Politics – Page 224 – a sibilant intake of breath

Henry Shue on Torture

Henry Shue’s presentation to the Strategic Studies Group tonight ended up being much more challenging than I expected. The topic was torture and “why no middle way is possible.” That is to say, something that I profoundly agree with. That said, I found his justification to be very problematic.

He began by asserting that torture is obviously immoral and illegal – a position that I do not contest, though we will come back to it. From there, he argued prudentially that states like the US and Britain mustn’t engage in torture for a number of reasons. The first set have to do with how there’s no guarantee the person you torture will know anything, that they might not tell you anyhow, and that the idealized case of the terrorist revealing the location of the hidden nuclear weapon under torture is extremely unlikely to ever transpire. These are fairly standard arguments that deal with the efficacy of torture as an instrument of achieving aims, rather than its acceptability.

His next batch of arguments had to do with the social basis of torture: namely, that to tolerate torture is to tolerate the existence of torturers in society. He argued that some minimal organization of torturers is necessary and that such an organization fundamentally corrupts the society around it. After his talk, I asked him a question about this. Specifically, I asked whether the fact that torturers are readily available around the world for those willing to import them or export prisoners to them changes this moral balance. A state like the United States could easily gain the ‘benefits’ of torture, without risking whatever dangers exist from a domestic torture agency.

His response largely brought us back to a muddle that is at the heart of this. I believe powerfully that torture is an abhorrent act: one that cannot be justified as a practice, even if it was likely to save many lives. This is an easy position to defend if you really believe in some kind of divine or natural justice. If, however, you believe that all the justice out there is what we as people create in the world around us, you are in a really tricky spot. Clearly, saving some huge number of lives must be balanced against the cost of destroying or mangling a smaller number: even if those people turn out to be innocent.

At the heart of things, I can’t come up with a reason for forbidding torture that is somehow firmly rooted to a real moral tapestry that all people are obviously attached to. That makes dealing with the prospect of torture in the ideal case extremely difficult.

My solution, for the moment, as in many other contentious matters is to step back from the greatest controversy and pick low hanging fruit. Even if we allow the possibility that it’s just intuitive revulsion that is the final basis for the understanding of torture as completely unallowable, we can make arguments about how we should operate to reduce the occurrence of torture as something that happens out in the world. This is especially feasible when it comes to states like America that have values fundamentally opposed to such obscene violations of human beings. It’s easier to accuse someone of violating their own moral code than it is to assert some everlasting external morality. Since I don’t feel capable of divining such a framework, but I am nonetheless confronted with irrefutable evidence of astonishing injustice in the world, the best answer seems to be to just act on the basis of a self-aware, pluralistic, and pragmatic ad hoc morality, rather than remain inactive while something terrible continues.

[Update: 21 May 2013] See also: Maureen Ramsay on torture

Thesis planning

In four weeks’ time, I need to submit a 6000 word paper outlining my research question and methodology. Today, I gave a twenty minute presentation that basically outlined my area of interest and touched upon some possibilities. Until I’ve done more of a review of the literature, choosing a specific topic is probably unwise. There is much to do, and time for it is short.

The general research area is environmental politics: by which I mean the study of international agreements and actions related to the physical environment. Examples include climate change, fisheries, and pollutants. Within that playing field, I have also identified two directing interests: the relationship of science to policy, and the connections between all of this and development.

Science and policy

The natural sciences have a number of characteristics much admired and emulated by social scientists – as IR scholars frequently categorize themselves. As generally understood (and Tristan is going to murder me on this), science is a set of tools and approaches that allows people to learn about the true nature of the world. Theories are developed to account for observations and they are tested using other observation. Deficient theories are refined or rejected and progressively better understandings emerge. This is a very old and powerful account of the nature of scientific approaches.

From a global environmental politics (GEP) standpoint, the first area of interest here has to do with epistemic communities. That’s basically a fancy word for ‘fields’ or ‘disciplines.’ Members of such communities have their own vocabularies and ways of doing things: they have tools and competencies. Critically, they also have credibility in certain areas. What is interesting for my thesis is how science, credibility, and politics interact. When the Union of Concerned Scientists speaks out on nuclear testing or climate change, they wade into fundamentally political waters. Why are people generally willing to listen to what they have to say? On a related note, how do those seeking particular policies select and generate science that can be used to bolster their case; to what extent is science in environmentally relevant areas politicized, or otherwise prescriptive in non-obvious ways?

