McGill Journal of Political Studies 2013

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COVER

McGill Journal of Political Studies Winter 2013

Editors-In-Chief Jimmy Lou Nouran Sedaghat Editorial Board Martin Banach Anna Kanduth Diane Shnier Thy Anne Chu Quang Assistant Design Editor Talia Parfeniuk Contributors Jake Bleiberg Gregory Corosky Lishai Goldstein Diana Kontsevaia Matthew Langdon Christopher Liu Jackie Majnemer Nastasha Sartore

McGill Journal of Political Studies

Winter 2013

Acknowledgements McGill Political Science Students’ Association Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University McGill Department of Political Science

Table of Contents 1. The New Radical Right and Partisan Competition

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2. Virtue, Law and Authority (Or A Lack Thereof ):

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3. Patterns of Urbanization and Development in Brazil:

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4. Sex Work and Human Rights:

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5. Accommodation and Inclusivity:

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Diana Kontsevaia

Aristotle’s Theory of Political Rule Jake Bleiberg

Policy History and Prospects for Brazil’s Favelas Matthew Langdon

The Case for Decriminalization Lishai Goldstein

Rousseau’s Social Contract Christopher Liu

6. UAVs in Contemporary Perspective:

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7. Global Public Discourse in the Internet Age

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8. Canada and the Acceptance of American Nuclear Weapons

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The Ethical, Legal and Political Considerations of American Drone Strikes Nastasha Sartore

Gregory Corosky

Jacklyn Majnemer

1 The New Radical Right and Partisan Competition

Diana Kontsevaia

Keywords: Radical Rights, Europe, Political System

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n 2002, Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of the most prominent French radical right party called the Front National (FN), shocked the nation as he emerged second in the presidential race. Although Le Pen lost in the secondary presidential run-off to the Rally for the Republic conservative party candidate and the incumbent Jacques Chirac, this event was surprising. Le Pen’s victory over the main left candidate from the Socialist Party, Lionel Jospin raised many questions about the status of the radical right parties in France: who are their supporters, and more importantly, could they ever successfully run a government. The concerns and interest over the rising radical right in Europe are not coming solely from France. Netherlands, Austria and Belgium are among some of the other European democracies that have seen a recent rise in radical right candidacies for power.

With rising political interest, academics have also flooded the topic with accounts and theories about the radical right. This paper aims to analyze two prevalent theories to determine the important factors behind the rise of the radical right. Although radical right parties are often thought to be fueled by new sentiments caused by emerging social cleavages, their recent success can be attributed to the institutional constraints and the nature of partisan competition. The theory of Herbert Kitschelt emphasizing social cleavages is thus considered against Pippa Norris’s account of electoral and institutional limitations for minority parties, such as the radical right. Both theories combine the supply and demand sides of party formation and competition to explain the rise of the radical right. Kitschelt supports the idea that a new social cleavage and an ideological opening in the political space gave rise to the radical right, while Norris proposes that changes in electoral institutions along with party strategies affect how people vote. One of the main sources of tension between these two theories is that Kitschelt considers the new right to be an anomaly of the contemporary democratic system.1 Norris regards their success as a result of the electoral systems. This paper begins with an account of the radical right, followed by the analysis of Kitschelt’s and Norris’s theories.

Norris’s argument shows some shortcomings in Kitschelt’s understanding of the demand side as she clarifies the influence of electoral setting on party strategy and voters. Finally, the possible future success of radical right parties is compared with the past success of some minority left parties that have since risen to prominence. The comparison is used to illustrate what strategies helped dominate the partisan system in the twentieth century, and why the radical right has not been able to do the same so far despite the definite increase of influence in recent years. The radical right is thus imbedded in an entrenched electoral system, and although the demands and social cleavages of the population are to be examined, they are not the sole explanation for the dynamics that the radical right faces in competition for governmental power.

Rise of the New Radical Right The radical right party generally promotes an authoritarian, nationalist and anti-statist agenda, whose ideology is thought to be accompanied by anti-immigrant, nationalist rhetoric. Although often compared to the fascist parties of the 1940s, the majority of the contemporary “New Right” parties have very little connection with the historical elements of fascism and most radical right parties would like to keep it that way.2 Instead, the contemporary new right parties prefer to adhere to pro-capitalist, nativist and authoritarian rhetoric, and to stray away from totalitarian ambitions.3 In short, the radical right parties rely on a specific type of nationalism (although not all forms of nationalist parties are the radical right).4 Radical right parties defend the nativist, authoritarian, and market-based allocation of resources points of view. Despite this assessment, the identification of the new right parties has been met with some problems, as it is unclear where extreme conservative parties (like the Spanish Herri Batasuna,HB) or radical nationalistic and violent parties (like the Croatian Democratic Movement, HDZ) fall on the radical right spectrum.5 This has been one of the main problems in the existing literature, as classifications of radical right

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parties tend to differ from one author to the next.6 In recent decades, European countries have witnessed the rise of new kinds of radical right parties, whose success has tripled.7 The theories that consider the rise of the new radical right often employ the supply and demand explanation to analyze these parties. Essentially, the aim of the supply and demand division is to investigate whether it is the people and social cleavages that create the desire for a specific political party, or whether it is the parties that inform people’s opinions and attract their votes. Until recently, many of the theories that explained the rise of the radical right parties concentrated on the demand factors. Academics sought to explain which electorate is a good “breeding” ground for radical right parties.8 To do so, they examined the structure and the demands of European societies. Most recently, however, including the theories considered in this paper, academics have turned to include the supply side in their analysis of the radical right parties as well. These theories seek to explain how radical right parties form as well as to analyze the party strategies and structures.

In short, they examine the way the parties construct a competitive environment, gain a following, and affect the population.

Two Tales of the Radical Right One of the most prominent theories that integrates both the demand and supply analyses was created by Hebert Kitschelt in collaboration with Anthony McGann.

Kitschelt argues that the rise of the radical right parties depends on three key factors. The first factor integrates the demand side and posits that the rise of the radical right is due to an emerging social cleavage. He argues that in a post-industrial capitalist economy people will favor a free, market-based allocation of resources over political redistribution.9 As a consequence, the economic division between classes will become increasingly more important. Kitschelt considers blue-collar workers, petit bourgeois, and lower salaried workers among the people who are most likely to vote for a radical right party.10 The demand

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side thus necessitates some sort of a societal cleavage where the lower classes dislike the current economic system and, as a result, begin to favor a market-based, authoritarian and nationalist party. There is, however, no apparent social cleavage in Europe that has emerged in recent years that would empirically confirm this proposition.

The other two factors employ the supply side of partisan competition. The difference between the two can be conceptualized in Cas Mudde’s terms as a difference between the external and internal factors of the supply mechanism.11 The external factors are to be found outside of the party’s organizational structure. Kitschelt points to the influence of the ideological structure of the mainstream parties. He argues that the smaller the ideological gap between the centrist parties, the more room there is for a radical right ideology to rise in the periphery and take advantage of the people who are left out of the influence of mainstream political opinions.

The convergence between the left and right, therefore, allows for an alternative ideology to develop.12 The internal factor, and the third key factor in the rise of radical right parties, has to do with the internal strategy of the radical right party itself. In other words, it is how the party navigates the political environment, from responding to public demands to opportunities within the political system.

The party strategy needs to attract rightauthoritarian support.13 Indeed, others have contended that one of the reasons why the radical right has not had greater success is that it failed to attract all of its potential voters.14 The supply side for Kitschelt thus consists of two broad developments: the convergence of the centre-left and centre-right parties leaving a gap for a radical right party on the periphery, and the ability of the party to attract the appropriate right-authoritarian support. The emergence of an ideological gap, however, does not explain why there has been such a recent resurgence of the radical right, and more importantly, the radical right ideology.

While Kitschelt’s theory is a comprehensive way to integrate the demand and supply explanations of the radical right, there are several shortcomings that become evident

of the party depends in large part on “ Hence, thethesuccess party’s ability to manipulate the electoral system after an examination of Pippa Norris’s account of the political consolidation of the radical right. Although not disregarding Kitschelt’s theory, Norris places more importance on the supply side of the radical right parties. She gives the electoral systems within which the parties operate – the institutional environment – more importance than contemporary social sentiments.15 Party strategy, organization, and leadership thus take on fairly different roles when they are placed within the institutional constraints of the electoral systems. Moreover, Norris disagrees with Kitschelt’s conclusion that lower classes that are more likely to vote for a radical right party and that the demand for such a party comes from a social cleavage.

The empirical evidence she provides suggests that followers of the radical right parties come from a spectrum of economic backgrounds.16 This in turn suggests that there are other reasons for the rise of the radical right and that they can be found within the institutional environment. Supporting Norris’s account of the demand side is Mudde’s finding that the demand for radical right parties in Europe is not an anomaly.17 The “breeding grounds” for radical right opinions are present everywhere.

Furthermore, economic preferences in general have very little impact on radically right ideologies, as the radical right generally influences social and cultural spheres, rather than economic ones.18 Kitschelt’s account of the social cleavage and the economybased consideration of the population are complicated by the findings from both Norris and Mudde: both point out that radical sentiments exist within the population regardless of an existing or an emerging social cleavage and that in this case economic factors hardly effect voting. The demand side thus calls for a supporting explanation from the internal and external structures of the radical right.

Since radical sentiments exist everywhere in society, it is more important to understand how these sentiments are activated and used by the political parties themselves rather than to

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know the origins of these sentiments. To do so, Norris looks at how radical right parties craft their strategies and how they respond to the demands of the population. She pays specific attention to the institutional environment of the parties since the electoral system has the potential to affect party ideological strategy, and consequently, voter behavior.19 Kitschelt’s conception of the radical right success as a result of an ideological opening therefore does not take into account that the ideology that the party rhetoric preaches will change depending on the electoral system. According to Norris, if the radical right party is in a plural system, it is much less likely to gain seats in the government than if it operates within a proportional representation (PR) system. This is evident in the case of France, where the FN won no seats in 1981, but after the electoral system was changed to a proportional system in 1986, the party won 6.3% of the seats. After the changes were repealed in 1988, only one deputy from FN kept his seat, despite an unchanged proportion of the vote.20 Parties are not only affected by the electoral system in terms of acquiring seats, but also in influencing party strategy. In PR systems, radical right parties are much more likely to stick with their radical ideologies, whereas in majority systems they will adhere to a much more general rhetoric. The proportion of people voting for radical right parties is therefore not so important in analyzing their success. Instead, it is the kind of system they operate in that matters the most. Electoral rules will shape the radical right party strategy,21 because they already cater to a very specific group of people.

These people do not vote for them because of a social cleavage but because of certain persistent attitudes that are already present. In other words, people who are either nationalist, have an affinity for strict governance, or favor a market-based allocation of resources may all vote for a radical right party candidate.22 Admittedly, this is a very vague assessment, but this is the central problem of the radical right electorate: they do not form a coherent

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social class or have a consolidated identity.

Hence, the success of the party depends in large part on the party’s ability to manipulate the electoral system. If the same amount of people vote for the party in different types of electoral systems, the outcomes are likely to be best in the PR system. Therefore, in Norris’s strategic agency theory the external factors, such as the institutional environment, and the internal factors of the supply side of party competition, such as party leadership, continually influence each other.

Indeed, Kitschelt acknowledges the existence of theories based on institutional setting by arguing that the electoral system is an important factor in party formation and fragmentation, but that it does not sufficiently explain party competition.23 To Kitschelt, party competition depends on the ideological gaps left by other, notably mainstream, parties. Norris, in contrast, argues that the institutional system is crucial since it either allows or denies the radical right party to gain seats. Pointing to the 1986 elections, Kitschelt contends that the systematic change did not damage the radical right party itself,24 yet it did inhibit its success for the following years.25 In other words, although it did not affect the formation of the party itself, the electoral laws did affect the party’s success in entering government institutions, the most important step for a minority party to gain seats. The pressure to convert votes into seats, therefore, instructs party ideology, whose rhetoric in turn affects the perception of the voters. The fragmentary and uneven spread of radical right ideology across European countries is thus due to different party strategies and electoral systems, rather than social cleavages and specific cultural change.

Since the success or failure of radical right parties depends in part on the institutional structure, it may be worth briefly investigating two factors that allowed some leftist parties to gain majority in the past: (1) the importance of initial electoral success for further consolidation of the electoral base, and (2) the moderation of the ideological message.

Norris’s account of the radical right mirrors these two mechanisms, though radical right parties have generally failed to use either.

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Early twentieth century leftist parties serve as an example for how both electoral success and ideological moderation can help attain institutional power. First, the importance of initial electoral success is illustrated in the post-war success of the Christian democratic parties. Stathis Kalyvas shows in his study of Christian democracies that electoral success leads to party consolidation, and thereafter helps it gain legitimacy and credibility.26 Although the radical right has experienced some electoral success, especially in the case of the FN in France and Vlaams Belang in Belgium, it has been unable to maintain it.

That is due in part to the second point of moderation of the ideological message. While the lack of moderation can be attributed to the radical right being a “one-issue” party, as some critics believe, the one-issue premise does not have any empirical basis. If this was true, a rise in something like national immigration should have a direct effect on the success of radical right parties since more people would choose to vote for them, however this conclusion lacks empirical support.27 The ideological message of the radical right, however, does serve a larger purpose that in some sense prohibits the party from straying too far from its ideology.

The moderation has not occurred in the case of the radical right primarily because their electoral success closely depends on a very specific ideology. Considering that the party strategy depends on the electoral system, and that the party is more likely to win seats in a PR system where it does not have to modify its message, the refusal to moderate the message is not surprising. The experience of other leftist parties such as the social and Christian democratic parties suggests that moderation is inevitable. Moderation has to occur after the party’s initial political breakthrough if the party wants to secure more votes. In fact, this is the stage at which the party must not only keep all of its constituents, who are often radical, but it also moderate their messages to attract and maintain a broader electoral base.

Comparing the case of radical right parties and their refusal to moderate their messages to the leftist parties of the past points to the choices the radical right may face in the future. They may choose not to moderate

their message, which may have interesting consequences like the party ideology shaping people’s opinions. Indeed radical right parties have already changed certain views. In places like Austria, the small success that the radical right party enjoyed has already had some effects on the population through more restrictive immigration laws in recent years.28 Nevertheless, the radical right has to seriously consider moderating their message in order to sustain their success within the electoral system.

Conclusion The rise of radical right parties can therefore be examined from both the demand and the supply side. The arguments about why there are sentiments that create the need for a radical right party often center around emerging social cleavages. However, this does not comply with empirical evidence on two grounds. First, there is no one group that is affiliated with radical right parties, as voters come from divergent social and economic backgrounds. What the demand side largely shares are strong sentiments of nationalism, affinity for market-based resource allocation, and strict enforcement of rules, akin to authoritarianism. The demand for a radical right is therefore neither an exceptional phenomenon nor a normal pathology, but rather a pathological normalcy.29 The supply side also requires much attention in this matter.

The supply is affected by both external factors, such as institutional constrains and electoral laws, especially when it is trying to break onto the political scene. The internal factors such as the party strategy, organization, and leadership play a large role in breakthrough but also in the persistence of the party on the political field. However, contrary to what Kitschelt proposed, Norris argues that the relationship between the internal and external supply sides is much more interactive. While Kitschelt argues that the ideology of the radical right is determined by existing ideological gaps between the centrist mainstream ideas, Norris suggests that the ideology depends on electoral systems. Party competition is not so much affected by new gaps in ideological

space; rather the ideologies exist until they get electoral approval and consolidate a party.

Majority systems are likely to see more general and populist appeals from the radical right parties, whereas the PR systems will keep their niche-oriented radical ideology. Therefore, the more striking problem for radical right parties is how to attract a broader electoral base, given that they do not target a specific social group and that the majority of their followers adhere to their radical ideology.

NOTES

1 Cas Mudde, “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy,” West European Politics 33, no. 6 (2010), 1172.

2 Herbert Kitschelt and Anthony J. McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996), 277.

3 Ibid., 277.

4 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 30-1.

5 Ibid., 51-4.

6 Ibid., 294.

7 Pippa Norris, Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 9.

8 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 230.

9 Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis, 1.

10 Ibid., 10.

11 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 233.

12 Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis, 275.

13 Ibid., 18-9.

14 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 230.

15 Norris, Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, 255-7 16 Ibid., 12.

17 Mudde, “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy,” 1172.

18 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 136-7.

19 Mudde, “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy, ” 211.

20 Norris, Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, 107.

21 Ibid., 262.

22 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 298.

23 Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in

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Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis, 58.

24 Ibid., 60.

25 Norris, Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, 125.

26 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 109.

27 Kitschelt and McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis, 61.

28 Norris, Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market,267.

29 29 Mudde, “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy,” 1181.

REFERENCES

Kalyvas, Stathis N. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe [in English]. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996.

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Kitschelt, Herbert, and Anthony J. McGann. The Radical Right in Western Europe : A Comparative Analysis [in English]. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996.

Mudde, Cas. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe [in English]. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

———. “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy.” In West European Politics 33, no. 6 (2010/11/01 2010): 1167-86.

Norris, Pippa. Radical Right : Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market [in English]. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

2 Virtue, Law and Authority (Or A Lack Thereof): Aristotle’s Theory of Political Rule Jake Bleiberg

Keywords: Political Theory, Aristotle, Virtue, Law, Authority

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he idea of political and legal authority is one that has been of paramount importance to modern Western political thought, which undoubtedly owes a great debt to Aristotle. However, not only is the idea of political authority alien to Aristotle’s work, it is one that utterly contradicts the nature of his political and ethical project. To explain how and why this is the case, I will in this essay explore phronēsis (that capacity that Aristotle believes allows one to act ethically), examine how this capacity links up to politics, and finally consider how political and legal rule works according to Aristotle. In these considerations I will be at pains to refute certain arguments offered by Andrés Rosler about why authority is compatible with Aristotle’s idea of rule. If I am successful in doing this, it will become clear that, surprisingly, Aristotle’s good citizen actually never follows the law and only ever acts according to his1 own best judgment. It seems prudent to start in this project is with defining authority.

I follow Hannah Arendt in characterizing authority as a motivation for taking action that is distinct from both forces and persuasion.

On this point, her essay “What is Authority?” is worth quoting at length: Since authority always demands obedience, it is commonly mistaken for some form of power or violence. Yet authority precludes the use of external means of coercion; where force is used, authority itself has failed.

Authority on the other hand, is incompatible with persuasion, which presupposes equality and works through a process of argument.

Where arguments are used, authority is left in abeyance. Against the egalitarian order of persuasion stands the authoritarian order, which is always hierarchical. If authority is to be defined at all, then, it must be in contradistinction to both coercion by force and persuasion through arguments.2

The modern school of legal positivism has embraced this idea of authority most fervently.

Therefore an example from the great theorist of positivism, Joseph Raz, seems appropriate to further elucidate this idea. Raz tells us that the paradigmatic case of authority is that of a commander giving an order to his or her subordinate. This is an example of authority,

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so far as the subordinate views the order as a reason to do what was ordered, regardless of the balance of his or her own reason.3 To put it another way, authority is when the reason for following a command is derived not from the merits (or demerits) of taking the action commanded, but from the source of the command.

From this, it is possible to say that submitting to authority entails setting aside one’s own deliberations about what constitutes the right thing to do, and deferring to the deliberations of someone else. The positivist tradition claims that law, as political rule, should be treated as having just this sort of authority. However, such an idea is not only alien to Aristotle’s conception of law and politics, it is in direct contradiction to it.

This incompatibility with authority in Aristotle’s political thinking stems from the teleological perfectionist nature of Aristotle’s political project. It is therefore necessary to make a general explanation of what his project is. By way of forecasting where I think this explanation takes us, it is important to say that Aristotle says there is a moral imperative to develop and use phronēsis or practical judgment. It will become clear that this imperative is exclusive to the type of deferral of reasoning that characterizes legal and political authority.

Aristotle argues that the “just as with … any artisan, and generally with those to whom some work or action belongs, the good and the doing it well seem to be in the work, so it too would seem to be the case with a human being.” (NE 1079b 25-29)4 To put this simply, one ought to do the work that is in accord with one’s nature in the best possible way. Humans, by nature, are unique in having articulate speech and this gives us the unique capacity to reason. Thus, Aristotle can say that, “the work of a human being is a beingat-work of the soul in accordance to reason.”

(NE 1098a 3-5) Humans ought, therefore, to develop their reason to its fullest. Among the capacities of the part of the soul that has reason, phronēsis takes up an important role. There is, thus, an imperative to develop phronēsis. But what is this capacity that we ought to develop?

Phronēsis, most broadly defined, is the active condition by which, when coupled with the other virtues, someone can discern the right means through which to achieve the right ends in a particular situation. (NE 1144a 6-9) The cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, and greatness of soul, “makes the ends at which one sets one’s sights right and practical judgment makes the things related to it right.” (NE 1144a 7-9) So, phronēsis is like astuteness, in that it “concerns the things about which one might be at an impasse and might deliberate.” (NE 1143a 6-15) It is also like cleverness in that it reasons about the means to an end. It differs from both, however, in that it “imposes obligation, since the ends that belongs to it is what one ought or ought not to do.” (NE 1143a 6-15) In this way phronēsis requires action. Because of this, phronēsis “needs to discern the particulars as well [as what is universal], since it has to do with action, and action is concerned with particulars.” (NE 1141b14-26) Phronēsis is what enables one to take the right action at the right time, to act rightly.

Due to its nature, practical judgments can never be deduced from abstract rules or principles since they require weighing the particulars of a circumstance in a way that will allow one to balance conflicting principles.

(NE 1142a, 20-24) This should make it clear that practical judgment is a capacity necessary for ethical action, and thus, vitally important to politics. Before delving into the political functions of phronēsis, however, it is important to note a certain epistemic constraint that Aristotle says regulates its development.

To reiterate, because phronēsis has to do with action, the ability to do it comes from universal knowledge (theory), but also, and more so, from experience, since experience reveals the particulars important to action.

(NE 1141b14-26) “It is length of time that produces experience,” and thus, the young typically lack phronēsis. (NE 1142a, 16-18) What this amounts to, minimally, is a claim that not every important type of knowledge can be learnt through language. Some knowledge can only be gained by doing. This point will be important later in considering how the law affects the young.

The first step in understanding how phronēsis operates in politics is to acknowledge the classically Aristotelian claim that “a human is an animal meant for a city.” (P 1253a 11) Phronēsis is thus, by nature, a faculty that allows one to take ethical action in the context of living with other people. The social context in which the Aristotelian man exists is one of the important particulars that must be considered in practical judgment. From this, it should be clear how we are to understand Aristotle’s claim that “it is impossible to seek one’s own wellbeing without … the political art.

