified State Department cables with the media.

Sparks flew in a respectful blame game between Mark Stephens, the free expression attorney who represents Julian Assange, and P. J. Crowley, the U.S. Department of State spokesperson who was recently dismissed for criticizing the treatment of accused leaker Bradley Manning.

Crowley asserted that the true casualties of the WikiLeaks release were the informants who were named in the State Department documents—many of them journalists and activists of the stripe Assange seeks to empower. Most headlines about the issue have focused on Afghan informants, but both Crowley and Stephens acknowledged that the names of informants living under a variety of authoritarian regimes appeared in the documents released to news outlets.

Another panelist, Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatav, confirmed that some of the writers identified in the documents have lost access to key sources because those sources now fear exposure in State Department communications. He shared the suspicion that other writers have been imprisoned as a result of their cooperation with the State Department.

The State Department is far from blameless here. Officials had the opportunity to redact the documents before they were published. Moreover, the documents were accessible to the 3 million federal employees with a security clearance—a fairly loose standard for protecting the names of confidential informants in authoritarian countries.

Great responsibility now falls to Assange and the news media to delineate ethical obligations going forward. WikiLeaks walks a blurry line as an intermediary between whistleblowers and reporters. In this case, such diffusion may have hampered the rigorous exercise of news judgment. WikiLeaks also has an organizational problem: Assange and his skeleton crew are not equipped to handle the intricacies of 200,000 diplomatic documents or the ripple effects of their release.

Finally, the media bears responsibility to evolve. Until the New York Times and other outlets construct high-security servers, the sensitive documents of investigative journalism are vulnerable to intrusion by outside sources.

In journalism school, budding reporters are indoctrinated with standards for the ethical treatment of whistleblowers who directly provide documents and interviews. With the mythical days of Deep Throat fading in the rear-view mirror, the industry must catch up with the reality of contemporary information transfer without losing respect for confidentiality.

PHOTO CREDIT: a.powers-fudyma (CC).

Climate Challenge, or How I Learned to Start Pandering and Love the Pork

2011-05-04T14:02:00.015-04:00

I played the Climate Challenge game recently after discovering it on the Games for Change website and found it to be a provocative look at the politics and policy solutions related to global warming. While the gameplay has a few blind spots (mainly the lack of good feedback on economic performance) and gets a bit repetitive, Climate Challenge communicates and encourages reflection on some important and perennial political lessons.

The gist is that you "play as the President of Europe from 2000 to 2100 [!?], and attempt to reduce your carbon emissions while maintaining vital national services and remaining popular with the electorate." This is tougher than it seems. There are five variables you must monitor—finances, energy, food, water, and emissions—and five policy areas with which to affect these variables—national, trade, agriculture & industry, local, and household. You are evaluated at the end of your public service on indicators of environment, wealth, and popularity.

For my first attempt I figured why not go for broke with an aggressive Green platform: I ended up getting booted out of office after four rounds. My approval rating fell through the floor when I neglected the food supply and the water infrastructure in favor of fuel taxes and rapid expansion of renewable energy, and my administration was punished by climate-induced floods and heat waves that further compounded my popularity problems. Game Over. Chalk it up to the game's learning curve.

Periodically during Climate Challenge, Europe must engage in environmental diplomacy with the other blocs: North America, South America, Africa, South Asia, Pacifica, and North Asia. The negotiation stage is minimal and it's not clear what's at stake, but you have the option to subsidize green development in each region. Presumably these gestures rally the negotiators to your side. But what is your side? While emissions targets give you something to aim for, they also make your job harder.

On my second pass I tried to be a more sensitive leader while still negotiating in good faith for emissions reductions on the international stage. Fortunately the game is loaded with great policy choices with which to meet these goals—energy innovation and efficiency, transportation and green building regulations, and investments in basic research.

I found that one way to keep my rating high was to focus on subsidizing things people wanted, like home solar, and to steer clear of things they didn't, such as carbon taxes—promote, don't restrict—which seems to adhere to what Roger Pielke calls his "iron law" of climate politics.

Climate Challenge also offers some tempting public programs of uncertain value (within the game environment): launch a space program, host the Olympics, send foreign aid. These tend to hemorrhage money, energy, and emissions, but the voters like them.

I played a final round with an exaggerated pro-business approach, funding things like nuclear projects and carbon capture, yet even then I somehow managed to throw the economy into hyperinflation by 2100 and allow criminals to stalk the streets. Clearly the game needs better feedback on the socioeconomic front, as my approval rating ran high throughout.

While the gameplay is just a bunch of clicking, the real action happens on the conceptual level, and there are some nice contextual touches that teach the reality of nimbyism, resource limitations, and political trade-offs. For example, after each election you get a newspaper report on how your policies have been received. My favorite one said: "The most popular policy was 'Spin your policies.'" A few dollars spent on savvy PR can go a long way.

Music is a Positive Force

2011-04-29T16:19:00.008-04:00

I had the pleasure of catching afrobeat star Femi Kuti in concert this week at the Highline Ballroom in New York. He's on tour with his Positive Force band to promote their new album Africa for Africa.

Femi is the son of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the legendary musical pioneer and political activist who stirred up Nigeria in the 1970s and 80s. Fela's music embodies the universal struggle for rights, recognition, and an end to corruption. His lyrics are fiery even when his grooves remain mellow, blending psychedelic rock with James Brown, jazz, and West African high life.

Fela's songs confront the ills he observed in Nigerian society under repressive regimes: Political conformity is ridiculed in "Zombie" and "Mister Follow Follow," peace and resources run through "Water No Get Enemy," and the spirit of resistance animates "No Agreement."

Femi upholds a lot of his father's legacy—he leads the band from behind a Hammond organ and he solos on sax and trumpet when he isn't roaming with the microphone, delivering sweet songs as well as political lectures. What really sets Femi apart from his father is the more muscular, aggressive sound he has cultivated. His compositions blare with tight, punchy horns, and crisp drumming. The tempos are mostly up, breaking only rarely into an island lilt. Femi's body vibrates with the extra energy he couldn't cram into his songs, and even his audience banter hits like a confident staccato hammer of pidgin and English.

Femi also picks up his father's political messages, which continue to resonate in Nigeria some 14 years since Fela died from AIDS complications. The demands in "E No Good" are simple: electricity, drinkable water, housing, good health care, and good pay for doctors, teachers, and police. The afflictions are laid out in equally clear terms: corruption, lies, and inequality.

"Dem Bobo" [They Misinform]

So we struggle suffer dey [here]
For this new democratic change
But the truth of the matter be say
Dem disguise another way
To continue their crooked ways
Oh yes, dem bobo

"It Don't Mean"

When you are walking down the street
Or feeling cool in your brand new Lexus jeep
Because you got money, you feeling rich
Don't mean that the poverty does not exist

As a musician who has toured, Femi sees the pattern across Africa, the same problems and same pains in different countries, as well as the luxuries like social security considered common in rich countries. Generals oscillate with presidents yet the suffering and mago mago [illegal deals] remain. Goons are interchangeable.

"Africa for Africa"

Brothers and sisters
Our countries are colonial structures
Borderlines to keep us forever separated
We must love Africa
We must care for Africa
War and conflicts will only bring suffering and hunger
African leaders must bring us together

All these songs lean more to the descriptive than the prescriptive, which is often where the artist must pass the baton. So what are the good solutions? Can countries shed "Bad Government" without shedding blood as in Northern Africa?

Femi drew a diverse crowd here in New York, with the peoples of no particular continent dominating the mix. This testifies both to the universal power of music and to the potential of cities and democracies to help people live in harmony.

Neuroscientists have discovered that brain cells fire at the exact frequencies our ears hear. What better evidence could exist that reason will eventually prevail over the petty rivalries that divide us? The vibrations outside our bodies are matched in abstract purity inside our minds, and thus shared alike from mind to mind. Pair this with an inspiring message and the people become an unstoppable positive force.

Musicians have a serious responsibility when choosing the tones and stories with which to fill their listeners. Femi Kuti honors this sacred duty, and the legacy of his father, by building a musical shrine for free spirits.

NYU Students: U.S. Should Support An Inclusive Global Community

2011-04-22T14:15:00.011-04:00

Last week, I facilitated a class debate on U.S. policy toward East Asia for a class I teach at NYU called the "Rise of East Asia." (Click here to read the summary of the class from spring 2010 and here to read the summary from the class from summer 2009.) This semester's class was smaller than previous semesters but the debate was nonetheless fascinating. Perhaps one of the most striking elements of the debate was a widely shared view that the United States cannot lead the world alone. Rather the United States must lead in cooperation with other countries--a strategy of cooperative security if you will. In that light, the students stressed the need for relations between countries to be on equal footing and therefore they questioned the tradition of looking at U.S. foreign relations in hierarchical order.

Below are the impressions of Elizabeth Matsumoto, who participated in the debate:

"Rise of East Asia" Class Debate on March 30 2011

On March 30 2011, President Obama's 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) provided the backdrop for a carefully worded but intense debate among six NYU SCPS students in Professor Devin Stewart's "Rise of East Asia" class. There were varied opinions but also overwhelming agreement on U.S. priorities in national security, a concern that preoccupied the better part of the debate, followed by recommendations for American policy in East Asia, a region defined as ASEAN, China, Japan, the Koreas, and Australia.

The goal of the debate was to prepare an in-class National Security Strategy by consolidating excerpts from the Obama document with newly derived conclusions. The class began by focusing on grand strategy, or the all-encompassing mission statement that could best be classified as a philosophical approach to national security. Obama's grand strategy focuses on "renewing American leadership," a reaction to the military emphasis of the Bush era. Evidence that this renewal involves the dual process of being strong at home, by rebuilding the economy, education system, while being influential abroad became readily apparent in a preliminary study of the document.

Class reaction was overwhelmingly positive to the Obama Administration's grand strategy, characterizing it as "a step in the right direction." The group also called for a policy of engagement that would "create more international organizations, and cooperation," that prioritized American leadership and "enlightened self-interest." The best means of pursuing leadership was also briefly debated, with an emphasis on collaboration, or co-leadership as the optimal means of engagement.

Class also argued that co-leadership on important global matters should be initiated while cautiously balancing security and openness, given that "safety and prosperity are bound by events beyond our borders." The Grand Strategy was subsequently revised to the following statement: "The United States should cooperate in redefining the international order, to support an inclusive community of nations with global responsibility." Class also stressed the grand strategy remain compatible with the general aim of engagement abroad: to give incentives to nations to act responsibly, while conveying they may face consequences if they do not.

With the grand strategy established, the class then began the task of defining the Interests of National Security. First came the security of the United States, its citizens and the "human rights of all people," an important clause directly correlated to the grand strategy’s notion of an "inclusive community." Next was international prosperity, an aim intertwined with rebuilding a strong economy, powered by "fiscal responsibility, education, and innovation" at home. Debate on whether to retain values, or ethical policy followed. Given the overarching ethical aim of the grand strategy, the class concluded this section redundant. An international order promoted by a participatory American leadership was also listed under the interests section of the document.

With a comprehensive security policy finalized, a discussion of U.S. allies in Asia followed. Talks began with a ranking. Japan's strategic importance placed it in the number one slot, followed by traditional allies South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand. In light of recent events, the class also noted the Great Tohoku Earthquake in Japan has strengthened the U.S.-Japan alliance, but emphasis on fostering more equal partnerships with not only America's allies but other willing nations was of growing importance.

This last policy suggestion tied well with subsequent discussions. Class recognized the significance of engagement with China, Asia's largest emerging power. Involvement in regional institutions ASEAN, APEC, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP), and EAS (East Asia Summit) was also highlighted as a key step towards multilateralism. Furthermore, in alignment with Obama’s call for a more "positive, constructive, and comprehensive relationship with China," and to "encourage continued reduction in tension between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan" U.S. bilateral relations with Taipei was ranked below other policy priorities.

As discussion continued, the term "allies" also came under debate. If the chief aim of national security was to foster inclusiveness, some questioned the need to classify a few select nations as allies. The possibility the U.S. military presence in Japan and South Korea was polarizing, and could potentially undermine claims to inclusive cooperativeness was also briefly deliberated. As the debate drew to a close, emphasis was repeatedly placed on greater involvement in regional institutions, both existing ones such as the Six Party Talks, APEC, ASEAN, EAS, and TPP. There was also agreement a Northeast Asian Alliance analogous to ASEAN would be an impactful starting point.

- Elizabeth Matsumoto

Photo "Woolworth Building" by laverrue.

Fukushima and the Fragility of Modern Civilization

2011-03-22T14:49:00.008-04:00

As a companion piece to an on-the-ground account of the Japanese earthquake we published last week, I am posting here some thoughts from our colleague Peter David Pedersen of the Tokyo sustainability consultancy E-Square Inc. He reflects on the longer-term consequences of how Japan (and the rest of the world) will change behaviors related to potentially dangerous energy sources such as nuclear power. Peter has had personal experience with censorship in the Japanese media when it comes to criticizing TEPCO specifically and nuclear power in general.

Ogoto-onsen, near Kyoto, March 18, 2011

I am writing to you from a hotel along the shore of Biwa-ko, Japan's largest lake, some 528 km west (and slightly south) of the Fukushima nuclear power station. Fresh snow is covering the landscape in what would normally be a very idyllic setting.

Right now it feels absolutely surreal, as if all the earthquake destruction in eastern Japan combined with the man-made specter of nuclear destruction were scenes out a Hollywood movie entitled "Twin Disasters." But this is no movie, and whether there will be any form of "happy" ending to the nuclear malaise remains entirely unpredictable.

The Japanese government "cannot" talk openly and honestly to the Japanese public about the potential dangers in a worst-case scenario at Fukushima, primarily because of fears of panic among the 30 million people in the world's largest metropolitan area, Tokyo and Yokohama.

Over the last 10 years or so, I have repeatedly experienced the attempts of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) to control information on nuclear power in this country. For eighteen months, from 2000–2001, I anchored the main news program at MX TV, Tokyo's local TV station, and was told by the producer that "since TEPCO is a sponsor of our program, I would prefer if you do not openly criticize nuclear power."

On another occasion, I was writing a piece for a well-known publication for 5th and 6th grade school kids on the environment. That time the chief editor told me, "TEPCO is one of the sponsors of our magazine. While I would like you to write on the environment, please don't be critical of nuclear power."

On a third occasion, not directly related to TEPCO, I was interviewed by the Yomiuri newspaper, one of Japan's top two newspapers in terms of circulation, about the 1978 demonstrations throughout Denmark against the possible introduction of nuclear power, in which I participated as a child. When the interview appeared in the newspaper, my phrase "demonstrations against nuclear power" had been altered to "demonstrations for renewable energy." This was not what I had said, and when I called the journalist in charge, he sheepishly apologized, saying, "I did not dare to write anything negative about nuclear power lest I should invite the wrath of my editor (boss)."

I feel so very sorry for the people who are, right now, sacrificing their future health, and some of them their immediate lives, working to stop the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. They may be described as "heroes"—and surely their efforts as such are heroic—but in a wider perspective they are victims of an industry in which the brainwashing of contractors and workers to believe that what they work with is safe has been pervasive.

In its entirety, the present situation in eastern Japan and the Tokyo metropolitan area has revealed the amazing fragility of modern civilization. All lifelines—water, transport, electricity, food supplies—have been severed or disrupted in eastern Japan, and Tokyo, one of the world's largest cities, was in danger of a large-scale, sudden blackout yesterday afternoon (March 17) as a cold spell of weather drove up electricity consumption close to the limit of maximum supply.

A good friend of mine, working at Tohoku University not far from the epicenter of the earthquake, called to tell how he finally, after six days, managed to leave Sendai (a city of more than 1 million on Honshu's east coast), driving to Tokyo in a 16-hour ordeal. No gasoline being available anywhere on the route, he barely managed to reach Tokyo, his gas tank drying up. More frightening than the drive, though, was how food and water were virtually impossible to obtain in the city center of Sendai.

"Emergency supplies have been distributed to the schools where tens of thousands of people take refuge, but nothing seemed to reach the city of Sendai and shelves in supermarkets were almost completely empty. For the first time, I had the feeling of a threat to my life because of an inability to buy food," he told me.

My friend made it, but older and weaker people are dying—or will die—as the crucial lifelines of a hypermodern society have been devastated.

The question, obviously, is what we can learn from this experience, not only in Japan but also in modern society as a whole. It remains to be seen whether we will truly learn anything at all. To me, there seem to be at least three major lessons. The first is the question of how or if lifestyles and values will change. The thing that the Japanese have been praised for throughout the first week of this terrible disaster has not been "technology" or "financial strength"—it has been the strong spirit, the patience, and the human qualities of the people here that have touched many around the world.

Money and shiny goods in temples of consumption have carried absolutely no value for the people here in the last week. Is there a chance that we may, now, see and act on the emptiness of useless consumerism? I hope there is a chance, although I do at the same time fear that once things settle down, Japan and the world will go on as if nothing had happened.

The second lesson is the danger of concentration of population into huge metropolises. Although the epicenter of the M9.0 earthquake was hundreds of kilometers northeast of Tokyo, the city was paralyzed, streets were clogged, subways inoperative, and phone lines dead. The staff at my office could not get home or get in touch with their family.

What if—and this could happen any day—the earthquake had hit Tokyo straight on? I have not the courage to think of the scale of disaster or the number of human lives that would have been lost. As urbanization continues at great speed in the world's population centers, the utter fragility of the 21st century megacity poses serious questions. Is there a way to answer this question in a more humane and sustainable manner than we are experiencing today? There must be.

The third lesson is the folly of making ourselves dependent on energy production from large-scale and extremely dangerous power stations, where no workable plans exist to control worst-case scenarios. Huge costs will be incurred in Japan over the next several decades to clean up Fukushima. Huge costs were incurred to build the plant in the first place. Surely this money could have been used more wisely. Hopefully, the lesson taken from Fukushima will, finally, make the idea of nonviolent, nontoxic, decentralized energy sources the mainstream policy and business choice around the world.

If we can learn the lessons, there is hope for the future.

Peter David Pedersen
Chief Executive
E-Square Inc.
Tokyo, JAPAN

[PHOTO CREDIT: Globovisión. Damaged reactor at Fukushima (CC).]

Drops Not Drones, Vaccines Not Marines

2011-03-07T18:44:00.009-05:00

You are likely to be judged by the company you keep. In Osama bin Laden's case, the isolated mountains of tribal Afghanistan and Pakistan provide a perfect safe haven for him and for polio. Thirty years of conflict and low economic development have resulted in security and health infrastructure that is inadequate for deploying an effective regional eradication program. Thus the Af-Pak borderlands remain one of only a handful of places (including India and Nigeria) where polio is endemic, though flare-ups also occur across Africa and Central Asia due to importation.

As the Afghan war moves into its tenth year and intensifies to ten airstrikes per day, the time is beyond ripe to question whether we're packing the right payload. The United States spends more than $100 billion per year executing the war in Afghanistan, while Afghan GDP is around $15 billion. Clearly this is unsustainable.

Compare this to the figures required for global health and development. Bill Gates said recently that $2 billion is needed for polio eradication over the next two years, while the campaign is currently experiencing a $700 million shortfall. In a speech at the former Roosevelt home in New York, Gates delivered his annual foundation letter in which he outlines his strategy for charitable giving. Polio eradication is the key focus this year, and his rationale centers on four points:

1. We are close to eradication: There are only about 1,000 cases left per year globally;
2. Eradication will permanently free up resources for other vaccination and health campaigns;
3. The affected regions will benefit in terms of economic productivity; and
4. Eradication will provide a motivational victory for the health industry, driving further hope and investment.

As polio is just one affliction of poverty among many, it's important to consider the opportunity costs. Critics such as D. A. Henderson, the leader of the team who eradicated smallpox, feel that dumping billions into polio eradication is a misallocation of funds. Polio is difficult to kill because of a number of combined factors: the variety of strains, asymptomatic carriers, a vaccine that is not 100 percent effective, parental refusal, a lack of infrastructure, and management problems in organizing all the national campaigns. It is very much a door-to-door endeavor, but so was smallpox eradication.

THE GATEWAY IMMUNIZATION

A point in favor of financing polio eradication is that the vaccine can be viewed as a gateway process leading to routine immunization services for more common diseases. One-fifth of children today don't have such access. Beyond the obvious health consequences, lack of access also presents an organizational problem in the fight against polio because it leads to underreporting and thus keeps the virus elusive.

There is also the issue of innovative and appropriate technologies: Something as simple as camel-portable refrigerators could go a long way toward keeping vaccine doses fresh. If the U.S. military is deploying innovative solar modules to replace the generators that power air conditioning at its forward operating bases in Afghanistan, then clearly some of these technologies can be repurposed for more benign operations.