Another way in which GEP is concerned with science has to do with bureaucratic politics. That’s to say, how different constituent parts of a decision-making organization interact. An example would be the relationship between Congress, the presidency, and other actors in the formulation of American foreign policy. A standard account holds that these subsidiary groups vie for influence while engaged in complex negotiations with one another. Depending on how constructivist you care to be, you can also talk about constitution through iterated interaction. Analyzing global environmental regimes (for instance, the Kyoto Protocol) through a bureaucratic politics framework means examining which organizations helped to form it and what role they are playing now. The practical and theoretical connections between environmental scientists and organizations they dominate and the overall policymaking landscape are certainly worthy of investigation.

The development dimension

The two big environmentally relevant development issues, as I see them, are the emergence of new industrializing powers and the material conditions that have contributed to the absence of development in other areas. It says something that while I raised both in my presentation, everyone who responded mentioned only the question of China and India, never the one of the least developed states.

Anyone who glances at the state of commodities markets today can see that a China growing at near-double-digit rates has a huge appetite for energy and raw materials. The overall impact of that trend on the state of the world environment promises to be huge: more so when you acknowledge that China isn’t the only populous state growing rapidly. If we are to hope that these states will follow a more sustainable path to prosperity than the currently developed states, we are going to need institutional and legal structures that are both up to date with the best of environmental science and politically aware enough to craft incentives so that good outcomes will actually be achieved.

In contrast to the rapidly emerging economies are those that are not obviously improving in basic measures like life expectancy and health. Environmental factors probably play a role here as well: desertification, climate change, and the like. Likewise, an important role is played by factors that are both environmental and political, such as health and the search for raw materials. The more people with whom I speak, the clearer it becomes that this area is probably not a very interesting one for most people in the department, at least in terms of the considerations that go into thesis topic selection. Doing anything interdisciplinary with people in Oxford studying fields like health or geography seems to be quite difficult.

Plans

Between the areas mentioned above, there are many lifetimes worth of research that could be done. I want to find a question that is specific, novel, and original and that will allow me to make prescriptive suggestions for the improvement of some important area of environmental governance. As I progress towards that topic, I will put more information here. Of course, comments are extremely welcome.

PS. I got back the numerical result for my qualifying exam from Dr. Hurrell today: 68%. Missing a distinction by such a small margin makes me wish I had studied harder.

Science, the environment, and development

Today’s seminar for the Global Economic Governance Program was really excellent, discussing the future of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. On the panel were Jon Cuncliffe, Paul Collier, and Ngaire Woods. Overall, I would say that they agreed more than they disagreed. They primarily identified and discussed two areas of interest: the global financial consequences of the emergence of China and India and the role the Bank and the Fund should play in assisting development within countries that are either stagnating, or finding themselves at the start of an awkward path to reasonable prosperity.

While there, I realized that development might be the missing factor for my thesis. Conversing with Peter Dauvergne by email, he has identified the incredible variety of work already being done in the field of science and environmental politics. I need more of a focus if I am to say something new. To focus on the scientific and environmental questions that exist within the two areas listed above might be a good way to move forward. It captures concerns like China’s growing need for energy and resources, as well as issues like the problems of desertification and lack of decent access to water in sub-Saharan Africa.

Potentially, this is a way of bringing a lot of reading I’ve been doing that is somewhat peripheral to both the program and my thesis back into line. I don’t think it would be wise to extent the topic to consider health, which is also a fascinating intersection between science and development, but to use development to create a balanced triad between science and environmental politics might lend direction and balance, without going off topic.

Dr. Dauvergne also suggested that I read the last few years worth of issues of Environmental Politics: the journal from the MIT Press which he edits, as well as a thesis entitled Advocates, Experts or Collaborative Epistemic Communities by Lindsay Johnson, an MA student of his.

Comments would be especially appreciated on this, since I need to present my preliminary research plan on Tuesday at 11:00am.

Of news and time management

When corresponding with friends back in Canada, I am frequently reminded about how out-of-touch with national news I have become while in the UK. For me, the Harper government is a distant and largely hypothetical possibility, still in the stasis of post-electoral uncertainty. I remembering wandering around surprised on the night of the election, finding it difficult to comprehend how a party that had been in power for all the time I had been aware of politics could suddenly be outed. It is still that general sense that dominates my intuitive perspective on the present Canadian political situation. That and the fervent hope that we don’t descend into the insanity of social crusading and fiscal and strategic recklessness that have taken hold so ominously and harmfully in the United States.