(NE 1142a 9-19) Good action, for Aristotle, is necessarily mindful of the good of others. It makes good sense then, that Aristotle claims that ‘phronēsis in its most architectonic sense is the act of law giving.’ (NE 1141b 26-27) Just as private practical judgment determines how to act in view of good ends in one’s own particular circumstance, so lawgiving determines how a city can act towards good ends based on its particularities.

It will be important for the argument presented later to note here that Aristotle says that phronēsis is also engaged in the management of a household. (NE 1141b 32) Practical judgment is truly engaged in household management, but it is important to see that it is quantitatively lesser and qualitatively inferior to the judgment engaged in politics. On the quantitative point, Aristotle tells us that “rule is always better when those ruled are better,” (P 1254a 25) and that political rule is between those who are free and equal.

(P 1277b 8-9) Aristotle’s household rule, however, is characterized by natural hierarchy such as that between a master and a slave, a parent and child, and – to a lesser extent – a husband and a wife. (P 1252b 10-27) It will be shown in great detail later that phronesis is inextricably tied to rule, but it is already plausible to suggest a significant identity between them. Thus, it is fair to say that because household rule is inferior to political rule, it engages phronēsis less.

Even more important, however, is the qualitative difference between practical judgment in politics and practical judgment in the household. Aristotle tells us that a person who is naturally without a city, but

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ruling and “ If political rule has authority, then a citizen being ruled is paradoxical not necessarily without a household, is either less than human or god-like. (P 1253a 5-29) The latter has transcended the city and is not important for our considerations here.

The former on the other hand, is reduced to something like a beast because they cannot associate, deliberate, and reason, with their peers. (P 1253a 1-19) They can still use phronēsis in ruling their inferiors, but using it in exclusively this way not only fails to fulfill them as humans, it may actually debase them to beast like Homer’s Cyclopes. (P 1252b 20-28) Clearly it is only the use of phronēsis politically that can fulfill the human telos.

In the Ethics, lawmaking, or politics in the narrow sense, is defined as the deliberative and judicial process of practical judgment.

(1141b 32-34) Then, in the Politics, Aristotle states, “that one who has a right to share in deliberative and judicial rule is for that reason a citizen.” (1275b 19-20) Thus, a citizen is by definition one who rules, and likewise, ruling is – by definition – an act of phronēsis.

However, with regard to the virtue of a citizen, we are also told, “an admirable citizen is held to [have] the ability to do a beautiful job of both ruling and being ruled.” (P 1277a 26-27) As we have already seen, to rule is to engage in phronēsis. However, Aristotle’s claim is actually much stronger: “practical judgment is the only virtue peculiar to a ruler … [and further] it is not practical judgment that is the virtue of one who is ruled.” (P 1277b 25-29) To reiterate this point more clearly, only one who rules uses phronēsis – or at least the sort that can fulfill the human telos. One that is ruled does not use it.

A citizen is one who rules and is ruled (P 1277a 26-27). This already seems somewhat paradoxical, but the problem runs even deeper. We have already seen that there is a moral imperative to develop and use practical judgment, and this is done fully only by political phronēsis. Thus, because being ruled politically excludes this use of phronēsis, being ruled is amoral. This final statement is true, but only in a qualified way. Only a certain

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conception of rule requires the repression of phronēsis. So what is this idea of rule and is it Aristotle’s?

The reading of Aristotle’s idea of rule that makes it preclude the use of phronēsis is one that perfectly parallels the idea of obeying authority that was presented at the start of this paper. Arendt and Raz tell us that obeying authority is suspending one’s judgment about an issue and simply obeying a command.

Thus, it should be clear that the type of rule that would preclude the use of phronesis is authoritative rule. This suggests two strong reasons that authority is not, and cannot be, what characterizes political rule for Aristotle.

First, if political rule has authority, then a citizen ruling and being ruled is paradoxical.

Second, obeying law, as an authority, precludes the development of phronēsis, and its development, along with the other virtues, is the end at which Aristotle’s politics is aimed – the human telos.

The idea of political and legal authority, therefore, is not only absent from Aristotle’s political theory, it is utterly incompatible with his conception of rule. Authority simply cannot be part of Aristotle’s politics.

With this settled, the task that remains is to explain just how law and political rule work in Aristotle. Exploring this topic will make plain that Aristotle’s conception of rule works strictly through force and persuasion. Each of these is aimed at affecting citizens with different degrees of virtue. Since these are the two reasons to act that Arendt presents in the trichotomy she uses to define authority, this will lend further credence to the idea that political authority is something alien to Aristotle. Before doing this, however, there are some important challenges to my argument against authority in Aristotle that ought to be considered.

Andrés Rosler in Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle, makes, as the title might suggest, a case for reading Aristotle as being familiar with the idea of authority and it being an integral part of his politics. On this

second point, he offers a reading of Aristotle that is utterly contrary to mine, and one that I am obliged to refute. Because his work is quite thoroughgoing and directly opposed to mine, and because there is otherwise a dearth of literature on authority in Aristotle, I will treat Rosler as the major challenger whom I must overcome to make a persuasive argument.

Given the scope of his project this seems a daunting task. However, the structure of Rosler’s book makes my job more manageable.

Rosler is aware of something like my argument that authority is simply incompatible with Aristotle’s view of politics. Because he argues that authority is a central part of Aristotle, he endeavors to refute this contrary view. While this refutation is only part of his argument, he presents it as something that he must do in order to make the positive part of his case. Since Rosler seems convinced that he is at pains to overcome something like my stance, I feel it is sufficient to address this part of his work.

He takes on my view in two ways. Firstly, he directly engages with the interpretive argument that the need to develop phronēsis is incompatible with rule in Aristotle, if rule is authoritative. After claiming to have done this, he changes his approach and offers two of powerful arguments, borrowed respectively from Joseph Raz and John Locke, as to why political authority is actually compatible with personal ethical reasoning. The need for this second approach is telling of the success of his first approach. I will do my best to show why he fails in the first and that what he does in the second approach is not relevant for interpreting Aristotle. Because the latter task is easier, let us begin there.

Very briefly, Raz argues that law provides a second-order reason to take a certain action that does not conflict with people’s firstorder reasoning about what action to take.5 Locke makes the social contract argument by analogy. He says that law has authority, even when wrong, in the same way an umpire has authority in calling a game because the players have agreed to abide by his or her calls. If they do not agree to do so, that game cannot be played.6 These are very powerful arguments, and ones that I cannot here

address.7 However, in that my task is primarily an interpretation of Aristotle, I do not need to address them. This is because they are not arguments about how to read Aristotle; rather, they are arguments with Aristotle. Nothing like either Locke’s or Raz’s ideas is present in Aristotle’s thought. They might show that – if, as I think, Aristotle’s theory of rule cannot abide authority – Aristotle is wrong, but they certainly do not get us any closer to answering the question of what Aristotle thinks of authority.

With this in mind, let us return to Rosler’s interpretive challenge to the idea that authority cannot be a part of Aristotle’s concept of politics. After all, this reading is mine, and if it falls so does this paper. Rosler briefly, but accurately, articulates a skeletal version of the argument that I have already made against the idea of political authority in Aristotle. He does so with a set of five propositions. The first of these is “there is a moral imperative to use one’s intellectual capacities,” and the third is “there is a moral imperative to use practical wisdom.”8 Rosler says that the moral imperative to “use one’s intellectual capacities,” including practical wisdom, “may not refer to the use of intellectual abilities but to the exercise of political authority.”9 From this proposition, Rosler says that to be good, one “should always be ruling and never be ruled,” in the sense that one must always hold office to be good.10 I think that it is true that Aristotle believes the good man must always be ruling, but not in the sense of holding office. Rosler thinks that he can undercut the idea that the good man must always be ruling by noting that “Aristotle does not claim that political rule [in the sense of office holding] is a necessary precondition for happiness,” which is the mark of virtue.11 If my argument says that the good man must hold office, but Aristotle says holding office is not a condition of happiness, then I must be mistaken in my claim about the need to rule from office. So far, so good, Rosler.

Further, Rosler explains that a claim like mine is absurd because, by his view, to say that “virtue is incompatible with political obedience … would be claiming that an agent switches on and off the virtues as

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he is or is not in office.”12 To say people do this is implausible in its own right, but it is especially problematic because “according to Aristotle, practical wisdom is a virtue, a hexis, a fixed state that is only acquired as the result of laborious training over many years and cannot be forgotten.”13 Further, “switching off ” one’s virtue cannot be the virtuous thing to do: reductio ad absurdum. For these reasons Rosler concludes that authority must be compatible with Aristotle’s conception of rule and politics.

These initially seem like successful challenges to my argument, however, they actually rely on question begging. Rosler claims that the moral imperative to develop one’s practical judgment, based on what Aristotle says in the Politics about the phronēsis being an exclusive virtue of rulers, amounts to a moral imperative to hold office.

He argues from that, that the incompatibility of political authority and developing practical judgment must be false, because it leads to absurdities and contradicts what Aristotle says are the conditions of happiness. However, the possibility of structuring the argument this way rests on a tacit premise that political rule is the rule of authority. This is question begging in the following way: Ruling in the sense of holding political office is required to exercise phronēsis only if it is impossible to exercise phronēsis outside of office. If Aristotle’s political rule is authoritative, this is the case.

But if rule is based on something other than authority, force or persuasion for instance, it is possible for one to not hold office and still engage in phronēsis. Thus, the premise that ruling requires holding political office is only valid if ruling and engaging in phronēsis outside office is impossible, and this latter point is only true if rule is authoritative. In this way, Rosler assumes the premise – rule is based on authority – into the arguments he tries to use to show that rule is not incompatible with authority. This is a logically unsound move and without the question begging assumption, both of his arguments fall flat.

Before moving on from Rosler, there is one more minor challenge he raises. Rosler protests that authoritative political rule does not require forgoing phronēsis, since

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it is used in many things outside of politics.

There is something right in this. Namely, we have already seen that phronēsis is used in household management, and it seems plausible that there are other activities that engage it too. However, there are two points in which Rosler is quite wrong. First, we know already that the realm of politics is quite expansive for Aristotle. Many ethical decisions that in the modern nation-state are not called political, by Aristotle’s conception are. Here I think Rosler is equivocating. But what of the markedly apolitical household management?

Again, there are already grounds to dismiss this claim. It was shown earlier that the only sort of practical judgment sufficient to fulfill the human telos is the political sort. Thus, Rosler’s defense that deferring our political judgment is not problematic because we judge elsewhere is incorrect.

Showing Rosler to have failed here actually allows me to refine my argument a bit and make more sense of the idea that Aristotle’s citizen is both ruled and ruling. We cannot say for sure what Aristotle’s theory of rule is just yet, but we can be certain that being ruled by authority is exclusive to phronēsis. Thus, Aristotle’s idea of rule is not one of authority.

However, we still have the puzzle created by the fact that Aristotle says a citizen is both ruling and ruled, but phronēsis is not the virtue of the ruled.

Something else Aristotle says may clarify this: “the same virtue belongs to a good ruler and a good man, and one who is ruled is also a citizen, the same virtue could not belong to a citizen and a man simply [a good man], though it could for a certain kind of citizen.”

(P 1277a 21-25). So, a certain kind of citizen, while being ruled, can also have full human virtue, which includes phronēsis. Thus, while being ruled by authority precludes phronēsis, not all types of rule do. Further, we can say that a certain type of citizen, while at once ruled, has full phronēsis, which entails doing all of their own ethical reasoning. Such a citizen, as a phronimos, acts always based on his own practical judgment.

In a decent city (perhaps distinct from the ‘city according to prayer’) with decent laws, this type of citizen may often act in

means choosing something because “Obeying authority of who tells you to choose it, not for its own sake accord with the prescriptions of the law, but they never follow the law. This may sound like an overly fine distinction, but consider what Aristotle says about the truly good and beautiful action: “those activities are chosen for their own sake from which nothing is sought beyond the being-at-work; and actions in accord with virtue seem to be of this sort since performing actions that are beautiful and serious is something chosen for its own sake.” (NE 1176b 5-8) Let this finally settle it; obeying authority means choosing something because of who tells you to choose it, not for its own sake.

Thus, an act of obedience can never be virtuous or aim at the beautiful and good. Aristotle’s whole project is about bringing people to virtue, and as such, must exclude authority.

With that settled, the rest of this paper will be devoted to discovering who this certain kind of citizen is and how and why he can be ruled and act beautifully.

Just a moment’s consideration will make it clear who this certain kind of citizen is. We already know that he has full human virtue, so he is obviously the virtuous man. The fact that the citizen who can be ruled, in a way compatible with using phronēsis, is the virtuous man provides a hint of how this is the case. This special citizen is ruled in a good polity by listening to the arguments of other citizens (NE 1179b 6-10) and acting in accord to good law, although because such actions are good, not because they are law. Likewise, he helps to make these laws by deliberating with his fellow citizens (NE 1132a 39 – 1132b 10), and is thus ruling in the polity. Additionally, all this is done in accord with that citizen ruling his “being-at-work of the soul in accordance with reason.” (NE 1098a) Thus the puzzle is solved; the citizen who is also good simply can be ruled and rule in accord with full virtue because when rule is good there is, for him, a perfect identity between ruling and being ruled. He is ruled by listening to argument and rules by arguing.

We can now say that Aristotle’s ideal citizen

”

and man, the character his politics aim to transform everyone into, is one always acts according to his own best judgment and never follows laws against that judgment; he is the philosophical-anarchist.

So our virtuous citizen and philosophicalanarchist rules and is ruled by persuasion.

However, Aristotle says that law, “while being speech that comes from certain thoughtfulness and intelligence,” also, “has compulsory power.” (P 1269a 17-19) Given what we have just learned about Aristotle’s virtuous citizen, this seem odd. However, the reason for this force is actually quite plain. In most cities many inhabitants will not even be decent, let alone fully virtuous, and even in Aristotle’s ‘city according to prayer’ children are not born with virtue. Investigating briefly how people become virtuous will explain why force also characterizes law.

Discourses may be sufficient to inspire virtue in those who already “love what is truly beautiful … but they are unable to encourage most people towards what is beautiful and good.” (NE 1179b 8-12) In Aristotle’s moral typology there are three sorts of people who are not virtuous: the young, the unrestrained, and the vicious. Let us consider them in order.

The young and the unrestrained both “live by feelings [as opposed to reason], [and] pursue the pleasures they are comfortable with.” (NE 1179b 13) They do this for similar reasons. Living according to reason and virtue requires first being habituated “with a view to enjoying and hating in a beautiful way.”

(NE 1179b 5-8) The young lack this, because as noted early in this paper, the experience needed to engage in practical reason, and the other virtues, takes time to build up. The unrestrained person, who is orientated towards the good, fails to do it because of a weakness of character that causes them to succumb to their more base passions. (NE 1118a 1- 119a 22) They too do not act rightly because they have of been not habituated to virtue, but in this case, because of failings in their moral education, not the passage of insufficient time.

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(NE 1179b 29- 1180a 1) Again, people such as these live by their emotions, and “in general, feeling seems to yield not to reasoned speech but to force.” (NE 1179b 29-30) Thus, rule and law “imposes punishment and penalties on those who are disobedient or lacking natural capacity,” so as to habituate them to virtue. (NE 1180a 5-10) This is effective because the young or “corrupt person who strives for pleasure is disciplined by pain like a beast of burden.” (NE 1180a 1012) With regard to the truly and persistently vicious person, Aristotle has little to say. This is because, for “those who are incurable,” there is no hope. (NE 1180a 9-11) They will inevitably face ostracism from the city, or worse. (NE 1180a 9-11) So there we have it, for the unrestrained and young, rule is by force. For the virtuous, rule is by persuasion. These ways of ruling, the reader will remember, are the two that that Hannah Arendt presented as mutually exclusive with authority in the trichotomy she uses to define the concept. Seeing that Aristotle’s conception of rule works through force and persuasion lends further support to the already robustly demonstrated idea that rule for Aristotle is not through authority. Before concluding, however, there are three more things worth considering about my characterization of Aristotle’s ideal citizen as a philosophical anarchist The first is that Aristotle says that law, if frequently changed, loses its power to rule and “one will not be benefitted as much by the changes [when small] as harmed by being habituated to disobey the rulers.”

(1269a 14-19) The virtuous thus should be cautious in disregarding or changing laws because doing so makes it harder to turn the young and unrestrained towards virtue. The strength of law, for orientating such people towards virtue, comes only “from habit, and this does not come about except from length of time.” (1269a 21-25) Thus, changing law frequently, or for merely petty reasons, makes it more difficult to habituate people to virtue.

This concern, however, is simply one of the particulars that the virtuous citizen takes into account in their judgment about what is best to do. Where the law is so bad that the harm

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it does outweighs this concern, they will still disobey or change it.

Second, towards the end of the Politics, at 1324b 29-32, Aristotle offers a confusing and ambiguous line, in which he analogizes the lawgiver with the helmsman or doctor.

Joe Sachs translates it as; “we certainly do not see this in other types of knowledge; for it is not the job of a doctor or helmsman [and by analogy lawgiver] to use force as well as persuasion on his patients or crewman.”

However, the Greek in this line is ambiguous, such that it can also be translated as saying that the helmsman, doctor, or ruler does not use force or persuasion.14 Rosler chooses to read the line this way in that it lends to his view of Aristotle’s rule working by authority. Clearly, I prefer the Sach’s translation. However, the line is so unclear that it must be interpreted based on one’s overall reading of Aristotle, rather than lending to that interpretation.

A further difficulty arises from this line, because it implies that a lawgiver would not rule by force, but this too can be overcome.

First, in the Nicomechean Ethics at 1269a 1719 Aristotle very clearly says law has force.

The case in which law and rule do not work by force is among virtuous equal citizens. In that case it works by persuasion. A helmsman and other sailors can be understood to share in the virtue of sailing with at least approximate equality. Likewise, while a doctor exceeds a patient in knowledge of health, they are equals in their ability to be healthy; doctors, after all, fall ill too. Thus, both of these cases can be read as paralleling the case of rule among virtuous citizens. Thus, rule is done by persuasion but the use of force on the unequal is not disallowed.

Finally, I have said that Aristotle’s best citizen is a philosophical anarchist. I am not the first to describe Aristotle’s political thought as a sort of anarchy. David Keyt in Aristotle and Anarchism also says Aristotle’s work is characterized by anarchy. I think his work is at best uncontroversial and at worst deeply misguiding. As such, while I cannot consider what he says in detail, I do wish to create a certain distance between his view and mine. Keyt says “Aristotle does not envisage the use of force or the threat of force within

his best polis.”15 He argues that this is the case because the anarchist anti-coercion principle can be derived from statements made at various places in Aristotle’s corpus. To do this he essentially treats the entire body of Aristotle’s writing as a grab bag for propositions. This to me seems questionable as a methodology. He then vindicates this idea by noting that the polis made of only citizens with full human virtue will not use force against its citizens.

I think this is roughly correct, but totally uninteresting. As James Madison puts it in The Federalist Papers, ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary.”16 Thus, it does seem to be that case that the city of prayers is not characterized by the use of force against adult citizens, but I doubt that this is because Aristotle held a strong anarchist principle of anti-coercion.

Hopefully this clarifies the differences between Keyt’s understanding of Aristotelian anarchy and mine. By my view, Aristotle’s conception of rule and law cannot work by authority, because authority, by its very nature, requires suspending the use of one’s own reason. Thus, authority is incompatible with the use and development of phronēsis. Not developing phronēsis is not only contrary to Aristotle’s political goal of developing a virtuous polity, it is contrary to the very telos he ascribes to humanity. Rather, Aristotle’s rule works by persuasion and force because the latter habituates people to the possibility of virtue and the former helps them discover what means are required for virtuous ends.

For Aristotle, to act rightly, someone needs to know why good law is good, and in knowing this, they no longer need the law at all.

NOTES

1 While Aristotle does not exclude women from citizenship, in his work the character of the virtuous citizen and virtuous person is always male. In this I think he is horribly wrong, but because this paper is about interpreting Aristotle I will speak of citizen as men. Good interpretation tries to display a thinker, as they are, sexism and all.

2 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought. (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 92–93.

3 Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 38.

4 All citations of Aristotle in this paper will be to editions of the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics cited here. I will use in text citation that refer to the standard marginalia. In these the Politics will be abbreviated as P and the Ethics as NE. Aristotle and Joe Sachs, Nicomachean Ethics (Newbury, MA: Focus Pub./R. Pullins, 2002); Aristotle and Joe Sachs, Aristotle Politics : Translation, Introduction, and Glossary (Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub., 2012).

5 Andrés Rosler, Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 95–97.

6 Ibid., 98.

7 It is worth noting that the disagreement between Locke and Aristotle on this point runs much deeper than their respective theories of rule. It is an ontological question of whether individuals are prior to community, or if – as Aristotle may suggest – the city is prior to the individual. If Aristotle is gets this right Locke’s contract theory seems less persuasive.

8 Ibid., 94.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Both Carnes Lord and C.D.C Reeves translate it this way. Aristotle and Carnes Lord, The Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Aristotle and C. D. C Reeve, Politics (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub., 1998).

15 David Keyt, “Aristotle and Anarchism,” Reason Papers: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies 18 (1993): 145.

16 Alexander Hamilton et al., The Federalist.

(Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 252, http://search. ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope =site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=112598.

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REFERENCES

Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought. London: Faber and Faber, 1961.

Aristotle, and David Keyt. Politics. Books V and VI. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. http://search. ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=s ite&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=12367.

Aristotle, and Carnes Lord. The Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Aristotle, and C. D. C Reeve. Politics. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub., 1998.

Aristotle, and Joe Sachs. Aristotle Politics : Translation, introduction, and glossary.

Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub., 2012.

———. Nicomachean Ethics. Newbury, MA: Focus Pub./R. Pullins, 2002.

Burns, Tony. Aristotle and Natural Law. London; New York: Continuum International Pub., 2011.

Corbett, Ross. “The Question of Natural Law in Aristotle.” History of Political Thought 30, no. 2 (2009): 229–250.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, John Jay, and Terence Ball. The Federalist. Cambridge,

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U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?d irect=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk& AN=112598.

Johnson, Curtis. “The Hobbesian Conception of Sovereignty and Aristotle’s Politics.” Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1985): 327–348.

Keyt, David. “Aristotle and Anarchism.” Reason Papers: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies 18 (1993): 133–152.

Miller, Fred D. Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1995.