THE MORAL DIMENSION

At the Bill Gates event, David Oshinsky, author of Polio: An American Story, said we need to motivate a new March of Dollars to "get kids interested in the moral dimension" of helping other kids around the world. The original March of Dimes organized by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was able to finance research for the polio vaccine through a flood of small private contributions.

But it was much easier to motivate Americans to donate when their classmates were leaving behind empty school desks. Gates attributes the moral gap today to this physical proximity problem. Even with his computer software stitching the world together, polio mostly kills and maims people outside the eye of the rich world's collective consciousness. Few things illuminate the power and puzzle of globalization more than the world's richest man reaching out to help some of the poorest. His ethical sense drives him to do it.

COALITION OF THE HEALING

Gates has collected allies along the way. The British government has pledged to double its funding to $60 million from $30 million as a matching grant conditional on contributions from other donor governments. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi recently contributed $50 million, and the government of Pakistan announced an emergency response to the increase of cases in its territory.

So whose side are we on? In one corner we have Robert Gates and the U.S. Department of Defense dropping bombs from drones. In the other corner we have Bill Gates asking the world to spend more to save the most vulnerable. Send in the vaccines, or send in the Marines. It's a pretty ~~stark~~ simple choice.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Gates Foundation (CC).]

What Was All the Gossip About?

2011-01-21T11:16:00.005-05:00

Now that some of the furor over Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has calmed down, it helps to untangle even a small strand of the web of intrigue surrounding the release of U.S. diplomatic cables. One of the themes we heard these past several months was that most of the cables are mere cocktail party "gossip." This phrase is often used to downplay their significance and to denigrate any public value WikiLeaks may provide as a safe harbor for whistleblowers.

Thus we see similar headlines all over the world: "Wikileaks 'Gossip' Merely Annoying in Latin America," Mario Osava, Inter Press Service, Dec. 13, 2010; "Good Gossip, and No Harm Done to U.S.," Albert R. Hunt, Bloomberg News, Dec. 5, 2010, syndicated in the New York Times; "Raila [Odinga] dismisses WikiLeaks reports as gossip," Carol Gakii and Kendagor Obadiah, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 10, 2010; "WikiLeaks: Gossip on a global level," Rabia Ashfaque, Express Tribune Pakistan Blog, circa Dec. 10, 2010; "WikiLeaks: Much ado over idle chat," Korea Herald editorial, Dec. 17, 2010.

So where did this idea come from? Why has it crystallized in so many minds as a convenient explanation? The "gossip" diagnosis is portrayed as the commonsense response, and this alone is reason to beware. We live in an era of information warfare, marked by proliferation of secrecy and the agents who sustain it. Common sense is no longer credible when it can be so easily provided by a third party.

Take for example the CIA Red Cell Memorandum entitled "Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough," a document leaked to WikiLeaks in early 2010. The first section pretty much sums it up: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters." It is painful to witness such brash condescension for the democratic values our troops die to protect, and it is pathetic how the CIA values apathy as a means to sustain an unpopular policy. Only a pathological detachment from life and death consequences could allow them to uphold this charade.

And for those moments when apathy is not enough and war opposition becomes real, the Red Cell Memo suggests a handful of tactics for massaging European publics, tailored to the unique cultural weaknesses of each nation.

The mission’s "multilateral and humanitarian aspects" are recommended as key selling points for German audiences, and a dose of fear is thrown in for good measure: "messages that illustrate how a defeat in Afghanistan could heighten Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics."

The French media strategy calls for stirring up guilt related to civilians and women: "The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls' education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France's largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties." The irony wafts like smoke from a Gauloise when we consider the controversy over headscarves in French public schools.

But the real sneakiness here is the way that ethical values are used to legitimize continuation of the war. Of course everyone wants Afghan women and children to live happy, safe, and fulfilling lives. But good news in the service of a democratically disfavored policy sows confusion and helps apathy proliferate. Policy Innovations, in fact, has run great articles over the years on Afghan women, children, and education because it's our business to tell success stories of innovation in development. And that's exactly where the CIA logic breaks down: There are women and children who need good health and education all over the world. Just because some of them happen also to be in Afghanistan doesn't mean that the United States and its allies can retroactively justify a 10-year occupation based on their fates.

This CIA memo preceded the diplomatic cable release but it speaks to a major issue that WikiLeaks has brought to the surface: We can't go on conducting international diplomacy with hypocrisy, cynicism, and dissimulation as if somehow people of different nations live on different planets and aren't listening. Or as Slavoj Zizek writes in the London Review of Books, "We can no longer pretend we don’t know what everyone knows we know." An age of appearances is over.

PHOTO CREDIT: Paco Rives Manresa (CC).

Living Like a Refugee Is Not Easy

2011-01-11T15:49:00.006-05:00

I had the luck to catch the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars band last night in Manhattan. They formed in the refugee camps during the civil war of the 1990s, using their musical talents to stay alive and keep spirits high. They have since toured all over the world spreading their bright positive sound, which draws on a mix of influences from reggae to Nigerian high-life and American rap.

A pair of documentary filmmakers captured their story, and the band today leverages its success to help Sierra Leone recover and develop. When times are tough you have to dance, dance, dance.

Reinventing the Wheelchair

2010-12-09T15:50:00.006-05:00

Reading Scientific American this morning I spied the innovation that won their annual World Changing Ideas Video Contest: the Leveraged Freedom Chair designed by MIT Mobility Lab.

It's a three-wheeled human-powered wheelchair that goes faster than normal and also navigates difficult terrain—rutted roads, cobblestones, trash-strewn slums. The genius resides in the vertical hand levers: Users simply grab higher or lower depending on how much torque or speed they need. It's like being able to change gears.

The drivetrain consists of common bicycle parts and so is "manufacturable and repairable anywhere in the developing world," according to MIT. Sometimes low-tech solutions are the most appropriate.

Introducing: More Like This

2010-11-24T14:04:00.004-05:00

Policy Innovations is pleased to announce the debut of "More Like This," a new article series by our friend John Haffner. John will be profiling clean energy leaders and other green innovators in China over the next several months.

As you can read in his introduction to the series, the motivation is triple: 1. Give these pioneers some of the recognition they deserve; 2. Convey the flavor of life in contemporary China; and 3. Inspire similar leadership in others.

The first article is a frank discussion with Kongjian Yu, an award-winning landscape architect whose designs strive to incorporate energy efficiency and natural beauty.

Yu feels that China's rapid urbanization suffers from what he calls the "'little feet' aesthetic"—showcase buildings built on shaky conceptual foundations. "These ornamental buildings can't carry their own weight. We have little feet but a jumbo body of consumption and GDP growth. Chinese have this dream of being urbanized. But the buildings aren't green."

Also of note on U.S.-China relations is our coverage of "Rare Earths Diplomacy" by Sean Daly. He looks at what we should expect in the rare minerals market and how it could impact production of the wind turbines and hybrid cars we associate with a clean technology economy.

Enjoy, and have a great Thanksgiving.

Moving to the Japan Society in NY

2010-11-04T14:43:00.006-04:00

Dear Friends,

As some of you know, I am leaving Carnegie Council next week to take a senior program position at the Japan Society in New York.

It was a tough decision to leave Carnegie—especially after nearly 5 years of exciting programming and research projects with a fantastic team. Ultimately my decision was formed by a personal desire to help Japan revive.

Over the course of a decade of writing seriously about Asia, my analysis has zeroed in on two empirical sources: data and interviews (rather than theory or conjecture). In my writing on Japan, I have tried my best to convey accurately what Japanese people tell me about their country. As a result, perhaps ironically, the tone of my articles and speeches has become increasingly pessimistic. I recently had dinner with the chief economist of a major bank in Tokyo who asked me, "Devin, what will it take for you to stop being so gloomy about Japan?" My answer was: "I will stop being gloomy when Japanese people stop being gloomy about Japan." It's time to cheer up.

There is an expression in the nonprofit sector: It takes as much effort to find support for a small project as it does for a big one. We might as well aim for the sky. I hope that in a small way at my new post I can help provide a platform for innovation and ideas for positive change in Japan and the US-Japan relationship.

As always, I will look forward to your insights, guidance, and collaboration.

Yoroshiku!

Devin

Photo by William Cho.

Kevin Kelly on What Technology Wants

2010-10-19T15:55:00.008-04:00

When asked at the Carnegie Council why he doesn't use social media such as Twitter, author Kevin Kelly said he is in a phase where he prefers getting to the bottom of things to staying on top of them. Fair enough. After hearing him preview his new tome What Technology Wants, I think he's on to something.

The title is intentionally provocative, though Kelly does not imply that machines are conscious. He more seeks to discover how technology is situated in the universe, how it functions like an organism, with its own tendencies and urges, and thus its ability to exert influence.

Technology, or the "technium" as he dubs our interconnected system of hardware and culture, "wants" something in the way a plant wants sunlight.

These desires are grounded, he believes, in pure physics and are exemplified in a number of trends. While evolution may not be teleological, it does have directionality. So far the indications are that technology wants what life wants (p. 270, emphasis mine):

Increasing efficiency
Increasing opportunity
Increasing emergence
Increasing complexity
Increasing diversity
Increasing specialization
Increasing ubiquity
Increasing freedom
Increasing mutualism
Increasing beauty
Increasing sentience
Increasing structure
Increasing evolvability

Kelly calls these traits "exotropic" because they all tend toward greater organization, as opposed to entropy, which dissipates energy and disorganizes systems.

Does this directionality also have an ethical arrow? Kelly seems to think yes. The key for him is that these processes continuously unlock new possibilities, new choices. If there is a net increase in creation versus destruction of choice, then the world is on balance improving. The ethical obligation is thus to increase technology to unlock global genius so that everybody can express their special mix of talents. The social corollary is that technology exerts a development imperative, albeit a slim one. "The dark side of technology cannot be avoided," writes Kelly. "It may even be nearly half the technium" (p. 79).

The dark side downside can be seen in the persistent, almost tyrannical, wastefulness of technologies such as the automobile. Kelly calculates, for example, that three-fourths of our energy use is to service the technologies themselves. Larry Burns made a similar point at our recent Sustainable Societies panel when he cited the minuscule fraction of gasoline energy that actually moves the passenger to her destination—most of the energy moves the car itself and much is lost as heat. Kelly estimates that cars are about 1 percent effective when seen in this light.

Kelly also touches on the privacy question and thus tangentially on government 2.0—the movement to use data and technology to encourage more efficient and accountable public systems. Clearly there is a trend toward personalization of our media consumption and our devices. Yet total personalization of technology requires symmetrical and reciprocal transparency on the part of the technology providers, or else an imbalance of power results. You could even say that technology wants WikiLeaks, to balance the opacity of national governments and secretive corporations.

Given this taste of his arguments, it seems What Technology Wants will make for a quite interesting read.

James Farrer on China-Japan Tensions

2010-09-26T21:51:00.011-04:00

We are pleased to publish this guest post below from James Farrer on the current tensions between China and Japan:

It was a bitter pill for the Democratic Party of Japan (DJP), no matter how they swallowed it. By releasing a Chinese fishing boat captain detained by Japan without a trial, Japanese Prime Minster Kan Naoto was clearly bowing under Chinese pressure. The captain had been arrested by the Japanese coast guard for allegedly ramming his boat into Japanese coast guard vessels while in territorial waters claimed both by China and Japan. The Japanese government appeared to buckle and released the captain to China on Saturday. According to an unnamed official in the prime minister's office quoted in the Asahi Shimbun on Sunday (9/26/2010), "The Chinese could have recalled their ambassador, or cut off diplomatic relations. There was no other possible landing point."

Within Japan this was a shocking turning point in bilateral relations, a sudden strategic victory for a rising China that could lead to many scenarios, including the possibility that China would send fishery administration or even military ships to patrol the waters off the disputed islands and back out of an agreement to jointly develop undersea gas fields in the area. An official in the foreign ministry quoted in Sunday's Asahi, said: "There's no telling how overbearing the Chinese are going to be after this. There’s nothing to be done about it, this will go on for the next twenty years."

The Japanese public seems to have reacted three ways to the release of the captain. One group, the sort who usually read the business-economics newspaper Nikkei Shimbun was undoubtedly relieved to see the government release the captain last Saturday. As Chinese sanctions escalated into the economic sphere, including a stoppage of the export of rare metals to Japan, the worry was that this political spat would seriously effect Japan's increasingly important economic relationship with China. It was this economic group that seemed to be making the decisions in Tokyo last week, hoping that pragmatism and mutual economic interests would prevail. The danger of this view, expressed to me by one Japanese reporter I spoke to, is that in thee economic sphere the Chinese now see Japan as needing China more than China needs Japan, and will continually try to push this advantage on various fronts. Recent strikes against Japanese companies in China are a sign that more economic pressure can be expected.

Another segment of the public, who are more likely to read the relatively liberal Asahi Shimbun, was relieved, but also dismayed. This more internationally-minded group, including many Democratic Party supporters, had hoped for the past few years that Japan and China were actually improving their relations. Now the DPJ's China policy seems to be in tatters. Talk of an "East Asian Community" and a "mutual strategic relationship" seems naive in this tense atmosphere, to say nothing of the rhetoric of "fraternal love" of the previous Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio. Now, there is a depressing sense that no relief from Chinese pressure is forthcoming. The Chinese government is now demanding an apology and recompense for the trouble caused in the case of the hapless fisherman. This may be perceived in Japan as a signal that the Chinese government has no interest, or perhaps no incentive, in improving relations with Japan. Most troubling of all to the Japanese internationalists, the recent actions against Japan included halting exchanges between school children, and canceling tours to Japan, acts that inflame tensions between the citizens of the two countries at the societal not simply the political level. Many Japanese China-watchers are convinced that twenty years of anti-Japanese education in China (especially under the leadership of Jiang Zemin) have produced an atmosphere in China in which anti-Japanese rhetoric is all-purpose political medicine that the Chinese government can apply to any problem, domestic or foreign. If this is the case, there will be little chance for true detente.

In general the leftist and liberal segments of the Japanese public are worried that China has reacted only tepidly to the efforts of the DPJ to improve relations between the two countries. One of the most baffling acts involved the Chinese navy conducting exercises near Okinawa at about the time Japan was debating the agreement to shift U.S. forces within Okinawa. The Chinese naval exercises seemed timed perfectly to embarrass both the peacenik and pro-China wings of the DPJ, which subsequently beat a retreat to the relative security of the US alliance. The U.S. bases in Okinawa will stay put, and it seems likely that the hawks within the DPJ (a party which includes an extremely broad spectrum of politicians from socialists to rightists) will have a greater say in foreign policy.

Only one group seems genuinely energized by these events. This is the small but loud, and perhaps growing, right wing in Japan. Right wingers in Japan, like the so-called angry youth in China, thrive on Sino-Japanese tensions of any kind. Much of their online rhetoric is racist and dehumanizing, and aimed at stirring up anti-foreigner tensions within Japanese society as well as in Japan's relations with China and Korea. The more rational right wing sees this as a chance to bash the government of Kan, who will likely pay a heavy price for kowtowing to Beijing. The conservative Sankei Shimbun even went after the Asahi Shimbun for not towing a strict enough line on Japanese sovereignty claims for the disputed islands. The mainstream conservative Yomiuri criticized the weakness of the prime minister’s actions as not standing up for Japan’s territorial integrity.

Read in the Western press these events may seem inconsequential. Westerners forget that China and Japan have one of the largest bilateral trade relationships in the world, and profound mutual interests at the societal and political levels. Living as I do between Tokyo and Shanghai, as so many thousands of people do these days (Japanese, Chinese and others), we can only hope that both governments find a way of managing the seemingly irresolvable territorial dispute, and perhaps even return to the policies of engagement that began between the previous Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

James Farrer is Director, Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. Photo from huneycuttaddison.

Cyber Nationalists or Critical Netizens?

2010-09-22T16:52:00.003-04:00

Yifan Xu reports for Policy Innovations on a survey of Chinese Internet users.

Is the Internet spreading and intensifying nationalism among the Chinese public? A nationwide opinion survey conducted in 2008 by the Research Center of Contemporary China sheds some light on the issue. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with nationalistic statements such as "the world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Chinese," and nationalist policies such as "China should limit the import of foreign products in order to protect its national economy."

The results show that Chinese netizens with higher education and income levels are less likely to be nationalistic and are less supportive of protectionist policies. In particular, for the statement "the world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like the Chinese," using the Internet decreases the probability of agreement by 10.7 percent; expressing oneself online reduces the probability of agreement by 10.3 percent; and using government websites reduces the probability of agreement by 17.6 percent.

This suggests that the old cyber-libertarian dream of the Internet serving as a catalyst for political reform may still have some elements of truth. At least the Chinese Communist Party must think so, given its extensive censorship of the Internet.

When Google withdrew its business from China in early 2010, Chinese netizens made a few sarcastic comments comparing the CCP's Internet censorship with the "closing door" policy of the Qing Dynasty—just like the Qing governors struggled to maintain the great Chinese Empire, the CCP is trying to create a "great Chinese Intranet." The CCP's logic is simple: the Internet makes possible negative information and news about the Party, which was previously unavailable from the traditional mass media.

In recent years, Chinese political dissidents have been actively using the Internet to reach out to ordinary people as well as foreign populations. For instance, while human rights activist Hu Jia was under house arrest, he remained active via emails and blogs, and posted a series of video diaries on YouTube. The Internet is in fact thick with opinions from nationalists and anti-nationalists alike.

The most interesting survey finding is that people who have used the Internet to access a government website—to get information, make a comment, or lodge a complaint—are even less likely to be nationalistic. This could be a spillover effect from dissatisfaction with the government.

The August 2010 Zhouqu landslide provides an interesting contrast. Generally speaking, disastrous events cause a nationalistic surge. In the 2008 survey, following the Wenchuan earthquake, respondents were more likely to agree with nationalistic statement. Yet the Zhouqu landslide has led to wide criticism of the government online. Netizens accused the government of working harder to promote a positive image of itself than to mount an effective rescue effort.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof observed in 2002, nationalism in China is a double-edged sword: "it has potential not just for conferring legitimacy on the government but also for taking it away." Armed with personal computers, critical netizens are able to quickly spread anti-nationalist discourse and protests in a decentralized fashion. Should that happen in China, the cyber-libertarian dream may materialize.

[PHOTO CREDIT: March oh! (CC).]

Kei Hiruta on Japan's Political Philosophy Boom

2010-09-17T15:32:00.004-04:00

We are pleased to publish below a guest post by Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow Kei Hiruta.

Observers of Japanese society may be surprised to see an emerging interest in political philosophy in Japan. Mainstream newspapers and popular magazines have been busy interviewing philosophy professors; and bookstores across the country are holding or planning to hold philosophy book fairs. Why is this happening and what is the likely outcome?

The cause of this boom is thanks to Harvard professor Michael Sandel. His renowned lectures at Harvard were recently broadcast on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and turned out to be enormously popular. The Japanese translation of his book, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? has sold about 400,000 copies since its publication in May 2010, and his visit to Japan in late August was enthusiastically welcomed. Yet the boom is more than a Sandel boom; he may be an academic superstar, but he isn't the only actor in the drama.

The kind of political philosophy Sandel exemplifies is indeed new to most of the populace. The relevant distinction here is not so much between Japanese and Western philosophy but between Continental and Anglophone. Because of the strong and persistent German influence over the humanities and social science in Japan, joined by the popularity of postmodern theoretical literature in the last three decades, the analytical and normatively-oriented mode of philosophizing—so familiar to those based at Harvard, Oxford, St. Andrews, or Australian National University—strikes the Japanese audience as refreshingly down-to-earth. In his lecture at the University of Tokyo, Sandel asked whether it is fair that the Major League Baseball player Ichiro Suzuki should be paid 42 times more than the President of the United States or 400 times more than the average Japanese school teacher. This surprised and excited those who had thought that political philosophers would always ask fanciful and impractical questions such as, "What does Karl Marx mean by commodity fetishism?"

The political philosophy boom, like all booms, promises too much. In a recent special issue of the popular magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai, the discipline is reported to offer guidance on tackling various problems, including Japan's continuously high suicide rate and the uncertain future of capitalism. Yet psychologists are better qualified to address the first problem, and political philosophers are as clueless as economists about the second one.

Does this mean that the boom will be followed by disillusionment? Perhaps. A boom brings opportunities to make money, and bad philosophy is already piling up in the market to drive good ones out. If this trend continues, the boom will turn into a bubble.

That would be an unfortunate end of the story because the Japanese have a wide range of social and political issues that can be illuminated by philosophical reflection. Should we abolish the death penalty? Should we accept more immigrants? How should a country deal with historical injustices? Does gender equality require a legal right for a married couple to have different surnames? How should we control pornography without unduly restricting the freedom of expression? These are but a few samples of the issues that have long been on the Japanese political agenda and yet are still in want of reasoned argument. This, without exaggeration, is what political philosophy is able to offer.

