International Crisis Group

Dollar worship spurs on extremism | Jean-Marie Guéhenno (Crisis Group CEO and President)

Throughout the world, crisis grips national politics. In election after election, voter turnout hits historic lows. Politicians are universally reviled. Mainstream parties, desperate to remain relvant, are caught in a vice, forced to chose between pandering to extremism and the risk of being overwhlemed by populist, anti-establishment movements. 

Meanwhile, not since the end of World War II has money played such an important role in politics, trumping the power of ideas. 

In the US, for example, the sound of billions of dollars flowing into election-campaign coffers drowns out the voices of individual voters. In parts of the world where rule of law is weak, criminal networks and corruption displace democratic processes. The pursuit of the collective good looks sadly quaint. 

FULL COMMENTARY (via Bangkok Post)

Photo: Miran Rijavec/flickr

Fanatics, Charlatans, and Economists | Jean-Marie Guéhenno (Crisis Group President and CEO)

DAVOS – Throughout the world, it seems, crisis is gripping national politics. In election after election, voter turnout has hit historic lows. Politicians are universally reviled. Mainstream parties, desperate to remain relevant, are caught in a vice, forced to choose between pandering to extremism and the risk of being overwhelmed by populist, anti-establishment movements.

Meanwhile, not since the end of World War II has money played such an important role in politics, trumping the power of ideas. In the United States, for example, the sound of billions of dollars flowing into election-campaign coffers is drowning out the voices of individual voters. In parts of the world where the rule of law is weak, criminal networks and corruption displace democratic processes. In short, the pursuit of the collective good looks sadly quaint.

The trouble began at the end of the Cold War, when the collapse of a bankrupt communist ideology was complacently interpreted as the triumph of the market. As communism was discarded, so was the concept of the state as an agent around which our collective interests and ambitions could be organized.

FULL COMMENTARY (via Project Syndicate)

Photo: UN Photo/Pierre Albouy

After the Icy Handshake, What Comes Next? | Yanmei Xie 

No one can mistake it for a budding bromance. When Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe posed for a photo-op while shaking hands on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, both appeared as if they would rather be anywhere else. But for now questions of discomfort are unimportant; rather, the significance lies in the fact that they met and expressed willingness to manage differences for the sake of healthier bilateral ties, which in the past two years have repeatedly plunged to new lows.

It may, for the moment, be a triumph of protocol over substance, but make no mistake: This meeting was a vital first step in thawing Sino-Japanese relations and lessening the potential for spiraling distrust between the world’s second and third largest economies. The trick now is to build on it.

FULL COMMENTARY (Huffington Post)

Photo: Xinhua/Yao Dawei

Exxon Ends Oil Search With Total in South Sudan as War Rages | Ilya Gridneff 

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:US), the U.S.’s largest oil company, ended exploration plans with Total SA (FP) in South Sudan, Total and the government said, a sign of faltering investor confidence in the African nation as a civil war enters its eighth month.

Exxon in April didn’t renew an agreement with Total to negotiate for joint-exploration over parts of a 120,000 square-kilometer (46,300 square-mile) concession in Jonglei state, Total spokeswoman Anastasia Zhivulina said in an Aug. 12 e-mailed response to questions. Total is still bidding to explore in partnership with Kuwait’s state-owned Kuwait Foreign Exploration Petroleum Co. she said. Exxon spokesman Patrick McGinn said by e-mail that the company doesn’t comment on specific ventures.

“Losing the American oil company’s interest is definitely a blow for the future prospects of South Sudan’s oil industry,” Luke Patey, a researcher on the country’s industry at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said in an e-mailed response to questions. Exxon could re-enter South Sudan when security improves, he said.

FULL ARTICLE (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Photo: ENOUGH Project/flickr

Eritrea: Ending the Exodus?

Nairobi/Brussels  |   8 Aug 2014

Eritrea’s youth exodus has significantly reduced the young nation’s human capital. While this has had advantages for the government – allowing the departure of those most dissatisfied and most likely to press for political change – the growing social and political impact of mass migration at home and abroad demands concerted domestic and international action.

Authoritarian rule, social malaise and open-ended national service drive thousands of young people to flee Eritrea every month, exposing the shortcomings of a leadership that has lost the confidence of the next generation. The International Crisis Group’s latest briefing, Eritrea: Ending the Exodus?, shows that while the government turned this flight to its advantage for a time, the scale – and attendant criminality – of the exodus are now pressing problems.

The briefing’s major findings and recommendations are:

• As in the past, Eritreans are fleeing for political and economic reasons, including to sustain the communities they leave behind. But through their remittances, as well as a tax that many in the diaspora pay the state, they help prop up the very system they escaped.

• Regional and wider international policies to further isolate Eritrea’s uncompromising leadership are counterproductive. Together with the border conflict with Ethiopia, they provide the regime with justification to maintain Eritrea’s “state of exception”, including an unending national service, a closed political system and the continued deferment of constitutional rights, especially individual social and economic freedoms.

• The Eritrean government, with help from international partners, especially the EU and UN, should work toward gradual demobilisation and restructure the country’s economy to enhance job prospects for the young.

“The exodus is symptomatic of social malaise and growing disaffection with the regime” says Cedric Barnes, Horn of Africa Project Director. “The state’s demand for the sacrifice of individual ambition to the greater good of the Eritrean nation – resigning oneself to indefinite national service – causes more and more Eritreans to leave the country, even if that means risking their lives”.

“The impact of the exodus on final-destination countries demands a new approach to the current Eritrean government. In a Europe where immigration policies are increasingly in question, the Eritrean problem cannot be ignored”, says Comfort Ero, Africa Program Director. “For all sides, finding ways to end the exodus could replace continuing sterile confrontation with fertile ground for cooperation”.

FULL REPORT

Economic Unrest Unlikely to Alter Iran’s Political Calculus | IPS

By Jasmin Ramsey 

WASHINGTON, Oct 3 2012 (IPS) - As Iran faces economic unrest, discussion is intensifying over the impact sanctions are having on Iran’s economy.

But experts doubt that the current situation portends the end of the Iranian regime or Iranian capitulation to Israeli and Western-led demands that it change its nuclear stance.

“You have now a market that is under a lot of tension” which has “created a big economic crisis for the government”, said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, a professor of economics at Virginia Tech, during a meeting here Wednesday at the Wilson Center.

FULL ARTICLE (IPS)

Photo: Basheem/Flickr