Miller, Fred D. “Aristotle’s Philosophy of Law.” In A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Scholastics, edited by Fred D. Miller, 79–110. Springer Netherlands, 2007. http://www.springerlink.com/content/ w06133085266vk58/abstract/.

Raz, Joseph. Practical Reason and Norms. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Rosler, Andrés. Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

3 Patterns of Urbanization and Development in Brazil:

Policy History and Prospects for Brazil’s Favelas

Matthew Langdon

Keywords: Urbanization, Brazil, Favelas, Development Studies

O

ver the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the human population has undergone a dramatic and unprecedented demographic transformation.

In 2008, the percentage of the world’s population living in urban areas surpassed the halfway-mark for the first time.1 Though this phenomenon is startling in its own right, consider for comparison that in the same year that the global urban population was first measured above the 50 percent threshold (50.5 percent in 2008), the commensurate figure as applicable to Brazil was estimated at 83.7 percent.2 In fact, Brazil’s urban population first exceeded the total number of its rural residents almost half a century earlier.3 Yet, the process of Brazil’s urbanization has not unfolded seamlessly. The most recent census data available indicates that 6 percent of Brazilians (11.4 million) live in “subnormal agglomerates”—properties existing outside the regular system of land titles and regulations.4 In this and many other respects, Brazilian society and policymakers have, for decades, been contending with the complex issues surrounding rapid urbanization that developing countries in the rest of the world are now only beginning to confront. That Brazil’s population urbanized comparatively early, and that this demographic shift coincided with the country’s industrialization are circumstances that have had unique implications for Brazil’s development—many of which remain largely unresolved. Yet, population data and statistics only reveal so much about the history of Brazil’s urbanization and the emergence of the favelas, which have attracted much attention since the 1960s (not without a considerable degree of misunderstanding, one might add).5 Because favela communities have typically existed in relative isolation from federal, regional, and even municipal structures of governance, they have frequently been the focus of various government initiatives whose objectives have ranged from the provision of basic services for residents to their violent eviction. These initiatives have often been met with resistance from favela residents and, in many cases, successful policies for extending state control into favela communities have remained elusive. This paper will consider

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the best policy approach for addressing the primary issues that plague Brazil’s favelas and explore how welfare gains can be maximized in such a delicate context.

Urban development policies, particularly as they regard the favelas, have historically been contentious in Brazilian society. Yet, even beyond Brazilian society, there remains much academic debate among those whose research focuses on the conditions and circumstances surrounding Brazil’s “irregular settlements.”6 Before considering which policy trajectory might prove most beneficial in integrating favela communities more completely into Brazilian society, it is first essential to examine the origins, history, and competing perspectives surrounding Brazil’s favelas.

Thus, this paper’s first focus is to review three seminal works, by scholars Mike Davis, Maria Helena Moreira Alves in collaboration with Philip Evanson, and G. Harvey Summ, as they pertain to Brazil’s urbanization and the favela phenomenon.

The inclusion of Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums among the works directly consulted in the process of writing this paper is perhaps somewhat striking.7 Indeed, Planet of Slums is not solely concerned with the case of irregular urbanizations in Brazil, but is instead more sensitive to wider global trends.8 Davis himself has been a figure who has attracted some degree of controversy and criticism in the past.

Nonetheless, Planet of Slums is a compelling and alarming work that offers valuable background information on the development and growth of favelas and the challenges that their inhabitants regularly face.9 As documented by Davis, the scope of irregular urbanization (he is comfortable with the American slang term “slum” and even coins the term “megaslum” to convey the extremity of these developments) is astonishing, and not simply in Brazil or Latin America.10 Davis convincingly posits that traditional conceptions of municipal boundaries have largely become meaningless and, as an example, cites Brazil’s most populous core.

Davis notes that, “geographers already talk about a leviathan known as the Rio/São Paulo Extended Metropolitan Region (RSPER) which includes the medium-sized cities

on the 500-kilometer-long transport axis between Brazil’s two largest metropolises… with a current population of 37 million, this embryonic megalopolis is already larger than Tokyo.”11 At the same time, Davis reports that the population of RSPER’s inhabitants residing in favelas has grown dramatically, shifting from “a mere 1.2 percent of total population in 1973, but 19.8 percent in 1993…[and growing] at the explosive rate of 16.4 percent per year [throughout the 1990s].”12 Furthermore, Davis stresses such figures are not unique to RSPER. Planet of Slums is most useful in elucidating the factors driving the persistence and expansion of Brazil’s favelas, despite their widespread notoriety and concerted (albeit often misguided) government efforts to eliminate them. Certainly, the majority of Brazilians residing in the often unsatisfactory, uncertain, or even dangerous conditions present in many favelas are not there of their own volition. Why, then, are favela residents resistant to government relocation policies, even when these initiatives are coupled with the promise of guaranteed government housing under potentially improved conditions? To answer this puzzle, it is important to consider the words of John Turner, as Davis does, who pointed out that, “Housing is a verb.”13 Davis continues by characterizing the following calculus faced by Brazil’s urban poor: “the urban poor have to solve a complex equation as they try to optimize housing cost, tenure security, quality of shelter, journey to work, and sometimes, personal safety. For some people…location near a job…is even more important than a roof.

For others, free or nearly free land is worth epic commutes from the edge to the center.

And for everyone the worst situation is a bad, expensive location without municipal services or security of tenure.”14

The implication of this is the high-stakes conflict for land between Brazil’s urban poor seeking to sustain a minimum standard of living on one end and capital-owning elites, typically enjoying government support, intent on developing properties with the potential to yield maximum returns, on the other.

Where Davis’s Planet of Slums provides an

insightful outline of the conditions faced by Brazil’s urban poor and the precarious balance to which they find themselves restricted, Alves and Evanson’s Living in the Crossfire more directly approaches the problems pervasive in favela communities.15 More specifically, they use the favelas of Rio de Janeiro as something of a representative case study for the wider phenomenon.16 The methodological approach Alves and Evanson employ is unmistakably ambitious. In writing Living in the Crossfire, Alves and Evanson conducted 61 interviews with favela residents, police officers, and other officials concerned with favela policy.17 These interviews were supplemented by numerous focus groups held by Alves and Evanson where “the methodology for conducting focus groups with community residents, who were highly vulnerable and traumatized (especially the children), was necessarily different from that used to conduct focus group discussions with lawyers and human rights activists.”18 Living in the Crossfire reinforces Davis’s assertion that the persistence and growth of Brazil’s favelas is driven by “the need of favela residents to live near whatever work they can get,” adding that, “public transportation is expensive and often infrequent for lowincome people.”19 Furthermore, in reflecting on policy developments emerging in the late2000s, Alves and Evanson adopt a surprisingly optimistic outlook concerning the future of favelas. Alves and Evanson claim that, “the residents of the favelas are acquiring greater demographic weight and social significance.

Expectations are that living conditions will continue to improve…the state has been taking more and more responsibility for developing infrastructure within the communities.”20 Although Alves and Evanson are generally positive in their view on prospects for welfare and security improvements in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, this perspective contrasts sharply with their account of these communities as they were only a few decades prior. Reflecting the isolation and ingenuity of Rio de Janeiro’s favela residents, Alves and Evanson recount: “Infrastructure and services have largely been left to favela residents themselves to provide. They did this by organizing into a tight community, with collective work

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being the norm. They built their own roads, collected garbage, and even distributed mail. Electricity arrived in homes by ‘hanging’ cables—that is, connecting cables to larger electrical outlets of those residents who are better off and have electrical service…Water pipes are also interconnected down the hill in self-built systems that eventually connect to the city’s potable water system down on the asphalt…These ‘services’ may be provided to ‘customers’ by drug lords and, increasingly, by the members of militias—mostly police or former police officers—who are displacing the drug lords in many areas.”21

It is a lengthy passage, but is important to include in its entirety because it reflects the virtually comprehensive extent to which favelas have been isolated from and neglected by the Brazilian state. Under this absence of vital state functions and services, non-state institutions of power took hold. Ultimately, where the government’s monopoly of coercive force was absent, criminal organizations sprang up, challenged only by rival groups.

The resultant violence produced horrific homicide figures; Alves and Evanson report that between 1991 and 2010, homicides were 40 percent more prevalent in Rio de Janeiro’s peripheral favelas than they were in the city proper.22 The effect of this “dramatic rise of violent crime in the favelas [coinciding] with the appearance of drug-trafficking gangs in the 1980s” was the emergence of “a new era of stigmatizing favelas by the media and by many in the middle and upper classes.”23 Thus far, it has been observed that the proliferation of favelas reflects poor transportation and employment prospects for residents and that, in the decades between the 1980s and late-2000s, the government implemented a variety of new programs to develop and assimilate favelas with existing urban networks, although it has generally been unable to effect lasting solutions to address the pervasiveness of criminal gangs and militias.

Whether explicitly or indirectly, Summ’s Brazilian Dream reinforces the aforementioned themes, but also introduces for a number of its own.24 Most importantly, Summ’s Brazilian Dream examines the impact of the 1964 rise of military government in Brazil—an

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aspect largely, if not entirely ignored by the previously discussed authors. Like Davis and Alves and Evanson, Summ examines Brazil’s most extensively documented favelas, those in the RSPER vicinity. Yet, Summ’s account is much more attentive to the historical origins of the favelas; more specifically, he is sensitive to the history of tension between “favelados,” authorities, and more affluent Brazilians.

Summ notes that, “as early as 1937 President Getúlio Vargas proposed that [the favelas] be eradicated.”25 Despite this hostility, Summ claims that, “federal and local governments lacked the will and resources to do anything,” permitting the favelas to expand essentially unopposed until 1961.26 The 1960s and early 1970s saw the mobilization of government and upperclass hostilities against the favelas. Under the authoritarian framework established by the military regime in 1964, an aggressive policy of favela eradication was pursued and opposition was violently discouraged.27 Initially, the government initiative was successful in relocating favelados to “huge apartment complexes in ‘proletarian’ suburbs far from the city,” and the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the complete destruction and redevelopment of dozens of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.28 Ultimately, however, the solution proved untenable. Recall Davis’s account of the fundamental calculations made by the urban poor: competition between living near economic opportunities while incurring the expenses of being “centrally located” versus settling on the periphery where land is more abundant, reflected in lower rent costs, but the higher demands of commuting incur costs of their own. In the case of the military regime’s relocation policies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this dilemma manifested itself when the ex-favelados discovered that “instead of walking to work, they had to ride to their jobs, often for two or more hours, and had to spend a significant portion of their earnings to do so.”29 Compounding the misery of this development was the fact that, “whereas in the favelas they paid little or no rent, they now had monthly housing quotas, which were designed to fit their budgets but still represented an unwelcome bite into their

the police officers and soldiers occupying the favelas “Foraremany, no better than those whom they have been deployed to combat ”

earnings.”30 Under the military government’s policy of eradication, the strength of civil society and community organizations that had developed in the favelas were undermined and eroded, which ultimately left the ex-favelados more vulnerable when the public housing alternative proved to be an inadequate solution.31 Many who were relocated by the government initiative soon ended up in new favelas.

In a manner similar to Alves and Evanson, Summ also puts considerable effort into deconstructing the stigmatization of and misconceptions surrounding Brazilian favelas. Summ is particularly cognizant of the rich variety of institutions present in favela communities, “despite their image of disorganization.”32 Among these institutions, Summ considers the significant roles played

by Ecclesial Base Communities (CEBs) and the Catholic Church in transforming political life in the favelas.33 To summarize Summ’s perspective, “Favelas may appear unsightly to the outsider, but the problem is less the favelados than the perspective of the viewer.”34 Upon reviewing an admittedly modest sampling of the literature surrounding the origins and history of Brazil’s favelas, as well as the related policy approaches, it is difficult to resist the question, what next?

The historiography concerning the favela phenomenon is replete with examples of policy failures. Even Living in the Crossfire, noted as the most optimistic work consulted for the purposes of this paper, remains heavily critical of even the government’s most recent efforts to reassert control over the favelas.

More specifically, the Brazilian government’s most updated policy is typically comprised of some mix of occupation by the State Military Police, the Special Policial Operations Battalion (BOPE) or, more recently, the purpose-specific Police Pacification Units (UPP) on one end of the spectrum, and the extension of public works and other services under the federal government’s Program for the Acceleration of Growth (PAC) on the

other.35 As is revealed by Living in the Crossfire, this policy is widely considered heavy-handed by the favelados, who are often caught in the middle when fighting erupts between the military or police and militias. For many, the police officers and soldiers occupying the favelas are no better than those whom they have been deployed to combat—indeed they are sometimes viewed as being far worse.36 The Brazilian government faces a struggle as it seeks to reestablish a control some might argue it never had over the urban favelas. This involves the need to correct several decades of relative neglect and mistreatment and incorporate favelados into the regular federal system in a manner that constitutes a Pareto improvement for all parties involved. As has been made clear, accomplishing this will not be a simple process but, rather, necessitates extensive reforms. From the works of Davis, Alves and Evanson, and Summ, it is possible to identify three possible policy initiatives that, if implemented appropriately and complementarily to one another, should yield broadly positive results for Brazil’s favela populace.

Planet of Slums, Living in the Crossfire, and Brazilian Dream all identify the persistence of irregular favela developments as reflective of woefully inadequate urban transportation options. Despite conditions of apparent poverty, Summ notes that, “One of the most important features of favela life [is] business.”37 Favelados are characterized as vibrant economic actors, typically selling goods or services in the informal sector.

However, due to the inadequacy of public transit networks, this is almost entirely dependent on their physical proximity to their sources of income. Consequently, any initiatives designed to address issues posed by favela developments must carefully consider how to improve transportation options— especially if the proposal intends to remove the favelados from their homes.

Along these lines, an innovative solution can perhaps be found in the example of Rio

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de Janeiro’s recently established cable-car system. Inaugurated in 2011, the cable-cars provide a viable alternative to traditional bus and rail networks that are incompatible with the geography and space constraints present in most of Brazil’s favelas.38 This particular case holds remarkable promise. The gondola line is designed with the capacity to serve 30,000 passengers per day and reduce a 2.1 mile, hourand-a-half walk to the nearest commuter rail station into a mere 16-minute ride.39 The full benefits of improved modes of transportation available to favelados will be lost unless they coincide with improvements to the system of social services in favelas.

When asked about the provision of statefunded services in her community, a teacher at a public school in the Complexo do Alemão responded, “the only state presence here is the police. We don’t have a health clinic; we don’t have a place for local administration, not even to receive documents. We don’t have anything.

Even trash collection stopped because the sanitation workers were collecting in the middle of crossfire and did not want to face the danger.”40 The teacher, whose name Alves and Evanson concealed due to security concerns, even claimed that, “The Military Police cut off the supply of water and electricity, and it was the residents who connected them again and maintain the supply.”41 The resultant conditions are simultaneously detrimental to the cultivation of human capital and ripe for the creation of conditions constituting a poverty trap.

To this end, the Statue of the City, adopted in 2001, largely reflects a step in the right direction.42 Driving the adoption of the Statue of the City was the notion that urban planning in Brazil should not only be centrally-directed and controlled, but that its direction should be determined via democratic participation. By recasting urban planning as a participatory initiative, an avenue is opened through which favelados, who have historically exhibited strong civil society, can secure for themselves the infrastructure and state institutions associated with long-term socioeconomic advances. However, it should be noted that improvements in services such as health and education will require extensive

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commitments of time and resources before welfare improvements manifest themselves.

The final component of the policypackage this paper proposes to alleviate the precarious conditions of poverty in Brazil’s favelas is concerned with reforming the laws surrounding land titling and the legal status of favelados. It is reported that the majority of favela inhabitants own no formal documentation legally tying them to their homes. Of course, in many instances this is inherently due to the fact that most favelados don’t own the land on which they reside; rather, it typically belongs to the state.43 Yet, the state’s claims to land on which favelas have developed are often much more ambiguous then those of the favelados themselves.

Favela communities are often confined to steep hillsides where other prospects for development are virtually nonexistent. In depriving favelados of any legally-supported claims to their homes, the Brazilian state not only condemns these citizens to omnipresent uncertainty, but also deprives them of access to credit and diminishes the market-value of the houses.44 In this sense, the lack of appropriate land titling reinforces inequality and, ultimately, further undermines the influence of the state as the lack of legal property rights sustains the conditions of poverty and uncertainty in which criminal organizations and militias thrive.

The monolithic image of favela communities as violent, disruptive, and disorganized benefits no one as Brazil continues its impressive growth and modernization. Alltoo-easily, one can forget that the favelados are Brazilian citizens and, like their more affluent compatriots, are entitled to the services and protections of the state. There is little benefit to be derived from sensationalist mythologies surrounding the conditions present in Brazil’s favelas and the qualities of their inhabitants.

From a policymaking perspective, favelados must be characterized as rational actors facing distinct challenges as Brazil’s growing population continues to urbanize. Doing so allows for the formation of targeted and effective policy—not narrowly based on reactionary security concerns, but instead focused on addressing the underlying issues

of poverty and exclusionary state policies.

More specifically, by implementing policies to improve transportation within favelas, establishing or expanding quality services with a focus on improving human capital, and reforming existing land titling policies so that favelados may come to possess legal property rights, the Brazilian government can rectify past policy failures and begin to incorporate the urban poor into Brazil’s growing cities.

NOTES

1 “Urban population (% of total).” World Bank.

Accessed December 2, 2012. http://data. worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL. IN.ZS/countries/1W?display=graph 2 Ibid; As a caveat to this figure, the UN International Institute for Environment and Development warns that the definition of what constitutes an “urban” area in Brazil is sometimes generously applied, thus inflating measurements of the actual urban population. h t t p : / / d a t a . wo r l d b a n k . o r g / i n d i c a t o r / SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS/countr ies/1WBR?display=default 3 “World dataBank: World Development Indicators (WDI) & Global Development Finance (GDF): Brazil.” World Bank.

Accessed December 2, 2012; Note that these figures are potentially suspect in that they may not reflect actual census data but, rather, the retroactive use of inferential statistics. For example, there are many years where the population increase from the previous is reported as exactly 1.0%.

4 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Social Communication : Subnormal Agglomerates, (December 21, 2011). http://www.ibge.gov. br/english/presidencia/noticias/noticia_ impressao.php?id_noticia=2057=1 5 The etymology of “favela” is interesting to note—the communities are named after a spiny, skin-irritating plant native to Brazil’s first favela, Morro de Providencia.

6 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Social Communication : Subnormal Agglomerates, (December 21, 2011). http:// www.ibge.go v.br/english/presidencia/ noti cias/n otici a_imp ressao.php? id_ noticia=2057=1 7 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006).

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., 26.

11 Ibid., 5.

12 Ibid., 17.

13 Davis, Planet of Slums. 27; I might point out that Turner is most well-known for his work regarding urban housing in Peru, but his short, poignant quote is equally applicable while addressing residency in Brazil’s favelas.

14 Ibid, 28-29.

15 Maria Helena Moreira Alves and Philip Evanson, Favela Living in the Crossfire: Favela Residents, Drug Dealers, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro (Philadelphia: Temple, 2011).

16 It seems that few, if any authors are willing to approach the issue of favelas in Brazil as a consolidated unit. Instead, the tendency is toward specific examples—often in the previously mentioned RSPER. Given the distinct nature of challenges often faced by individual favelas, I suspect this tendency is more wise than not.

17 Alves and Evanson, Living in the Crossfire. 7; To clarify, Living in the Crossfire was written in the aftermath of the 2010 occupation of the Complexo do Alemão, a group of favelas north of Rio de Janeiro. The initiative garnered wide-scale attention because of its scale and volatility.

18 Ibid., 8.

19 Ibid., 28.

20 Ibid., 29.

21 Alves and Evanson, Living in the Crossfire. 13.

22 Ibid., 15.

23 Ibid., 15.

24 G. Harvey Summ, The Brazilian Dream: A Middle Power Seeks Greatness (Xlibris, 2000).

25 Ibid, 253; “Favelado” is a local term that has emerged to describe inhabitants of a favela community.

26 Ibid., 253.

27 Ibid., 254.

28 Ibid., 254-55.

29 Summ, Brazilian Dream. 255.

30 Ibid., 255.

31 Ibid., 256.

32 Ibid., 293.

33 Ibid., 262.

34 Ibid., 264.

35 Alves and Evanson, Living in the Crossfire.

26-28.

36 Ibid., 33-35.

37 Summ, Brazilian Dream. 263.

38 Nate Berg, “Rio de Janeiro’s Transit Solution : Cable Cars Over the Favelas,” Wired, (February 28, 2011). http://www.wired.com/ magazine/2011/02/st_riogondola/ 39 Ibid.

40 Alves and Evanson, Living in the Crossfire. 36.

41 Ibid., 36.

Patterns of Urbanization and Development in Brazil

29

42 George Martine and Gordon McGranahan, “Brazil’s Early Urban Transition: What Can it Teach Urbanizing Countries?” UNFPA: International Institute for Environment and Development, (London : August, 2010), 45. http://www.citiesalliance. org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/IIED_ Brazil%27sEarlyUrbanTransition.pdf 43 Sam Cowie, “Land Titles Empower Brazil’s Favela Dwellers,” Deutsche Welle, (October 12, 2012). http://www.dw.de/land-titlesempower-brazils-favela-dwellers/a-16286806 44 Ibid.

REFERENCES

Alves, Maria Helena Moreira, and Evanson, Philip.

Favela Living in the Crossfire: Favela Residents, Drug Dealers, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro. Philadelphia: Temple, 2011.

Berg, Nate. “Rio de Janeiro’s Transit Solution: Cable Cars Over the Favelas.” Wired.

February 28, 2011. http://www.wired.com/ magazine/2011/02/st_riogondola/ Cowie, Sam. “Land Titles Empower Brazil’s Favela Dwellers.” Deutsche Welle. October 12, 2012. http://www.dw.de/land-titles-empower-brazilsfavela-dwellers/a-16286806 Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. London: Verso, 2006.

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística.

Social Communication: Subnormal Agglomerates.

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December 21, 2011. http://www.ibge.gov.br/ english/presidencia/noticias/noticia_impressao. php?id_noticia=2 057=1 Martine, George, and McGranahan, Gordon.

“Brazil’s Early Urban Transition: What Can it Teach Urbanizing Countries?” UNFPA: International Institute for Environment and Development. London: August, 2010. 45. http:// www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/ files/IIED_Brazil%27sEarlyUrbanTr ansition.pdf Summ, G. Harvey. The Brazilian Dream: A Middle Power Seeks Greatness. Xlibris, 2000.

Urban population (% of total).” World Bank.

Accessed December 2, 2012. http:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB. TOTL.IN.ZS/countries/1W- BR?display=default “Urban population (% of total).” World Bank.