What the current boom shows is that ideas are in demand in Japan to assist people to consider, both individually and collectively, how to live in a society where the "second lost decade" seems like it will be followed by a third one. We have every reason to hope that the demand will be met and the boom will turn into something more enduring. Whether the hope will come true is yet to be seen.

Kei Hiruta is Carnegie-Uehiro fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a research associate in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University.

Alexandra Harney on the Mummification of Japan

2010-08-09T09:39:00.006-04:00

Our friend Alexandra Harney has given us permission to repost a piece called "The Mummification of Japan," which she wrote in her blog The China Price during her recent trip in Japan:

I'm in Osaka this weekend to appear on Yomiuri TV's Wake Up Plus, that rare beast: an intelligent TV show. The story of the moment in Japan is the nationwide hunt for missing centenarians, following the discovery of a modern-day mummy in his bed, 30 years after his death. Officials suspect that a relative did not notify the government of his passing in order to receive the man's benefits.

For the moment, the debate in the Japanese media (including Wake Up Plus) is focused on three main elements: the government's failure to detect which of its benefit-receiving citizens are living and which are dead; the Japanese tendency to leave family matters to the family; and the fact that Japan's privacy laws hinder investigations into this kind of fraud. To me, the tenor of the debate itself reflects Japan's self-flagellating tendency to blame the government and politicians in the first instance.

The fact is that these missing pensioners are a reflection of how deeply and painfully Japan's long stagnation has affected its oldest and youngest citizens. Trite as it sounds, I'll recount a conversation I had with a taxi driver here in Osaka yesterday: at 65, he receives about US$1200 a month in pension benefits from the government. His rent accounts for half of this, and after utilities, his cell phone bill and food, there isn't much left. So he continues to work as a taxi driver, taking home about $1800 a month. (One might wonder how he is allowed to work while receiving public benefits, but the benefits, like the minimum wage, were not meant for people to depend on entirely, I believe.) $36,000 a year isn't bad by global standards, but consider that this man might live for another 30 years and this is as good as it will get for him. While he is clearly putting money aside for his retirement, he expects he will have to move into a smaller apartment when he retires. This is not the fancy globe-trotting retirement that I, at least, had imagined for Japan.

While we hear much talk about China getting old before it gets rich, Japanese people are getting poor before they get old. Younger Japanese will not receive the $1200 a month that that taxi driver gets; they will likely receive much less.

Putting aside the fact that pension fraud is a crime, one larger issue behind these missing old people and their mummified remains is that younger Japanese need to rely on their parents' retirement benefits because the economy is not providing sufficient job opportunities.

Every trip to Japan is more depressing than the last these days; I stay in hotels that will, without the help of big spending Chinese tourists, likely lay fallow, listen to music from pianos that play themselves, pass through ghostly tourist districts designed for a wealthier country. Japan is no longer the country it once was. Policymakers in other rapidly aging countries (and those that struggle to create new jobs, like the US) should take notice.

Image by flattop341.

Brewing in Japan: Interview with Bryan Baird of Baird Beer

2010-07-27T10:57:00.014-04:00

Earlier this month during a trip to Japan, I traveled to the coastal city of Numazu to visit Baird Brewing Company, one of the country's most innovative new craft breweries. When I arrived, I had the fortune to meet Bryan and Sayuri Baird, who founded the brewery in 2000. Bryan answered some questions about brewing in Japan:

After graduating from Johns Hopkins SAIS, what inspired you to get into the brewing business and why Japan?

I attended SAIS in the Japan Studies program and enrolled with the full intent of returning to Japan in some professional capacity upon graduation. My first job was with the Tokyo office of the American Electronics Association. Craft beer, or ji-biiru as it was called, was receiving great attention in Japan at the time because it was a brand new thing—small-scale brewing was made possible with deregulation that happened during the Hosokawa government in which minimum production requirements necessary for a brewing license were lowered dramatically from 2000 kl per year to 60 kl. I didn't love working as a sarariman (salary man); I always had been a passionate beer drinker; and I respected Japanese society for the reverence it paid to craftsmanship. Therefore, I felt that craft beer was an industry that suited both me and Japan.

Why did you choose to locate your brewery in the city of Numazu?

After attending brewing school in California, my first industry job with a brewing equipment company brought me to Numazu. Our ultimate dream, of course, was to launch our own craft brewing company. For a variety of reasons, we judged Numazu to be a very good place to inaugurate a craft beer business. We thus stayed and here we still are today.

How did your initial brewing learning process take place?

The first thing I did, and the smartest, was to immediately enroll in brewing school. I attended the American Brewers Guild's 3-month intensive brewing science and engineering program, which also combined with a practical apprenticeship. My apprenticeship was done at the Redhook Brewery in Seattle. I thus had very good initial training. Being a good brewer, though, is very much dependent on the interplay of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. To gain more practical experience I cobbled together a tiny brewing system out of re-welded used kegs, set it up on our veranda and began brewing pilot batch after pilot batch. This was the actual system with which we launched our original brewery-pub. It was so tiny (30-liter batches) that I had to brew with great frequency and this helped me to accrue invaluable experience in a very short time.

Who were your inspirations?

My greatest business inspiration is Warren Buffet. The principles and values he espouses I embrace wholeheartedly.

Which breweries do you admire most?

Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing in San Francisco (although he just recently sold the business) and Ken Grossman of Sierre Nevada Brewing in Chico, California are probably my two biggest industry heroes. Some of my favorite breweries now include Russian River, Firestone Walker, and Victory. Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Chicago and the Pelican Pub & Brewery in Oregon are two outstanding brewery-pubs.

What is your beer's concept?

With each and every Baird Beer we seek to craft a full-flavored beer of character. We define character simply: Character is the interplay of balance and complexity. Industrial beer tends to be well balanced (i.e. it can be drunk in quantity without inducing palate fatigue) but fully lacking in complexity (i.e. the flavor is one-dimensional and you pretty much know everything about the beer upon the first sip). Poorly made craft beer tends to be complex but it lacks balance. Great craft beer possesses both. For us, the key to achieving this character is minimal processing. Therefore, we begin by selecting ingredients that are minimally processed (e.g. traditional floor-malted barley, whole flower hops, fresh whole fruit, etc.). Then, we strive to brew with these ingredients in as simple and unprocessed a way as possible (e.g. we do not filter Baird Beer and we secondarily ferment and naturally carbonate it in the package from which it will be dispensed—much like Champagne).

How is the beer Japanese?

We enjoy lovely soft water in Numazu that really contributes a round and balanced house character to our beers. In the Japanese esthetic, harmonious balance is greatly prized. I think Baird Beer is a liquid embodiment of that Japanese esthetic value.

What were some of the initial challenges you overcame as a microbrewer in Japan?

Japanese ji-biiru (craft beer) boomed out of the gate in 1994 but was already turning into a bust by the time we were getting into it around 1997. There was, and still is, simply too much bad craft beer in Japan and not enough really good stuff. Thus, we had to overcome the largely negative image that the industry garnered for itself in its initial years. The other major challenge was simply that we were brewing a kind of beer that had never really existed in Japan before and people really didn't know what to make of it and us. The key to growing sales in a nascent market like craft beer in Japan is, in addition to great product, constant consumer education. The more that consumers understand about beer and about how and why we approach it the way we do, the more open they are to the experience. This sort of education, though, takes time and requires persistence.

Is it easier for a foreigner to introduce a revolutionary product like microbrewery beer to Japan?

That's a good question. My answer is yes, so long as it is the right foreigner. By "right" I mean someone who comprehensively understands Japan, who can deal with Japanese people with cultural, social and lingustic understanding, and who genuinely likes and respects Japan. This is the type of foreigner that places like Johns Hopkins SAIS help to nurture. When you are this type of foreigner you get to participate in Japanese society on a deep and meaningful level but without having to face the same sort and degree of social and cultural constrictions that the Japanese themselves must often deal with. This kind of social liberation can be turned into a very valuable business asset.

How did your business start to take off?

The initial turning point for our business happened 2–3 years into it when we realized there was a definite market for what we were brewing, only it wasn't in Numazu but rather in Tokyo. This led us to purchase larger brewing equipment and begin bottling and kegging our beer for distribution in the Tokyo market. The more we sold in Tokyo, the more frequently Tokyo beer enthusiasts would make the pilgrimage to our pub in Numazu. This eventually led us to open pubs in Tokyo itself. By doing well in Tokyo and selling throughout Japan, the local market then began to wake up. Finally, ten years into it, we seem to have gained real traction and achieved that magical sort of critical mass. Our three gold medals in the 2010 World Beer Cup certainly didn't hurt things either.

What is the current state of the Japanese big beer and microbrewery market?

The big industrial brewers in Japan are in for some dark years, I am afraid. The simple fact is the overall Japan beer market is shrinking. This is because the population is both aging and not growing. As one gets older, one drinks less. I would not want to be an industrial brewer in Japan. As for craft beer in Japan, there are still way too many sub-par players. These poor performers need to be weeded out and this is happening gradually.

What do you see for the future of beer in Japan?

For good Japan craft brewers, as well as importers of excellent world craft beers, I believe the future is bright. People seem to be wanting more quality if not more quantity, and there seems to be at least a partial movement away from purely mass-produced and mass-marketed goods to premium niche goods crafted by shokunin (artisans). Currently in Japan, craft beer does not account for even 1 percent of the overall beer market. U.S. craft beer, on the other hand, accounts for more than 4 percent of the U.S. market by volume and more than 7 percent by dollar. I can see Japan craft beer achieving similar numbers in the Japan beer market within the next 10–20 years.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in Japan?

My advice is quite simple: Possess abundant reserves of passion, persistence, perseverance, integrity, and guts. Also, possessing sufficient "Japan skill" is critical to succeeding in business in Japan. Frankly, these Japan skills take longer and are harder to acquire than most industry-specific skills. Most foreign business people who do not do well here fail because of insufficiency on the Japan skill front.

Will a Rudderless Japan Drift into Crisis?

2010-07-14T19:30:00.039-04:00

Japan Needs a Captain

The upper house election in Japan last Sunday dealt a huge blow to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), leaving the country with a "twisted" parliament and no clear path forward. In contrast to the previous decades of nearly uninterrupted single-party rule, the new, messier political environment is a positive sign for Japanese democracy.

But this difficult transition to a new mode of governing comes at a time when strong leadership is needed to address a possible sovereign debt crisis that could hit within five years. Ironically, the DPJ's defeat last Sunday was partly the result of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's flip-flopping over a consumption tax that was meant to help stave off any problems emanating from its exceptionally large debt-to-GDP ratio (near 200 percent). Most voters support the tax but the prime minister buckled under criticism on the issue, fostering the impression that he is simply an opportunist. The party's loss may have made prospects for reform "an uphill battle."

I had the chance to talk with people from media, politics, government, business, and academia in Japan during the week leading up to election day. Consistent with the polls, many of the people I spoke with were undecided about which party to support, and the murky election result may delay financial reforms. Rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch have warned of possible credit rating downgrades due to Japan's expected political gridlock, which may hinder the country's ability to reign in its sovereign debt.

Hatoyama's Parting Gift

Yet there is good news. While the lower house election last August was a rejection of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), last week's upper house election was about real issues while also serving as a referendum on the DPJ's 10 months in power. A political monopoly has been replaced by a period of what Japan expert Gerald Curtis calls political "creative destruction." One DPJ staffer told me that the current, more pluralistic public debate over policy issues was the legacy of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Whether or not by design, the two administrations of Kan and Hatoyama have put on the table thorny issues, including the logistical details and strategic importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the previously unpopular idea of a consumption tax, which led to the downfall of the Ryutaro Hashimoto administration more than ten years ago. I was told the DPJ expression for this expanded public square is "the new public."

Meanwhile, the new smaller parties actually stand for something other than an unbridled thirst for power. In particular, Your Party, analogous perhaps to American libertarians, seeks an inflation target and to shrink the government thus unleashing Japan's entrepreneurial spirit and creating jobs. Your Party did quite well, gaining ten seats. It appeals to a common frustration in Japan with government in general and is populated with stars from Tully's Coffee Japan, JP Morgan Chase, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

The outcome is a real multi-party system. But contrary to hollow calls for a revolution last fall, this is the new reality: the slow democratic politics of compromise.

Drifting into Troubled Waters?

Nevertheless, the slowness of Japan's new politics could launch the country adrift into a debt crisis. Although 95 percent of Japanese government bonds are held by domestic investors, several factors could create risks. First, with Japan's low savings ratio and low economic growth, if its aging population starts to draw on its savings, the government may be forced to rely on foreign funders who will demand higher interest rates. Second, a deteriorating Japanese current account, due to a stronger yen or weaker global demand for Japanese products, would also reduce a source of debt funding. Reuters has quoted one analyst as predicting a current account deficit by 2016. Finally, it isn't clear whether a consumption tax would generate enough revenue or whether the tax would only dampen an already stagnant economy.

But whatever happens, five to ten years seems to be the critical time horizon. The next lower house election will take place in 2013 and by 2015 Japan is expected to shift toward external funding of its debt and will therefore face higher interest rates.

"Three to four years from now I expect a sovereign debt crisis to hit Japan and long-term interest rates to surge," former Bank of Japan board member Teizo Taya said in a May interview with Reuters. Taya also believes that the five percent foreign holdings of Japanese debt would be sufficient to trigger a crisis if there were a sell off.

One government official echoed these views when I visited Tokyo last week, saying the current account was the figure to watch. But interestingly he said that while some had hoped the election of the DPJ would have provided the "shock" to the Japanese system to bring about economic reform, the DPJ's failures over money scandals, mishandling the U.S. alliance, and the consumption tax have killed that hope. Instead, he and his colleagues are looking to a debt crisis to provide the necessary shock for economic reform. Changes could occur in Japan's tax structure (reducing corporate taxes and increasing consumption taxes over time) as well as in its industrial policy to spur growth. Can't change occur without the need for a crisis?

"The Deadlocked Japanese Economy"

Underneath the sovereign debt risk is an economy that is in irons. Just as its political system faces drift, so does Japan's economy, according to a METI report released last month.

METI minister Masayuki Naoshima puts it this way last month when he unveiled his ministry's new industrial vision: "Some people say that the Japanese economy is recovering from the economic and financial crisis triggered by the Lehman Shock the year before last. However, in reality, many Japanese people probably find no improvement in the sense of stagnation they feel in their everyday lives. They even seem unable to see any new light for the future. I believe the reason for this lies in the uncertainty about 'what will drive Japan's revenue and employment in the future.'"

Naoshima goes on to underscore the economic conundrums Japan faces: People think that Japanese people save too much, thus dampening demand, but actually the household savings ratio is one of the lowest among major economies; on the flip side, domestic consumption is stagnant since wages haven't risen in the past decade; an export-led recovery may seem appealing but Japan's export ratio is low by international standards and stagnant wages in the past 20 years call into question the country's industrial structure; specializing in high tech products would also seem logical but Japan's global market share "has rapidly declined" and low levels of profitability suggest that the business model for Japanese industries that has "caused them to lag behind the world."

In response to these challenges, government officials told me last week that the broad strategy is to globalize Japan, making its social systems, ports, and infrastructure attractive to businesses that create value and jobs. Naoshima puts it like this: "If Japan wants to save itself from decline, Japan has no other choice but to aggressively push forward with globalization. However, if Japan pursues only globalization without taking action to stop the decline in its international competitiveness as a business location, Japan will lose both domestic jobs and added value."

A major element of this strategy will be to "globalize human resources." This means the country's education system must be modified in order to create a more worldly mentality among the next generation of leaders, thus slowing the inward-looking direction or "Galapagos syndrome" as I have called it. One of the most creative proposals I heard last week is to encourage university students to study abroad by offering a ten-year income tax break to those who take advantage of the program. As these more cosmopolitan leaders enter the job market, they must find companies with a more globalized governance structure, diverse board of directors, and global business strategy, one official told me.

Japan Needs More Mavericks

It's nearly a cliché to say that in Japan, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Harmony and conformity are prized in big organizations. But these qualities can also lead to stagnation. Entrepreneurship requires a bit of rebelliousness.

During my trip last week, I traveled to Numazu for a day to visit one of the most innovative breweries in Japan. Baird Brewing Company is a joint partnership company that was founded in 2000, and in recent years has received much acclaim for its high quality, creative beers. I had the great fortune to meet the company's founders Bryan and Sayuri Baird, a husband and wife team. Bryan graduated from Johns Hopkins SAIS in the early 1990s and came to Tokyo to enter the corporate world but had another calling. "I didn't know much about brewing at the time but I knew how to study," he said. Using passion and determination, he founded the company with some friends. For the first few years, his beers were dismissed as too challenging. His customers were initially afraid to try something new. For the same reasons, Bryan's competitors in Japan were brewing up pale, uninspired, safe lagers. Bryan stuck to his principles and kept making a great product that emphasized Japan's proud tradition of craftsmanship (monozukuri) until his customer base caught up with him.

"The Japanese people need to overcome their fears and be the nails that stick out," Bryan told me. Bryan is an entrepreneur who embodies what Japan needs—globalized human capital creating a business that adds value and jobs. Another notable maverick who has been globalizing Japan includes Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani who is making English the official language at Japan's biggest online retailer. Fast Retailing, Nissan Motor, and Toyota Motor also are moving in the direction of adopting English at the workplace.

In politics, LDP star Taro Kono recently published a book on how he is going to revive his party. The main message is: As a nail that has stuck out in the LDP, he knows how the party can revive the economy. Japanese culture is famous for its perseverance and the country's history proves it. The country needs some major changes in order to prosper. For it to create real change, Japan needs more mavericks. And to pilot away from the rough waters, it will need a bold leader; it needs a captain.

Photo by quatro.sinko

A Renewable Super-Grid for Europe?

2010-07-14T11:55:00.005-04:00

I encourage you to read this interesting interview with German energy analyst Gregor Czisch on the potential for a cost-neutral renewable super-grid linking Europe and North Africa. I've selected a few key quotes here highlighting the policy and geopolitical concerns.

GEOPOLITICS / ENERGY SECURITY

The gas pipelines currently in use act exactly like a super-grid, transporting gas from Sahara and from Siberia to Europe. There is no conceptual difference from transmitting electricity instead of gas.
...
The scenario with renewable electricity would be instead much more secure, because the sources can be diversified, with less dependency from single countries.

If we look at the recent Copenhagen debates: instead of developing new ideas, they are still discussing about the trading of CO2 emissions, carbon limits, carbon-taxes and other old-style proposals which hardly are effective because they are too much based on the unrealistic believe [sic] in the positive market forces and neglect the inelastic behavior of the consumers in the case of energy consumption.

POLICY HARMONIZATION

We further need a harmonized regulation to support the financing of these projects, for example a common European feed-in tariff able to cover the cost for production and transmission of the electricity.

BENEFITS FOR NORTH AFRICA

To import 10% of its electricity demand from wind energy in Morocco, Europe would have to invest about 3% of its GDP in wind generators in Morocco. This corresponds to roughly 200% of the Moroccan GDP. Such a decision would boost the local economy, creating jobs, local competences and industries.

It would be a clear sign towards a systematical change in the way we live together, because it would not be a fragmented intervention or a temporary help for a developing country, but a sustainable investment in order to serve for a mutual interest in the long term.

Musical Deck Chairs, or The Bureaucratic Shuffle

2010-06-28T15:00:00.006-04:00

Drawing on his public diplomacy and State Department background, my colleague Joshua S. Fouts analyzes the bureaucratic implications of my "Pragmatic Overdose" essay on how the Obama administration is struggling to articulate a coherent global development policy. His comments are reposted from The Imagination Age.

From Evan's essay:

Security Should Not Define Development

Obama's advisors want to energize U.S. development policy by framing it in terms of American national security, calling development a "strategic imperative." This makes it sound important, but in reality it will backfire. The common wisdom is that poverty breeds instability. The problem is that scarce development dollars are not necessarily best spent in conflict zones. In fact, American development policy is hampered by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which attract a disproportionate share of expertise and resources. These three countries are nowhere near the wealth threshold above which democracies tend to stabilize. They would be risky development investments even without conflict. The tradeoff is thus development projects where they might better flourish.

Evan's point is well-made. But it's an issue that will be challenging to the culture of the State Department, where I used to work. Development policy is closely related to cultural relations work (sometimes called public diplomacy) which suffers from a similar dilemma in these kinds of bureaucratic associations.

New Values, Not New Bureaucracy

As it stands, Obama's "New Way Forward" is more bureaucratic shuffle than fresh ethical vision—coordination between departments is necessary, but not sufficient. His team must dig deeper into the fault lines of American foreign policy and take advantage of a crucial chance to redefine America's global engagement.

We won't see a new way forward until the United States views other nations as equal peers in the quest to realize a good life, instead of treating them as instruments in pursuit of American national security or favorable trade. To achieve this, the State Department must stake out its own values—beneficial immigration flows, fair trade, and regional green energy innovation—instead of cutting turf from Defense and other departments.