I don’t think there is much I can plausibly do to keep in touch beyond skimming the Globe and Mail website and Google News Canada every day or so. Between reading for the core seminar and thesis reading, I already have a great deal to do. I am frequently frustrated by the impossibility of doing as well as can be managed in all possible areas. It makes you constantly guilty when you aren’t doing something classed as productive (course reading, scholarship applications) or semi-productive (cycling, reading The Economist). Also, it is the conversations you have with friends about current events that are the ultimate spur to be knowledgeable about them. Without debate tournaments or pub and living room arguments about Canadian politics, my lack of knowledge is rarely revealed. While Emily seems to be powerfully in touch with Canadian news – perhaps her time at Goldman Sachs taught her how to do so when busy and abroad – nobody else is likely to bring up current Canadian events as a topic of conversation.

The solution is to work towards squeezing out all activities that are not at least semi-productive, eliminating the gaps that make you feel as though you’re not doing as much as you should be. Once you are doing more-or-less all you can be, you can be forgiven for some oversights. Everything I do should be part of some plan or project.

That said, I am going to get back to reading about AIDS.

The Constant Gardener

I saw The Constant Gardener with the European Film Society tonight. I found the film to be very powerful, and thoroughly dispiriting. While the specific evils portrayed are obviously fictional, there is a grim plausibility that accompanies them. Humanity has a long way to go.

The pharmaceutical plot was actually the weakest part of the film. Not to spoil it for anyone, but you can’t license a drug in the rich world on the basis of unsupervised clinical trials in Africa. That said, the portrayal of machine-gun wielding horsemen terrorizing villagers in the Sudan is probably quite accurate. Hopefully, it induced at least a bit of reflection on the part of various audiences about the moral responsibilities people in the developed world bear towards those elsewhere facing genocide or other forms of large-scale violence. Likewise, some of the depictions of the horrific toll of AIDS formed part of the realistic backdrop for the film.

Appropriately enough, immediately before the film started, I began reading the copy of Race Against Time that my mother sent me, along with some extra illumination for my bike. Written by Stephen Lewis, it is a printed version of the Massey Lectures that were delivered across Canada, and it opens with the line: “I have spent the last four years watching people die.”

I will probably finish it tomorrow, then lend it to Emily. I feel as though I should say more, but I am thoroughly overwhelmed.

NASCA and the BPG

As Fernando pointed out to me, the final report of the Bi-National Planning Group (PDF), with whom we met while on the NORAD trip, has specifically endorsed some recommendations from the report (PDF) that I wrote on behalf of our group.

[The fifth] BPG recommendation supports key recommendations identified by the North American Security Cooperation Assessment (NASCA): “The United States and Canada should increase the transparency of the process by which they engage in bi-lateral defence negotiations, policy development, and operations; This process should include a focus on public understanding and involvement; Projects undertaken by academic institutions, and other civilian research organizations should be supported, particularly as means of generating transparency in, and awareness about, the defence planning process.The NASCA report was prepared by members of the University of British Columbia (UBC) International Relations Students Association (IRSA) in 2005, and their observations were compiled by Milan Ilnyckyj-obtained from http://www.irsa.ca. (51)

It’s your classic self-interested academic appeal for more research to be done – especially by people like the person doing the suggesting – but it’s still good to be mentioned. I shall have to read the entirety of their report once we finish cleaning up the flat from the party last night.

Science fiction and positivist social science

While thumbing through a copy of Frank Herbert‘s Dune that I bought for a Pound at a used book shop, I realized the extent to which the highest ideals of strongly positivist social science can be found in science fiction. Because of the complexity of his notion of politics – and the interconnections between politics and other phenomenon, like religion – Herbert’s perspective extends somewhat beyond social science as often envisioned. Much closer to the ideal is some of the work of Isaac Asimov, which I will come to in a moment.

Dune itself can be read if an interesting (if fictional) study of politics. The Bene Gesserit notion of politics as fundamentally bound up in the structural relationships between different entities would not be hugely out of place in an American international relations faculty. The connections drawn up in Dune between transport, resources, and power are also relevant to contemporary politics. Of course, at times Dune is quite a self-aware allegory for the situation in the Middle East. I was entertained to find a discussion of coercion and consent as dual means for maintaining power in the novel. With a bit of terminology changed, it could be in a textbook on Machiavelli and Gramsci.