Accessed December 2, 2012. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB. TOTL.IN.ZS/countries/1W?display=graph “World dataBank: World Development Indicators (WDI) & Global Development Finance (GDF): Brazil.” World Bank. Accessed December 2, 2012.http://databank.worldbank. org/ddp/html-jsp/QuickViewReport. jsp?RowAxis=WDI_Ctry~&ColAxis=WDI_ Time~&PageAxis=WDI_

4

Sex Work and Human Rights: The Case for Decriminalization

Lishai Goldstein

Keywords: Human Rights, Sex Work, Public Health, Decriminalization

O

ften called the oldest profession in the world, sex work—as it will be referred to in this paper—has long been a topic of moral debate. The dawn of the twentieth century brought with it a heightened awareness of women’s rights, worker’s rights, and human rights, as well as the subsequent establishment of legislation and international bodies to further champion these rights. The post-WWII rise of newly formed nation states, interest in universal rights and freedoms of the individual, as well as globalization contributed to the backdrop against which the discourse of global rights was born. The goal of this discourse was to ensure state protection and normalize certain standards for marginalized groups and individuals, granting them access to guaranteed basic rights. While sex work may be far from a new profession, the stigma attached to this line of work only serves to further marginalize those who participate in it.

With the growth of capitalism and globalization, sex tourism has become a primary industry in some countries; nevertheless the sex industry fails to lose its aura of stigmatization. Additionally, there are increasingly high numbers of women working informally—many of whom are migrants.

The intersection of these two trajectories leave many sex workers disenfranchised on the institutional level.1 It must be noted that this paper seeks to address the topic of voluntary sex work by adults, but maintains that increased rights for all those engaged in sex work can help to empower those who may be forced into the occupation to seek out the legal protection of the state (often, but not limited to, trafficked persons).

Empowerment is the critical first step of any citizen accessing their basic human rights, yet a sex worker cannot be empowered in fighting against exploitation by employers, clients, or law enforcement if their very profession is criminalised. Public health takes a leading role here, as it is tied closely to the notion of stigmatization. By the nature of their work, sex workers have a high risk of contraction of STIs and HIV, as well as an increased number of unplanned pregnancies and other medical concerns. Should a sex worker feel unable to

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disclose the nature of their work when seeking medical treatment due to stigmatization, they are putting their own health at risk. The negative effects of stigmatization further serve to deny sex workers their rights when they are compounded with additional barriers, such as lack of education about health risks, and the affordability of seeking and continuing medical treatment.

The decriminalization of sex work provides the most comprehensive means by which to combat the exploitation of sex workers, thus ensuring their human rights, granting them agency to access the same legal protections as other workers, as well as agency to access public health. This paper will discuss in further detail why restrictive policies, such as criminalization, are detrimental to the human rights of sex workers. It will go on to explore the opportunities that the human rights framework offers for the advancement of rights, focusing primarily on how decriminalization is key to addressing sex work as a human rights issue. Two case studies will be examined to demonstrate the extent to which decriminalization is the best policy to empower sex workers to fight exploitation and pursue their health: the first in which decriminalization has yet to occur, and the second where it has already been enacted. The first case study explores legislative obstacles in the pursuit of occupational rights in British Columbia, and suggests recommendations to improve the human rights framework, should decriminalization occur. The second analyzes New Zealand’s decriminalization of sex work, looking at the emergence of increased occupational rights awareness as originating from a public health concern.

Restrictive policies, such as the criminalization of sex work, take many different forms around the world. The severity of the rights abuses incurred may vary as a result of individual legislation, religious and cultural factors, strength of democracy and rule of law, as well as women’s rights. In places where the selling of sex is illegal, sex workers are more likely to avoid state institutions, including seeking proper health care.2 Stella, a Montreal-based sex worker advocacy group, addresses the dangers wrought by repressive

sex work policies, arguing that it pushes sex workers underground. The result is increased isolation, leaving them more likely to experience exploitation and unable to access proper health care.3 Fear of a hostile legal system forces sex workers to make the choice between their health and prosecution. “In many countries where sex work is criminalized, sex workers may be intimidated from carrying condoms because police may threaten to use them as proof of the “crime” of prostitution… these policies and practices prevent sex workers from protecting their health.”4 Other dangers that occur as a result of repressive policies include the risks of imprisonment, violence suffered from law enforcement, unfavourable working conditions and unequal social benefits.5 Sex worker’s rights are undeniably human rights, and while international human rights legislation does not dispute this, it has yet to be addressed explicitly on the international stage in order to gain traction. The growth of the international sex industry in the late 1970s pushed the sex work debate to the UN level.6 In regard to the legislation in question, the UN tendency for ambiguity prevails, The 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) contains an article on prostitution calling on states to take measures to ‘suppress all forms of traffic in women and the exploitation of prostitution’.

According to accompanying documents this was not to be taken that prostitution per se should be combatted, but no definition was provided of ‘exploitation’.7

This deliberate ambiguity in the language of CEDAW is a result of the various groups lobbying the UN to take a specific stance on sex work, which largely stems from what Kempadoo and Doezema refer to as the “voluntary/forced dichotomy,” or the “whore/ Madonna” division under “prostitute.”8 They go on to say, “The peculiarities of viewing sex work through the distorting lens of the voluntary/forced dichotomy cause what are clearly abuses of sex workers’ rights to be condemned as examples of forced prostitution.”9 They go on to argue that in

order to effectively fight involuntary sex work, we need to empower those who choose to work in the industry, asserting that this dichotomy is not conducive to this.10 Additional voices have entered the international arena, with the Global Alliance—a lobby of NGOs—working against abolitionist sex trade discourse and introducing the idea of voluntary sex work to UN treaties in the 1980s and 1990s.11 A human rights response to the challenges faced by sex workers demonstrates that decriminalization is a key component to the expansion of rights. The decriminalization of adult sex work—assuming no victimization is involved—is supported by the UN, UNAIDS, and WHO. UNAIDS has a human-rights based approach to HIV/AIDS, and as this applies to sex it would allow for increased support for sex workers in all areas, and allow for a greater capacity to fight against child prostitution, exploitation, and human trafficking, all of which are blatant abuses of human rights.12 There is an absence of the consideration of the impact of public health policy on human rights, a difficult feat largely due to the fact that a fundamental human rights concept of the Right to Health has not yet been clearly defined.13 Further support for the promotion of sex workers’ access to affordable and reliable health care lies in the argument that public health and human rights exist in tandem, with the ultimate goal being the least restrictive policy that can achieve the public health objective.

Actually, public health and human rights are usually in harmony: promotion of human rights is most protective of health and the best health strategies are respectful of the inherent dignity of the person. An overly coercive policy may discourage persons at risk from coming forward for testing, counseling or treatment. Health care professionals then lose contact with persons likely to spread disease, ultimately causing greater harm to the public. Moreover, public health and human rights goals are usually synergistic; protecting human rights encourages co- operation and a shared vision of the need for safer behaviors and thereby promotes public health.14

Ultimately, the authors maintain that alternative policies, which burden human Sex Work and Human Rights

33

sentiment among sex workers is that while decriminalization “The collective would not be enough to combat stigma, it is a critical first step ”

rights on a lesser scale while still maintaining community health, must be sought out. The aim is that less intrusive options can still achieve public health goals, and it is the responsibility of the human rights community to lobby governments to identify these alternatives. In short, in order to further public health goals, human rights and dignity need not be sacrificed.15 Since the 1970s we have witnessed a rise in sex work as an organizing basis for women, with the emergence of many organizations in different countries advocating for increased social, economic, and political rights of sex workers. One of the most prominent of these organizations is the International Committee for Prostitutes’ Rights (ICPR), established in 1985.16 Advocates for sex worker’s rights consider it a critical point that sex work is addressed as a labour issue; this approach specifically came out of the liberal feminist camp, and is based upon the idea that individuals have a right to choose sex work.17 West argues, “Decriminalization aims to normalize prostitution, removing the social exclusion which makes prostitutes vulnerable to exploitation, but sex work then becomes subject to regulation by civil employment law.”18 The removal of the stigmatization surrounding prostitution that is made possible by decriminalization creates an environment that is conducive to addressing occupational hazards.19 Conclusively, “decriminalization is seen by liberal feminists, sex workers’ rights activists, and public health professionals as the only way to protect the human rights of sex workers and minimise the amount of harm incurred by their occupation.”20 The first case study is grounded in a Canadian context, and explores the potential for sex workers rights through a local human rights framework, the British Columbia Human Rights Code (the BCHRC). The authors of Beyond Decriminalization: Sex Work, Human Rights and a New Framework for Law Reform: Full Report by Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society and its contributors cite

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the BCHRC as the provincial human rights document with the most promise in terms of protection under the law for sex workers in the event that decriminalization should occur, as it cover areas of services, employment, and accommodation, which in contrast are not covered under the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA).21 The report produced by the Pivot Legal Society and its contributors outlines two areas in which human rights legislation could protect sex work; sex-based discrimination resulting in sexual harassment due to employment, as well as discrimination resulting from lawful sources of income in regards to housing and of the availability of services. To elaborate, services encompass access to medical care and advertising, with sex workers often subjected to increased cost due to profession, such as the way in which and the cost associated with how they can advertise.22 Stigmatization and discrimination are both commonly reported by sex workers, hindering access to services and forms of legal protection. The collective sentiment among sex workers is that while decriminalization would not be enough to combat this stigma, it is a critical first step as human rights legislation provides an important tool to deal with the discrimination and stigmatization associated with sex work.23 One form of sex-based discrimination that sex workers are confronted with in their line of work is sexual harassment, existing in many ugly forms from both employers and clients.

“Provincial human rights codes provide a form of protection from discrimination and harassment by making employers liable for discriminatory conduct. Such protections are not extended to persons engaged in work that constitutes criminal behaviour.”24 Approaching sex work from the labour rights perspective underscores the violation of human dignity in the workplace, something that would be liable to be challenged within the legal system under the sphere of decriminalization. Similarly, the report’s authors concluded with a number of human rights law recommendations, which

included the following two.

2. Ensure that sex workers have full access to the human rights complaint process in cases where they are subject to sexual harassment by their employers and clients.25 5. Human rights tribunals should consult with sex workers on the appropriate criteria to apply in distinguishing sexually harassing behaviour from contracted sexual services so that sex workers may enjoy protection from sexual harassment by clients.26

As demonstrated, the BCHRC offers the greatest protection under the law for sex workers in the event of decriminalization.

Through the accounts of surveyed sex workers, and the recommendations of the report’s authors, it is clear that empowerment is a pivotal component in granting sex workers access to their rights.

The second case study of New Zealand provides a rich investigation into the realized effects of decriminalization and the emergence of a rights-based discourse. Sex work was decriminalised in New Zealand in 2003, through the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA), which included brothel-keeping, procuring, soliciting, and living on the earnings from sex work. The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) was the group that championed the decriminalization process, and was established around the idea of better empowering sex workers. The NZPC was able to enter the policy-making levels of government from a public health angle, as the organization’s legitimacy was cemented in a concern for the HIV epidemic of the 1980s. At that time, the government of New Zealand approached sex workers as a high-risk group on the basis of public health with offers of financial and structural support, thus allowing the NZPC to change the relationship between civil society organizations and government. The collaboration between the Ministry of Health and NZPC evolved into additional alliances between civil society organizations; this high level of representation allowed the NZPC to influence the policy agenda to shift its focus to the occupational health, safety, and rights of sex workers.27 One of the goals of decriminalization

is to encourage empowerment among sex workers, and with that, a greater awareness of rights. The role of the NZPC in the decriminalization of sex work in New Zealand is an example of empowerment from the grassroots level, including sex workers as part of the solution, rather than treating them as part of the problem. From a survey taken of sex workers following decriminalization, Abel credits the increased rights granted to them as empowering the interviewees; they cited both an improvement in their employment rights, as well as a greater awareness of their rights in discourses with their employers. It also led to occupational diversification (private vs. managed), forcing brothel owners to ethically run their business if they wanted employees to continue to work for them.28 As an extension of occupational rights, the PRA guarantees increased health and safety rights: The majority of participants (62.5%) told clients who requested sex without a condom that it was the law to use condoms. Nearly three-quarters of managed participants reported this strategy for getting clients to use a condom…decriminalization has enabled sex workers to insist on condom use, something that has been argued would improve working conditions.29

Abel concludes her study by noting that while all participants engaged in some form of responsible safe sex practices prior to decriminalization, the PRA gave sex workers an advantageous position from which to advocate on behalf of their health. This served to further empower them and lend greater legitimacy to their occupation in the face of ongoing stigmatization.30 As seen in the New Zealand context, concerns surrounding public health, particularly as a result of the HIV epidemic, have put the spotlight on decriminalization as a means to combat wider public health effects. Sex workers are indisputably a highrisk group, one whose members face a number of dangers as a result of the nature of their line of work. However, many of these dangers can be minimized through a harm reduction approach, with a combination of strategies including education, prevention, knowledge about occupational health and safety, and Sex Work and Human Rights

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empowerment. Decriminalization is most favourable to a harm reduction approach, as it helps fight the stigma that may prevent sex workers from seeking out services, and by simply making it easier to provide educational, medical, and support services. Likewise, Rekart places decriminalization hand-inhand with human rights approaches, arguing that it facilitates the above steps much more easily.31 Drug use is a not uncommon among sex workers, especially injection drugs, and the use of dirty needles can leave users vulnerable to HIV, Hepatitis B and C, as well as syphilis. Non-injection drugs also present a problem, such as crack, cocaine, and crystal methamphetamine. These substances can lead to poor judgment, unsafe sex (often drug users are more willing to have sex without a condom), overdose, addiction, and neurological disease.

Disease is an obvious danger for sex workers, with condom use often determined by the brothel owner or customer (recall that the PRA encompasses this as a rights matter in its legislation). Furthermore, STI complications are not uncommon in sex workers, and this can facilitate HIV transmission.32 Empowerment and education are key steps to the harm reduction approach. Empowerment functions to reduce the vulnerability of sex workers, with examples of successful initiatives resulting in the refusal of clients, access to and use of condoms, training in improved negotiating skills and how to recognize, avoid, and escape from violent situations, safe houses and dropin centres, preventive services for HIV and STIs, and ultimately improved self-esteem.33 Community development is a key part of empowerment: There are structural examples of how policy and law can empower sex workers. In Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, sex establishment support for condom use and HIV or STI prevention was a significant predictor of consistent condom use (odds ratio 2·16; 95% CI 1·18–3·97). Thailand’s 100% condom campaign increased condom use in commercial sex from 14% to 94% by making condoms freely available, sanctioning against non-compliant brothels, and advising men through the media to use condoms with prostitutes. A report of

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significant decline in condom use by brothelbased female sex workers in Thailand underscores the need for interventions to be sustained.34

Both male condoms and female condoms have been successful in reducing pregnancy and STI transmission, but good quality condoms need to be affordable and accessible for this initiative to be successful. Positive results are more likely to transpire when services are offered in tandem, for example when voluntary HIV counselling and testing are offered, there is a visible increase in condom use, fewer partners, and lower HIV rates in sex workers. Incentive factors are also essential to success, such as connections to community agencies, childcare, meals, and transportation options, as well as financial incentives.35 In conclusion, we now live in an era where we can acknowledge the universality of many basic occupational and social rights. We expect the state to extend these rights to all citizens within the human rights framework, and in turn the empowered citizen can then access them. Yet the marginalization of sex workers, as a result of longstanding stigmas surrounding their line of work, continues. To deny this group access to the same rights and services their fellow citizens enjoy ultimately leaves them vulnerable to violence and economic exploitation, robbing them of the choice to advocate for safer and more equal working conditions. The stigma attached to their work may prevent them from acquiring relevant health information, and subsequently from seeking out proper medical treatment, leaving them increasingly isolated as they counter higher rates of disease and other medical complications. To deny these basic rights to a group as a result of their choice of occupation is to deny them their basic human rights. Only decriminalization offers the greatest potential to empower sex workers to advocate for their occupational rights, access proper medical services, and seek out the due legal protection under the law. From the point of human dignity, criminalised sex work is something that can no longer be tolerated.

NOTES

1 Kamala Kempadoo, “Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights,” Canadian Woman Studies 22, no. 3 (2003):144.

2 Ivan Wolffers and Nel van Beelen, “Public Health and the Human Rights of Sex Workers,” The Lancet 361 (2003): 1981.

3 “Sex Workers, Human Rights and the Fight against HIV,” Stella, August 2006, http://www.chezstella. org/stella/?q=en/publications.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Joyce Outshoorn, The Politics of Prostitution: Women’s Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 10.

7 Ibid.

8 Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition (New York: Routledge, 1998), 46-47.

9 Ibid., 46.

10 Ibid., 46-47.

11 Outshoorn, The Politics of Prostitution, 10-11.

12 Michael L. Rekart, “Sex-Work Harm Reduction,” The Lancet 366 (2005): 2129, accessed November 30, 2012, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05) 67732-X. 13 Lawrence Gostin, Jonathan M. Mann, and Larry Gostin, “Towards the Development of a Human Rights Impact Assessment for the Formulation and Evaluation of Public Health Policies,” Health and Human Rights 1, no. 1 (1994): 59, accessed November 30, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/4065262.1 14 Ibid., 75.

15 Ibid., 74.

16 Kempadoo, “Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights,” 146.

17 Gillian Abel, “Decriminalisation: A Harm Minimisation and Human Rights Approach to Regulating Sex Work” (Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Otago, Christchurch, 2010) 34.

18 Jackie West, “Prostitution: Collectives and the Politics of Regulation,” Gender, Work & Organization 7, no. 2 (2000): 106.

19 Abel, “Decriminalisation” 37.

20 Ibid., 37-38.

21 Carolyn J. Askew et al., Beyond Decriminalization: Sex Work, Human Rights and a New Framework for Law Reform: Full Report (Vancouver: Pivot Legal Society, 2006) 182.

22 Ibid., 184-186.

23 Ibid., 181.

24 Ibid., 189.

25 Ibid., 190.

26 Ibid.

27 Glenn Laverack and Amanda Whipple, “The Sirens’ Song of Empowerment: A Case Study of Health Promotion and the New Zealand

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Prostitutes Collective,” Global Health Promotion 17, no. 1 (2010): 35.

Abel, “Decriminalisation” 242-243.

Ibid., 262.

Ibid., 262-263.

Rekart, “Sex-Work Harm Reduction,” 2123.

Ibid., 2123-2124.

Ibid., 2126.

Ibid.

Ibid., 2127-2128.

REFERENCES

Abel, Gillian. “Decriminalisation: A Harm Minimisation and Human Rights Approach to Regulating Sex Work.” Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Otago, Christchurch, 2010.

Askew, Carolyn J., Rielle Capler, Mary Childs, Naomi Brunemeyer, Karen Mirsky, Sean Rossiter, and Society Pivot Legal, eds. Beyond Decriminalization: Sex Work, Human Rights and a New Framework for Law Reform: Full Report. Vancouver: Pivot Legal Society, 2006.

Gostin, Lawrence, Jonathan M. Mann, and Larry Gostin. “Towards the Development of a Human Rights Impact Assessment for the Formulation and Evaluation of Public Health Policies.” Health and Human Rights 1, no. 1 (1994): 58-80. Accessed November 30, 2012. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/4065262.

Kempadoo, Kamala. “Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights.”

Canadian Woman Studies 22, no. 3 (2003): 143-150.

Kempadoo, Kamala, and Jo Doezema. Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition New York: Routledge, 1998.

Laverack, Glenn, and Amanda Whipple. “The Sirens’ Song of Empowerment: A Case Study of Health Promotion and the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective.” Global Health Promotion 17, no. 1 (2010): 33-38.

Outshoorn, Joyce. The Politics of Prostitution: Women’s Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Rekart, Michael L. “Sex-Work Harm Reduction.”

The Lancet 366 (2005): 2123-2134.

Accessed November 30, 2012. doi:10.1016/S01406736(05) 67732-X. West, Jackie. “Prostitution: Collectives and the Politics of Regulation.” Gender, Work & Organization 7, no.

2 (2000): 106-118.

Wolffers, Ivan, and Nel van Beelen. “Public Health and the Human Rights of Sex Workers.” The Lancet 361 (2003): 1981.

“Sex Workers, Human Rights and the Fight against HIV.” Stella. August 2006. http://www.chezstella. org/stella/?q=en/publications.

Sex Work and Human Rights

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5

Accommodation and Inclusivity Rousseau’s Social Contract

Christopher Liu

Keywords: Rousseau, Social Contract, Majoritarianism

J

ean-Jacques Rousseau’s On the Social Contract, insofar as it emphasizes generality and social unity, has been criticized for being unable to accommodate the diversity of actors found in many societies.

This essay attempts to clarify the extent to which a Rousseauean state can accommodate minority groups. It argues that any minority can be accommodated on the condition that its members do not seek to exclude themselves from the general will. This argument will be made through a discussion of various claims asserted by Rousseau, and by addressing a number of potential tensions in the text.

The essay concludes by exemplifying the extent and limit of minority accommodation by examining the specific case of religious minorities, including an example drawn from contemporary politics.

Before proceeding, it is necessary to define two important terms: first, accommodation; second, minority groups. By accommodation, I mean broadly the act of including a target group into the general will of a society. The reader may understandably be perplexed by such a definition—in vernacular speech social ‘accommodation’ invokes a melange of ideals concerning tolerance and diversity that seem more detailed than mere inclusion in a general will. I hold that the latter is sufficiently synonymous with the former, insofar as inclusion in the general will implies tolerance of diverse private wills while maintaining social unity grounded on shared general interests.

Thiswill be evinced below. By minority group, I mean any grouping of individuals who are united by a common trait that is differentiated from the majority of a society’s population.

This trait may be racial, religious, linguistic, or even an opinion on the desirable course of political policy. I have defined minority group in as broad a manner as possible to avoid the charge of ducking difficult theoretical problems through a narrow definition of terms.

Having defined salient terminology, it is thus possible to clarify the argument of the essay as follows: any group of individuals constituting a minority, so long as they themselves do not seek exclusion from the general will, will not be excluded from it.

In detailing the arguments for this conclusion,

it is prudent to begin with the general will itself. In broad terms, it is “a form of association which defends and protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before.” 1

Though individuals have particular preferences and interests, “it is what these different interests have in common that forms the social bond.”2 To find what is held in common, one must “remove from [all private] wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, and what remains as the sum of the differences is the general will.” 3 Though such a definition appears ostensibly vague, Rousseau notes that “were there no point of agreement among all these interests, no society could exist.” 4 Thus, the general will is that which is held in common by all members in society, found after the removal of all points of conflicts in wills, or ‘cancelling,’ and the residual is what binds the society together. Furthermore, “as soon as this multitude is thus united in a body, one cannot harm one of the members without attacking the whole body;” 5 thus, for the general will to harm a minority of its members would be tantamount to the general will harming itself.