Herein lies the dilemma. The State Department's "own values" are clouded by layers of historic turf wars fighting for the level of financial investment and support it needs to do its work. After decades of decreasing budgets relative to that of the Defense Department a culture of insecurity has been bred in the State Department. When I was there in the 1990s, the insecurity and desire to demonstrate relevance compared to the well-funded Defense Department was palpable.

The rhetoric hasn't changed much since I left in 1997, as I discovered last week when I was inducted as a Next Generation Fellow of The American Assembly. During round-table discussions about US cultural outreach efforts throughout the day with other fellows and observers, one participant, a public diplomacy foreign service officer, declared that we "should not have another discussion about bringing back the USIA." The dissolution of the USIA is a topic that gets brought up constantly during such discussions.

For readers who don't know, the USIA was the State Department's quasi-independent cultural outreach arm, which was dismantled in 1999 when Congress and the Clinton Administration decided (incorrectly, as the events of September 11, 2001 would soon prove) that we had won the war of global public opinion. The remaining parts of USIA that survived were folded into the new Public Diplomacy cone of the State Department.

Since then, the public diplomacy officers with successful careers are those who adopted the rhetoric quoted above. The logic is simple in an organization as bureaucratic as the State Department: Where you stand depends on where you sit.

The USIA, in theory, was a great agency, but the fact is that it always remained beholden to the State Department and was thus limited in its ability to influence perceptions of the United States. The debate about bringing back the USIA is a time consuming one during events aimed at enhancing cultural relations and, further, completely misses the point, namely that influence can no longer be imposed by rhetoric in the modern world. If an agency is created to address this need, the United States and global community would be far better served by a new method and approach.

Wouldn't it be more innovative, creative, productive, and, yes, more American, to champion investment in intercultural dialogue programs be they independent or governmental? The fact of the matter is, US government investment in cultural relations relative to defense is, at best, an afterthought. Worse, it is a joke, compared to the efforts of other countries. No US foreign service officer should be proudly defending the State Department from creating another USIA. They should be demanding increased funding for cultural relations by any means necessary.

Evan's essay is yet another reminder that bureaucracy does not change. I used to believe that the work of cultural relations and development were well-placed in the State Department. I now believe that we would be better served adopting the UK model by creating an independent cultural relations entity like the British Council. (Dancing Ink Productions is currently collaborating with the British Council on the development of a global creative space within the digital culture for real world cultural relations benefit.)

Based on an earlier report by retired foreign service office John Brown, it sounds like the Obama Administration agrees: Obama's Public Diplomacy Chief of Staff recently told Brown that people interested in doing applied cultural relations work should not look to the State Department for careers but should go to NGOs.

Encouraging passionate US citizens who are concerned about improving ties with other cultures to take their work elsewhere is entirely self defeating for the United States and will cripple us further in the global arena. The Obama Administration needs to support cultural relations financially as well. Government investment in fighting wars overseas should be considered just as important as preventing them by improving cultural understanding between people.

Sadly, there is no domestic constituency for cultural relations work in the US. So the likelihood of increased investment in this critical part of our interaction with the world will be left in the hands of others.

[IMAGE CREDIT: IISG.]

American Beer Mythology, Revised

2010-06-27T17:45:00.014-04:00

Faithful members of the Church of Real Beer (also known by their self-effacing nickname "beer geeks") can recite a common beer mythology. It goes something like this: Back before Prohibition, America was one of the greatest beer countries in the world, producing wholesome ales in thousands of quaint breweries around the country. Back then, America commanded the respect it deserved as a great beer-producing nation. Then came Prohibition, which Americans brought upon themselves, and they were thus kicked out of the beer Garden of Eden. After the United States realized that Prohibition only led to organized crime and moonshine, it was too late. The beer hiatus during Prohibition gave "big beer" a window to elbow out the smaller craft breweries. Through bribery, trickery, and thuggery, large brewing enterprises like Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Miller, and Schlitz forced Americans to drink thin, watery lager and by the 1970s, there was nothing left but this swill. America became a beer laughing stock. But a miracle happened. A visionary named Fritz Maytag had a epiphany and decided his calling was to restore America's beer tradition. Maytag resurrected an old brewery in San Francisco, sparking a beer restoration in the 1980s that led to the founding of venerable breweries such as Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams), Mendocino Brewing Company, and Brooklyn Brewery. Through hard work and devotion to the movement, beer geeks have supported a return to America's great beer tradition and won over many converts.

A version of this mythic history of American beer appears in the introduction of Maureen Ogle's fascinating social history of the United States through beer Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. In this impressively researched book, Ogle sets out to debunk the beer geek gospel. Her book creates what one might call American beer history revisionism.

Ogle is a historian. The business of being a historian is to create new histories or new interpretations. In Ogle's new beer history, the world of good and evil is turned upside down. The heroes of Ogle's book are the villains in the beer geek worldview: Adolphus Busch and Frederick Pabst, the German-born founders of Anheuser-Busch and Pabst Brewing Company respectively. Her core argument is that contrary to the belief that these two companies came to dominate the U.S. market through intimidation, cost-cutting, and swollen marketing budgets, in fact A-B and Pabst prevailed through hard work, quality, consistency, innovation, and ultimately adapting to tastes and giving the people what they wanted. The big breweries relied on these traits to overcome several obstacles, proving their worth.

To add to these two excellent reviews, I would like to describe some of the business drama that Ogle outlines in her book. A big challenge that the breweries faced and overcame was to keep beer fresh in markets outside of the breweries' local market. Determined to expand the market and grow their company, Busch and Anheuser by 1872 were shipping bottled beer to the Southwest of the United States, "making them the first Americans to exploit the commercial possibilites of Pasteur's ideas" on pasteurization. By 1879 A-B was shipping its products to every state in the United States--thanks to the innovative use of refrigerator cars--and even to India, Japan, and South America, and Europe in small quantities.

Another challenge early in U.S. beer history was the luxury tax. At the end of the Civil War, the Union Congress needed revenue and in 1862 began taxing items such as billiard tables, liquor, and beer--at one dollar per barrel. The German brewers in America wanted to show their patriotism but still hoped for a lower tax. Several Eastern U.S. brewers met in New York City to strategize and convinced Congress to lower the tax to 60 cents per barrel--thus inspiring the formation "of the nation's first trade and lobby of any kind, the United States Brewers' Association."

A third and reoccurring challenge to beer in America has been the varying forms of temperance movements. The 50 years following the American Revolution, according to Ogle, "proved as intoxicating as cheap whisky." Society saw the emergence of the confidence man (or con man) who spun "outrageous schemes" to trick people out of their money. Americans started to wonder about their nation's moral integrity. "Self-doubt and self-examination inspired action. In the 1820s and 1830s, hordes of well-meaning crusaders launched a multi-armed effort to reform and perfect the American character... the jewel in the reform's thorny crown was temperance."

This temperance movement in the 1800s eventually collapsed but it produced an "unintended, profound consequence that shaped brewing for the next fifty years." That is it drew attention to the virtues of Germans and their lager; the two lived together in harmony and moderation without the social evils Americans feared. German lager seemed to be the moderate answer between the problems temperance created and moral degradation liquor seemed to spur. Scientists, doctors, and others came to the German lager beer's camp, stating how in effect it was not intoxicating. Harper's Weekly even joined the bandwagon stating, "Good lager is pronounced by the [scientific] faculty to be a mild tonic, calculated, on the average, to be rather beneficial than injurious to the system." By the mid 1800s, lager beer saloons and gardens could be found in cities all over the country.

A later temperance movement succeeded in creating Prohibition. The success of the Anti-Saloon League had to do with the times in America, again a time of moral reflection after another revolution (industrial). "As one dry put it, 'You may exercise your personal liberty only in so far as you do not place additional burdens upon your neighbor, or upon the State.'" To many, alcohol seemed to do just that, Ogle writes. On January 16, 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution established Prohibition in the United States until it was repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-first Amendement.

Interestingly, one of the finest American microbreweries, the 21st Amendment Brewery, named after the Amendment that repealed Prohibition, explains their namesake on their website. The story harkens to the beer geek mythos:

In 1920, Prohibition wiped out this culture and put the “local” out of business. For 13 years, social interaction was largely driven underground, to the speakeasies, where regular citizens became a nation of outlaws.
But with the passage of the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition, we, as a society, were able to begin the slow climb back to reclaiming the essence of the neighborhood gathering place. At the 21st Amendment, they celebrate the culture of the great breweries of old, making unique, hand crafted beers, great food, and providing a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere that invites conversation, interaction and a sense of community.

A final cultural wave helped give birth to the beloved microbrew. In the 1970s, only one-third of Americans trusted the government, down from 80 percent in the 1950s. In the early 1970s, writes Ogle, Americans rejected all things corporate and establishment, "thanks to the Vietnam war, crushing recession, and Watergate." The expression "small is beautiful" captured the feeling. It was in this environment that Fritz Maytag, who in 1965 bought the Steam Beer Brewing Company on a whim, was to succeed. Maytag, the great grandson of Maytag corporation founder Frederick Maytag I, was living in San Francisco and studying Japanese at Stanford's graduate program but pined for something meaningful. "That 'something' landed in his lap" in August 1965 when he leaned about the brewery was about to close.

In the rest of the book, the apostles of the microbrewery movement make appearances, including Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company, who controversially used contracting brewing to expand production of his beers, Charlie Papazian, the founder of the Association of Brewers and author of perhaps the most famous homebrew cook book The Joy of Home Brewing, and Sam Calagione, the founder of Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery, which has pushed the innovation envelope by brewing with exotic ingredients such as raisins, ginger, and cocoa powder. Koch and Calagione, by the way, have been competing to produce the world's strongest beer; last I checked Koch was winning with his Utopias at 25.6 percent alcohol. And after Anheuser-Busch was sold to InBev in 2008, Koch's Boston Beer Company became the largest American-owned brewery, a title that Adolphus Busch had fought hard to achieve 100 years before.

Photo by Herkie.

Joi Ito on Fundraising for Nonprofits

2010-06-18T15:25:00.009-04:00

Reposted from: Joi Ito / CC BY 3.0

Yesterday I attended a meeting called "The Future of Fundraising" organized by Jennifer McCrea with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. It was at the Harvard Club in New York.

It was a small group with a bunch of heavy hitters including some of the best fund raisers in the world. I learned a tremendous amount and was very energized after the meeting.

Some notes from the meeting.

Good executive directors (ED) were also the main fund raisers and they generally loved fund raising. In fact, there was a strong opinion of many that any ED who wasn't excited about fund raising, shouldn't be the ED.

Fund raising is about relationships and building relationships and is very different from sales and marketing in normal for-profits.

In a non-profit, you're not selling some good or service to a customer. What you're doing is helping the donor fulfill or pursue a dream or a cause. In order to be successful you have to have a understand the donor and become part of their world view.

Many non-profits think of donors as a funding source to pay for programs that execute on their mission. In fact, donors should be part of the mission. Good non-profits integrate the funding model directly into the mission. Churches are usually MUCH better at raising money than the natural history museum because "giving" is an integral part of the church-going experience whereas the natural history museum usually tries to collect money from the outside to allow them to run their mission internally.

When trying to understand a world view of someone, it is useful to try to categorize their world view and there may be seven basic world views.

The following "Seven Philanthropic World Views" were presented by Gunther M. Weil.

World View	Philanthropic Values & Motive
Alien/Threatened	Survival & Security
Family/Social	family tradition, care/nurture, status/image
Organizational/Transactional	financial metrics & accountability, productivity, efficiency
Self-Actualization/Service	self-discovery, empathy, altruism, service
Collaborative	social justice, innovation, collaboration
Symbiotic	society transformation, prophetic vision, wisdom & spirituality
Global Transformation	global transformational human rights, global ecology, macroeconomics

Once you understand someone's world view, it's much easier to try to understand why they would give and whether there is something in what we do that helps them advance their world view.

Another key point in all of the stories about successful fund raising was that good fund raisers loved their work. Their work was to get to know people. How are their kids? What's their dogs name? Do they have extra tickets to the ballgame? Do they need extra tickets to the ball game? The feelings have to be genuine, respectful and they have to care. You need people who LIKE people. You never ask for money in the first meeting, but you never leave a meeting without asking for SOMETHING. Also, you should offer something too. Always have a followup action. But most importantly, walk away knowing the world view of the person and begin developing trust. The partnerships with donors is a long term relationship involving lots of dialog and exchange where the giving to the organization is only one piece.

All of the top fund raisers took two vacations. One with their families and another with their families and their donors. Working with donors means becoming part of their private lives. It's not just a day job.

One organization sent a message to all of their donors during the Haiti crisis asking them to give to an NGO that they had vetted. They didn't ask for any money for themselves. This had a hugely positive effect and the donors trust in the group increased. Wallets aren't zero sum.

Long term donors and their relationship with the organization is a partnership. This is true of individuals, government program officers and foundation program officers.

One thing to keep in mind is that the world view of the organization that they're in (or family) and the person themselves can sometimes be different and teasing all of this out and helping them solve for this is also key. It's important not to try to force our story and lead with what we need, but rather to understand what the donor needs and see how we fit into the solution.

A key term that kept coming up was "tribe". We're trying to make a tribe of donors and supporters and they all need to feel like they're participants, not just funders for some group of people who go off and do stuff.

Having said that, there is also a lot of analysis. One non-profit would somehow get all of the names and annual incomes of targeted high-net-worth individuals and do a 3 hour call with the board to figure out who would approach who and strategize the approach to each person.

In most cases, board members developed relationships directly with the donors and rarely did the development person successfully email "on behalf" of the board member. A good development staff member usually provided support, analytics and tracking.

The message is very important. It's important to evoke an emotional and visual idea of what we do, rather than the detailed explanation of what we do. The metaphor that resonated was "what is in the frame" no what is written on the plaque below the picture.

My apologies for these rambling style of these notes, but I thought I'd get them out while they were fresh on my mind. I wanted to share because fundraising is a key component to success for non-profits and it is one of the things I get asked about the most.

Reposted from Joi Ito.

The Hypocrisy Clause

2010-06-18T11:59:00.004-04:00

Guest post by Timothy A. Wise of TripleCrisis

Trade officials in the Obama Administration have made it abundantly clear that they will move forward in the WTO's Doha Round of negotiations only if the larger developing countries agree to open their economies more to U.S. exports. As Kevin Gallagher pointed out on the Triple Crisis Blog ("Obama's New Trade Agenda"), the administration's trade policies, and its announced goal of doubling U.S. exports, backtrack from those of the Bush Administration, renege on the basic principles of the Doha Development Round, and undermine precisely the kind of multilateralism President Obama claims to stand for.

Such intransigence does not bode well for the WTO, nor does it give much hope that the Obama Administration will use the current TransPacific Partnership negotiations to forge what it promises will be a "21st century trade agreement."

Clearly, a creative new approach is needed to break the trade deadlocks. I offer a modest proposal here: Instead of negotiating reductions in tariffs and farm subsidies, it's time to negotiate reductions in hypocrisy. I call it the Hypocrisy Clause, which mandates phased reductions in "trade-distorting hypocrisy," with the greatest reductions coming from the most developed hypocrites.

Why focus on hypocrisy? Ask the unemployed workers who voted for Obama based on his campaign commitment to reform NAFTA and future trade agreements.

Ask any developing country negotiator. Ask the Brazilians, who have been waiting six years for the U.S. government to respect the WTO ruling that U.S. cotton subsidies violate WTO rules. The U.S. has flaunted the WTO finding, appealing twice (and losing), and now Obama's trade officials have the gall say they'll step up enforcement of existing trade rules. They even cut a side deal with Brazil to stave off Brazil's approved retaliatory trade measures, further delaying compliance with WTO rules. Meanwhile, Mexico waits for its NAFTA partner to comply with the NAFTA ruling on Mexican trucks entering the U.S.

But if you want to know why we should negotiate hypocrisy reductions, ask the so-called "Cotton 4" countries in Africa. Their cotton farmers have suffered more than Brazil's from the U.S failure to respect the WTO ruling. Now they listen as U.S. negotiators insist that no movement on cotton can occur until the larger Doha agreement is signed, in direct contradiction of the 2005 Hong Kong commitments to treat cotton "ambitiously, expeditiously and specifically" ahead of the broader Doha agreement.

Who cares what the rules are or what the negotiators agree to if the rich countries then just do what they want?

Under my Hypocrisy Clause, that stops. The United States, as a developed country that has benefited greatly over many years from its past hypocrisy, would have to eliminate such actions immediately. So would the European Union, whose own hypocrisy may not compare with current U.S. levels (much to the EU's delight) but still offers large trade-distorting benefits. The EU could start by scaling back its export subsidies for dairy products, which it raised last year to dump surplus milk despite its loudly proclaimed commitment to end all export subsidies under Doha.

Under the proposed Hypocrisy Clause, rich countries will have to reduce or eliminate "trade-distorting hypocrisy." Hypocritical acts and negotiating positions deemed non-trade-distorting will still be permitted. (Otherwise there would be no politicians to negotiate.)

But what about middle-income hypocrisy? Isn't Brazil one of the world's largest agro-export powers with a well-cultivated reputation for defending the interests of other countries' small-scale farmers? Isn't Brazil also guilty of hypocrisy? Absolutely. In fact, as part of its side agreement on cotton with the United States, Brazil got a multi-million dollar fund for investment in its cotton sector. Talk about hypocrisy: Africa's Cotton 4 will now have to compete in global markets not only with subsidized U.S. cotton but with Brazilian cotton subsidized by the United States!

Middle-income countries such as Brazil, which have only recently begun to benefit economically from their hypocrisy in international negotiations, will have to reduce such trade-distorting actions, but they will be given more time. This reflects the Doha principle of "special and differentiated treatment" for developing countries, with reduction schedules that demand "less than full reciprocity" from developing country hypocrites.

And the Least Developed Countries? Their governments will be allowed to be as hypocritical as they want, since their countries have yet to benefit economically from such positions.

Does my Hypocrisy Clause proposal stand any chance of success, given the rampant hypocrisy in global trade negotiations? It has at least as good a chance as the current efforts to negotiate fair tariff and subsidy reductions when the world's largest trading partner won't respect the Doha mandate, doesn't comply with existing WTO rulings, and demands further liberalization in developing countries' financial sectors after its own deregulated financial sector nearly provoked a global depression.

If rich countries are going to keep using trade negotiations to "kick away the ladder" of development, outlawing the very trade measures they themselves relied on to grow, then we're better off abandoning the pretense of negotiating about industrial tariffs, agricultural subsidies, and service-sector liberalization.

Instead, let's cut the hypocrisy.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Harvesting cotton in Brazil, by Farming Matters (CC).]

Obama Did Not "Take Down" Hatoyama

2010-06-09T11:02:00.019-04:00

Hatoyama brought himself down.

Last night I was interviewed by Jim Swanson of Progressive News Radio. We talked about U.S.-Japan relations after Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stepped down from office last week, and about what we might expect under the new Naoto Kan administration. You can listen to our conversation here.

One of the topics we covered during the interview was a narrative that appeared in several publications immediately after Hatoyama's resignation advancing the notion that somehow U.S. President Obama was responsible for Hatoyama's political demise. Never mind the distasteful samurai references to Hatoyama "falling on his sword" and committing "ritual suicide." Blaming Obama for Hatoyama's fall not only ignores the facts, it is patronizing to Japan.

The argument I take issue with essentially says the following: The United States had developed a cozy relationship with the Liberal Democratic Party during that party's decades of nearly uninterrupted rule in Japan. After the Democratic Party of Japan defeated the LDP in the August 2009 general election, the U.S. government got nervous that it no longer had a vassal in East Asia that would obey U.S. wishes and advance U.S. policy—even though the DPJ and the Obama Administration shared many philosophical views and the U.S. and Japan share many core security interests. Hatoyama's move to renegotiate an agreement that the United States and Japan had made in 2006 over the relocation of a U.S. marine base in Okinawa convinced Obama, the argument goes, to greet Hatoyama in international forums with an "icy posture," causing Obama to "lose face," eventually forcing the Japanese leader to resign. (Variations of this argument can be found in The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Slate magazine, Foreign Policy in Focus, and elsewhere.)

If only it were that easy. Wouldn't it be nice if President Obama were able to take down leaders of countries just by being "icy" toward them? Imagine the power. The United States could simply shape international politics through sheer will. If Obama had such supernatural powers, wouldn't he use them to eliminate troublesome figures like Kim Jong Il instead of allies like Japan? Perhaps like any superhero he must keep them secret to avoid unintended consequences. But that is also part of the Obama-is-to-blame narrative: The United States should be careful when using its power for it may face unnamed "consequences." At least this whole notion dispels the dubious "America in decline" school of thought.