A better example of positivism embraced in science fiction is the concept of psychohistory: as described in Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation novels. Basically, psychohistory is envisioned as a science that can accurately predict the development of human society in the long term, and for large numbers of people. While it can’t make specific predictions about precise moments in time, it can predict massive systemic reorganizations over the course of anywhere between decades and millennia. It’s a strong endorsement of the idea that history is guided by comprehensible forces.

One interesting twist is that even with the benefit of psychohistory, the arch-positivists in the Foundation novels must still be actively involved in shaping the development of the system they examine. Also, for the predictive power to be maintained, people must not be aware of the fact that psychohistory is being applied. To say much more would spoil a number of key surprises in an iconic science fiction series, but the connections between science fiction and social science – within the historical context that spawned both – might reveal some important things about the kind of project some people understand themselves as being engaged in, as regards the world around them.

An alternative explanation is that, after spending so much time trying to force as much IR as possible into my head, I can’t see things any other way. When an eight year old boy is given a hammer, he suddenly discovers that everything needs pounding.

On the price of oil

Tristan asked me a few days ago whether the status of oil as a non-renewable resource means that it must rise in price over the long term. It’s an interesting question. Here is a fairly classical economic answer. The point here is not to consider the possibility of short-term price shocks, which are quite a different sort of phenomenon, and one not related directly to the scarcity or abundance of oil in the ground. Rather, the point is to consider whether the fact that oil reserves develop at a rate that is negligible compared to the rate at which they are exploited means that oil as a commodity is destined to become ever-dearer.

I would contend that there are three prices of oil which we can consider, and two of them are highly relevant. The first cost is simply the nominal cost of any particular grade of oil at a point in time. That is to say, the cost in whatever unit of currency you care to use. These are not directly comparable, over time, because they do not factor in inflation. The second, more relevant, price is the nominal price adjusted for the rate of inflation. While there are difficulties in properly assessing the rate of inflation, a price that takes it into account as can best be managed does a better job of reflecting what the price of oil is, relative to other commodities. Economists call this the ‘real’ price of oil. The third price, which I will get into further below, is the relative price of oil as a factor of production, from the perspective of any firm and firms in aggregate.

Examining the price trend, firstly, there are considerations of supply and demand. These are fundamentally related to the rate of oil extraction, not to the total available reserves. That said, those watching the levels of reserves might anticipate future scarcity (doing things like choosing less oil intensive technology or making bets on higher oil prices in commodity markets). Sticking to flows for the moment, there does seem to be a considerable extent to which oil production can be increased in the medium term. Especially given today’s high oil prices, fields that were previously not commercially viable have become so. Likewise, fields that were depleted to the point where the cost of extracting an extra barrel of oil was at or below the value of that oil have become viable again. This kind of incentive will emerge whenever the real price of oil rises. The potential to bring new oilfields onstream in the medium turn should act to mitigate – though not eliminate – price rises in oil.

The next big issue is substitution. We use oil for a great many purposes: from powering vehicles to making plastics and fertilizers to generating electrical power. In some of these applications, it can be more easily replaced with alternatives than it can in others. While you would be hard-pressed to make many plastics without oil, electricity can certainly be generated in other ways. At present, the global system for distributing natural gas is far less extensive than the one for distributing oil. As greater scarcity and higher oil prices are experienced and anticipated, states will shift their energy production strategies towards those based on other technology. The degree to which such shifts can take place is called the elasticity of demand: the easier is it to substitute, the smaller price rises will be, both in the short and long term. In almost all cases, elasticity of demand becomes greater with time, as firms and individuals have more scope to modify their consumption and production choices.

Relative factor prices provide one market mechanism by which production choices are made. That is to say, if the price of an input – say labour – rises, firms will modify their production strategy in the short, medium, and long term to reduce the usage of that factor to an efficient level. How big the changes they make have to do with their anticipation of future movements in factor prices. Through the existence or anticipation of higher oil prices, firms will be driven to make production decisions that reduce their usage of oil, while increasing their usage of other commodities.

In the long term, major technological change also promises to help us shift away from oil. Biotechnology and genetic engineering promise ways to produce fuels and polymers from plants. Electrical generation based on renewable sources can offset that from hydrocarbons. Organizational change can also play a role. Power sources and power usage can be brought physically closer together, reducing the cost of transport. Likewise, the amount of travel undertaken by individuals and firms can be reduced through planning that minimizes it.