Already, it is possible that a point of criticism has risen in the mind of the reader. After all, I have defined accommodation as including a target group into the general will. At the same time, it is clear that Rousseau defines the general will as what is held common amongst all members of society. Given this definition of the general will, is a definition of accommodation as the inclusion of a particular group into it simply a tautology? To show why this is not the case, it is prudent to examine an instance in which accommodation is not extended; such an instance can be found in Rousseau’s discussion of the right of life or death.

On this issue, it is possible to discern two broad classes of punishment. The first is made from within the general will. Rousseau writes, “it is in order to avoid being the victim of an assassin that a person consents to die, were he to become one.” 6 Here, the general will

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consists of a preference to not be the victim of assassination—something which can very plausibly be said to hold universally. As a result, an assassin who receives the death penalty is punished as a consequence of the general will; that is, as a result of this general preference to not be a victim of assassination.

Indeed, he “consents” to die; the assassin, too, has a preference to not be assassinated, and so he is within and in accordance with the general will when he is punished. However, there is a second class of punishment that does not accommodate the criminal in the general will, and this is the case with the “malefactor who attacks the social right.” 7 Such a criminal is “a traitor to the homeland ... he ceases to be a member” of society.8 Furthermore, “such an enemy is not a moral person, but a man, and in this situation the right of war is to kill the vanquished.” 9 Note that, here, the language of consent is gone. The malefactor is not accommodated by the general will, because he has first excluded himself through his attack and rejection of it.

The case of the malefactor is not particularly problematic; importantly, it does not necessarily involve a minority group (though it could, if one considers a group of malefactors, such as a band of revolutionaries). A greater challenge to accommodation may be mounted on the issue of majoritarianism. There are passages of The Social Contract where Rousseau seems to endorse majority rule. He writes, “the vote of the majority always obligates all the others.”10 In addition, “the declaration of the general will is drawn from the counting of votes.”11 A majority group implies the existence of a minority group; taking the above quotations at face value, it appears as if the general will’s position on every issue is found by consulting the majority vote. Does this imply that the corresponding minority is excluded from the general will?

This issue is resolved through a closer examination of Rousseau’s writings on majoritarianism. Early in The Social Contract, Rousseau argues that “the law of majority rule is itself an established convention, and presupposes unanimity on at least one occasion.”12 Thus, the importance attached to majority rule—the very reason why majority

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decisions are to be considered valid—stems from the fact that a prior agreement has declared it to be; this presupposed unanimity is the general will itself. “There is but one law that by its nature requires unanimous consent.

This is the social compact.”13 The general will establishes majority-rule as process, as procedure. Voting produces a group that is in the minority, but that minority remains accommodated by the general will because the members of that minority entered the voting process consenting to whatever the results of the vote would be, regardless of whether they would be in the majority or minority.

“When, therefore, the opinion contrary to mine prevails, this proves merely that I was in error, and that what I took to be the general will was not so.”14 This conclusion is no doubt unsatisfactory to many, but it is sufficient for the purposes of this essay to merely show that the minority constituency resulting from voting remains accommodated by the general will.

Another potential point of tension between the general will and minority groups lies in Rousseau’s writings on associations. “The will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members and particular in relation to the state.”15 Furthermore, “for the general will to be well articulated, it is therefore important that there should be no partial society in the state and that each citizen make up his own mind.”16 Though Rousseau declines to define the term, one takes associations to generally mean civil society actors—agents who, insofar as each has a common goal, come to embody the interest of its members more readily than the state. This is because an association, being comprised of a smaller segment of a society’s population, can be guaranteed to find more common interests within its diminished constituency. The association thus forms a miniature general will within the greater general will of the state, a condition which Rousseau finds disastrous. Though no indication exists that associations for Rousseau must be minority groups, neither does he rule out such a possibility. Furthermore, most civil society actors in modern society do represent minority interests. It may be possible that

minority groups, by embodying an interest that is particular vis-à-vis the general will, exclude themselves from the latter and stand in a relation outside of it.

Rousseau does provide one possible solution: to multiply the number and maintain the relative equality of associations themselves.17 This, however, doesn’t seem like a satisfactory way to alleviate our concerns. Indeed, Rousseau’s explicit solution appears to condone state suppression of large associations, which may result in the exclusion of large minorities from the general will. A more palatable remedy appears upon reflection of Rousseau’s caveat “that each citizen make up his own mind.”18 Here, one sees that Rousseau’s concern is not with the existence of associations in and of themselves, but rather, groups that adopt a representative role in relation to their members, and usurp the individual’s right to decide for herself in the decision-making process. There is no reason why this concern cannot be separated from associations. It is possible to envision associations that remain accommodated by the general will, because they do not claim to always speak on behalf of all their members. A linguistic minority may form clubs and other associations so that its members may benefit from a community that reflects their linguistic identity. But we do not usually conceive of such clubs as having the right to vote politically on behalf of their members. As a result, the members of the linguistic minority, insofar as they retain their individual political agency, remain within the general will, and do not exclude themselves from it.

The case of religious minorities perfectly exemplifies the accommodating nature of the general will, as well as its aforementioned limitations. Rousseau writes, “the subjects, therefore, do not have to account to the sovereign for their [religious] opinions, except to the extent that these opinions are of importance to the community.”19 From the perspective of the state, religion has merely instrumental value; faith leads to “sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen.”20 As a result, “tolerance should be shown to all those that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas

contain nothing contrary to the duties of a citizen.”21A religious minority in Rousseau’s state, therefore, will neither be terrorized nor discriminated against, so long as this minority does not itself seek to deviate from sociability.

Accommodation will be extended to religious minorities, on the condition that they do not exclude themselves from the general will.

This point may be clarified by a specific contemporary example. In 2010, France passed a general ban on all facial coverings.

Though this was not a prima facie policy on a religious minority, much debate involved whether the ban intolerably discriminated against the small Muslim minority that wear the burqa and some types of niqabs. There are various defences of the policy, two of which are relevant for the current discussion. First, one may be inclined to say that, as the ban was passed by an overwhelming legislative majority, the minority Muslim population were simply “in error” as to what the general will of France was. Such a claim would be invalid, for one can easily reason that one interest held in common by all citizens is a preference against unequal treatment by the state; insofar as this law undeniably impacts Muslims disproportionately, it is clear that the law, in fact, contradicts the general will of France. A more formidable challenge, and the central argument of proponents for the law, involved the “sentiments of sociability” discussed by Rousseau; by physically hiding one’s face from the public, one is displaying unsociability. Banning facial coverings in this view merely falls on the conditional side of Rousseau’s argument: by displaying unsociable behaviour, the Muslim minority is no longer accommodated by the general will, and can be legitimately discriminated against. Reflection reveals, however, that such an argument is a perversity of Rousseau. A Muslim woman wearing a burqa is seeking neither a revolutionary overthrow of the French state, nor is she actively spreading social ills. She is a woman going to work, running errands— that is, living a perfectly sociable existence. By choosing to appear in public, which the ban condemns, she chooses sociability. If anything, it is the majority who supported the ban that is guilty of unsociability, insofar as they have

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actively sought to single out for egregious harm a particular segment of the French citizenry.

A state loyal to Rousseau’s thought, properly understood, would not have been able to bring about such a law. The French republic has deviated far from its philosophical founder.

This essay has consistently argued that minorities may be accommodated by the general will on the condition that they themselves do not seek their own exclusion.

This dynamic is exemplified in Rousseau’s considerations of religious minorities, and highlighted through a contemporary case study. One hopes that, should I be successful in my endeavour, lessons may be drawn for future cases involving the political accommodation of minority groups.

NOTES

1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, ed. and trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), 24 2 Ibid., 30.

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3 Ibid., 32.

4 Ibid., 29.

5 Ibid., 26.

6 Ibid., 35.

7 Ibid., emphasis added.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., 82.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., 23.

13 Ibid., 81.

14 Ibid., 82.

15 Ibid., 32.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., 102.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 103.

REFERENCES

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Social Contract.

Edited and translated by Donald A. Cress.

Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.

6 Nastasha Sartore

UAVs in Contemporary Perspective:

The Ethical, Legal and Political Considerations of American Drone Strikes Keywords: Drones, U.S., Counter-Terrorism, War Ethics

I

n the wake of the September 11th alQaeda attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., the United States began using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to fight terrorism in the Middle East. Since President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the US has dramatically extended its use of drone strikes, fostering a debate over the morality and legality of UAVs and targeted killings of al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan and Yemen. In this paper I will explore some of the most important moral and legal questions related to the use of drones, as well as the veiled process behind targeted killings.

Pulling from news sources and recent reports, I will also consider the serious legal and international political implications of UAVs in their contemporary American context.

The United States currently has two separate UAV programs. The first is a military program that operates in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Since Hamid Karzai was elected Afghanistan’s leader, the US has been using force in that country by his request and under a UN mandate.1 The second program is “covert” and directed and controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and private contractors, working mostly from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.2 Operating in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, this program is meant to “surgically eliminate al Qaeda leaders and their allies.”3 In other words, the purpose of this covert system is to carry out targeted killings, or “the intentional, premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force, by States or their agents acting under colour of law, or by an organized armed group in armed conflict, against a specific individual who is not in the physical custody of the perpetrator.”4 Today the CIA program –which will be, for the most part, the focus of this paper –has approximately 7,000 “Predator” or “Reaper” drones,5 UAVs with precise video footage that can hover for up to 40 hours.6 They are reported to have a slight cost advantage over conventional aircraft.7 The Hellfire Missiles dropped from Predator drones have a blast radius that ranges from 15 to 20 metres although shrapnel from the missiles can be projected much further.8 To date, the Bureau

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of Investigative Journalism imparts that between 2586 and 3379 have been reported killed by drones in Pakistan alone, out of which a reported 472-885 civilians have been killed by 351 strikes between 2004 and 2012.

The total reported killed in Yemen is between 362 and 1052; civilians reportedly account for 60-163 of these deaths.9 It is important to note that while the Bureau may be the most reliable of the sources available,10 the data is likely not entirely accurate due to “US efforts to shield the drone program from democratic accountability, compounded by the obstacles to independent investigation of strikes in North Waziristan [Pakistan]” and elsewhere.11 The process of how the US determines who will be killed and under what conditions has largely been kept secret. However, a New York Times article from last year divulged some new, and perhaps exigent, information about how this process works. President Obama sits at the head of the secret nomination process; he sought to personally determine whether the US would go through with a drone strike if there were any doubt over possible civilian casualties.12 The first step in the nomination process developed by the Obama administration involves several agencies (including the CIA, Joint Special Operations Command, Department of Defense, and National Security Agency) that compile names of operatives and create a roster of terrorist organisations and affiliates. The National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC) then generates a list of names submitted for review based on criteria formulated by the White House. Next, the deputies committee of the National Security Council decide on targets, which are finally approved by the president.13 Recently Obama told CNN, “Our criteria for using [drones] are very tight and very strict. It has to be a target that is authorized by our laws. It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative.”14 John O. Brennan, the US counterterrorism advisor, added to this list of factors “the infeasibility of capture, the certainty of the intelligence base, [and] the imminence of the threat.”15 However, the specific details of how they determine, for instance, whether a threat is “serious” or

“imminent” have yet to be revealed.

In addition, we know now that Obama’s method of counting civilian casualties is one that identifies all military-age males in a strike zone as “combatants.”16 US officials have justified this by arguing that men found in areas known for terrorist activities or with top al-Qaeda operatives are probably involved in militant activities as well.17 This sheds light on why the US has adopted “signature” strikes, which target “groups of men who bear certain…defining characteristics associated with terrorist activity, but whose identities are unknown.”18 The data that is available suggests that most kills have been of low level militants;19 military leaders –including Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban –make up only 2 percent of those killed according to the New American Foundation.20 In spite of this secrecy, I will first attempt to answer whether drone strikes are ethical.

For some, including many in the US military, classic just war theory will determine whether or not drone strikes –or any use of force, for that matter –are morally justifiable.21 Obama himself is a student of classic just war thinkers Augustine and Thomas Aquinas; his belief that he has a moral responsibility in the process behind targeted killing stems from this stream of thought.22 23 Just war theory essentially lays out a set of duties or deontological requirements, and frames whether or not force is “just” based on four variables. The first is the agent, and whether or not she has the authority to use force. James Turner Johnson takes an absolutist stance here: terrorists never have the right to use force, while sovereigns do.24 Based on the principles of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the state does have a moral responsibility to act when necessary, marking a shift back to the pre-Westphalian, classic just war model of war and intervention.25 The second variable that determines the justness of force is its substantive reason(s).

Indeed, the just war tradition identifies three “just” causes: first, defence of the common good; second, recovery of something wrongly taken; and third, punishment of evildoers.26 This is certainly relevant today, as the second and third causes are incorporated into the

modern practice of acting on account of selfdefence,27 an argument utilised by US officials since 9/11.28 Drone attacks, although not so much about taking something back, certainly incorporate the notion of punishment of evildoing, especially under the Bush administration; Bush made use of Manichean, antagonistic rhetoric of “good vs. evil” during the post-9/11 years of his presidency.29 Generally the reasons for attack today are framed in terms of sovereignty –as a matter of preservation of the state in the context of “armed conflict.” Evidently, this raises the question of whether drone strikes going on now are truly just.

The third variable is the end goal. Just war theory states that force can only be justified when its aim is to achieve peace.

It is difficult to determine now what the Obama administration’s goal is in the UAV campaign, or even whether there is one at all. Jo Becker and Scott Shane state, “What remains unanswered is how much killing will be enough.”30 Similarly, the former director of national intelligence Dennis C. Blair said that strikes had pushed aside any discussion regarding long-term strategy against alQaeda.31 This seems to suggest that the US does not, in fact, have an end goal, or if it does, it remains ambiguous. Until the US clarifies its goal then, it will be difficult to determine the morality of drones based on this model.

The final variable is how force is used.

Historically, force included “noncombatant immunity” and “limits on means,” which translate roughly to the modern concepts of discrimination and proportionality. To the extent that we accept that terrorists are evildoers and that drone strikes are helping to “stamp out, control, and punish” them,32 the Obama administration is fulfilling its moral duties in conducting just war. But, the way that the war is being conducted may be immoral in so far as “non-combatant immunity” is not a guarantee in drone strikes. Indeed, civilians have been reported killed, and Obama’s broad conception of a combatant means that many identified as combatants may not even be involved in hostilities –more civilians may be suffering than reported. Whether or not the numbers are “proportionate” remains up for UAVs in Contemporary Perspective

45

For this argument to stand in favour of drone strikes, supporters will “have to prove that the lives they saved exceed those that were lost ”

debate.

Another way to address the question of morality in drone strikes is the argument of dehumanisation. Critics of the UAV program argue that drone strikes are immoral because they are unmanned and controlled via computer screen. Thus it is the nature of drones (in the way they are operated) that expresses and perpetuates the utter dehumanisation of war. This, indeed, makes drones immoral because they “further [isolate] the American people from military action.”33 The spatial distance of the drone strikes serves to create a mental distance that produces a lack of concern, perhaps because isolation also creates the impression that war is “costless.”34 The lack of media coverage in the US is likely contributing to this disregard for what is going on in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia as well. The fact that operators in Virginia direct surveillance and strikes through computer screens creates a feeling of surreality,35 almost as if they were playing a video game. “There is a risk of developing a ‘Playstation’ mentality to killing.”36 The virtual nature of the strike and the physical distance between the operator and the drone means the attack occurs “without risk of attack or reprisal.”37 Neither the operators nor the public properly witness the consequences of these actions, which together increases the risk “of taking less care in preventing casualties and destruction.”38 As opposed to deontological just war theory, consequentialism, which affirms that consequences are the only factor determining the rightness of an action, is a third possible approach to understanding the morality of drone strikes. Indeed, many supporters point to the effectiveness of the strikes at relatively little cost as evidence that drones are not immoral. However, with evidence from the recent report, Living Under Drones, this argument may no longer stand. This report shows that the strikes have had a significant negative impact on the lives of those living in the FATA, or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a semi-autonomous region

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located in the northwest of Pakistan. First and foremost, there have been considerable injuries and deaths as a result of drone strikes.

There have also been significant social and economic consequences. Many families are facing major financial hardship because of loss of their head of household, medical costs, or destruction of their homes.39 Individuals are suffering increased levels of fear and stress, which has in turn led to the deterioration of community life.40 Others are suffering insomnia and common symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.41 Additionally, strikes have decreased access to education as well as the desire to learn: many children are forced to work to make up for lost income, while others are distracted out of fear.42 Evidently, the consequences no longer appear to outweigh the costs. Not to mention, there may be unforeseen effects that surface later on. For this argument to stand in favour of drone strikes, supporters will have to prove that the lives they saved as a result of al-Qaeda killings exceed those that were lost, in addition to the negative effects noted above.

The final ethical consideration is what legal theorist Carl Schmitt calls the “state of exception.” This is a state in which a sovereign can suspend the law by unilateral decision.

Because many feel that “the basic function of the state is the protection and security of its citizens,” they affirm that this “justifies extra-judicial, authoritarian, and even violent measures.”43 Evidently, the “state of exception” seems to apply when sovereignty precludes other concerns, including morality. Damien Cox, Michael Levine, and Saul Newman argue that the state of exception that characterizes the war on terror is blurring the divide between the terrorists and counter-terrorists, because “they both embody a form of violence and exceptionalism which is beyond the law and which has little or no regard for human rights.”44 With that said, it is worth questioning what makes state violence any less terroristic than non-state violence. Michael Walzer describes

“the wrong of terrorism” as “the creation of a devalued collective, a group of men and women who have been…denied what may well be the most important of the Four Freedoms proclaimed by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1943: Freedom from fear.”45 The Living Under Drones report suggests that innocent people in Pakistan have also been denied the freedom from fear, as the report provides evidence that their lives have been significant altered for the worse out of fear of drone strikes. The Pakistani publication The News also takes note of this ambiguous distinction in its report on a June 2009 drone strike that killed dozens during funeral prayers. They claimed it “[sunk] to the level of the terrorists.”46 It seems to be that “When killing takes precedence over targeting, the anti-terrorists look too much like the terrorists, and the moral distinction that justifies their ‘war’ is called into question.”47 Whether there truly is a “state of exception,” however, depends on whether the use of drones has gone beyond the law.

In order to address the legality of drone strikes, I will first outline the official state explanation as articulated by Department of State Legal Advisor Harold Hongju Koh in his speech of March 25th, 2010, in which he announced, “US targeting practices, including lethal operatives conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war.”

This, he claims, is because the American use of force, which is both proportional and distinct, is based on self-defence –a right incorporated into international law. Koh then responds to four legal objections to drone strikes. First, he argues that U.S. targets are lawful because they belong to a belligerent, armed group. Second, he explains that there is no legal prohibition of advanced weapons systems (like UAS) “so long as they were employed in conformity with applicable laws of war.” Third, he goes on to affirm that a state in armed conflict, such as the US, is not required by law to “provide targets with legal process” before carrying out a killing. Finally, Koh states “the use of lawful weapons systems…for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defence or during an armed conflict is not unlawful” under domestic law

either.48 These responses, perhaps mistakenly, rely on two underlying assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that the law that must be respected is International Humanitarian Law (IHL), or the law of war. It is important to note, however, that IHL applies only in cases of armed conflict. The International Law Association has concluded that there is a consensus on the minimal requirements for armed conflict: the existence of two or more organized armed groups and protracted fighting of some intensity.49 Moreover, a de jure state of armed conflict depends on “the presence of actual and observable facts.”50 Within this definition are two kinds of armed conflict: international and noninternational. The Americans are not, by the standards outlined in IHL, in an international armed conflict because it requires that two or more states be involved.51 Perhaps, then, the “war on terror” (or Obama’s “Overseas Contingency Operation”) is a noninternational armed conflict. This involves “protracted armed violence” with a group that has a minimum level of organization and is engaged in collective action.52 The International Law Association outlines other requirements as well, but these are the most problematic for the case of the US. Indeed, for the US to prove that it is in a noninternational armed conflict, it must explain “how [al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘other associated forces’] constitute a ‘party’ under the IHL of non-international armed conflict, and whether and how any violence by any such group rises to the level necessary for an armed conflict to exist.”53 Al-Qaeda and other supposedly associated groups, like the Taliban, are not often linked to one another, or are linked very loosely.54 With that said, it would be hard to prove that America’s adversary fits the general requirements of IHL that I noted above–in particular, that groups be organized.

It seems then that the legal framework appropriate in this context is human rights law, whose standards apply when states are not involved in armed conflict. Under international human rights law, “A state killing is legal only if it is required to protect life (making lethal force proportionate) and there UAVs in Contemporary Perspective

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is no other means, such as capture or nonlethal incapacitation, of preventing the threat to life (making lethal force necessary.”55 In other words, drone strikes must be responsible for directly saving a life, but this will be very difficult to prove in the American context.

Perhaps if there were a case where the CIA obtained reliable intelligence –which is in any case difficult to acquire and affirm –about an individual that was about to carry out an act of terrorism, thus placing the lives of what may be many at risk, then a drone strike would be allowed under human rights law. However, this will likely be the exception rather than the rule, in the same way that the “tickingtime bomb” scenario applies to torture in interrogation. Philip Alston in his study on targeted killing for the UN General Assembly describes the potentially dangerous outcomes of this justification: “Applying such a scenario to targeted killings threatens to eviscerate the human rights law prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life.”56 The second requirement for the legality of targeted killing under human rights law –that no other means is available to stop a threat – is one utilised by American officials in their justification for drone strikes. Brennan has said that “[Lethal operations are] the option of last recourse;”57 President Obama affirmed this in his interview with CNN when he said that capture is always preferred, although difficult.58 Others, however, have begun to suspect that Obama is choosing killing over the complications that would arise if he chose capture59–what to do with the suspects, where to hold them, how to interrogate them, how to try them, and how to incarcerate them.60 In response, Obama’s aides argue that the terrain of Pakistan and Yemen’s tribal areas make it nearly impossible to capture targets.

As Obama stated, “A lot of the terrorist networks that target the United States, the most dangerous ones, operate in very remote regions.”61 Because we do not have much information about the targets and the process behind the drone strikes, it is difficult for us to either confirm or reject Obama’s statement.