The blame-Obama narrative also assumes no independent agency in Japan and therefore sounds U.S.-centric, narcissistic, and uninformed about what has actually been happening in Japan over the past eight months. Since the day Hatoyama came into office Japanese people have poked fun at the politician, calling him an "alien," "a professor," a "momma's boy," and a "pigeon"—a play off his name (see the video above of the prime minister during his last days in office imitating a pigeon).

Meanwhile, Hatoyama was wishy-washy on other things, including pocketbook issues like highway tolls and cash subsidies for families with children. Other money problems included Hatoyama's own campaign funds scandal and a ballooning budget deficit. Hatoyama's failed attempt to renegotiate the relocation of the Okinawa marine base demonstrated to Japanese voters that he lacked leadership skills and failed to appreciate Japan's security needs. It is understandable that Hatoyama would want to reopen the Okinawa base issue, but I believe he could have done so with much more tact, leaving himself room to maneuver in case things didn't look good. At the least, he should have sought a viable political alternative domestically before announcing to his ally that the 2006 agreement was off. As Obama's Asia advisor Jeffrey Bader put it this week at a meeting in Washington:

Secretary Gates visited Japan in October and made clear that the FRF (Futenma Relocation Framework) remained the best option, that walking away from it would damage the alliance. There was criticism of Secretary Gates' so-called "confrontational" approach. In fact, someone on the Japanese side chose to leak virtually the entire transcript of Gates' first meeting with FM Okada to Kyodo News, giving the appearance that Gates was seeking a public confrontation when he was in fact speaking frankly in a private meeting.

As we all know, PM Hatoyama decided in December Japan would not implement the FRF as agreed upon. He said Japan would reach agreement with us on a new proposal by the end of May and made clear his preference was to relocate the MCAS Futenma off Okinawa--if not off Japan altogether.

We thought this was a mistake, for various reasons. We made clear our disagreement to the Japanese government. At the same time, we did not reject Hatoyama's proposal to talk. We would have preferred to stay with the option so arduously negotiated over 15 years, and continued to say it was the "best" option, but we did not insist that it was the "only" option. Rather, we showed respect and understanding of the politics of Japan and the needs of the new government. We were frankly skeptical that delay would produce more positive results. But, that is how allies should treat each other, particularly in the "alliance of equals" about which Hatoyama spoke and which President Obama has accepted.

Hatoyama's mishandling of Japan's relationship with the United States and his flip-flopping on domestic issues precipitated a steady decline in his administration's public support from percentages in the 70s to below 20 at the end of his time in office. People I interviewed in Japan were predicting Hatoyama's undoing and Naoto Kan's ascent as early as November 2009, just a couple of months into Hatoyama's term.

The Japanese people's attitude toward security is paradoxical. Most Japanese understand that the alliance is important for the security of Japan (America and President Obama have been quite popular in Japan since Obama took office). Many Japanese want a more independent foreign policy but they are also reluctant to devote more funding to making that a reality given the country's extremely high levels of government debt. Making things worse, Japan is facing a declining population and is unlikely to open its borders to large numbers of immigrants. So the default position is to rely to a large degree on the United States, a proven, trustworthy ally.

On top of that, the blame-Obama sound bite is mostly an English press phenomenon, and has little resonance with the Japanese media. Foreign pressure (gaiatsu) can have a role in advancing change in Japan, but it needs a domestic constituency for it to actually work. The Japanese have been expecting Hatoyama's resignation for months given his poor performance in office. As a democracy, Japan was able to move on to a more promising leader. To blame foreign leaders for Hatoyama's fall would belittle Japanese democracy.

Local Carbon Taxes Are an Innovative Band-Aid

2010-05-20T15:50:00.005-04:00

I must say, I'm pretty proud of the county where I grew up: Montgomery County, Maryland. It just passed the first county-level carbon tax in America. It also increased the energy consumption levy on homeowners and businesses by 85 percent. This comes as only mildly surprising for an area that has long been a fairly progressive suburb of Washington, D.C.

Combined these two new sources of revenue should generate $15 million and $112 million respectively. The sad news is that the money is needed to bridge a budget deficit, and the taxes will sunset in two years. The carbon tax applies to all sources generating more than 1 million tons of CO2 in a given year, charging them $5 per ton. Ironically, only one facility makes the cut: the Dickerson Generating Plant, a coal power station. Some of the money is set to be reinvested in an energy efficiency program for local homeowners.

The tragedy here is that local legislation has become necessary in the fight against climate change precisely because of the failure to pass national and international laws. This failure produces the sort of regulatory patchwork many large businesses say they hope to avoid in their operations across multiple districts. Of course, many of those same large corporations have also lobbied against any action whatsoever.

So while I applaud the first-movers in Maryland, let's hope they also hop the Metro to Washington to put some pressure on Congress to pass a clean energy bill this year so that the Obama administration can negotiate in better faith this winter in Mexico. Meanwhile, China is set to impose a carbon tax on its industries starting in 2012.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Power lines in Dickerson, Md. by Andrew Bossi (CC).]

The End of the Free Market or The End of State Capitalism?

2010-05-12T14:43:00.009-04:00

Ian Bremmer will be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tomorrow. Below is my review of his new book:

Political risk guru Ian Bremmer examines the growing momentum of "state capitalism" in his new book The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War between States and Corporations? Bremmer argues that state capitalism differs from free-market capitalism in that politics rather than profit is the main driver of decision-making. For this reason, it threatens to curtail free markets and the global economy. It is the latest chapter in the "rise of the rest," or the expansion of non-Western states in the international system.

Capitalism takes many forms but all of them can be distinguished by their "use of wealth to create more wealth, a broad enough definition to capture both free-market and state capitalism," Bremmer notes. In the free-market form of capitalism, the job of the state is to "enable" wealth generation by enforcing contracts and limiting the influence of moral bads such as greed—the latter can lead to market failures, which have occurred periodically since the Dutch tulip craze of 1637. Free-market governments attempt to ensure that the economic game is played fairly.

In contrast to free-market capitalism, the economy in state-capitalist regimes is dominated by the state agenda. "Forced to choose between the protection of the rights of the individual, economic productivity, and the principle of consumer choice, on the one hand, and the achievement of political goals, on the other, state capitalists will choose the latter every time," Bremmer explains. Continuing the sports game analogy, state capitalists control the referees as well as the main players.

Bremmer admits that state capitalism isn't new. He traces the first reference to an 1896 speech by Wilhelm Liebknecht, a founder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. But due to recent questions regarding the merits of free markets after the 2008–2009 financial crisis, the need for job growth and economic stability in less-than-democratic regimes, and the growth of the economies and influence of state-capitalist countries, this form of capitalism is catching on worldwide.

While there is "no single model of state capitalism," its leading practitioners, China and Russia, "share a well-developed sense of risk aversion," having recently abandoned communism as their guiding philosophies. Other notable users of this model include energy-rich states, such as Angola, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Another cluster of countries in this group, some of which have benefited from rising commodity prices, include emerging markets that have only tentatively committed to free-market principles, such as Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey.

Another way to identify a state-capitalist country is by looking at the use of four specific policy tools. One policy tool favored by state capitalists is the national oil (and gas) corporation (NOC), such as Gazprom of Russia, China National Petroleum Corporation, and the National Iranian Oil Company. NOCs like these own 75 percent of the world's crude-oil reserves. A second tool is the state-owned enterprise, such as China's First Automobile Works.

A third tool is privately-owned companies—so-called national champions—that are supported by the state to develop a "commanding position" in an economy. The Brazilian mining concern Vale, according to Bremmer, is a prominent example of a company that was coerced by its government to advance the state objective of stimulating the economy.

A final tool is the sovereign wealth fund (SWF), the largest of which includes the UAE's Abu Dhabi Investment Authority valued at $300–650 billion and Saudi Arabia's Monetary Agency valued at $430–500 billion. Many types of governments have SWFs but they "tend to be as transparent—or as secretive—as their governments," Bremmer writes, noting that Norway's Government Pension Fund is exceedingly open and accountable. Norway is an example of a country that has some state-capitalist trappings but is not in the state-capitalist camp. Similarly, the U.S. bailout of financial institutions was designed to "save the free market, not bury it," Bremmer notes. "It's not the tools that count; it's how they're used. But countries that have all four of these institutions tend to be state capitalist," he writes.

How do these tools threaten the free market? While Bremmer is careful not to predict a new Cold War, he does worry about fissures in the international system and state-capitalist support for undemocratic regimes such as Guinea. As the head of Eurasia Group, a political risk company, it is Bremmer's job to ask what if. He poses at least ten hypothetical scenarios in the book, including given the mutually assured economic destruction (or interdependence) between the United States and China, what happens if China closes the door?

While the phrase "The End of the Free Market" may capture public anxiety in America today, Bremmer should have called his book "The End of State Capitalism"—he bets that free markets will win the "war" with statists. First, state capitalism just doesn't have the same appeal as an ideology that communism had, it is "more a set of governing principles than a coherent political ideology." Second, state capitalism is actually a sign of domestic political vulnerability. It is a response to the risks countries face as they open up, which Bremmer detailed in his earlier book The J Curve. Meanwhile, free markets hold several advantages over their statist cousins: Most importantly, these systems better facilitate innovation and long-term growth.

Bremmer lays out several recommendations to ensure that free markets do indeed prevail. Most of these recommendations are just good common sense for America: keep markets open, invest in hard power, pick the right fights, and welcome world-class foreign workers. Bremmer is saying subtly that for America to continue to lead it should be strong, smart, and principled. In other words, it should stay true to its values.

Thwarted Immigration Delegitimizes the Democratic Project

2010-04-30T11:18:00.009-04:00

While the George W. Bush era of democracy promotion may be behind us—"sit tight, we'll bring the democracy to you"—global immigration pressure will mount this century as population grows and global inequality increases. People migrate and apply for asylum as much because they are unfree as because they are less free, because they are poor and poorer. Slavoj Zizek captures this friction between immigration, inequality, and globalization in his 2008 book Violence:

A couple of years ago, an ominous decision of the European Union passed almost unnoticed: the plan to establish an all-European border police force to secure the isolation of Union territory and thus to prevent the influx of immigrants. This is the truth of globalisation: the construction of new walls safeguarding prosperous Europe from the immigrant flood. One is tempted to resuscitate here the old Marxist "humanist" opposition of "relations between things" and "relations between persons": in the much-celebrated free circulation opened up by global capitalism, it is "things" (commodities) which freely circulate, while the circulation of "persons" is more and more controlled. We are not dealing now with "globalisation" as an unfinished project but with a true "dialectics of globalisation": the segregation of the people is the reality of economic globalisation. This new racism of the developed is in a way much more brutal than the previous ones: its implicit legitimisation is neither naturalist (the "natural" superiority of the developed West) nor any longer culturalist (we in the West also want to preserve our cultural identity), but unabashed economic egotism. The fundamental divide is one between those included in the sphere of (relative) economic prosperity and those excluded from it.
...
When, at the beginning of October 2005, the Spanish police dealt with the problem of how to stop the influx of desperate African immigrants who tried to penetrate the small Spanish territory of Melilla, on the Rif coast of Africa, they displayed plans to build a wall between the Spanish enclave and Morocco. The images presented—a complex structure replete with electronic equipment—bore an uncanny resemblance to the Berlin Wall, only with the opposite function. This wall was destined to prevent people from coming, not getting out. The cruel irony of the situation is that it is the government of Jose Zapatero, at this moment leader of arguably the most anti-racist and tolerant administration in Europe, that is forced to adopt these measure of segregation. This is a clear sign of the limit of the multiculturalist "tolerant" approach, which preaches open borders and acceptance of others. If one were to open the borders, the first to rebel would be the local working classes. It is thus becoming clear that the solution is not to "tear down the walls and let them all in," the easy empty demand of soft-hearted liberal "radicals." The only true solution is to tear down the true wall, not the Immigration Department one, but the socio-economic one: to change society so that people will no longer desperately try to escape their own world.

As a corollary to Zizek's point, my fear is that practical patches to immigration law, such as merit-based points systems—"give us your doctors, your entreprenuers"—will in their own unique way erode the motive force of the democratic project: liberty, liberation, emancipation. The risk is that human rights will end up looking more like human resources, with the state as just another service provider among the array of corporate entities that supply our needs—"access to work" in this case. So, the irony is that if developed countries cannot figure out how to be less dictatorial internationally, they will soon find themselves accelerating down the slippery slope of fascism domestically.

The Arizona immigration law is a harbinger of this trend, though it may also galvanize the immigrant rights community, as Mark Engler argues in Dissent. Certainly the cultural politics of immigration become more caustic in periods of economic stress. The musician M.I.A. released a (very graphic and violent) video this week for her song "Born Free." In it an unambiguously American SWAT force descends like la migra to apprehend people in an apartment complex. The captives are then made to run across the desert in a scene reminiscent of Burmese "atrocity demining"—all because they were born... wrong.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bloodied clothes on the barbed wire border fence between Melilla (Spain) and Morocco. By fronterasur (CC).

Slowing Japan's Galapagos Syndrome

2010-04-30T11:13:00.006-04:00

Enjoy, a play by Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada, opens with two characters working at a comic book cafe in present-day Tokyo who spend nearly the first act solely ruminating about the etiquette of public toilets. The brilliant drama reveals the world of a Japanese generation of self-centered but lovable slackers who are accused by their peers of "destroying the future of Japan." While watching this play in Manhattan this month, it occurred to me that like these characters, who were lost in the minutiae of their own lives, Japan too has turned inward.

It's true that shyness is so common in Japan that it almost considered a virtue. Where else would one find DVDs for sale to practice "just looking" at people or "Miterudake," as the product is called? But given its cultural proclivity for and historical experience with isolation (during its policy of sakoku), the last thing Japan needs is a reason to curl up inside its shell. An isolated Japan would be especially unfortunate as it would further erode the country's relevance in international politics as well as its economic competitiveness and prosperity.

Amid economic doldrums and deflationary mentality, a declining population and growing anxiety about Japan's place in the world, and an enormous letdown after high hopes in the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), there is a danger that Japan might further withdraw. Japan's "Galapagos syndrome," a phrase originally coined to describe Japanese cell phones that were so advanced they had little in common with devices used in the rest of the world, could potentially spread to other parts of society. Indeed signs suggest it is happening already.

The first sign is the current generation of Japanese in their 30s and 40s who have been distinguished by market experts for their adeptness at online shopping and generally avoiding the rest of society. More dramatic is the number of hikikomori or shut-ins who have given up on social life. According to a Japanese government website, the figure may stand at 3.6 million or about 3 percent of the entire population. This figure is far larger than the previous estimate of 1 million by renowned Japanese psychologist Tamaki Saito.

As I argued earlier this year, Japan as a nation seems to be withdrawing and giving up on the world. Akiko Ikeda-Wei, a Japanese sociologist based in New York told me recently, "I am saddened by Japan's economic slump that has caused misery: the record-high unemployment rate and extremely unsettled and insecure feelings among thousands of Japanese employees."

Echoing many of the Japanese professionals I have met in New York, Ikeda-Wei advised her countrymen to look for opportunity away from home--and don't look back. "If I were one of them, I would forget about seeking employment in Japan and leave, and look for a volunteer job somewhere in Africa or in the Middle East and try to use this opportunity to explore something new and innovative that can help others who are in great need."

The problem is that the attitude of Japanese younger people today results in just the opposite. While her advice might be apt for many Japanese, "The fact is actually the other way around. Young people especially have become more inward-looking than ever, totally not interested in going abroad to work or to study," she said.

An odd expression of this phenomenon is in the puzzling decision this month by Japan's largest business newspaper Nikkei to dissuade readers from linking to its website. As part of its strategy to require readers to pay for access, Nikkei has stipulated that people who wish to link to its website must fill out a written application. Nikkei's print circulation surpasses that of the New York Times and even The Wall Street Journal. But in the Internet world, the move looks as if the company were saying, "We are doing just fine with our print edition, so go away, Internet."

Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a Japan expert at IMD Business School in Switzerland, has noticed a shift in attitude at companies such as Toyota Motor. In the 1980s, Lehmann would accompany Western managers to Japan to learn about its venerable production techniques. But over the course of the decade, he noticed "a subtle change." As he wrote this month in the Taipei Times, "Western management delegations continued to be politely received, but more often than not professional guides were appointed to show them around, and there was no dialogue with the Toyota managers, who previously had been keen to teach and learn. On the contrary, there was an undisguised sense of condescension toward the visiting foreign executives."

Most distressing is that, like the creatures of Galapagos, the products of Japanese research and knowledge generation are becoming increasingly evolved yet nonetheless separate from global society. As recently chronicled by Japanese economy experts Hajime Ito and Jun Kurihara, Japan leads in number of patents in solid waste management and is number two after the United States in air pollution control, water pollution control, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Yet despite these impressive accomplishments, the country lags in cited research or core articles in the same fields, not even making the top ten. Why is this the case?

Ito and Kurihara point to one possible cause: Japan's lack of international cooperation in the area of knowledge creation and the falling number of Japanese students attending U.S. universities.

At elite American universities like Harvard and Berkeley, the number of Japanese students is falling and relatively small compared with their counterparts from South Korea and China. Japanese enrollment at Harvard has been declining for 15 years while enrollment from China and India has more than doubled. Only five Japanese students attended Harvard as undergraduates in 2009, and only one of them matriculated as a freshman. According to a study by the Institute for International Education, overall India is the leading sender of students to the United States, and while Japan was the fourth largest sender, its number was down by 4 percent to 33, 974 in 2008, down for a third straight year. Since 2000, undergraduate enrollment in U.S. universities has dropped 52 percent. These are figures incommensurate with the world's second largest economy.

In March, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust even made a special trip to Japan to encourage more Japanese high school students to apply to the university. Faust met students in Japan who preferred to stay in the comfort of their own homes rather than going abroad. A Washington Post article this month featured students from Japan who passed up degrees from top U.S. universities to stay in Japan.

To be sure, Japan's population is shrinking and the number of children under 15 has declined for 28 consecutive years. But these trends don't entirely explain this more inward-looking attitude, which comes from a combination of domestic political dysfunction and economic malaise that has crept into popular culture. While Japan was once a larger consumer of American degrees, "an international degree is not as valued" in Japan, Faust is quoted as saying in the Washington Post article. While U.S. college degrees are becoming ever more expensive, enrollment from developing countries India and China have nevertheless led the pack and have risen in 2008 by 13 and 20 percent respectively.

Pointing to the falling enrollment of Japanese in U.S. top universities, Ikeda-Wei told me, "Economic difficulty is already sad enough but I am even more saddened by this very short sighted, pessimistic, and unproductive attitude of young Japanese." She concluded, "If young people's attitude remains as such, it is very difficult to hope for Japan's bright future."

Okada's play Enjoy whose endearing characters brought the world of Japan to audiences abroad was made possible by support from Japan Foundation and Japan Society, as well as the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. With a declining population and exploding government debt, the future of Japanese military or "hard" power is uncertain. That is why for Japan to remain relevant, prosperous, and influential, institutions like the Japan Foundation, which is supported by the Japanese foreign ministry and promotes international exchange, and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), which is supported by the economy ministry and promotes international trade and investment, have become increasingly important. (Full disclosure: I have worked with both institutions.)

"Isolation hurts Japan's economy, especially in services," Robert Dujarric of Temple University Japan has recently noted. "If so few Japanese conglomerates have managed to establish themselves in the premier league outside of manufacturing, it is partly due to their mono-cultural and exclusively Japanese management. It puts them at a severe disadvantage when competing with foreign rivals run by multinational and multicultural staffs." Japanese language, which is considered by experts to be among the most difficult to learn, is highly adaptive to the Japanese high-context culture but irrelevant in most of the world outside this island nation.

Institutions like the Japan Society in New York can act as powerful vectors of positive influence, coalescing Japanese innovators abroad to bring change to Japan. Unfortunately, just as the role of these cultural and economic institutions has become more critical, the mood in Japan for spending has unsurprisingly turned sour. While the government's approval rating has fallen to 24 percent, the one bright spot for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been the public spectacle he has made of the budget review process or "shiwake." Like corporate restructuring or "risutora" years ago, "shiwake" has become a word laden with controversy in Japan today--to some it is the democratization of the country's spending process, bringing openness and transparency; to others it is a sign of the country's decline and malaise. The fears were epitomized by a now-infamous comment downplaying scientific spending by a Japanese lawmaker who asked, "What's wrong with being number two?"

For Japan to slow its Galapagos syndrome, it will need to support its soft power and foreign engagement institutions. The question mark in my mind is: Do the majority of Japanese want to slow their country's withdrawal from the world or would they prefer a comfortable decline? That's to be determined.

Reposted from the Huffington Post.
Photo by Strana.