A final inductive point is that, while people have predicted for hundreds of years that all manner of minerals are in danger of running out, this has not taken place for any. Indeed, the real prices of commodities like gold, silver, and copper have been falling in the long term. For a lengthy statistical treatment of this, see Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.

The short answer, then, is that we have reasons to believe that the real price of oil does not need to increase as the commodity itself becomes scarcer, provided the above assumptions about the capacity for factor substitution and technological change are accurate. Even if not, the same considerations indicate that price rises will at least be moderated in the medium and long-term. It should also be remembered that the overall phenomenon of economic growth increases the buying power of individuals and firms. That is to say, they can each afford more goods and services than they could before. As such, the total proportion of an individual or firms spending power devoted to oil need not grow at the same rate as the price of oil.

A theory of Kenneth Waltz

While speaking with Roham this afternoon, we stumbled across what may be the perfect Oxford way to respond to a question about Kenneth Waltz. Obviously, the first step is to interrogate the question. What do we mean by ‘Waltz?’ I think we can analyze him usefully on the basis of three levels of analysis: the cellular, the individual, and the systemic. Clearly, parsimonious theory demands that systemic explanations be concentrated upon: in this case, the extent to which Waltzian theory is constrained and disposed on the basis of the system in which it exists: American academia. A fundamentally anarchical system, where economic power and the recourse to forceful argument is the ultimate arbiter, American academia effectively constitutes large parts of both the identity and interests of Waltz.

Indeed, while a systemic theory of Waltz may not capture all of the detailed minutiae of his history, or the internal processes by which his external policy is defined, it does provide good answers to the big questions of his fundamental behaviours vis a vis other academic actors. Consider the phenomena of bandwagoning and balancing, in response to Waltzian hegemony. Additionally, consider the emergence of counter-hegemonies in different parts of the system. All can be explained on the basis of the distribution of research capabilities, and the rational characteristics of academic actors.

While many would contend that in order to really understand Waltz, we need to go back to analysis at the individual and cellular level – with a particular focus on the cellular elite that comprises his central nervous system – the fact is that theory, once broadened to that extent, risks being overwhelmed with detail and particularity. If we can develop testable hypotheses about the behaviour of Waltz on the basis of systemic analysis alone – evaluated, of course, through rigorous statistical analysis – we will have developed a theory of Kenneth Waltz is both useful and parsimonious.

Iran, international law, and the bomb

While reading about US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explaining why Iranian nuclear enrichment should be referred to the UN Security Council, I immediately began wondering why such enrichment is a breach of international law. The United States has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), creating certain legal obligations, as has Iran. India, Pakistan, and Israel are non-signatory nuclear powers. For Iran to actually develop nuclear weapons would be a violation of the NPT, but the process of enrichment – even at an industrial scale that could produce enough uranium-235 for bomb making – does not seem to be, in and of itself. Indeed, the NPT explicitly affirms the right of members to develop civilian nuclear technologies, including uranium enrichment.

The much publicized announcement of Iranian enrichment of uranium was about material enriched to the level of about 3.5% uranium-235: the variety necessary for fission bombs. Such bombs require a much higher concentration of uranium-235, in the vicinity of 90%. Without guessing about the ultimate purpose of the program, the present enrichment activity seems to be in keeping with the requirements of nuclear power, rather than nuclear weapons.

When it comes to the United States and their obligations under the NPT, the present scorecard definitely doesn’t look so hot. The nuclear deal with India that President Bush approved and is now seeking Congressional approval for is one such violation, since it includes the provision of nuclear fuel to a state without appropriate controls in place. Likewise, the push to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons is a definite violation of the spirit – if not the precise letter – of the treaty, which stresses the obligation of states to seek disarmament and the reduction of nuclear arsenals.

Maybe it is in the strategic interests of America to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but they shouldn’t try to cloak that as being an enforcement of international law when it is not. More broadly, the United States should realize that using the United Nations at the times where it seems plausible that it might serve their interests, while ignoring it otherwise, seriously diminishes the credibility of their supposed commitment to multilateralism and international law.

All that said, it is certainly possible that Iran is conducting nuclear research with an aim to developing nuclear weapons. If so, evidence of that breach needs to be presented in an open and verifiable way.