Thus, under human rights law, the legality of drone strikes seems ambiguous at best and doubtful at worst. UN Special Rapporteur on

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extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston takes a more extreme stance on their legality: “This means that under human rights law, a targeted killing in the sense of an intentional, premeditated and deliberate killing by law enforcement officials [all government officials who exercise police powers, including a State’s military and security forces] cannot be legal because, unlike in armed conflict, it is never permissible for killing to be the sole objective of an operation.”62

Because we have already established that the United States, as we understand its state at present, is not in a state of armed conflict, it will be subject to the laws that govern in peacetime. Here Alston makes a comparison to the police shoot-to-kill policy, which violates human rights law because the police offer has an obligation to minimise her use of force and attempt warning, restraint, and capture before resorting to shooting.63 Targeting a suspect with a drone strike is evidently meant, in the CIA program, to kill, and thus will violate human rights just as a police office will, by this analogy, violate human rights if he seeks to kill.

To return to Koh’s speech, I would like to point out a second assumption that he takes to preclude human rights law. Namely, he asserts that the US “may use force consistent with its inherent right to self-defense under international law.”64 Evidently, he implies that drone strikes are consistent with this right to self-defense. The problem with this assumption is that Koh is conflating two separate concepts in law –that is, he is blurring the distinction between jus ad bellum, which determines when it is lawful to wage war, and jus in bello, or the laws of war (IHL), which determine how force can be used. The right to self-defence is related to the right to use force (jus ad bellum), while the right to use drones once at war is subject to IHL. Incidentally, the right to self-defence as defined in the UN Charter may not even apply to the American context, because Article 51 states that nonstate actors that motivate the defensive action must be in control of the state.65 The fact that al-Qaeda does not have full control of

so much as Obama was hoping to build more positive relations “In with the Muslim world, the drone are acting counterproductively ”

Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia makes the US’s claim to the right to self-defense seem evasive.

Although I have already discussed human rights as a body of law, I have yet to properly address whether drone strikes violate, or have already violated, the International Bill of Human Rights. In 2006, Amnesty International (AI) first expressed concern that US targeted killings were violating article 6 of the ICCPR, which deals with arbitrary arrest, because they felt that attacks were being used in place of due process –namely, arrest and prosecution.66 As mentioned above, the accuracy of their claim would depend on the difficulty of capture, which we still do not know much about.

The recent Living Under Drones report sheds light on what might be considered violations. First, the report communicates that many Pakistani citizens’ fear of the drones undermines their security to the point where they no longer take part in community activities, like social gatherings, political functions, and education and economic opportunities.67 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes, in Article 27, the right to participate in cultural life.68 Evidently, many community members have been deprived of this right. Living Under Drones also describes the impact of American “doubletap attacks,” where a drone hits the same spot multiple times in quick succession.

Because of this tactic, those seeking to help victims of collect remains sometimes get hit as well. The Geneva Protocol I states, “The civilian population and civil societies…shall be permitted, even on their own initiative, to collect and care for the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked…No one shall be harmed, prosecuted, convicted or punished for such humanitarian acts.”69 As part of IHL, this applies in times of war, but will certainly apply as well in times of peace, because rights only get suspended, not extended, in armed conflict. Similarly, “doubletap” attacks have hindered the ability of the wounded to receive medical aid,70 which also violates articles 12

and 15 of Protocol I.71 The legal implications of these contended violations of international law are significant and potentially dangerous. For one, whatever the US invokes or applies to al-Qaeda, including the use of UAVs to kill targets across international borders, could potentially be invoked by other states as well. As of September of this year, 76 countries, including Russia and China, had UAVs. This means that any of these countries could make similar justifications for use of drone strikes in the future against their own respective foes. Philip Alston warns that, on a larger scale, this “would be to do deep damage to the IHL and human rights framework.”72 Likewise, making exceptions to the test for anticipatory selfdefense –namely, “necessity that is ‘instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation’” –poses the danger of institutionalizing the exception.73 This could, like the more widespread use of drone strikes internationally, seriously undermine human rights.

Drone strikes have also had and may have further implications for American international politics. Many Pakistanis oppose strikes, and have held demonstrations protesting US drone strikes in the country.74 Anti-American sentiment is rising within the country, with three quarters of Pakistanis considering the US to be an enemy.75 As a result, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman, has stated that drones as “[radicalizing] foot soldiers, tribes, and entire village in [the] region,” which is essentially working against Obama’s efforts to quell insurgency.76 In so much as Obama was hoping to build a new, more positive relationship with the Muslim world, the drones are acting counterproductively. Moreover, many states in the global community oppose the strikes, including Western states like France and Germany, as well as important Middle East allies, including Egypt.77 The scale of international opposition means that the Obama administration will only serve to

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hinder US credibility on the world stage. [lxxviii] If, at some point in the future, the US is successful in destroying al-Qaeda, perhaps it will regain its reputation, but until then it seems that the use of drones will continue producing considerable obstacles to productive US foreign policy.

Although much of the use of UAVs and the process of targeted killings in the US war against al-Qaeda remains covert, there has been considerable debate over whether these drone strikes are moral, legal, and effective.

In this paper I have explored the ethical and legal considerations of the CIA drone strikes, and have demonstrated that given the information and data we have available, it seems that International Humanitarian law does not apply in this context. I have also argued that the political implications of drone strikes are damaging Obama’s reputation in the international community. Together these political implications, ethical questions, and potential legal violations suggest that the Obama administration ought to reconsider its UAV campaign.

NOTES

1 Lydia de Beer, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Drones) and Law (Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2011), 13-14.

2 Jane Mayer, “The Predator War,” Oct 26, 2009, The New Yorker, 3.

3 Ibid., 4.

4 United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (Philip Alston), “Study on Targeted Killings” (28 May 2010), 3.

5 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, “Living Under Drones: Death, injury, and trauma to civilians from US drone practices in Pakistan” (2012), 8.

6 Mayer, 11.

7 Department of Defense, “Selected Acquisition Reports,” 2010-2011, http://www.acq.osd. mil/ara/am/sar/.

8 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 10.

9 The Bureau of Investigate Journalism, “Covert Drone War,” http://www. thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/ drones/.

10 International Human Rights and Conflict

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Resolution Clinic, 53.

11 Ibid., vi.

12 Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” May 29, 2012, New York Times.

13 “The Process Behind Targeted Killing, The Washington Post, http://www. w a s h i n g t on p o s t . c om / wo r l d / n a t i on a l securit y/the-process-behind-targetedkilling/2012/10/23/4420644c-1d26-11e2ba31-3083ca97c314_graphic.html.

14 CNN, “CNN’s Gut Check for September 11, 2012,” http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn. com/2012/09/11/cnns-gut-chec k-forseptember-11-2012/ 15 Becker and Shane.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Becker and Shane.

19 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 130; and Trevor McCrisken, “Ten Years On: Obama’s war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice,” 795.

20 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 130.

21 James Turner Johnson, Ethics and the Use of Force: Just War in Historical Perspective (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 1.

22 Becker and Shane.

23 Ibid.

24 Johnson, 92-3.

25 Ibid., 91.

26 Johnson, 93.

27 Ibid., 94.

28 de Beer, 13; and United Nations Special Rapporteur, 8.

29 Damien Cox, Michael Levine, and Saul Newman, Politics Most Unusual: Violence, Sovereignty and Democracy in the ’War on Terror’ (Pasingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 83-4.

30 Becker and Shane.

31 Ibid.

32 Johnson, 150.

33 Mary Dudziak quoted in Mayer, 5.

34 Peter Singer quoted in Mayer, 5.

35 de Beer, 3.

36 United Nations Special Rapporteur, 25.

37 Trevor McCrisken, “Ten Years On: Obama’s war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice,” International Affairs 87, 4 ( July 2011), 795.

38 de Beer, 3.

39 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 55, 79.

40 Ibid., 95.

41 Ibid., 80-3.

42 Ibid., 88-92.

43 Cox, Levine and Newman, Politics Most Unusual, 69.

44 Ibid., 70.

45 Michael Walzer, “Terrorism and Just War,” Philosophia (2006) 34:3, 7.

46 Mayer, 13.

47 Walzer, 11.

48 Harold Hongju Koh, “The Obama Administration and International Law,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Advisor.

49 International Law Association, “Final Report on the Meaning of Armed Conflict in International Law” (2010), 2, 30.

50 Ibid., 33.

51 United Nations Special Rapporteur, 16.

52 Ibid., 17.

53 Ibid., 18.

54 Ibid.

55 United Nations Special Rapporteur, 11.

56 Ibid., 25.

57 Becker and Shane.

58 CNN. 59 Becker and Shane.

60 McCrisken, 793.

61 CNN. 62 United Nations Special Rapporteur, 11.

63 Ibid.

64 Koh. 65 de Beer, 11.

66 Ibid., 31.

67 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 55.

68 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, http://www.un.org/ en/documents/udhr/index.shtml 69 “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I),” in de Beer, 229.

70 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 74-5.

71 Ibid., 227-9.

72 United Nations Special Rapporteur, 19.

73 Ibid., 25.

74 Imran Khan’s Pakistan anti-drone drive halts for night,” Oct 6 2012, BBC; Mark McDonald, “Are Drone Strikes Worth the Costs?” Aug 22, 2012, International Herald Tribune.

75 McDonald.

76 Ibid.

77 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, 140.

78 Ibid.

REFERENCES

Becker, Jo and Scott Shane. “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” May 29, 2012. New York Times. de Beer, Lydia. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Drones) and Law. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2011.

The Bureau of Investigate Journalism. “Covert Drone War.” http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/ category/projects/drones/.

Cox, Damien, Michael Levine, and Saul Newman.

Politics Most Unusual: Violence, Sovereignty and Democracy in the ’War on Terror’. Pasingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

CNN. “CNN’s Gut Check for September 11, 2012.” http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/11/ cnns-gut-check-for-september-11-2012/ Department of Defense. “Selected Acquisition Reports.” 2010-2011, http://www.acq.osd.mil/ara/ am/sar/.

“Imran Khan’s Pakistan anti-drone drive halts for night.” Oct 6, 2012. BBC. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law. “Living Under Drones: Death, injury, and trauma to civilians from US drone practices in Pakistan.” (2012) International Law Association. “Final Report on the Meaning of Armed Conflict in International Law.” (2010) Johnson, James Turner. Ethics and the Use of Force: Just War in Historical Perspective. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.

Koh, Harold Hongju. “The Obama Administration and International Law.” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Advisor.

Mayer, Jane. “The Predator War.” Oct 26, 2009. The New Yorker.

McDonald, Mark. “Are Drone Strikes Worth the Costs?” Aug 22, 2012. International Herald Tribune.

McCrisken, Trevor. “Ten Years On: Obama’s war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice.” International Affairs. ( July 2011) vo. 87, 4.

“The Process Behind Targeted Killing. The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ national-security/the-process-behind- targetedkilling/2012/10/23/4420644c-1d26-11e2-ba313083ca97c314_graphic.html.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (Philip Alston). “Study on Targeted Killings.” 28 May 2010.

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ index.shtml Walzer, Michael. “Terrorism and Just War.” Philosophia (2006) 34:3.

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7 Global Public Discourse in the Internet Age Gregory Corosky

Keywords: Social Media, Democracy, Socio-Political Movements 52

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ver the past decade, new electronic social media have taken on a role of unprecedented importance in facilitating public discourse among diverse groups on a global level. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, smartphones, online blogs, and discussion forums all constitute an informal network of communication that the public can both consume and contribute to; an information system that is not limited by the selective constraints applied to traditional mainstream news media. By providing an unprecedented outlet for a diverse number of voices and opinions, new social media nurture a new global environment of debate and discussion that has various implications on democracy in terms of shaping group ideology, influencing policy decisions, and mobilising political demonstration. The degree to which new online social media affect positive democratic outcomes in these three domains is arguable, not least due to the nascency of these media as popular tools of public dialog.

Rather than supplanting mainstream media as the global communication tool with the most political agency over individuals and groups, diffuse social media appear to have assumed secondary (albeit important) role in the process of politically relevant group discourse, whereby it is largely dependent on mainstream media recognition in order bear any real political weight. That is, though it undoubtedly instigates a vast amount of dialogue that can be meaningful to those directly involved in the online conversations, the insular nature of online media still seems to demand powerful influence and broader scope of mainstream media in order to engender real or far-reaching democratic political change and to effectively and meaningfully disseminate important ideas to domestic and global audiences.

The purpose of this paper is to assess and evaluate the role that online social media play in democratic political processes and outcomes around the world. In order to do this, it will first be necessary to define the nature, function, and characteristics of new online social media in their contemporary historical context. By calling upon the literature of various media theorists, it will be possible to situate these new media in their appropriate

historical context and highlight important characteristics that distinguish new forms of media from preceding ones. Next, the positive and negative effects that new social media have on democracy and democratic outcomes will be discussed through examinations of the nature, usage, and implications of new social media. From this, the recent uprisings of the Arab Spring will be analysed in contrast with the Occupy movement to explore the democratic impact that new social media actually had in mobilising groups, setting coherent goals, and achieving substantive political outcomes. These recent global movements are useful in examining the degree to which new social media can affect substantive democratic political change, and will highlight the significant interplay between new social media and mainstream media in achieving democratic political outcomes.

Both of these socio-political movements were expedited in large part by new social media, though the Arab Spring was unquestionably more successful than the Occupy movement in defining and achieving its objectives. By analysing the factors contributing to the Occupy movement’s ultimate failure and the Arab Spring’s ultimate success in affecting substantive political change up to this point, it will be possible to develop a better understanding of how different social media employment strategies are more effective in producing desired outcomes in the political and social sphere. In short, this paper will investigate the degree to which new social media help or hinder the ability of the public to self-govern through effective democratic processes in domestic and global spheres.

Part I: The Nature of New Social Media in its Contemporary Historical Context The new forms of social media whose nature and scope will be evaluated in relation to democratic political outcomes are Internet or wireless-based services; namely Facebook, Twitter, online blogs, discussion forums, YouTube, and smartphones. When applied to contemporary media environments, the theories of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan are useful in providing a historical

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context for these new social media. Innis and McLuhan’s theories suggest that mediums such as Facebook and Twitter can be contextualised as the next logical step in a long historical progression of technological media developments that have been taking place for millennia. Innis expounds a chronological vision of media development beginning in 4241 B.C.E, which links trends in media characteristics to “society’s overall nature,” in that the nature of media dictates power relations within and among groups and civilisations.1 He posits that mediums evolve over time to become more efficient expeditors of information by minimising the constraints of time or space biases that the media are subject to; “The newspaper with a monopoly over time was limited in its power over space because of its regional character…The bias of communication in paper and the printing industry was destined to be offset by the bias of the radio.”2 Similarly, Marshall McLuhan, who also presents a deterministic media theory that highlights the influence of specific mediums on the overall nature of society, sees a logical and chronological pattern in the development of new mediums over time.

For McLuhan, “the…social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”3 This claim designates powerful agency to the medium itself (as opposed to the message it delivers), since it is the medium and not its content that changes the methods and scale of human interaction. As new mediums are introduced into societies, the processes of human interaction are made more effective.

For McLuhan, each new medium is thus a logical “extension or amplification of an older one; …an automobile, for example, is…a fast horse.”4 When considering such claims in Innis and McLuhan’s theories, new electronic social media can be contextualised as the next logical step in a long linear progression of technological developments; these media are a culmination of a chronological process that has seen the emergence of increasingly efficient media that not only enter into but also

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drastically effect public discourse. These new social media inhabit a new and unprecedented space in the historical progression of communications technologies, due in large part to two distinguishing characteristics; first, new electronic social media are not restricted by time or space biases, and second, they are decentralised and collaborative (i.e. new social media obscure the distinction between the “journalist” and the “audience”). As noted previously, Innis identified media as being restricted by either time or space bias, and argued that power in society was held by the actor who had a monopoly over information flow (i.e. governments could have great power over their societies if they had control over the methods and scope of information flow). New electronic social media challenge this theory because these media do not face real time or space biases. With the printing press, for instance, information could be archived for long periods of time but still faced heavy space restrictions due to its local and regional character. The introduction of radio and television neutralised this bias to a large degree, in the sense that information could be broadcast to a larger audience, and footage could be archived for long periods of time. The methods of interaction that new online social media introduce into human affairs neutralises these time and space biases even further. Information can be published on the Internet and immediately accessed by anyone at nearly any location on earth (eliminating restrictions of space), and endless quantities of information can be preserved indefinitely in cyberspace to be accessed at any time (eliminating restrictions of time).

No previous medium in the development of communications technologies has ever been as free from restrictions of time and space as new electronic social media, and this would be considered significant for Innis because it impedes one single actor from holding complete power and influence over information flow, and makes information flow a collaborative public affair.

The second distinguishing characteristic of new electronic social media stems logically from this lack of a time or space bias: new media is decentralised and collaborative

in nature. Until the advent of Internet technologies, media tended to flow unilaterally from a centralised actor (or body of actors) to the public, and there was a strong distinction between the “journalist” and the “audience” (i.e. between the “arbiter” of information and the “consumer” of information). During this preInternet period that consisted of print-based and televised media, the gatekeeping process of information selection had a higher capacity to limit information and select news stories for public consumption. As proposed in their gatekeeping theory from 1957, Westley and MacLean find “the audience has a weak active role [in content selection], sending feedback – primarily in the form of letters or telegrams at that time – but there is an assumption that the audience has little or no direct influence on content.”5 Due to the centralised nature of media at the time, the general public audience had little to no control over media content during this print-based era, and was thus restricted solely to coverage selected by media networks. However, in the context of the Internet – in which there is no constraint on who disseminates information – no centralised systematic information selection process exists to limit or shape content posted online. The public has the freedom to publish, discuss, debate, select, and consume information on a larger scale than ever before, and this diffuse network of information sharing ensures that a wide array of opinions and issues are represented. The democratic implications of uninhibited and endless information flow are vast, and whether this unfettered media environment is ultimately positive or negative will be discussed in the following section.

Part II: Democratic Implications of New Social Media The question of new social media’s impact on democracy can best be explored by analysing the effects that this dramatic influx of free information flow has on the enhancement or attenuation of essential democratic processes: namely, on constructive and fruitful public discourse, since any real democratic movements or change must stem from some degree of public deliberation or consensus. This

is a significant question because, as a variety of media theorists (e.g. Lippmann in 1949, and McCombs in 1997 and 2004) have found, forms of mass media do inform public opinion to a some degree, for, “by virtue of creating a shared, national pseudo-environment, mass media fulfil the important function of building a public consensus on the important issues of the day.”6 In Cass Sunstein’s Republic.com, Sunstein employs the ideas of two important theorists of freedom and democracy as a framework through which the effects of such media influence over democracy can be considered. The first theory is that of John Stewart Mill, which states: It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. …Such communication has always been, and is peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.7

This position paints a generally positive picture of democracy in the age of electronic social media and suggests that the communication which media fosters between citizens is paramount in achieving progress.

The second theorist Sunstein cites in his analysis of democracy in the age of heightened information flow is John Dewey, who argues: The belief that thought and its communications are now free simply because legal restrictions which once obtained have been done away is absurd. Its currency perpetuates the infantile state of social knowledge. For it blurs recognition of our central need to possess conceptions which are used as tools of directed inquiry and which are tested, rectified and caused to grow in actual use. No man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left alone.8

This position is more sceptical than that of Mill. It suggests that the principles of democracy and freedom are not automatically or necessarily enhanced by unfettered communication among citizens, since it leaves room for large-scale digression and distraction from truly important democratic

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idea of democracy comes a central “ With the communitarian demand for public deliberation about policy issues. issues. These two competing views will be used as a point of departure for the analysis of new media alongside democratic processes.

In order to properly judge the effects of media on democracy, it is also necessary to consider the differences between the specific brands of democracy that a society aims to achieve: for different versions of democracy place different demands on media.9 Populist democracies, for instance, emphasise the importance of informing citizens on a broad array of issues, and developing strong links between public preferences and policymaking.10 This vision of democracy demands that media facilitate links between politicians and their electorate, so that the public can have a say in the policymaking process through a system of sustained feedback. With the communitarian idea of democracy comes a central demand for public deliberation about policy issues; a demand that prioritises participation over information, and puts a responsibility on media to facilitate meaningful and educational public dialog among citizens.11 Pluralist democracy emphasises the significance of free competition among groups, and demands that media aid both the establishment of geographically dispersed groups, and the promotion of dialog among these diverse interest groups. With these three visions of democracy in mind – each placing different demands on media – the effectiveness of new social media in meeting various democratic demands can be evaluated.

The widespread use of new social media can have both positive and negative effects on society. Regarding positive effects, social media are able to give voice to minority groups or groups who might feel politically underrepresented or isolated from mainstream media content, as well as increase political participation in acute scenarios by facilitating social or political movements that affect real democratic change.12 As Mill’s theory asserts, a highly communicative society is one where progress is achieved through consistent and unfettered dialog. This “highly

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”

communicative” process that Mill refers to is evaluated in the contemporary study of “social network analysis;” a “theory of structural relations between individuals” that studies “relationships among social entities, and on the patterns and implications of these relationships” with emphasis on “…relational ties between actors, the network of structure ties between and among individuals, and the conceptualisation of network structure along social, political, and economic dimensions.”13 One general measure of progress in democratic societies is the equal, fair treatment and status of minority groups; that is, of “a relatively small group of people differing from others in the society of which they are a part in race, religion, language, political persuasion, etc.”14 In order for these groups to work towards equal representation it is essential for geographically dispersed individuals to establish strong channels of communications in order to form cohesive ideologies and policy goals. This process can be greatly facilitated by online media. As Sunstein claims, “Internet discussion groups…allow people to discuss shared difficulties when they would otherwise feel quite isolated and believe that their condition is unique or in any case hopeless.

This is highly desirable for the people involved and also for society as a whole.”15 Online blogs are an important example of a new medium that facilitates dialog between dispersed members of minority groups. The Huffington Post, for example, is a popular online blog that directly gives voice to various minorities by designating different sections of the website to articles pertaining to specific groups. Namely, “Religion,” “Gay Voices,” “Black Voices,” and “Latino Voices.”16 These sections contain articles focusing on issues pertaining to each specific minority group, and comprise a wide range of topics including politics, culture, and entertainment. In the “Black Voices” section for instance, readers can find articles such as “Long Sentence for Man Who Burned Down Black Church After Obama Election,” “Blacks Outpace Other Female Recruits in U.S.