NYU Students: U.S. Should Nurture Mutual Responsibilities, Cooperation

2010-04-14T13:27:00.010-04:00

Last week I facilitated a class debate on U.S. foreign policy toward East Asia for a class I teach at NYU called "Rise of East Asia." (Click here to read the summary of the class's debate last summer.) On April 9, 2010, 15 of my students hailing from ten different countries gathered in the Woolworth Building in New York City to hash out a new U.S. National Security Strategy just weeks before the Obama Administration was about to unveil its document. I hope our friends in Washington DC will note the tone of the students' recommendations. This time around, my students favored somewhat more feminine words such as "nurture," "embrace," and "cultivate." They placed emphasis on soft power, moral legitimacy, cultural exchange, and the link between domestic policy and foreign policy. I felt this direction was appropriate given the apparent direction of the Obama administration, which highlights mutual interests and mutual respect, and the high stature of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Below are the impressions of student Victoria Brewer, who participated in the debate.

"Rise of East Asia" Class Debate on April 9, 2010

There was hearty and at times, heartfelt debate throughout the "Rise of East Asia" class penultimate session. On April 9, 2010 approximately 15 NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies students gathered in the Woolworth building to discuss and outline three central U.S. foreign documents toward East Asia as if we were members of the Obama administration. Considered the most engaging class of the semester, the students first tackled the National Security Strategy (NSS).

To give us a sense of direction and reference, Professor Devin Stewart distributed copies of the 2006 NSS (written by then President Bush's administration). Noted for its grand approach advancing the spread of "freedom," we felt the 2010 NSS should also be grand, yet practical, in light of current global social, political, economic events. The class quickly identified two important strategies: Security through cooperation and mutual responsibilities. When braided together and more finely parsed we arrived at: Nurture mutual responsibilities through cooperation. "Nurture" was initially thought to lend too feminine a tone, but deemed acceptable as it helped to reinforce the strategy's implied moral relationship and contract between countries.

With our prime directive settled, we moved onto clarifying the essential goals of the strategy. The class looked at those listed in Bush's NSS for reference. Immediately, the point of "strengthening alliances to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends" jumped out as the top objective. Our version was as follows: Strengthen alliances to maintain peace and stability in the 21st century.

With thoughts of the recent financial meltdown on everyone's mind, global economic cultivation was identified as the second most important goal. Should we use "balance" or perhaps "strengthen?" (One student felt that given continued U.S. economic woes, we required a word that properly conveyed the notion of a return to strength.) With that noted, "restore" was an easy choice. Hence goal number two: Restore U.S. economic leadership in order to help drive global prosperity.

With security and economic objectives defined, an interesting, albeit less measurable point was advanced. America is often seen as pushing its experience, power, and objectives onto weaker countries. How about we soften our attitude and engage other countries to utilize their strengths? We all stopped for a moment at this thought. It's true that no one country can lead forever. Isn't it better to improve relationships by respectfully acknowledging ally differences and strengths so to work toward a common goal? Hence, goal number three: Cultivate multilateral dialogues and institutions toward fostering mutual understanding and cooperation.

The fourth goal is one that does not even appear among Bush's list of objectives, yet is a hugely important issue--the environment. We struggled to find the right phrasing, in part because the U.S. lags far behind other countries in cultivating green technology and talent. But with some tinkering a very nearly poetic, certainly moral, fourth goal emerged: Embrace a sustainable approach to environment and a responsible stewardship to the natural world.

As often happens in the world of politics, a good debate arose from this goal. One student questioned why would we make this a goal if the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto treaty? Another student concurred, stating the NSS is worth very little if actual policy does not emerge from it. Others felt that goals require broad language so that later on one has room to cultivate specific policy for specific issues. Prof. Stewart made the case that the military distinction between strategy, operations, and tactics are somewhat analogous to strategy, policy, and political tactics in foreign policymaking. He reminded us that the NSS was a document that outlined strategy.

Were we finished with only four goals? When Prof. Stewart pointed out that the number four is thought to be unlucky in some Asian cultures we knew we needed a fifth. A student put forth a hope to see something about education. Another championed aspirations for human dignity. Both points were welcomed as it was pointed out that education is a key part of fostering human dignity. Thus, our fifth and final goal was simply: Advance education for all.

With the National Security Strategy settled in a mere hour, we moved onto building on the recently released 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which is a review of Department of Defense strategy and priorities. For our purposes, we focused on ranking the East Asian countries (and ensuing issues) of greatest importance to the U.S. It was noted this list is "an expression of fealty" and interestingly, the top slot is always given to Japan, partly to quell their anxieties about stable U.S.-Japan relations.

Japan's strategic importance to the U.S. is indeed high and we expressed it with the following statement: It is an important time to reaffirm the mutual benefits in the U.S.-Japan relationship and our common perspectives and vision.

Spot number two went to South Korea: We continue to support peninsula security and the Republic of Korea and promote cultural exchange. The cultural exchange part was included as it was not clear if the next generation of South Koreans feel close to the U.S. With that uncertainty, it is imperative to reach out to that generation and foster better understanding.

Australia was ranked third. It was felt they deserved recognition for their self-sufficiency, continued shouldering of regional security (Indonesia) and provision of military support to U.S. operations. Thus: Acknowledgment of Australia's positive contribution to regional security.

The number four spot was given to ASEAN. This is a group with little commonality among its members and whose success depends on intra-regional cooperation and dialogue. Hence: Elevate the profile of the ASEAN institution and provide support to eliminate political oppression.

The fifth spot was (unsurprisingly) assigned to China – our most enigmatic relationship. With thoughts of its continued economic growth and murky military aspirations we put forth: Quietly leverage alliances (with India for example) to lessen and mitigate Chinese assertiveness.

Time was ticking and with only a few class minutes left, we tackled the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Would a simple "Nukes: We Hate 'Em!" suffice? No, we decided we needed something with more heft. We agreed that the goals stated in Obama's 2010 NPR were on point. (The top objective: preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.) In fact, the class felt that the document at large was strategically sound, particularly the objective to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and consider the use of nuclear weapons only in extreme circumstances.

In less than two hours, the class made fast work of three vitally important strategic documents. It is clear that, for now, the Obama administration must continue to lead in East Asia. The U.S. is eager to share responsibility for regional policing with allies and associations when they are prepared to do so. To achieve this goal, the U.S. must cultivate key relationships in East Asia and give thoughtful consideration to the many issues that crowd for attention.

- Victoria Brewer

Photo "Woolworth Building" by laverrue.

The World Cannot Be Saved Without Business

2010-04-13T11:20:00.011-04:00

I am debating former Ford Foundation director Michael Edwards this evening about his provocative book Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World. His book is an important, first-hand perspective on the current state of philanthropy. I have never had the privilege of giving someone else's money away in the form of a grant, for example. But for the past several years I have worked with foundations, companies, and governments to raise funding for the various projects I have directed. So my perspective comes from the other side of the equation.

Mike asks, can business methods help save the world? More specifically, can market-based approaches to solving social problems do more good than harm, and what are the possible implications of such an approach? Mike's main point is that a focus on profits or income generation is incompatible with real social change since a focus on profit, price, and metrics tends to drive energy toward short-term thinking rather than deeper, longer-term causes of social change. The business approaches fail to support things like love, community, and compassion that have intrinsic, aesthetic value, which is unquantifiable but nonetheless important especially for long-term, transformational philanthropy, as Andrew Carnegie called it.

Mike's view had to be said, and I applaud him for having the courage to say it. His argument was the inevitable backlash after a decade of exuberance about businessy approaches to philanthropy. In my career observing foreign policy trends, I noticed a pattern in the common wisdom, and it is usually aided by the character of media as entertainment. A new trend can start out as great, then it is bad, but eventually the common wisdom settles somewhere in between. Like everything else, it's complicated. The truth is dialectical.

We see Mike's backlash view already percolating into foundation strategies. I was just in Washington a few weeks ago meeting with the head of grant-making at a well known institution. He admitted that referring to funding as "seed money," developing business plans for nonprofits to make money, and demanding strict methods for quantifying success (an outcomes mantra) have become unfashionable. Demanding metrics can lead to metrics inflation, the pursuit of the wrong short-term goals, and a waste of a nonprofit's time in the burden of reporting. This donor said we shouldn't have to work ourselves into contortions just to show metrics, but some kind of notion of success does need to be defined. A fair question remains in the grant-making world: How will we know if your project succeeds? How do you define success? And as a consultant friend of mine recently said: that question is a business question. And as Mike admits in his book, nonprofits depend on good business acumen for the management of financial assets.

My main point here is that the relationship between business and civil society is synthetic and symbiotic. Mike's venerable effort has definitely created some much needed debate. But without business, there would be no civil society and vice versa. Ethical business emerged out of a positive interaction between business and civil society. And without wealth generation, entrepreneurship, and innovation, there would be no support for civil society. And I agree with Mike that to create a better world, business needs to become more like civil society. One challenge is how can you do that while remaining globally competitive. Fortunately, the US and UK have been blessed with a relatively robust civil society and giving culture relative to the rest of the world.

The subtitle of Mike's book ("Why Business Won't Save the World") is misleading, and I don't blame him for that. But to take it literally, I would counter: The world cannot be saved--whether it be in addressing climate change, relieving hunger, or getting financial resources to the poor--without involving business. The way to get businesses to act more like civil society will be through business instruments like pricing, incentives, and training, as well as through civil society instruments like transparency, citizen pressure, and reporting, and through government action like regulation, rule of law, and taxes.

As Mike puts it (on pages 60-61), "...the best results in raising economic growth rates while simultaneously reducing poverty and inequality come when markets are subordinated to the public interest as expressed through government and civil society." We saw this in the Asian tigers in the 1960s as well as in the US in the 1800s as described by Pietra Rivoli in her classic The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy. The way I would put it is that this civil society-industry-government relationship is needed to civilize the behavior and effects of business otherwise it will run loose like a wild animal. Animal spirits must be guided by ethics. Without these civilizing effects, you actually get a breakdown in the market as trust, fairness, pricing, transparency, and accountability, which make the market function, are at stake. Corruption is one example of market breakdown; and it leads to poor quality, dangerous products, a squandering of resources, and often violence and thuggery.

Toward fostering this positive interaction between business and civil society, we launched the Workshops for Ethics in Business at Carnegie Council about four years ago. The concept behind our series is that business and civil society can support one another, learn from one another, and act as agents for positive change for one another. Businesses need external champions to push for positive change in corporations.

But getting to Mike's central argument. I would also point out that a business approach can be appropriate in some facets of philanthropy.

First, it can reduce corruption or nepotism between a funder and a grantee and a funder and another funder. At least in principle with a more "open market" approach, giving can be fairer and more democratic. Grants can go to the hardest working or most effective rather than "some guy I know."

Second, business approaches provide a yardstick for assessing success, as well as a broad strategy rooted in serving the public and any plans for development or expansion.

Third, I would argue that donors have an obligation to tie their philanthropy to the origin of their profit. Businesses should be giving to things that relate to their business impact. If a company is public (is owned by the public), then private use of its wealth can be seen as a form of corruption. Businesses should show how their giving helps remedy problems or externalities generated by their activities. It is a cliche but nonetheless true that a lot of giving goes to support the arts, which often have very little to do with a business's activities other than "the CEO's spouse likes opera." As most people know, a majority of giving comes from individual donors, and the societal sector that receives the most funding is religion. Religion is fine insomuch as it was the very origin of civil society in the West. But I would like to see giving go more toward solving business problems directly. As Andrew Carnegie advocated in his essay "The Gospel of Wealth," wealth must be circulated back into society for the good of society and not squandered.

Meanwhile, I would disagree with Mike that business activities never led to social change. Businesses roles in social change include: the positive impact Google has had in China and Twitter has had in Iran; or on the other hand the negative impact mining and weapons manufacturers have had from Angola to West Virginia. Worldwide, the communications revolution and interdependence through economic globalization are some of the most critical meta-forces in international affairs today. Another meta-force is the broad demand worldwide for self-determination, which has been partly fostered by a growing and empowered middle class in many countries, such as South Korea and Indonesia.

Finally and most fundamentally, we all should ask: How we define profit? Is it long-term or short-term? What are the benefits and what are the costs? I hope that Mike's book will help philanthropists as well as businesses think more broadly about these questions--for their sake and for the planet's.

Chaos After Burma's Election?

2010-03-30T10:31:00.011-04:00

Burma's anticipated experiment with limited democracy with an election this year may lead to political instability, according to a diplomatic source familiar with the situation in that country. I had the opportunity to interview this source this week just after democracy activist Aung San Suu Ki's party the National League for Democracy decided to boycott any election as it expects the process to be "unfair" and "unjust."

The military-ruled country is expected to hold an election (of questionable credibility) this May or October. Citing the general's superstitions, some believe the election will be held on the auspicious date Oct. 10 (or 10/10/10). But given that the junta is so unpredictable, it is difficult to pin down a date.

Two scenarios are possible after an election, the source told me. One is that the military junta holds an election, it is condemned by the West as a sham, and Burma closes down, remaining a military regime but "without the uniform." The second is that the junta actually wants change in the country and we are seeing an incremental move toward change. But the country is controlled by three to five people and such a small group will be unable to keep control if some freedoms are granted to the people, according to the source.

"I don't think you can give people just a little bit of freedom," the source told me yesterday. The Burmese press is already enjoying much more freedom to report on stories on human rights in Burma. These stories are government-approved. The junta is working on worker representation, as well as freedoms of assembly and speech; so the change seems real, the source said. Meanwhile, the junta is struggling to control the Burmese Internet, and satellite TV is giving people access to news from China and India. While sim cards are prohibitively expensive in Burma, monthly cell phones have recently become available in Burma for about 20 dollars per month. That's still too expensive for most Burmese but access to information is dramatically increasing.

Political instability after elections could occur in a number of ways. One of which would be that more junior military officers begin to see their fortunes disappear as government spending on defense falls, the source said.

What is motivating the junta to seek change in Burma? One might be that the generals to not want to end up in prison so they are trying to bring about positive change before they retire. Another might be the general realization that the country needs to open in order to provide any economic development or that the junta in under pressure from China, India, or the United States. The source told me that "all of the motivations hold some truth." The source saw China as providing the best leverage with the regime since Beijing doesn't want Burma to be seen as a pariah. ASEAN is also important symbolically and for access to international trade; the ASEAN human rights body has created just enough discomfort on the junta by opening up the discussion on human rights in Burma, the source said. The junta is sick of being beat up on human rights on the world stage and international sanctions do hurt, so if you add all of these factors together, you do get the drivers, the source said.

Whatever the motivation, the source recommended that the world take this opportunity. "Who cares what the motivations are, let's put our foot in the door," the source advised.

Photo by break.things.

Why Japan Doesn't Innovate in ICTs

2010-03-26T11:16:00.004-04:00

I moderated an excellent panel last week at Japan Society on "Obama's Internet Initiative & Social Reform in the U.S. & Japan" (listen to the audio here) with Josh Fouts (Dancing Ink Productions), Kazuya Okada (NTT Data Agilenet), Kevin Werbach (Wharton business school), and Toshihiro Yoshihara (CSIS). If I had to sum up the conclusions of the panelists, it would be that "culture matters" in the spread, use, and impact of information and communications technologies in various societies.

Werbach, who has advised the Obama Administration on IT policy, emphasized the "C" in ICT--communication. Echoing senior officials in the administration such as Anne-Marie Slaughter, Werbach said that ICTs must allow people to communicate, connect, and collaborate toward achieving national ends. ICTs should allow people to connect to people, government to connect to its constituents, and the United States to connect to the rest of the world. I recalled the mantra of the administration: convene, connect, and catalyze. This sense of the United States as a credible and trustworthy convener has been a common theme I have seen in the Obama team's thinking.

Fouts similarly argued that constructive use of ICTs must be a sincere dialogue or an exchange. He reminded the audience that in reaching out to new audiences and cultures, cultural norms don't change on social networking websites. He also eased some potential worry about the Internet and social trends: The use of technology cannot replace human contact; online outreach and human contact is not a binary choice, it is a matter of integrating the two. Fouts contributed a future idea for the group--U.S.-Japan cultural exchanges through virtual worlds.

The two Japanese panelists seemed concerned about Japan's use of ICTs. As Okada put it, the reason Japan lacks innovation in ICTs is that there is a gap between its IT infrastructure and its IT literacy or attitudes. Japan is stuck in old traditions, not taking advantage of ITC's potential. For example, few people telecommute to work and few meetings are conducted virtually. In Japan, Okada said, people have a "farming attitude" in contrast to America's "hunting" mentality. The result is that Japanese people avoid disruptive change, work hard rather than work smart, and make only incremental improvements (kaizen). Okada's remarks reminded me of my graduate school thesis on U.S.-Japan negotiations; one theory that described Japanese negotiating style related to its rice farming culture. Perhaps more disturbing for Japanese innovation, Okada noted that in Japan, there is little incentive to take risks but huge disincentives to not fail. In other words, the punishments for failure outweigh the potential gains from success. Many people point to Japan's high-tech robots as areas of innovation. But Okada said Japan is automating, not innovating.

Yoshihara was slightly more optimistic but also criticized Japan's narrow use of ICT in policymaking. He said that while the U.S. approach toward establishing a broadband policy was open and inclusive, public comments through online surveys in Japan were limited. Reflecting a concern I have heard elsewhere, Yoshihara was also concerned about recent Japanese attitudes toward the Internet: In the United States, people feel the Internet is generally a healthy exchange of ideas he said while in Japan, a growing number of people feel that the Internet is a "dangerous" place, citing the vicious attacks on people in Internet forums such as 2channel. It was noted, however, that Japanese cultural "bads" present a low-hanging fruit for positive change.

To me this panel demonstrated that the Japan Society in New York City has a vital role to play in helping push for positive change in Japan--from the outside. I hope Japanese communities in New York City, a hub of innovation, will continue to exchange ideas at this historic institution and foster a stronger U.S.-Japan relationship through creativity and innovation.

The Meaning of Google's Exit from China

2010-03-22T19:53:00.006-04:00

Google announced today it will close its China-based search engine, redirect users to an uncensored site based in Hong Kong, and pull out its flagship business in response to cyber attacks by China-based hackers. Even though Google will shut down its local search engine, it will maintain some businesses in China. I have been thinking about the significance of this episode. I think it has implications at least for Google, China, and the international system. Here are few thoughts on each.

I have two themes to convey:

1. Openness is critical to economic development and global influence. My view here based on hundreds interviews I have conducted over the past six years in East Asia as part of an ongoing research project on the future of Asia.

2. We will increasingly see a future of convergence and negotiation in the international system as power gaps between states shrink. My view is based on an event series I have been running at Carnegie Council that started at the Nixon Center in 2007 that we call the "Rise of the Rest" after Fareed Zakaria's expression to describe what I see as biggest question in international relations of our time: What does the rise of China and other emerging countries mean for international norms and power?

1. What it means for Google and other companies

Google has opened up the range of options for companies operating in morally questionable environments.

From Google's perspective, being in China was a trade off. It was a question of doing some evil in order to do some good and make some money. They put it on a scale and decided that the amount of good it could do in China was worth it. That is no longer the case. During my trip to China last winter, everyone, including Chinese, complained about corruption, arrogance, fakery, and a lack of trust in that society. The common global business question about China (how do we get in?) has now been turned upside down (is China worth it?). Google's move has expanded the debate. Meanwhile, U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Myron Brilliant said this week that the "wolves can no longer be kept at bay:" U.S. companies will begin to push for retaliation against mercantilist industrial policies in China. It is no longer a given that you have to be in China to succeed. Companies and people can take into account ethical implications of their actions.

Google founder Sergey Brin has been the moral compass of Google. Drawing from his experience growing up in the Soviet Union, he has never been comfortable with censorship. He recently said that to him it wasn’t so much important whether the Chinese government was involved with the cyber attacks on Google. His point was that the Chinese government and the PLA have tens of millions of people in it. So even if there were a Chinese government agent behind this, it might represent "a fragment of policy." China's government is so big, you can't hang it on the government. But that is a problem: who is accountable? Are there rogues in the government? If so, can other countries safely trust this country?

Brin has said in a recent public speech "We from the outside provided notification when the local laws prevented us from showing information, and the local competitors followed suit in that respect. So I feel like our entry made a big difference. But things started going downhill, especially after the Olympics. And there's been a lot more blocking going on since then. Also our other sites, YouTube and whatnot, have been blocked. And so the situation really took a turn for the worse."

Brin and co-founder Larry Page have touted Google's ability to spread democracy through access to information. "At its best, Google is data-driven with an ethical trump card," says Larry Brilliant, who headed Google's philanthropy. Brin gives credit to Northrop Grumman, whose data were stolen about the F-35 fighter, for coming forward and helping with Google's investigation. He encouraged more companies to come forward.

My point is Google's mission and culture go beyond profits.

No one knows precisely how extensive the cyber attacks were but the FBI, Pentagon, and just about every single serious China watcher has been talking about China's cyber attacks for a long time. The nature of US-China relations and vulnerabilities is changing; it makes previous flare ups, for example over Hainan island, look quaint. The gravity has grown over the past year and culminated in December when more than 20 companies were attacked. It is very serious. Human rights organizations have used Gmail to communicate with people in China. If Gmail were compromised it would literally put people's lives in jeopardy.

2. What it means for China

This story shows a bad turn for China in terms of moral leadership in the world and economic development at home.

Can the Chinese government censor information and foster growth? Fareed Zakaria calls that the trillion-dollar question. So far China has been successful at embracing markets while maintaining a controlled political system. I share his view that that this system cannot last. China is still in the early stages of modernization. But it is it's difficult to imagine China being "a truly innovative country at the cutting edge of the information age, of global economics, if it has all these constraints on information, all this political control on human-to-human contact, which is what the next wave of the information age is all about."

Can China be a world leader that is admired, imitated and that shapes the global system and global values? Again I agree with Zakaria's doubts that "an insular, inward-looking China that maintains tight political control over information and human contact will end up being the country that becomes the model for the world."

In essence, China's stability right now depends on an ultimately self-defeating strategy. Both for its own advancement and for its soft power and influence in the world, China will eventually need to open up, which will create a new set of risks. Ma Yuanye, a 55-year-old biologist in Kunming in southwest China, was quoted by Washington Post as saying, "Without Google, our academic research will be seriously affected. If Google is blocked, we will see nothing but darkness."

According to the interviews I conducted last winter in China, one freedom is seen as the most crucial to economic development. That's freedom of speech. It is the only way Chinese society, companies, government, etc. can tackle its rampant corruption problem, which will impede the advancement of China. It is essential for the efficient use of capital, scientific development, effective market functions, fair trade, sound diplomatic relations, and intellectual property protection. Without freedoms or the provision of public goods, the China brand will remain weak.

Some may argue that information censorship keeps political unrest under control. To the contrary, without representational democracy, Chinese society is searching for some kind of valve to release its pressure and frustrations—over corruption, jobs, deadly product and building safety problems, pollution, and land rights. Right now without freedom of speech, the balloon is being squeezed into Wild West internet forums in which people spread rumors and gossip. The country would benefit from a professionalized media sector with incentives to break stories freely. We are seeing the emergence of citizen, online justice: So called human-flesh hunting, cyber-posses exacting justice on their own.

Comparing China today to Soviet-era Eastern Europe, Rebecca MacKinnon put it, "China's censored environment makes it easier for the Chinese government to lie to its people, steal from them, turn a blind eye when they are poisoned with tainted foodstuffs, and cover up their children's deaths due to substandard building codes."

One of the biggest questions of our time will be how we make the inevitable compromises in global business and international affairs. I see a convergence of ideas and moral values. The Chinese are taking some of what is good from the West and rejecting other things. The West might be able to take some things that are good in China. We have to assess the merit and ethics of all decisions and stick to what we believe is right because what is right is also a practical matter. In the long run, I feel China will come to that conclusion as well. It is a business concern, too. Another release valve in Chinese society can be people's relationship and connection with companies. Visits to China have suggested to me that building an ethical, trusted brand in the Chinese market would be a huge opportunity. Worldwide, people admire China, but it is shallow compared to the admiration they feel for the United States and its institutions, rule of law, openness, etc.

I would like to propose something provocative. It's not a precise analogy but without free speech, will China suffer the stagnation of the USSR? Bad information, drying up of cheap labor, and decreasing marginal productivity gains led to USSR economic stagnation in the 1980s. Can China's market make right choices without a free press? We already see non-performing loans, a potential property bubble, and labor shortages and wage rises. Similarities in China and USSR include: Drying up surplus labor, centrally planned/managed economies, farming to urban industrialization, lack of innovation, and poor information. Side effects of censorship include wasted resources (as Natan Sharansky has argued), limited market power (inefficient capital use, corruption, etc), squeezed discourse into "human flesh hunters," and rumor. Without free press and open society, limitations abound.

3. What it means for the international system?

Some have described today's world as multi-polar or comprising a West and a Rest or two "worlds." I prefer Zakaria's "the rise of the rest." Given that global manufacturing is centered in China, the country will have more opportunities to build up its technology control capacity. It is also using industrial policy to encourage home-grown technology, pushing out opportunities for foreign companies. One question in my mind is whether we will see an increasing gap between two "worlds" with competing norms—between emerging markets or and rich countries or between state capitalist countries and free market democracies.

China scholar Harry Harding sees the world as an embryonic global community with two metaphorical political parties. One led by the United States as the elitist reform party that promotes democracy and self determination. The other led by China as the populist conservative party that promotes stability, harmony, and order in domestic systems. One wants democracy at the national level and hegemony at the international level while the other wants democracy at the international level and hegemony at the national level.

I see the Google story illustrating what I see as the likeliest resolution of these tensions in international affairs between these two worlds: a convergence of norms, governance, and practices. After two months of negotiations, Google will maintain some business in China, and other American companies such as Bing and Twitter will seek to gain market share in China. Similarly, we will see convergence and negotiation rather than dictates on issues like climate change, UNSC, Iran's nuclear program, corporate governance, and World Bank and IMF governance. This week, the Japanese government conceded to give technological data to Chinese government purchases of Japanese high tech products in a compromise. Cooperation will come from this process and an acknowledgment of shared interests. Looking at China's refusal to budge on censorship, what's certain is China won't be lectured to or bossed around--sometimes to its own detriment.

As for the United States, its strength over competitors remains its openness. Thomas Friedman on Saturday wrote about the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search, which honors the top math and science high school students in America. Most finalists hailed from immigrant families, largely from Asia. Alice Wei Zhao of a Wisconsin high school, who served as a spokeswoman of the finalists told the audience: “Don’t sweat about the problems our generation will have to deal with. Believe me, our future is in good hands.” (As long as we remain open.)

"Rise of the Rest III" (2010)

2010-03-10T10:58:00.018-05:00

Earlier this month, we held at the Carnegie Council the third iteration of our ongoing series on the "rise of the rest" or the emergence of non-Western powers in international affairs. Our March 9, 2010 panel titled "Rise of the Rest III" was a follow up to a similarly themed event we held at Carnegie Council in 2008 and one that I participated in at the Nixon Center in Washington DC in 2007. Here is a summary from the original 2007 panel called "The World Without the West." Here is my summary and my speech from 2007.

Nicholas Gvosdev kicked off the panel this month by reviewing some of the points made at the last two panels.

A point I made in 2007 was that the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries are not similar, nor are they a coherent alliance. But why the BRICs has been working as a group is that these countries are coordinating their actions and using theirs relationships as force multipliers, Gvosdev said. It allows the members to credibly speak for half the planet. Gvosdev pointed to embryonic groupings that can go around the United States if U.S. leadership is unsatisfactory.

The southern democracies, like Brazil and India, act as "independents" in international affairs. They will work with the United States when they see it in their interest and will work with other southern democracies, for example through the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Dialogue Forum when they don't. IBSA is coordinating on trade issues but is also making forays into military joint activities as well, Gvosdev said.

Craig Charney started by making the point that there is an international consensus among peoples that they want some sort of elected and accountable political leadership. "Democracy" broadly means "free expression" worldwide, and people want to choose their own leaders, according to Charney's extensive polling. It is "minimalist" support for democracy and not very deep. It is not a demand for "free and fair elections," but the desire to choose own's leader is a "very powerful trend at present," Charney said.

Charney also identified "connectedness," along with collective responsibility and national power, as another powerful trend and reality in international affairs today. "We are seeing the emergence of imagined communities," which is reinforcing national sentiment through electronic media, Charney said. He noted that 70 percent of humanity now lives in a family with a telephone, creating billions of communications possibilities and accelerating collective consciousness, collective action, and social movements.

As for China, Charney made a fascinating point that seems to resonate with my own research in Asia: Worldwide people admire China for its economic growth, but the admiration for the United States goes much deeper to include America's legal system, its movies, its popular culture, its educational system, its openness, etc. Recently, I have tried to make a somewhat playful point to some of my friends that until China creates modern equivalents to rock 'n' roll and Hollywood, I will be unconcerned about Chinese influence. Give me a Chinese Michael Jackson and "Avatar," I will be worried about a decline in U.S. influence.

Parag Khanna identified a widespread crisis of global governance--in power, norms, and institutions. The emerging powers or "the rest" do not yet have the appropriate voice in global goverance commensurate with their political and economic weight. In power relations, for example, there is no credible proposal on the table to expand the UN Security Council or reform the board of the IMF. For norms, the rules, for example over democracy or intellectual property or humanitarian intervention, are in question. As for institutions, the proposals have been unimaginative. "Meta global governance" has been uninspired, Khanna said.

"What is global governance?" Khanna asked. It is the sum of: multilateral bodies (like the UN), regional mechanisms (like the African Union), inter-regional functional activities (like bilateral climate change cooperation), and the huge array of public-private partnerships (like the activities of the Gates Foundation), Khanna answered. Global governance therefore has no center, Khanna said. So to capture the totality of globalization, "you have to think of global governance as radically decentralized," he said.

Stephen Young asserted that the epistemology of modern civilization is fundamentally nihilistic, and therefore there are no norms or values, only power. But power fragments unless you have a dominant power. So the world is guided by Hobbesian dynamics--"kill or be killed, eat or be eaten," Young said. You therefore need to find norms and values common to many traditions. He rejected the idea that America actually ever had hegemony in the international system but underscored the importance of the "rise of the rest" in a world that is fundamentally about power.

Nevertheless, the central and continuing importance of "the West" in international affairs actually makes "the rise of the rest" the "second rise of the West," Young said. He also asked whether what we might see if a "convergence of societies," as I have argued elsewhere, for example in relation to Google's exit from China. Young concluded that greed has been a perennial problem in the global economy and we have not much evolved since the Dutch tulip bubble of the 1600s. Young's group, the Caux Round Table, sees the need to promote corporate responsibility, use core (universal) values in corporate governance, and to find the right pricing in the economy even if it takes state intervention.

I asked the panel what I asked Harry Harding in 2008: In this new world of emerging powers is cooperation possible? (Harding's response is above.) This time, each panelist had slightly differing views. Young said cooperation is possible but it will be case specific and we therefore need to engage by acknowledging the identities of potential partners. Gvosdev said cooperation will require a real give-and-take, especially between the United States and China. We have to honestly ask ourselves, what kind of world do we want, said Gvosdev. The United States asks for more burden sharing from China but when China becomes more assertive Americans get suspicious. Like Young and many in the Obama administration, Charney said cooperation will depend on establishing a dialogue on shared interests. Khanna finished by saying we will see a world that is "to each his own. You will see more and more of what Charles Kupchan of Georgetown calls the autonomy rule—engaging with other countries in such a way that one can't push too far beyond the extent to which one is really respecting their own autonomy and self-directed evolution. I think we'll see more of that."

To view the transcript and the video in its entirety of the event, click here. A special thanks to our corporate sponsors Booz, HP, and Merck for making this event possible. We look forward to the next iteration of this ongoing series. Like any successful Hollywood movie, another sequel is expected--"Rise of the Rest IV," perhaps next time in 3D.

Is Japan Giving Up?

2010-03-08T16:26:00.004-05:00

Reposted from Huffington Post:

Just as the success of Toyota Motor was a symbol of Japan's confidence on the world stage in the 1980s, the automobile company's recent troubles are symptomatic of a nation withdrawing from the world, as I noted this week in a Newsweek article. Avoidance was the Japanese public's initial reaction to Toyota's recent acceleration problems, which resulted in 34 deaths and nearly 10 million recalled cars worldwide. The reaction is typical of a modern Japanese culture wrought with victimization and self-doubt over questions of national identity.

In all likelihood Toyota's slump in sales will recover and the whole episode will fade in the public's memory, blending with many other product recalls in recent history. "Management will correct the problem. Toyota Motors sales will bounce back; most consumers will soon forget this latest news cycle and remember why they bought the Camry, the Corolla, and the Prius," said Paul Scalise of Temple University in Japan. But Toyota's problems are an essential part of understanding Japan's zeitgeist today. The car company's troubles have compounded Japan's already sour mood. Interviews I have conducted in Japan over the past several years increasingly cause me to wonder: Is Japan giving up?

Toyota not only had a special place in Japan in terms of the country's identity of quality craftsmanship, it will have a short-term impact on Japan's reputation and economic reverberations in its manufacturing sector. Even more, the company's problems partly originated from characteristics that are seen as uniquely Japanese. Culture can change, but the story has further damaged Japan's spirit, which is vulnerable from decades of economic doldrums and China's rise.

Some of the blame for Toyota's woes has been placed on the Japanese value of consensus-building, face-saving, and keeping outliers to a minimum. "The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down," it is often said in Japan. The public relations response was also plagued by Japanese cultural characteristics, such as open communication hampered by formality and a general avoidance of conflict. Toyota's problems may have simply come from the company's over-expansion, increasingly global operations, and cost-cutting, but the cultural explanations are felt in the Japanese discourse. "Japanese companies are generally reluctant to speak in public, both on positive as well as negative issues. This imposes a real cost on their ability to interact with foreign investors, businesses and customers," noted Keith Rabin, an Asia-focused business consultant, echoing a sentiment that appeared in recent Japanese newspaper editorials.

All of this comes against a depressed national mood of in Japan as China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's number two economy this year--a symbolic phenomenon with primarily psychological consequences. At New York University, a Japanese student approached me a few weeks ago after a class I teach to tell me the critical lesson on Japan the other students should remember: "Japan must give up and admit that it is number two in East Asia." What is the origin of this defeatism?

Patrick Cronin, of the Center for a New American Security, recently published an article in Foreign Policy, identifying a link between Toyota's troubles and Japan's global profile. He also sees Toyota's problems serving as a symbol for Japan's malaise. "Toyota's debacle comes at exactly the wrong time for Japan. For the past 20 years, Japan has been in decline: declining population, receding competitiveness, slipping power in Asia. Social strain abounds. Throughout this period, Toyota was seemingly the exception, steadily growing, finally overtaking GM to hold the chalice of number one," Cronin told me. "It was a symbol of the one thing Japan did the best: make things. Now, the dream lies shattered."

"Unless Toyota can repair the damage, however, the Japanese people are left looking at the future through a glass darkly," Cronin continued. "What the Toyota crisis demonstrates is a tight connection between economics and security, and that both are in turn sensitive to the national psyche. If the Japanese continue to doubt their technological prowess in the face of a rising China, especially given Japan's demographic disadvantages, how will they ponder their future geostrategic role and circumstances in the Asia-Pacific region? Soft power loss equals a loss of hard power, and Japan's influence vis-a-vis rising China has been devalued by this blight to a sterling reputation."

A morbid manifestation of this darkness is in the country's suicide rate. It has topped 30,000 per year for 12 years; this means about 100 people per day or one person every 15 minutes will kill him or herself in Japan. Despite government efforts to stop suicide, by funding hotlines for example, the rate has recently increased and is expected to rise. The rate is double that of the United States and second only to Russia among the rich G8. On the other side of the equation, the country's birthrate is the lowest in the world and significantly below replacement, owing partly to a disinterest in sexual intercourse as well as gender inequality. A study conducted by Japan's Family Planning Association found that one-third of couples surveyed have effectively "given up on sex" due to fatigue or boredom with the act, and researchers were surprised that the trend is actually expected to get worse. A 2006 study by the University of Chicago found that Japanese report the lowest sexual satisfaction among the 29 nations polled. According to an Asia-Pacific Sexual Health and Overall Wellness survey last year, Japan ranked lowest in satisfaction of the 13 Asian countries surveyed.

As a consequence of low birth and migration rates, the country's population is predicted to fall from 127 million to 95 million by 2050, creating unparalleled demographic pressures. At 229 percent, Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the developed world as is its level of public debt. It is unclear how Japan, given its poor fiscal health and expected worsening debt burden, is going to provide for a rapidly aging population and a growing proportion of poor.

The country's apathetic attitude is epitomized by a new generation of arasa and arafo (those in their 30s and 40s) and sugomori (nesting) people who prefer to stay at home, seek bargains online, and soshoku-kei danshi (grass eating-men) who avoid going out, taking risks, or trying to find a career for themselves. Even Japan's Olympic hope Miki Ando played it safe and downgraded her triple-triple jump combination in the figure skating competition in Vancouver. More dramatic is the presence of the hikikomori or shut-ins who have given up on social life and number about 3.6 million, according to the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Kazuhiro Haraguchi, citing a Japanese nonprofit. This figure is far larger than the previous estimate of 1 million by renowned Japanese psychologist Tamaki Saito. In Shutting out the Sun, author Michael Zielenziger points to hikikomori as well as high rates of suicide, low marriage and birth rates, and low levels of sexual relations among adults to argue that Japanese who have begun to think outside the rigid conformity of Japanese society have made a rational choice to stay home and avoid social life.

While many fund managers are pessimistic about the Japanese economy for the long-term, some are bullish on certain Japanese equities, calling them undervalued. Paradoxically, the companies that are forecast to do well have given up on the Japanese domestic market and have expanded abroad. Successful Japanese companies will either target foreign markets in the United States, China, and Europe or will act as a "gateway" to business in a booming Asia.

A promising strategy for Japan as a whole would be to act as a bridge between the West and East, but that assumes Japan's political relations with the West are harmonious. Unfortunately, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has decided to complicate its relationship with the United States by reexamining the location of a military base in Okinawa. Meanwhile relations with Australia have moved into rocky waters over Japan's whale hunting; over which Australia has threatened to take Japan to the International Court of Justice.

It would be absurd to give up on a country purely on the basis of its national mood. In fact, Japanese manufacturing output has risen, GDP is picking up, exports have grown their fastest in 30 years, and the trends I have described will all be familiar to any Japan watcher. Moreover, Toyota's sales surged 48 percent last month in Japan. But I have never seen the mood bleaker. Let's hope that this new low provides a rock bottom from which Japanese optimism can rebound.

Photo by Gustty.

"A Rallying Cry for CSR" - The CSR Journal

2010-02-03T11:31:00.014-05:00

Here is my summary from our "Top Risks" event last month at Carnegie Council, published in The CSR Journal (Volume 5), which is edited by Michael Levine, co-chair of the ABA's CSR Committee. It is republished here with kind permission.

A Rallying Cry for CSR?

By Devin Stewart

One day after Google's bold decision last month to stop censoring its Chinese search engine and possibly quit its operations in China, Carnegie Council held its annual "Top Risks and Ethical Decisions" panel for 2010. Google's announcement and the earthquake that hit Haiti, two unexpected events with moral consequences, guided much of the panel's discussion.

The salience of the Google announcement was heightened by the foresight of Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer who had placed U.S.-China relations as the 2010's top risk in terms of likelihood of change. It also highlighted the ethical challenges of doing business in China and globally as well as the positive leadership role businesses can play. Bremmer told me before he presented his full list of risks that he predicted Google would indeed pull out of China given the company's wide range of appeal—from technologists to free marketers to human rights activists—and the Communist country's inability to credibly guarantee security from further cyber-attacks. Google, along with at least 20 other companies, had been hacked in December, and it is widely believed the attacks were in coordination with a Chinese government agency that was attempting to gather information on dissidents. If personal information were compromised, peoples’ lives would be at stake. Business ethics are a very practical matter.

Bremmer wondered whether Google's moral stand might serve as a rallying cry for other companies to follow suit in China. Since Google's announcement, the company has been lauded, and the U.S. government has had to reverse its direction by stepping up its rhetorical pressure on China. In U.S.-China relations, the news came against a backdrop of tensions over possible UN sanctions on Iran, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and a Chinese test of a missile interceptor. It also occurs amid the longer-term trends Bremmer sees, specifically the acceleration of divisions between the world's developing and developed countries; free market economies and state capitalist economies; and the U.S.-led and multipolar worlds. Bremmer sees U.S.-China relations as the biggest risk for the year because "U.S. and Chinese economic systems are fundamentally incompatible. Compromise is a possibility but let's not obscure the question." He also noted that it isn't clear how the world will square China's global responsibilities given its limitations and societal pressures.

The Google episode in China also underscores the gap between short-term profit-seeking and longer-term ethical concerns for companies and countries alike. Without an expansion of rights and freedoms in China, the government risks hindering economic development. Without free press, for example, China simply cannot stem corruption. Above all, Google's move has expanded the options and the debate on the Chinese market. Carnegie Council's approach toward exploring international issues has been precisely that: to expand the scope of options and to encourage people to ask ethical questions. In line with Andrew Carnegie's vision, the Council aims to create and disseminate knowledge and understanding in order to facilitate societal transformation toward world peace. The "Top Risks" event is part of an ongoing series that brings companies and civil society together to examine business ethics issues, such as human rights policies, the role of the media, trust in the financial system, green job creation, and the fight against corruption.