Military,” and “Can A Wave of Black Recruits Diversify NY’s Fire Department?”17 These titles highlight group-specific issues that are rarely explicitly broached in mainstream media content. Readers also have the freedom to post and read user comments on all blog articles on The Huffington Post, which initiates a level of group dialog and feedback. By designating specific online forums for minority groups who might feel otherwise underrepresented, The Huffington Post helps place these groups in the broader public consciousness. Even if an individual does not actively navigate to The Huffington Post’s website to read particular sections geared towards minority groups, articles written for all sections of the website are published onto The Huffington Post Twitter account (which presently has nearly 1.5 million followers), and onto its Facebook page (which presently has over 500 thousand followers). People are also able to “Retweet” articles (i.e. repost Tweets to their own Twitter followers), or post them to their Facebook pages for others to read.

A similar example of online forums being used to give space to underrepresented minority groups in the general public discourse is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.18 The purpose of GLAAD is to increase the presence of LGBT-related stories in mainstream entertainment and news stories. GLAAD justifies its goal of increasing LGBT stories in the media by arguing, “what people see in the media has a huge impact and GLAAD ensures images of LGBT people and allies grow acceptance, understanding and build support for equality.”19 The website also serves to “hold media accountable for the words and images they produce” in order to “send important messages about homophobia and discrimination.”20 Through its blog function, which posts articles and facilitates dialog among readers, GLAAD provides a space for discussion and debate for issues surrounding the LGBT community in order to foster a sense of community and identity, and combat discrimination in everyday public discourse. GLAAD, along with The Huffington Post, are just two examples of online spaces that help give space and representation to minority groups (other

examples include: UN Permanent Forum on Aboriginal Issues [http://www.un.org/ esa/socdev/unpfii/], Black Alliance for Just Immigration [http://www.blackalliance.org/], National Disability Rights Network [http:// www.ndrn.org/], and The Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights [http://www.bahairights.org/]).

Such online discussion forums unify dispersed groups and create networks for discussion that Kahn and Kellner (2003) refer to as “postsubcultures;” this phenomenon effectively “foster[s]/create[s] spaces for the democratic construction, negotiation, and articulation of new constellations of identities to act both locally and globally,” and “provide[s] a number of social rewards including sociability, identity, and support networks.”21 In this sense, social media meet the demands of pluralist democracy, since they aid in digitally unifying geographically dispersed groups of people, and facilitates dialogue among members belonging to these groups and to the general population at large.

Another benefit that new social media may theoretically have on democracy is that they can mobilise large numbers of people for social movements or political demonstration with the aim of affecting popular social, political, or economic change. Among other media theorists, Jeroen Van Laer and Peter Van Aelst claim that the Internet has the capacity to not only “greatly facilitate mobilisation and participation in traditional forms of protest, such as national street demonstrations, but also give these protests a more transnational character by effectively and rapidly diffusing communication and mobilisation efforts.”22 The immediacy with which information can be published online and the capacity that social media have to target key audiences for political movements makes rapid mass mobilisation possible via the Internet. The uprising of the Zapatista movement in 1994 exemplifies the effectiveness of diffuse, instantaneous media, in communicating with and mobilising a large, transnational audience.23 This movement began as a local protest for increased rights by the indigenous population of Chiapas in southern Mexico, and quickly grew to become linked with many other rebellions and struggles around the world

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that were fighting “neoliberal globalisation” that led to subjugation of certain groups.24 The international focus was brought to the movement largely because Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army published many communiqués via the Internet that described the impoverished and neglected conditions of the people of Chiapas: as stated by Jerry Knudson, “Appeals on the Internet by Marcos to the country’s conscience resonated not only in the streets and salons of Mexico City but also captivated the foreign press.”25 After widespread global media coverage were able to pick up on these blog articles and garner international recognition, the movement was able to achieve its first successful round of peace talks in February 1996; a political outcome that may not have been realised were it not for the mobilising power of new social media.

In a more general sense, such coordinated political action on a transnational level would have been much more difficult to achieve, and maybe even impossible to achieve, in a time of print-based communication when all media faced heavy constraints of time and/or space.

The Zapatista movement, like other social or political movements that are effectuated or expedited by means of technological media, highlights the role of new social media in meeting the demands of populist democracy.

In these cases, media serve to inform a large global audience on a broad array of issues, which result in specific policy outcomes that are directly influenced by the general public dialogue.

Though it is true that the effects of social media on democracy listed above are meaningful and positive, social media can also have negative effects on democracy. There are at least two particularly problematic repercussions of new social media for democratic nations: they can corrode constructive public dialog and cause negative group fragmentation by allowing individuals to isolate their media intake to news sources that align with their own preexisting views, and they can instil a false sense of political participation among individuals who are engaging in online activity in lieu of real-life direct action, while not drawing more people into the political process. Regarding

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the former of these two repercussions of new media, as Sunstein argues, “In order for a well functioning system of free expression to exist it must meet two criteria: 1) people should be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance, and 2) Citizens should have a range of common experiences,” and, in the context of new social media, this “system of unlimited filtering could produce too little in the way of shared information and experiences.”26 New social media can reduce constructive discourse by allowing members of society to completely limit themselves to certain ideas and news sources that align with their pre-existing views, while avoiding conflicting ideology and sidestepping constructive political deliberation. In their 2009 study of blog readership and its political consequences, Farrell, Lawrence, and Sides find that Internet blogs have problematic political repercussions on fruitful democratic discourse. When discussing blogs as a medium used by individuals to seek political news and information, Farrell et al. argue that, “people seek out arguments with which they already agree or are likely to agree,” and cite the conclusion of a 2006 study on similar topic

by Taber and Lodge, which states:27 As predicted by the selective exposure hypothesis, participants – especially political sophisticates – were significantly more likely to read the arguments of sympathetic sources than to expose themselves to an opposing point of view. Moreover, they polarised as a result of their selective exposure: subjects who were most biased in their information search became more extreme in their attitudes, while subjects below the median in search bias did not polarise.28

This excerpt illustrates that when selecting news sources, people have a tendency to gravitate towards those sources whose arguments are likely to align with or support their own pre-existing ideas. The Internet makes this selection process extremely easy.

Individuals who seek their information online could, for instance, have a list of preferred blogs and websites bookmarked in a tab on their browser’s homepage, which they can access immediately, and without having to filter

idea of democracy comes a central “ With the communitarian demand for public deliberation about policy issues. through less desirable sources. Furthermore, Twitter allows people to follow the accounts of various new networks, political pundits, social scientists, professors, and bloggers, whose articles appear as hyperlinks in a steady stream of news on the Twitter user’s homepage.

Twitter thus brings the information selection process to a level that is practically automated; once the user has selected the sources that he or she would like to stay informed on, Twitter will limit its information output for that user to these selected sources.

The excerpt from Taber and Lodge also emphasises the fact that this practice of selection can lead to polarisation that becomes more severe as the selector’s bias increases (i.e. the more an individual actively seeks information that aligns with his or her own attitudes, the more extreme his or her attitudes become), or, as stated by Axford and Huggins, “the polity itself is becoming more heterogeneous and…is fragmenting.

In the ‘great retreat’ (Boggs, 1997) from the arena of common concerns and politics, we see a concurrent withdrawal into ‘enclave consciousness’, away from larger collective identities and community sensibilities.”29 This finding is a logical extension of the idea that people select their own news sources. If an individual is constantly exposed to arguments that affirm and validate his or her own ideas, the individual’s views are likely to be reinforced to the point where the individual’s political attitudes become increasingly extreme. This phenomenon can lead to group segmentation across extreme ideological lines. As outlined by Meraz, “Within the independent U.S. political blogosphere, several studies have found segmentation along partisan lines…this partisan, group polarisation limits deliberative, democratic conversation by encouraging ‘enclave extremism.’”30 This “enclave extremism” is a phenomenon expounded by Sunstein (2001), which refers to a “fragmented or balkanised speech market.”31 It can ostensibly have some positive repercussions on society (e.g.

”

fragmented discourse can provide discussion forums for marginalised groups, as explained previously), but has little positive impact when members of these groups “insulate themselves from competing positions;” a phenomenon that is likely to occur with new social media.32 Such fragmentation prevents society from having large-scale, inclusive debates, which not only inform people of competing views, but also allow for a sense of social cohesion and shared experience. The fact that new social media facilitate the restrictive selection process of news sources to those that align with individuals’ pre-existing views, and the fact that this results in group fragmentation, shows that new social media can indeed be destructive to fruitful democratic deliberation.

The nature of the Internet as a medium creates an environment where meeting either of Sunstein’s two aforementioned stipulations of a free society (exposure to new ideas, and shared experiences) is increasingly difficult.

Social media tend to restrict individuals to opinions that align with their own, and creates group fragmentation that impedes the development of shared experiences on a societal level.

The second negative repercussion of new social media on democracy is that these media can breed a false-sense of political involvement in individuals and groups; a sentiment that does not encourage direct political action or lead to substantive democratic changes. By engaging in various online activities such as posting political blog articles, signing email petitions, or Tweeting about political events, individuals begin to develop a false sense of political participation that does not always lead to real democratic action. This phenomenon is referred to by many scholars as “slacktivism,” and is described by Evgeny Morozov as “feelgood online activism that has zero political or social impact. [Slacktivism] gives those who participate in ‘slacktivist’ campaigns an illusion of having a meaningful impact on the world without demanding anything more than joining a Facebook group.”33 Participating in

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online “slacktivism” does not necessarily lead to increased political participation in real-life scenarios, and may even prevent individuals from developing an impetus for action since “slacktivism” produces a false sense of political involvement. One Tweet available to the general public proves particularly indicative of the state of online political or social activist discourse: “Holy…the Internet is amazing for armchair-protestors such as…myself.”34 This sentiment, while anecdotal, is symptomatic of the larger belief that online activity translates into effective political action, when in reality online social media do not tend to systematically engage more and more people in real-life political participation. As discussed previously, the Internet provides seemingly endless forums for discussion. This does not, however, translate into an increase in political involvement. While people may be able to access more information on a broader array of topics, this excess of information seems to have little effect on levels of direct political action or participation. As stated by van Dijk (2006), “Contrary to popular expectations… the Internet is not drawing more people into the political process.”35 This claim has been affirmed by various social scientists in a number of studies. In a 2003 study by Boogers and Voerman, for instance, the effects of political websites on the campaign for the Dutch parliamentary elections of 2002 were assessed. The results showed that political websites had little impact on the political process for various reasons. During the election campaign, political websites “only partly succeed in involving new groups in politics,” and “visits to political Web sites are primarily confined to politically active groups” – that is, most of the people who visit such websites are already highly politically engaged or educated, which does little in the way of engaging new participants.36 Overall, the study found that “the use of political Web sites does not lead to a more active engagement in politics.”37 Therefore, while new social media undoubtedly provides a larger quantity of political information, this advantage does not produce a more politically involved general public. As van Dijk articulates, “Those who obtain access

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to the Internet but who are not sufficiently motivated for political participation will not suddenly become more involved. There is no technological fix for a basic lack of political motivation.”38 In this sense, participating in online discussions or reading political online news media keep existing levels of political interest on an unchanged level, and does not actively promote real or direct political involvement among individuals and groups who do not already exhibit high levels of political involvement.

Overall, it is clear that new social media can have a variety of effects on democracy. The Internet provides tools for underrepresented or marginalised groups to have a forum for discussion and gain social and/or political equality by figuring more prominently in the public consciousness. New social media also have the capacity to act as a rapid mobiliser that facilitates democratic change in certain situations, by organising groups and publicising injustices to garner worldwide attention and support. However, new social media can be a negative force for democracy by corroding constructive public deliberation and causing group fragmentation – a process that is facilitated by the selective nature of online media consumption. New social media can also instil a false sense of political participation in individuals who spend time online, while not actually affecting real substantive political outcomes or engaging a broader audience in the political process.

Part III: The Case of The Arab Spring vs.

The Occupy Movement Two recent political events that effectively illustrate the positive and negative effects that online social media can have on democratic outcomes are the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. These two campaigns both began as local, grassroots movements, and gained substantial momentum and global prominence thanks in large part to new social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and smartphone technologies. It seems, however, that the uprisings of the Arab Spring were more effective in setting and achieving objectives than the Occupy movement has been. Zine

al-Abedine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya have all been ousted from power, Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has agreed to step down in forthcoming elections, and protests continue in other nations of North Africa and the Middle East.39 Similar triumphs cannot be listed off for the Occupy movement, largely because its lack of clear objectives makes it difficult for observers to judge and evaluate the movement’s successes. Various explanations can account for the success of the Arab Spring and the general failures of the Occupy movement. For one, the nature of the uprisings themselves are very different to begin with – on one hand, in the Arab world, the political situation had reached an urgent point where citizens of these nations were no longer willing to be oppressed by unjust, autocratic rulers who provided low quality of life and suppressed popular dissent and political opposition. Large protests began “first in Tunisia, then in Egypt…Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, and Libya, as well as Syria, Iran and Lebanon, and, more tentatively, Saudi Arabia, [which] all challenged the repressive, anti-democratic nature of these regimes.”40 Here, the goal of the movement is clear: mobilise the general public to overthrow oppressive dictatorships and begin transition processes towards more democratic systems of governance in which citizens can live and assemble freely. In North America, however, where the Occupy movement began, the political situation was far less urgent and dire than in the Arab world. After being prompted by Canadian magazine Adbusters in Vancouver, the Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York City amid a growing sense of general public frustration regarding an uneven distribution of wealth (i.e. the purported “1%” vs. “99%” divide), austerity, and “corporate greed.”41 42 While it is true that economic downturn affects many people to a large and often devastating degree, the relatively tumultuous financial situation is objectively far less of a direct threat to the protection of fundamental human rights and human survival than are brutal autocratic dictatorships in the Arab world. The Occupy movement, therefore, had

more difficulty establishing a concise set of goals, since the purpose of the movement was largely a diffuse and general dissatisfaction with various aspects of the financial and political system, and people were unable to effectively summarise and mediate these frustrations.

Besides the Occupy movement’s lack of both a unified, coherent goal, and the same dire sense of urgency that was present in the Arab world, the fact that the Occupy movement did not effectively use new social media to develop and push its message into the mainstream media can help account for the Occupy movement’s failure. As elaborated previously, online participation does not always translate into direct, democratic, political outcomes.

With the development of Occupy Wall Street, the vast majority of dialogue took place among specific interested groups online: “The idea became a trending topic that went viral on Twitter and Facebook, and a buzzword for thousands who took to the streets across the world against what they called unfair wealth distribution and corporate-political nexus.”43 While the Occupy participants employed social media effectively to quickly mobilise large groups of people for protest, the participants failed to develop and push a clear message or purpose of these protests into the mass media lens; a step that is of extreme importance in achieving global legitimisation and recognition even as new social media gain increasing global agency. Mainstream media were unable to disseminate a clear message to global audience, and as a result, “much of the media mocked [Occupy protestors] as a collection of odd balls, anarchists and hippies, with no clear agenda – struggling to find a clear message.”44 As found in the Boogers and Voerman study referred to previously, new social media must be used in conjunction with mainstream media in order to have substantive political effects: “the results of the survey show that visitors to political web sites do not regard these sites as a replacement for traditional media…As the survey data show, political sites mainly function as a supplement to political news in the papers, or on the radio, or on TV.”45 The lack of substantial policy outcomes that have followed the rise

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of the Occupy movement suggests that while new social media can be effective in quickly mobilising groups of people for protest, they are not sufficient for constructing a general public consensus that could facilitate desired and lasting democratic changes. The lack of mainstream media coverage – or indeed, the lack of systematic effort on the part of the Occupy participants to push their message into the mainstream media – that resulted from largely restricting Occupy discourse to online forums, impeded the movement from developing a coherent, uniform, consensus from which goals could be pursued and achieved.

The uprisings of the Arab Spring, however, saw a deliberate effort on the part of citizens to push their message into the mainstream media as early and systematically as possible.

Similar to the previously cited Zapatista movement that garnered attention of global media outlets, the Arab uprisings rapidly gained global recognition and legitimisation by forcing their message into mainstream media channels such as Al Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC. These media outlets worked in conjunction with the use of smartphones, Twitter, and Facebook, to present first-hand accounts of the domestic turmoil in the region to global audiences. The public was able to use smartphone technologies to upload personal videos to YouTube and Facebook, which mainstream televised media was able to disseminate to global audiences. This was also useful in informing fellow citizens, since “about 17 million people in the Arab region are using Facebook…with 5 million in Egypt alone.”46 The use of new social media to push the message of the Arab uprising into mainstream media is an important step that differentiates this movement from the Occupy movement. As stated by Nasser Wedaddy in an interview with Al Jazeera during the American Islamic Conference, “[During] the Arab Spring uprisings…we forced our story through the media cycle. We didn’t only demand it but introduced the content and provided a very clear and coherent message…

It could be summed up in one statement, ‘The people want to bring down the regime.’”47 Because the images and stories of the Arab

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Spring were pushed into mainstream networks and not restricted to Twitter, Facebook, and online blogs, the message was able to reach the vast audiences of mainstream media and was not restricted to insular online forums.

The clear and coherent message was easily adopted by mainstream media outlets, which were able to disseminate accurate depictions of the domestic situation worldwide to the point where the goals of the movement were consolidated on a global level. Thus, the failure of the Occupy movement to adequately employ mainstream media in conjunction with new social media, and the success of the Arab Spring uprising in systematically pushing its message into mainstream media, can account for both the failures of the Occupy movement in forming and achieving outcomes, and the success of the Arab nations in overthrowing regime leaders in a step towards democracy.

These outcomes indicate that new social media are effective in organising and mobilising groups for political protest, but that new social media must be employed in conjunction with traditional mass news media in order to attain lasting democratic outcomes.

Part IV: Conclusion To conclude, this paper discussed how new social media can be seen as the next logical progression in media communications technologies, though they inhabit an unprecedented space due to their lack of time or space constraints. Then, both the positive and negative effects of new social media on democracy were discussed. In a positive way, new social media are effective in giving discussion forums to minority groups, which may help marginalised individuals reach greater equality by figuring more prominently in the public consciousness. New social media are also effective in increasing acute political participation in certain scenarios by mobilising and organising groups for protest, and pushing the message of the protest into the mainstream media for global consolidation (as seen with the Zapatista movement and the Arab Spring uprisings). The negative effects of new social media were also elaborated, including the capacity that new media have

on corroding fruitful public deliberation and causing negative group fragmentation. New social media were also argued to create a false sense of political participation, while not actually drawing more people into the political process (as demonstrated by the Boogers and Voerman study). Finally, a comparison between the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring uprisings illuminated the importance of employing new social media in conjunction with traditional mainstream forms of media in order to deliver a coherent message to a more global audience and achieve enduring change.

These findings have led to a general conclusion that new social media can have both positive and negative effects on democratic processes, and that new social media still rely on traditional forms of mass news media to achieve a global consensus that facilitates real and lasting democratic outcomes.

NOTES

1 McChesney, Robert Waterman. 2004. The problem of the media: U.S. communication politics in the twenty-first century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 211.

2 Innis, Harold Adams. 1991. The bias of communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 60.

3 McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding media; the extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 23.

4 Postman, Neil. 1986. Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Penguin Books, 83-84.

5 Shoemaker, Pamela J., and Tim P. Vos. 2009.

Gatekeeping theory. New York: Routledge, 123.

6 Meraz, Sharon. 2009. “Is There an Elite Hold?

Traditional Media to Social Media Agenda Setting Influence in Blog Networks”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 14 (3): 683.

7 Sunstein, Cass R. 2001. Republic.com.

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 191.

8 Ibid, 191-192.

9 Soroka, Stuart. 2011. Lecture IV: Media, Democracy, and Democratisation. Montreal: McGill University.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Sunstein, Republic.com, 193.

13 Meraz, Is There an Elite Hold?, 685.

14 Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2011.

15 Sunstein, Republic.com, 193.

16 The Huffington Post. 2011. The Huffington Post Canada. Last modified December 20. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/.

17 The Huffington Post. 2011. The Huffington Post Black Voices. Last modified December 20. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackvoices/.

18 GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). 2011. About GLAAD. http://www.glaad.org/about.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Carty, Victoria. 2011. Wired and mobilizing: social movements, new technology, and electoral politics. New York: Routledge, 17.

22 Van Laer, Jeroen, and Peter Van Aelst. 2010.

“Cyber-protest and civil society: the Internet and action repertoires in social movements,” in Handbook of Internet Crime, edited by Yvonne Jewkes and Majid Yar 230-254. London: Willan Publishing, 230.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Knudson, Jerry W. 1998. “Rebellion in Chi pas: insurrection by Internet and public relations”.

Media, Culture & Society. 20 (3), 507.

26 Sunstein, Republic.com, 199.

27 Lawrence, Eric, John Sides, and Henry Farrell. 2010. “Self-Segregation or Deliberation?

Blog Readership, Participation, and Polarization in American Politics”. Perspectives on Politics. 8 (1), 6.

28 Ibid.

29 Axford, Barrie, and Richard Huggins. 2001.

New media and politics. London: SAGE. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10218142, 67.

30 Meraz, Is There and Elite Hold?, 686.

31 Sunstein, Republic.com, 78.

32 Ibid, 78-79.

33 Morozov, Evgeny. 2009. “The brave new world of slacktivism.” Foreign Policy, May 19.

Accessed December 15 2011. http://neteffect. foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_ brave_new_world_of_slacktivism.

34 Furlong, Chuck. “Chuck Furlong.” Twitter.

Accessed 15 November 2011. http://twitter.com/#!/ChuckFurlong.

35 Van Dijk, Jan A.G.M. 2006. The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media, Second Edition. London: SAGE Publications Ltd., 106.

36 Boogers, Marcel, and Gerrit Voerman. 2003.

“Surfing citizens and floating voters: Results of an online survey of visitors to political web sites during the Dutch 2002 General Elections”. Information Polity. 8 (1): 17-27,

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21.

37 Ibid., 17.

38 Van Dijk, The Network Society, 107.

39 Cottle, Simon. 2011. “Media and the Arab uprisings of 2011: Research notes.”

Journalism.

Cardiff: SAGE Publications, 647.

40 Ibid.

41 Clark, Campbell. 2011. “Occupy movement a protest no politician can afford to ignore.” The Globe and Mail, October 17.

Accessed November 20 2011. http://www. theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/occupymovement-a-protest-no-politician-canafford-to-ignore/article2203014/.

42 Al Jazeera. 2011. “From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere: The Occupy Wall Street movement – the story has moved on, but can the media keep up?” Al Jazeera. October28.