Michele Wucker, head of the World Policy Institute, posed one of these potentially transformational questions. Considering the ecological limits of the planet, how much consumption is enough? China has just become the largest automobile market in the world, but do we really believe that every person in China can own a car? If the United States moves away from naked consumerism, what will take its place? And, how do we avoid policy solutions that hurt the poor? Wucker also pointed to the extreme poverty in Haiti, which exacerbated the devastation from the recent earthquake, highlighting the fact that risk is often increased when more than one factor is in play. Wucker predicted that finding sustainable levels of consumption and a balance between short-term and long-term gains would be the most pressing moral questions facing businesses for the foreseeable future.

A major obstacle to finding this balance, however, relates to the very nature of individuals and institutions, something that strategy+business editor Art Kleiner has been following for years. He identified at least three "meta risks" for 2010. The first is that although the stakes are higher than ever, it is unclear whether governments possess the management capacity to deal with the riskiest challenges, such as climate change and terrorism. The second is what he called "the risk of transitional capability," meaning that not only are changes in the global business environment occurring more rapidly than ever, it is also uncertain whether organizations can adopt the best practices in time to keep up with the changes. Moreover, transition implies unintended consequences and thus more uncertainty. Finally, bringing it to the personal level, there is a plausible scenario in which the world addresses these problems, but it will require individuals to change their behavior. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to lead a "normal life," so what do you do? Kleiner asked. "To the extent that human survival requires individuals to change, will enough people be willing to do it? Maybe," he said.

"Integration" has already become the buzzword in business and policy circles this year. In applying this concept, Georg Kell, head of the UN Global Compact, explained that integration means companies must be best in class in their products and services but that isn't enough. Companies must also be able to deal with non-financial risk, such as environmental, social, and governance risks. Ethics is the floor or baseline for international business because "going global means going local," and globalization has therefore become a test case for the question, "Can we live with one another?"

Kell was optimistic about humanity's prospects because he believed the 2008 financial crisis brought ethics back into business decisions in at least three ways. First, it highlighted the need to move from short-term to long-term value creation. Second, it showed the importance of bringing non-financial issues into decision-making. Finally, he saw a general shared sense of ethics as underpinning these trends. His research has shown that there is a universal sense of fairness and justice around the world that can also be observed in religious traditions, philosophies, and law. Kell concluded by advocating for the "traditional values," such as cooperation, that made the free market work in the first place.

The panel seemed to agree that only human innovation can pave the path toward global salvation in the face of ecological, security, social, and economic risks. Thomas Stewart, Booz & Company’s chief knowledge officer, somewhat darkly concluded by encouraging people to find the courage to muddle through. He jokingly asked whether it is possible to avoid the future all together. Kleiner quipped, "There is always a way through by the skin of our teeth." The event also highlighted the large moral questions for the upcoming year, thus framing the fourth year of Carnegie Council's Workshops for Ethics in Business series programming, which is currently being expanded into a full-blown corporate membership program. If ethics matter to you and your organization, please contact us to get involved with this unique program.

Stewart is program director and senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and can be reached at dstewart@cceia.org

#DontForgetHaiti, How Social Media Can Help the Restoration

2010-02-02T18:07:00.002-05:00

I attended a great Social Media Week panel on the future of Haiti yesterday at the New York Times. While the majority of the discussion analyzed social media and citizen journalism in crisis zones, several Haiti-specific lessons also emerged. Here's video; below are my highlights from the panel.

THE DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS STORY

Jason Cone, communications director for Médécins sans Frontières (aka MSF or Doctors without Borders), said that the Haiti earthquake had really been a "game-changer" for his organization. Subscribers to their social media platforms multiplied rapidly and he said that going forward social media would likely be the "most important place we interact with the public," outstripping their main website and the traditional press release model. Their Twitter feed pretty much speaks for itself.

MSF had staff already working in Haiti when the quake hit, so first priority was to make sure their people were alright. The staff mobilized for disaster relief but found that they were "rapidly blazing through emergency supplies," which was compounded by their relief planes not being allowed to land in Port-au-Prince. The control tower was down at the airport and the U.S. Air Force had taken over to direct traffic, but coordination was difficult and MSF planes were diverted to the Dominican Republic multiple times.

This prompted MSF to engage the U.S. Air Force on its Twitter page, with an assist from NBC journalist Ann Curry. Saying to herself, "Lives are at stake," Ann decided to reach out through personal channels to Adm. Mike Mullen to lobby on behalf of MSF and secure access for its relief supplies, including an inflatable hospital. She had seen MSF doctors working literally at gunpoint in other conflict zones and had admiration for the organization's effectiveness. Eventually her networking plus MSF's use of traditional contacts to coordinate flights paid off, but Cone said it was a "firestarter to have this conversation online."

SOCIAL MEDIA AND CITIZEN JOURNALISM IN TIMES OF CRISIS

Moderator Andrew Rasiej of Personal Democracy Forum asked Rob Mackey of the New York Times Lede blog how they filter social media to find relevant information when a major event floods the web with status updates. Mackey indicated that live blogging the 2008 Mumbai attack was nearly impossible, but that techniques have improved since then. The location feature can be useful, but it is still necessary to investigate and verify a person's details. For example, as we saw with the Iran election, Twitter users were encouraged to change their locations to Tehran in "I am Spartacus" solidarity with the protesters, to make it harder for authorities to track and persecute people.

One method is to find a nodal person on the ground such as a photographer and build a filter based on their contacts. Ann Curry did something similar with Luke Renner, a humanitarian worker based in Cap-Haïtien prior to the quake. He reached out to her via Twitter and gave her his phone number. She put him in touch with NBC Nightly News, they vetted him, and the next day she was interviewing him live as cohost of the Today Show.

Later that day her team was en route to Haiti and trying to figure out how to connect with Luke once there, as most of the communications channels were down or unreliable. Through a mix of Blackberries, Twitter, satellite phones, and Skype they eventually managed to coordinate a rendezvous at the airport. Ann's experience of watching Luke start to double as a humanitarian and a citizen journalist drove home the message that "Twitter is teaching people the power of information."

Rasiej asked whether citizen journalism and Haiti have changed our relationship with traditional media. Mackey responded that the change began during the Iran election when hundreds of YouTube videos were uploaded daily. He said that when you're relying on anonymous sources from the web you have to have a transparent discussion with your audience about that fact. Rasiej noted that in some cases the veracity of video clips has even been crowd-sourced, with viewers pointing out continuity mistakes in the shadows of different scenes.

Curry described an emerging ethos where people with useful info express a "real wish to serve" and a desire to "be part of a force for good" by passing that info to the right people or simply retweeting it to their networks. But the buck stops with the reputation of the journalist when it comes to responsibility for vetting the info. If you let yourself be misled you will end up misleading. She mentioned that a lot of biased info came out of Iran, specifically regarding torture, and it was "never backed up."

Cone noted that it is easier to preserve neutrality in a humanitarian situation like Haiti than in a political crisis like Iran. In the case of MSF, their effectiveness depends on depoliticization. He said that in Haiti they turned to traditional radio interviews to debunk rumors that going to a hospital meant certain amputation.

THE EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT

After seeing the horrible human devastation of the earthquake, Curry feels that a lot of humanitarian workers and Haitian citizens alike will need post-traumatic stress counseling. Cone agreed, noting that they have already started to rotate out some of their original response staff, debriefing them in the Dominican Republic. Curry says that seeing bodies everywhere and looking into the eyes of people you know are going to die provokes a lot of survivor's guilt. Psychological restoration in Haiti will be an important component of long-term stability.

On that note, Andrew Rasiej asked whether social media could be used to keep attention focused on Haiti. Cone said MSF will continue its social media efforts despite reconstruction stories being less dramatic than the original event. Ann Curry noted the media's tendency to lapse into disaster fatigue, citing the bloody and drawn-out conflict in Congo, which Nick Kristof revisited again in a recent column. She said network coverage of Haiti started to fade while the topic was still trending high on Twitter. This prompted her to go to her boss and ask if they should cover it more. [Used in this way, there can be self-reinforcing feedback with trend metrics, as people tend to tweet what they're exposed to—a new media Ouroboros.]

Curry also predicted that social media would continue to nourish niche knowledge, speculating that disasters will leave in their wake a "tough core group that continues to be informed," which pretty much sums up the HaitiRewired mission. Rasiej cited stats about mobile phone penetration worldwide, saying we might see global consciousness before we know it, even in places like Congo.

LESSONS FOR FUTURE FOCUS

Several elements emerge from this picture as key focal points for the HaitiRewired community: Fund-raising, Distributed energy, Mobile phones, and Psychological restoration.

It's clear that the success of text-message donations in this crisis means that we'll see a proliferation of organizations using such services the next time disaster strikes somewhere. In this vein, it may also be relevant to explore microfinancing and peer-to-peer donations as a source of sustainable development income.

Communication on the ground is crucial in emergencies, making mobile phone service a priority in Haiti. Of course, the phones and other relief services need power that can't be knocked out easily, which is why a distributed network of energy sources is necessary for resilience.

Finally, the psychosocial restoration of Haiti must be taken into account when exploring design options for urban infrastructure. Of course, the greatest stress relief for the Haitian people would be an end to their crushing poverty.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Georgia Popplewell (CC).]

ACDC 2010 Call for Papers

2010-01-29T16:17:00.005-05:00

Fourth Annual Conference on Development and Change
Johannesburg, South Africa, April 9–11, 2010

Conference Theme
The world economy is currently in the throes of a global economic crisis reminiscent of the great depressions of the 1930s and possibly that of the 1870s. As back then, the crisis resulted from major structural imbalances in financial and credit markets ultimately resulting in a retreat from free trade. Emergent debates about resurgent protectionism, alternative reserve currencies, stimulus packages and climate change policies suggests that the world economy has entered a phase of heightened change which will transform the development "equation" in varied and diverse ways. It is imperative at this time that development economists should engage with two crucial questions: the implications of these changes for the developing world and the prospects for "development" for the majority of people in the developing world.

The forthcoming conference invites submission of academic papers representing original and critical research focusing on the various aspects of the current global economic crisis. Papers are encouraged to employ historical and comparative perspectives where possible, on the impact of the current global financial and trade crises and its impact on the economic performance of developing countries. A focus on policy relevance and prescriptions for developing countries is highly recommended.

Contact conference director Ashwini Deshpande or visit Policy Innovations to download the full details. The deadline has been extended to February 10, 2010.

Aid and Technology Innovation Intersect for Haiti

2010-01-28T18:29:00.008-05:00

I sat in on a conference call today with Forum One and OneWorld U.S. concerning the use of technology to direct earthquake relief and recovery funds to Haiti. There were some innovative orgs on the line, many of which have already been covered extensively in the media, so I'll just summarize some of the main points here.

Michaela Hackner of Forum One emphasized the transformation we're witnessing as charities reach out to people online and through their mobile devices. She said the crux of the new paradigm is money, connections, and awareness. You could also add speed: Michaela cited stats from the Red Cross indicating that they raised $10 million in 48 hours via text-message donations.

There is also software springing up to assist aid workers, such as the Ushahidi Haiti map, and a Creole translation app emerging out of Crisis Camp. Of course with the new frontier that digital technologies make possible there is also room for abuse, such as the false rumor that American Airlines would be donating relief flights.

Michaela's key conclusion was that humanitarian and development aid and technology innovators need to get in the same room to understand challenges and share data. This would not only make the current response more effective, but could also help with longer-term questions of planning, transparency, and sustainability.

Andy Carvin of NPR presented a high-resolution map of Port-au-Prince that volunteers have helped build from satellite imagery, tagging hospital locations and other useful data. He said the map is downloadable to GPS devices for navigating the city. He also mentioned the Google People Finder tool, which the State Department has embedded on their website.

Jacob Colker of The Extraordinaries described a crowd-sourced system whereby global volunteers help process missing persons data from their home computers. Haiti earthquake images are pulled from news stories and Flickr and uploaded to a system where volunteers tag the photos with various characteristics—female, living, etc.—to populate a search engine. Matches in the search engine are then used to try and identify or connect people on the ground. He said that of 750 potential matches generated this way they had tried to reach out to 60 families, but had found it very difficult to get in contact.

Clearly some of these collaborations and projects are in early stages and rapid response mode, but there is a lot of potential for funding long-term, innovative crisis management strategies and technology infrastructure.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Georgia Popplewell (CC).]

With China Rising, Moral Gaps Abound

2010-01-27T15:36:00.005-05:00

Few people should have a regular column. I am not naming any names. But Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria is one of the handful of people who are smart, insightful, and original enough to deserve one. For instance, Zakaria rightly pinpointed "what is really at stake" in the recent Google vs. China episode. As we have argued here and Harry Harding has argued in Policy Innovations, it is about shaping global norms, or ethics. As he put in his Newsweek column, here is how Zakaria put it in CNN Opinion:

So far China has been remarkably successful at maintaining a system that has embraced markets, but also maintained a very controlled political system. My own view is that that cannot last forever, but that China is still in the early stages of modernization, and it is quite possible that it will be able to continue doing this for several decades. But I think it's very difficult to imagine China being a truly innovative country at the cutting edge of the information age, of global economics, if it has all these constraints on information, all this political control on human-to-human contact, which is what the next wave of the information age is all about. Ultimately the question is: Can China be a world leader that is admired, imitated and that shapes the global system and global values? There I have my doubts that an insular, inward-looking China that maintains tight political control over information and human contact will end up being the country that becomes the model for the world.

This is precisely what I heard last month during my month-long Asia trip, which took me to Singapore, Tokyo, Yokohama, Shanghai, and Nanjing. China's lack of openness broadly speaking is having a negative impact on its development. Specifically, the lack of free press and free expression is inhibiting the country's ability to tackle corruption and spur innovation. These ethical matters are not optional for civilizational advancement; they are essential for China to make the next leap, to be seen truly as a model, to emanate ideas, culture, brands, and enterprises that the world will seek.

In the coming years, assuming China's economy remains stable, the big picture question will be: How will China influence global norms?

As this expansive New York Times article put it, cataloging a decade's worth of China issues:

When the United States was snapping at the heels of the British empire, the global hegemon of the early 20th century, the situation caused plenty of friction, even though both countries spoke the same language, shared similar cultures and were liberal democracies. China, in contrast, is a Confucian- Communist-capitalist hybrid under the umbrella of a one-party state that has so far resisted giving greater political freedom to a growing middle class. Now its ascendancy is about to set off what many officials and experts see as a backlash on both sides of the Pacific.

My guess is that China's influence on the world will result in a convergence of norms. More equality among nations at the global level and eventually more equality among people at home in non-free countries like China. The Google episode in China seems to prove my point: Companies like Google and countries will seek compromise. As relative power equalizes between companies and countries, it will be a process of real negotiation. The alternative is conflict or even disaster.

During my visit to China last month, I presented to a Chinese university several of the ethical gaps I see emerging between China, the United States, poor countries, and the rest of the world in the climate change arena. These gaps, in my mind, will make the climate change mitigation and adaption process difficult.

- The countries least responsible for climate change are the most vulnerable to its effects

- Emerging economies, such as China and India, no longer represent the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable, which seek immediate solutions, and are using the poor as a shield

- The pace of the international political process of negotiation in Copenhagen (and in Mexico City this November) does not match the scientific urgency of climate change

- Most of the countries that will most need to adapt to climate change do not have the political or budgetary capacity to place adaptation in their spending priorities

- Similarly, the security implications of flooding, droughts, and cyclones are not being considered by the countries most vulnerable to extremism and militants who could take advantage of disasters

- The right to "dirty" development and poverty relief is in opposition to the devastating consequences of climate change

- Exiting the dirty development path through clean tech can run up against the protection of intellectual property rights on technology

- The benefits accrued to previous generations by polluting contrast with the current conditions in poor countries

- Nuclear energy promulgation bumps up against the security interests of nuclear nonproliferation

- Central government goals of emissions reductions can oppose the goals of local governments, which are concerned about job creation or are plagued by local corruption and vested interests

- A global ethic on climate change therefore is needed since "finger pointing" will likely derail climate change negotiations yet "naming and shaming" is expected to be the likely enforcement mechanism

As scholar Samuel Fankhauser described in his Dec. 7, 2009 article "If it warms up, who's going to pay?" it may be better to consider adaptation support as "a way to show solidarity, to fairly deal with a shared challenge. The strong should help out the weak."

Photo by vasilken.

Obama, God, and the iPad

2010-01-27T15:05:00.003-05:00

Did we get your attention?

There was so much speculation over the past few days about today's announcement of Apple's new tablet, the iPad--just hours before President Obama's State of the Union address this evening. He is expected to give a speech cheer leading on the jobs front, but not the Steve Jobs front. (Here is what it would be like if Steve Jobs actually delivered the speech for President Obama.)

Slate's William Saletan published a thoughtful essay this morning titled "Apple vs. Obama. Which is more important: Politics or Technology?" Saletan's guess is technology is the more important of the two. Given the apparent inevitability of rich democracies to become mired in vested interests, as I have argued in Foreign Policy magazine, Saletan might be right. Here is how he puts it:

Will the Apple tablet overshadow Obama? I don't know. But here's my bet: If January 2010 ends up being remembered for a political speech, it won't be Obama's. It'll be the speech Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered Thursday. Clinton denounced Internet censorship around the world as an "information curtain" akin to the Iron Curtain of the Soviet era. She championed the "freedom to connect"—an updated, online version of freedom of assembly. And she outlined a place for politics in the march of information technology. "On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress," she observed. "But the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas."

While our politicians must accommodate both domestic and international politics, technology acts as an empowering force for social change on both levels.

Similarly, and somewhat profanely, people have wondered whether the new Apple product will save us. Some have called it the "Jesus pad." Others hope that the device will save the newspaper and magazine industry.

At least Apple has given the media something fun to talk about again. In fact this blog post was a bit of an experiment. In 2005, Slate coyly wondered why the press loves Apple so much. It seems to me that, like religion and politics, Apple just grabs peoples' attention. It is that simple. If you put one of these things in a headline, you are bound to get readers, right?

In any case, my colleagues were wondering what the next logical step would be after the iPad. As an aside, I think the new tablet could only be called an "iPad" as Apple seems to have a style guide for its products: It simply looks for the shortest word possible (phone, pod, Mac, bud, etc.) If the iPad could be used for augmented reality maybe the next phase would be a tablet helmet (call it a hamlet?) that you wear on your head. But knowing Apple's style, my bet would be the "iHood" or, even shorter, the "iHat."

GSK's "Open Innovation" Strategy

2010-01-20T12:07:00.006-05:00

I just got off of a conference call with Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). He started out by saying that pharmaceutical companies like GSK need a more pluralistic approach toward solutions. To that end, GSK will pursue an "open innovation" strategy toward delivering better medicines to people in poor countries.

This strategy will include an "Open Lab" with 8 million dollars seed funding, an effort to share intellectual property to fight tropical diseases, and a pledge to create "sustainable pricing" for a malaria candidate vaccine.

This morning at Council on Foreign Relations, Witty made what he called "the most striking" commitment to put into public domain 13,500 chemical structures that may fight malaria. In doing this, Witty is hoping to stimulate more innovation efforts--increasing "the bandwidth of discovery." He does not necessarily expect GSK to be rewarded financially from this move. From the press release:

GSK has screened its pharmaceutical compound library of more than 2 million molecules for any that may inhibit the malaria parasite P.falciparum, the deadliest form of malaria, which is found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. This exercise took five scientists a year to complete, and has yielded more than 13,500 compounds that could lead to the development of new and innovative treatments for malaria, which kills at least one million children every year in Africa.

GSK will make these findings, including the chemical structures and associated assay data, freely available to the public via leading scientific websites. The release of these data will mark the first time that a pharmaceutical company has made public the structures of so many of its compounds in the hope that they could lead to new medicines for malaria.

He said it was partly a personal decision. His travels, seeing suffering abroad, have led him to want to fight malaria. A malaria vaccine (called RTS,S) is already in Phase III of clinical trials and is two years away from reaching the market. Last year, this pivotal phase was launched and it is well underway in seven African countries. The results of Phase III are expected next year--2011, and if all goes as planned, the vaccine could reach the market in the next couple of years. As further background, RTS,S is the result of a partnership between GSK, The Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) and the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation. (CORRECTED)

Witty said he hoped that other companies would join GSK's open innovation strategy.

In Witty's travels to poor countries, he said he noticed that pieces of the solution were present but were not put together. And this problem has often been used as in excuse for poor health conditions. GSK hopes to find local partners to serve as delivery vehicles of GSK's investment.

In the long-term, "it is all about horizons," he said. He hopes that African economies become prosperous. But for now the company's interest in applying investments and ideas to improve the conditions in Africa--a "non-commercial" interest.

Could open innovation become the dominant paradigm for developing drugs in poor countries? "It is one step at a time," Witty said.