Accessed November 20 2011.http://www. aljazeera.com/programmes/ 43 Al Jazeera. 2011. “Occupy Wall Street: ‘We Are the 99%’” December 27. Accessed December 27 2011. http://www.aljazeera. com/indepth/spotlight/aljazeeratop102011 /2011/12/20111226125438417351.html.

44 Al Jazeera. 2011. “From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere” 45 Boogers and Vorman, Surfing Citizens and Floating Voters, 23.

46 Ghannam, Jeffrey. 2011. “Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011.” A Report to the Centre for International Media Assistance. Washington D.C.: National Endowment for Democracy.

47 Al Jazeera. 2011. “From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere”

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8

Canada and the Acceptance of American Nuclear Weapons

Jacklyn Majnemer

Keywords: Canada, Nuclear Weapons, U.S., NATO

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D

uring the 1950s and 1960s, two Canadian Prime Ministers, John Diefenbaker (1957-1963) and Lester B. Pearson (1963-1968), faced the possibility of having American nuclear weapons on Canadian soil. In the end, Diefenbaker avoided Canada’s commitment to bring in these weapons, while Pearson swiftly brought them into Canada within the first few months of his tenure.1 This essay will examine each Prime Minister’s choice under the framework that Hymans set up in his book, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, which explains, “why… only some…political leaders decide to endow their states with nuclear weapons.”2 Hymans’ hypothesis must be reworked for the case of Canada because he attempted to explain why certain leaders desire independent control over their nuclear weapons, while Canada’s authority over these weapons was minimal at best. The leaders’ beliefs surrounding the ‘donor’ state of the United States are highly important and must be examined in relation to their choice. This essay will demonstrate that, unlike what Hymans predicted, pride, fear and a variation of the “oppositional nationalist” “national identity conception” drove Diefenbaker to ultimately reject American nuclear weapons.3 First, Hymans’ main arguments will be examined. The ‘national identity conceptions’ of Diefenbaker and Pearson will be analyzed in detail, in order to determine how their beliefs drove them to accept or reject American nuclear weapons.

Hymans’ theory of why certain leaders decide that their states should “go nuclear” is based around what he calls a “national identity conception.”4 This concept refers to a given political leader’s conception of his or her state as well as it in relation to other entities.5 According to Hymans, two factors or beliefs that make up a given national identity conception (NIC) are critical in pushing a leader towards or away from nuclear weapons.6 Firstly, there is the “status dimension”: a leader’s perception of his or her state’s rank in the international hierarchy.7 Leaders that see their country as lower in the pecking order of relevant states are referred to as “subaltern”, while leaders that view their nation as on par or superior to its rivals are “nationalist.”8

Secondly, there is “the solidarity dimension.”9 Leaders with “sportsmanlike” perceptions of rivals will not see themselves as engaged in an “us against them” struggle with other states, while those that are “oppositional” will be unlikely to see any common ground with their rivals.10 Those with ‘oppositional nationalist’ NICs are the only leader type that is likely to seek out nuclear weapons.11 Leaders that have an oppositional view are more likely to fear their rivals, which would make these leaders more likely to overreact and feel threatened.12 In this case, such a leader may desire nuclear weapons in order to provide protection or at least the alleviation of some of his or her fear.13 Nationalist beliefs about the superiority of one’s country elicit pride, which causes leaders to experience a distortedly high sense of control and desire “to act autonomously.”14 Thus, feelings associated with pride may make a leader more likely to acquire nuclear weapons because one would feel confident that one’s state could produce them safely and successfully.15 Furthermore, such a leader may feel that having these weapons would augment or justify the prestige of the state.16 Hymans emphasizes that both of these factors need to be present in the NIC of a given leader, as fear or pride on their own would not be strong enough to push a leader into desiring nuclear weapons.17 Canada is not applied to this evaluation within Hymans’ book. This omission is probably due to the fact that this theory attempts to explain why states would desire to have possession of independently controlled nuclear arms, while Canada never attempted to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.18 The nuclear weapons that were in Canada in the 1960s to the 1980s were produced, maintained and mostly controlled by the United States.19 Canada was technically obligated to accept these nuclear weapons as a member of NATO and due to Canada’s close security ties with America.20 Specifically, Diefenbaker signed on to NATO resolutions MC 14/2 and MC 48/2, which obligated Canada to accept future nuclear weapons for the sake of the alliance.21 However, it is unclear whether Diefenbaker actually knew the true meaning behind his

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commitment to these documents when he signed them.22 While this paper will demonstrate how this theory needs to be reworked in order to explain Canadian case, this essay is not attempting to discount Hymans’ ideas. Rather, the idea behind this essay is to demonstrate the unique case of Canada and to uncover why Hymans’ hypothesis may not apply to cases where nuclear weapons are acquired in this fashion.

Furthermore, this essay will make much use of concepts found in Hymans text and have a similar focus on the ideas and beliefs of the heads of the Canadian government, rather than a neo-realist or systemic approach.

Both John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson underwent a change of heart concerning nuclear weapons during the period of time discussed here.23 Diefenbaker was the leader of the Conservative Party and initially a supporter of bringing American nuclear weapons in Canada.24 However, by around 1960, Diefenbaker began to delay this acquisition, partially due to the influence of the External Affairs department, which was led by Howard Green.25 Diefenbaker called for more Canadian control over future Canadian nuclear weapons and eventually became opposed to them altogether by the time of the 1963 election.26 Pearson was the leader of the Liberal Party, which was the Opposition party at the time of Diefenbaker’s leadership.27 At first, Pearson and the Liberals were opposed to the acquisition of American nuclear weapons.28 Indeed, Pearson himself was a renowned advocate of disarmament and arms control in the United Nations.29 Only in the politically convenient climate after the Cuban Missile Crisis did Pearson make the decision to change party policy and advocate for the fulfillment of Canada’s commitment to the United States to accept nuclear weapons.30 Pride, fear and these leaders’ personal conceptions of Canada did guide their decision making, but not in the way that Hymans predicted.

In Canada’s case, where the acquisition of nuclear weapons became tied to following alliance agreements, a new issue involving national pride emerged that does not have to do with confidence in maintaining the

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weapons.31 Leaders may have felt that they had to choose between upholding their country’s “sovereignty and control” or avoiding “redress” from the donor state.32 The decision to accept these weapons became a matter of pride, as pride causes a leader to desire to be autonomous and to believe that he or she is or should be in control of the country’s fate.33 Thus, as seen with Diefenbaker, pride can be a stumbling block towards attaining nuclear weapons, as opposed to a driving force to acquire them.

Diefenbaker worried about Americans encroaching on Canada’s affairs, but also believed that the Americans would not properly include Canada in an emergency situation in North America.34 Indeed, believing that he was not properly consulted, Diefenbaker was so enraged during the Cuban Missile Crisis that he refused to immediately “raise the alert status of the Canadian NORAD component to [match] the equivalent of the American DEFCON 3”, despite being specifically asked to do so by President Kennedy.35 Diefenbaker did not pledge full Canadian support until October 25th, a few days after the crisis had started, and far too late in the opinion of the American government.36 Diefenbaker’s desire to remain autonomous can be seen during the nuclear negotiations with the United States. He insisted that Canada should have “joint control” over its nuclear weapons, a conviction that bogged down negotiations.37 This delay and his eventual refusal of American nuclear weapons reflected Diefenbaker’s lack of “fear…of abandonment” by his allies.38 This confidence that Canada could still remain under the protection NATO and its allies even if it violated its commitments perhaps reflects the “illusions of control” that leaders experience when overcome with national pride.39 Indeed, rather than being abandoned, one of Diefenbaker’s main worries was that Canada would be dragged into an American conflict as a result of having these weapons, meaning that Diefenbaker would no longer be in control of Canada’s destiny.40 Thus, from his behavior, one can hypothesize that Diefenbaker was displaying his ‘nationalist’ beliefs about his conception of Canada. He risked his alliance

weapons was not a product of fear, “The acceptancebutofthethese result of a rational and calculated decision. ”

ties (although he may not have seen it that way) in order to maintain Canada’s selfcontrol and to assert that Canada should be on more equal footing with the United States.

On the other hand, Pearson appears to have a ‘subaltern’ conception of Canada. The issue of control over the weapons was only dealt with after they were brought into Canada, as Pearson’s main priority was to swiftly appease United States: “it is clear that relationship stability with the US was very important [to Pearson, and the question of control was secondary.”41 In fact, the final agreement outlined some emergency situations where the nuclear weapons could be released without consulting the Canadian government.42 Pearson recognized Canada’s place as a middle power in the NATO alliance: he believed that Canada could not afford to stand alone and cut itself off from its closest allies.43 Hymans identifies another set of factors that can affect a leader’s decision to go nuclear: whether he or she has a ‘sportsmanlike’ or ‘oppositional’ national identity concept.44 These characteristics refer to how a leader regards the state’s main rival or ”whether “we” and “they” naturally stand for similar or different interests and values.”45 As part of NATO, Canada’s main rival would have been the USSR. Nuclear weapons would close the security gap in the North American airspace and give Canada the opportunity to destroy Russian planes carrying nuclear weapons along with their nuclear cargo.46 In some ways, Diefenbaker followed Hymans’ expected pattern of behavior, as his views towards nuclear weapons moderated as he viewed the Russians as less and less of an unequivocal inherent enemy.47 At first, when Diefenbaker was legitimately trying to get American nuclear weapons into Canada, he saw the USSR as a starkly evil and dangerous enemy.48 However, by 1961 he said, “Mr. Khrushchev… supported “a course of peace…a course in keeping with the choice of the Canadian people.”49 On the other hand, Pearson’s views of the

USSR remained relatively constant and are much harder to categorize. On some levels, Pearson seemed to have the traditional Western conception of the USSR as a purely evil entity.50 In a speech given in 1948, Pearson explained that he saw the USSR as the epitome of “totalitarian tyranny” bent on “world domination.”51 Nevertheless, Pearson saw some common ground between Canada and the USSR and saw the need to “negotiate with the USSR in order to prevent…[nuclear] catastrophe.”52 He dealt with Russia frequently in the international sphere, believing that he could make them sign on to arms control agreements.53 It appears to be the case that the change in Pearson’s views about nuclear weapons was not related to some change in his beliefs about the USSR. Although Pearson may have had an oppositional NIC with regard to Russia, it does seem to be the case that fear pushed him into accepting nuclear weapons from the United States. Pearson promised to “renegotiate and alter [Canada’s] commitments” as soon as it was possible to do so.54 Clearly, these are not the words of a man who felt overwhelmingly threatened. Pearson’s justification for accepting American weapons was that Canada could not go back on its commitments.55 If Canada did not fulfill their obligation, its reputation would be sullied and its relations with the United States would sour.56 Thus, the acceptance of these weapons was not a product of fear, but the result of a rational and calculated decision. Thus, Hymans’ theory must be expanded when a country has signed onto an agreement obligating them to take on another entity’s nuclear weapons. In this case, the leader’s perception of “solidarity” with the ‘donor’ country is just as important as his or her perception of the main ‘rival’ country.57 As Diefenbaker became more moderate with regard to the Russians, his views about the United States became more hostile.58 Although his conception of relations between Canada and the United States would not go so far as ‘oppositional,’ he was extremely wary

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of Canada’s traditional ally.59 According to Simpson, Diefenbaker came to “[embody]… the anti-American sentiment in Canada.”60 His suspicions were confirmed after finding an American memo that stated that the United States would “push” Canada to get its way.61 If this slightly ‘oppositional’ attitude towards the United States did elicit fear, it was not in the way that Hymans predicted in his theory.62 Diefenbaker was afraid of the Americans marginalizing and unduly influencing Canada, not of the Americans attacking his state.63 Thus, Diefenbaker’s view of the United States could be seen as at least quasi-oppositional and made him less likely to bend to American demands to accept nuclear weapons.

As time passed, Diefenbaker became more aware of the negative consequences of taking on nuclear weapons.64 By the 1960s, Diefenbaker knew the effects of the atomic bomb, and he was horrified.65 Fuelled by a more oppositional view of the United States, Diefenbaker also worried that the Americans were making Canada a target for a Russian nuclear attack by making them take on nuclear weapons.66 Diefenbaker claimed that he would not allow for Canada to become a “nuclear dump” or a “decoy duck” in service of the United States.67 Eventually, Diefenbaker “convinced himself… that he had never favoured getting the nuclear weapons.”68 Diefenbaker’s behavior captures how powerful beliefs and emotions can be and how desperate Diefenbaker was to make his beliefs square with his past actions.69 Once again, Pearson’s attitudes do not appear to have changed over time. Pearson had a very positive conception of the United States, which would no doubt be characterized as ‘sportsmanlike.’70 Indeed, “Pearson always believed that Canada was very lucky that its neighbor to the south was the United States.”71 America’s international leadership was welcome and should be respected.72 Pearson’s positive view of the United States most probably influenced his decision to change his party’s policy, as he justified his decision by stating that Canada should cooperate with its closest ally and maintain its treaty commitment.73 Thus, the only way to maintain Pearson’s ‘sportsmanlike’ national

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identity conception in regard to the United States was to accept their nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, it is also possible that Pearson’s decision was not based on his personal ethical beliefs. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, 57.8% of Canadians were for accepting American nuclear weapons.74 Pearson knew about these statistics and may have compromised his own ideals in the hopes of becoming the next Prime Minister.75 However, it is also important to note that Pearson also changed his stance once he became aware of how dire the situation was between Canada and the United States.76 Shortly before he announced he plan to accept these weapons if elected, Pearson received a memo from Paul Hellyer, a member of the Liberal Party and future Minister of National Defence under Pearson.77 In his message, Hellyer warned that there would be grave political and economic consequences if the acquisition was delayed for much longer: “[Canada’s] influence in NATO will be reduced to negligible [and]…Americans are almost certain to reduce or terminate their production sharing arrangements with [Canada].”78 Worst of all, Canada “would be pressured to withdraw from the alliance.”79 Pearson wished to continue ‘sportsmanlike’ relations with the United States and knew of the importance of an alliance with them due to Canada’s ‘subaltern’ status.80 Thus, Pearson’s only option was to violate his personal beliefs about the evils of nuclear weapons in order to pursue the policy that he though best for Canada.81 Thus, Hymans’ theory as it stands cannot explain the desires and behavior of Prime Ministers Pearson and Diefenbaker during the 1950s and 1960s. Pearson’s ‘subaltern’ national identity conception combined with his ‘sportsmanlike’ posture towards the United States made him more likely to accept nuclear weapons, while Diefenbaker’s ‘nationalistic’ beliefs and more ‘oppositional’ view of the Americans made it less likely for him to follow through. The emotions of fear and pride actually caused Diefenbaker to increasingly shy away from nuclear weapons, which is the opposite of what Hymans predicted in his book. Diefenbaker’s desire to be in control, not to be subordinated to the United States, and

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his increasing fear and paranoia surrounding the true intentions of the Americans eventually drove him to the point where he denied ever wanting nuclear weapons in the first place.82 Pearson’s reversal displays the distinction between personal ethics and the national identity conception. Although he had fiercely advocated against Canada obtaining nuclear weapons in the past, he changed his stance once he saw that not acquiescing to the United States’ demands could leave Canada without allies and ruin their relationship with the Americans.83 On the other hand, Diefenbaker could not perceive this danger.84 More research is needed, however, in order to determine if Diefenbaker and Pearson are unique, or if other leaders who were also offered American nuclear weapons behaved in a similar fashion depending on their national identity conception.

NOTES

1 Erika Simpson, NATO and the Bomb: Canadian Defenders Confront Critics (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001), 3, 125.

2 Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1.

3 Ibid., 13.

4 Ibid., 13, 18.

5 Ibid., 13 6 Ibid., 18, 22-23.

7 Ibid., 23.

8 Ibid., 24-25.

9 Ibid., 22.

10 Ibid., 22-23.

11 Ibid., 13.

12 Ibid., 29-32.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 34, 32-33.

15 Ibid., 33-34.

16 Ibid., 34-35.

17 Ibid., 35-36.

18 Brain Buckley, Canada’s Early Nuclear Policy: Fate, Chance, and Character (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000), 130.

19 John Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet and the Political Agreement to Acquire Nuclear Weapons for the Canadian Military,” in Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1998), 29, 31; Patrick Lennox, At Home and Abroad: The Canada-US Relationship

and Canada’s Place in the World (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), 56, 60; T.V. Paul, “Aligned Middle Powers: Canada and Australia,” in Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000), 66.

20 Andrew Richter, “The Canadian Debate on the Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons,” in Avoiding Armageddon : Canadian Military Strategy and Nuclear Weapons, 1950-63 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002), 81; Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 28-29; Paul, “Aligned,” 63; Simpson, NATO, 102.

21 Richter, “Canadian Debate,” 80-81; Simpson, NATO, 102.

22 Simpson, NATO, 102-103.

23 Ibid., 3.

24 Patricia McMahon, Essence of Indecision: Diefenbaker’s Nuclear Policy, 1957-1963 (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2009), 52-53, 55; Richter, “Canadian Debate,” 86-87.

25 Richter “Canadian Debate,” 87; Simpson, NATO, 110-111.

26 Brian Bow, “Nuclear Weapons 1959-63,” in The Politics of Linkage : Power, Interdependence and Ideas in Canada-US Relations (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), 48, 56; Simpson, NATO, 111, 124-125.

27 McMahon, Essence, 51.

28 Ibid.

29 Buckley, Canada’s Early, 139.

30 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 53-54; Sean Maloney, Learning to Love the Bomb: Canada’s Nuclear Weapons During The Cold War (Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007), 294, 297.

31 Buckley, Canada’s Early, 21, 32, 130; Lennox, At Home, 57. In Canada’s case, although it may be ‘subaltern’ in the sense that it is a middle power, Canada has had the capabilities and expertise to create a weapon of their own since the 1940s or 1950s. Indeed, Canada was involved in the Manhattan Project and had large supplies of uranium and radium.

32 Lennox, At Home, 63.

33 Hymans, Psychology, 33-34.

34 John Clearwater, “Consult and Authorize,” in US Nuclear Weapons in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1999), 19-20; McMahon, Essence, 55; Simpson, NATO, 118, 131, 159162.

35 Lennox, At Home, 48.

36 Ibid., 51-52; Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 51.

37 Lennox, At Home, 60; McMahon, Essence, 55; Simpson, NATO, 112.

38 Simpson, NATO, 128, 130-131.

39 Ibid., 130-131; Hymans, Psychology, 33.

40 Clearwater, “Consult,” 19-20; Simpson,

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NATO, 160-161.

41 Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 48, 44.

42 Ibid., 51, 53.

43 Ibid., 29-30; Howard Lentner, “Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Case of Canada and Nuclear Weapons,” World Politics: A Quarterly Journal of International Relations 29 (1976): 61, accessed March, 29, 2012, url: http://www. jstor.org/stable/2010046; Lennox, At Home, 64.

44 Hymans, Psychology, 22-23.

45 Ibid., 22.

46 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 51; Lennox, At Home, 56, 60; Richter, “Canadian Debate,” 94.

47 Hymans, Psychology, 22-23; Simpson, NATO, 140-144, 169-170.

48 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 48; Simpson, NATO, 140-144.

49 Simpson, NATO, 170.

50 Joseph Levitt, “Pearson on the Superpower Confrontation,” in Pearson and Canada’s Role in Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations, 1945-1957 (Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 1993), 43-44, 47-48.

51 Ibid., 47.

52 Ibid., 43.

53 Ibid., 43, 51-52.

54 Simpson, NATO, 19.

55 Lentner, “Foreign Policy,” 61; Simpson, NATO, 122-123.

56 Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 29-31; Lennox, At Home, 63-64.

57 Hymans, Psychology, 22.

58 Simpson, NATO, 170.

59 Ibid.; Clearwater, “Consult,” 19-20; Lentner, “Foreign Policy,” 56.

60 Simpson, NATO, 118.

61 Ibid.; Maloney, Learning, 263.

62 Hymans, Psychology, 29-32.

63 Clearwater, “Consult,” 19-20; McMahon, Essence, 55; Simpson, NATO, 118, 131, 159162.

64 Simpson, NATO, 123, 147, 160, 172-173.

65 Ibid., 172-173.

66 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 56.

67 Ibid.; Simpson, NATO, 124.

68 Simpson, NATO, 175.

69 Ibid.

70 Levitt, “Superpower Confrontation,” 53.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid., 52-54.

73 Lentner, “Foreign Policy,” 61; Simpson, NATO, 122-123.

74 Maloney, Leaning, 297.

75 Ibid.

76 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 53; Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 28.

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77 Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 53; Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 28.

78 Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 29; Bow, “Nuclear Weapons,” 53.

79 Lennox, At Home, 64.

80 Maloney, Learning, 298.

81 Ibid., 297.

82 Simpson, NATO 175.

83 Clearwater, “Pearson’s Cabinet,” 28-30; Maloney, Learning, 297.

84 Simpson, NATO, 123-124, 159-160, 173.

REFERENCES

Bow, Brian. “Nuclear Weapons 1959-63.” In The Politics of Linkage : Power, Interdependence and Ideas in Canada-US Relations, 46-69.

Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009.

Buckley, Brian. Canada’s Early Nuclear Policy: Fate, Chance, and Character. Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 2000.

Clearwater, John. “Consult and Authorize.” In US Nuclear Weapons in Canada, 17-44.

Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1999.

Clearwater, John. ”Pearson’s Cabinet and the Political Agreement to Acquire Nuclear Weapons for the Canadian Military.” In Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal, 27-54. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1998, Hymans, Jacques E.C. The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Lennox, Patrick. At Home and Abroad: The CanadaUS Relationship and Canada’s Place in the World.

Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009.

Lentner, Howard, “Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Case of Canada and Nuclear Weapons.” World Politics: A Quarterly Journal of International Relations, 29 (1976): 29-66.

Accessed March 29, 2012. url: http://www. jstor.org/stable/2010046.

Levitt, Joseph, “Pearson on the Superpower Confrontation.” In Pearson and Canada’s Role in Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations, 1945-1957, 43-53. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1993.

Maloney, Sean. Learning to Love the Bomb: Canada’s Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007.

McMahon, Patricia. Essence of Indecision: Diefenbaker’s Nuclear Policy, 1957-1963.

Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2009.

Paul, T.V. “Aligned Middle Powers: Canada

and Australia.” In Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons, 62-73.

Montreal: McGill -Queens University Press, 2000.

Richter, Andrew. “The Canadian Debate on the Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons.” In Avoiding Armageddon: Canadian Military Strategy and Nuclear Weapons, 1950 -63, 80-104. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002.

Simpson, Erika. NATO and the Bomb: Canadian Defenders Confront Critics. Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 2001.

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Website: http://mcgillpssa.com/journal Contact: pssa.mjps@gmail.com