The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Fall 2014

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics (ISSN 1556-2034) is published bi-annually by the Nu Omega Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, Oakland University, Department of Political Science, 418 Varner Hall, Rochester, MI 48309-4488. The journal is funded by Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036, http://www.pisigmaalpha.org.

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics was founded in the spring of 2001 by Delta Omega Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha at Purdue University, under the name The American Undergraduate Journal of Politics and Government. With the sponsorship of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, the name of the Journal was changed to The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics as of the Fall 2004 edition.

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COPYRIGHT Š 2014 PI SIGMA ALPHA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Fall 2014 Volume XIV

Number 2 Twenty-Eighth Edition

Alexa James Krista Squier Jacqueline Yee Eric Burgess Dr. Terri Towner

Co-Outreach Editor Co-Outreach Editor Content Editor Technology Editor Faculty Advisor

Editorial Board Amanda Benno Marissa Coloske James Eveslage Jessica Kalaj Molly Knappenberger Karly Koggenhop Chantell Kolodynski

Chelsea Manning Luke Moloney Ashton Prasatek Jeffrey Schuett Mikaela Strech Andre Sykes Michael Williams

Advisory Board Dr. Robert Alexander II Dr. Nicole Asmussen Dr. Cristian Cantir Dr. Rosalee Clawson Dr. Matthew Dabros Dr. David Dulio Dr. Natasha Duncan Dr. Alan Epstein Dr. Megan Hershey Dr. Jennifer Hopper Dr. Dwaine Jengelley

Dr. John Klemanski Dr. Paulette Kurzer Dr. Jonathan McKenzie Dr. Daniel O’Neill Dr. D’andra Orey Dr. Christine Pappas Dr. Jo Reger Dr. Robert Spitzer Dr. Harry Strine IV Dr. Pete Trumbore Dr. Byungwon Woo

Editor’s Preface to the Spring Edition The Pi Sigma Alpha Journal of Undergraduate Politics would first and foremost like to acknowledge all those individuals and institutions which make the publication of this journal possible semester after semester and year after year. The journal has continued to grow in terms of submissions, quality, and prestige. Admissions to the Fall 2014 edition were both vast in number and constituted a diverse array of topics. We greatly appreciate all those who have submitted their work to the journal in hopes of being published. The articles published herein exemplify a high quality sample of the types of undergraduate research being conducted across the country.

Although the publication is a completely student-run endeavor, the efforts of the student Editorial Board are guided and supported by a number of individuals and institutions which we would like to thank. First, we would like to thank the Pi Sigma Alpha Executive Council and Executive Committee whose vision and financial support has maintained the quality and direction of the journal. Second, we would like to thank the faculty advisory board: the thorough and constructive reviews provided by the members of this board have ensured the articles published herein meet a consistent standard of quality. Finally, we extend tremendous thanks to Editorial Board Faculty Advisor Terri Towner, who has clocked countless hours to ensure the integrity of the journal continues to exceed the standards of excellence set by the editors of its previous editions.

The Editorial Board at Oakland University is proud to present the Fall Edition which contains a well-rounded set of articles with varied methodological approaches and topical matter. The publishing process for the Fall Edition followed a relatively smooth path from submission to publication, and the Nu Omega Chapter and Oakland University wish the readers of this edition a similarly enjoyable time.

Best, The Editors

Submission of Manuscripts The journal accepts manuscripts from undergraduates of any class and major.

Members of Pi Sigma Alpha are especially encouraged to enter their work. We strive to publish papers of the highest quality in all areas of political science. Generally, selected manuscripts have been well-written works with a fully developed thesis and strong argumentation stemming from original analysis. Authors may be asked to revise their work before being accepted for publication.

Submission deadlines are October 1st for the Fall edition and February 1st for the Spring edition. Manuscripts are accepted on a rolling basis; therefore early submissions are strongly encouraged.

To submit your work please email psajournalou@gmail.com with an attached Word document of the manuscript. Please include your name, university and contact details (mailing address, email address, and phone number). If possible, include how you heard about the Journal.

Submitted manuscripts must include a short abstract (approximately 150 words), citations and references that follow the APSA Style Manual for Political Science.

Please do not exceed the maximum page length of 35 double-spaced pages.

The Journal is a student-run enterprise with editors and an Editorial Board that are undergraduate students and Pi Sigma Alpha members at Oakland University.

The Editorial Board relies heavily on the help of our Advisory Board consisting of political science faculty from across the nation, including members of the Pi Sigma Alpha Executive Council. With many people’s precious time being committed to the process, we would like to remind students to submit to only one journal at a time.

Please direct any questions about submissions or the Journal’s upcoming editions to our editors at psajournalou@gmail.com.

Table of Contents The Split: Examining the Post-2007 Fatah-Hamas Divide Through the Treatment of Collaborators

7

Envisioning Cultures of Peace: Artistic Resistance in the People’s Republic of China

22

The Myth of Democracy in Ukraine Ukraine’s Struggle to Democratize

39

Homonormativity Rhetoric and Imagery in the 2008, 2009, and 2012 Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Measure Campaigns

61

Realism in the 21st Century: The Theoretical Implications of New Wars

75

Relative Ethnic Identification and Development

89

Paige Randall St. Lawrence University

Michael Gallagher Fordham University

Amanda Marie Lawnicki Beloit College

Patrick Burke DePaul University

Michael Raven University of Kansas

Michael Zoorob Vanderbilt University

The Split: Examining the Post-2007 Fatah-Hamas Divide Through the Treatment of Collaborators

7

Paige Randall St. Lawrence University Since the Second Intifada, there has been a dramatic shift in the deaths of Palestinian Collaborators with Israel in the West Bank and Gaza; few collaborators are pursued in the West Bank, while death sentences against collaborators are still executed in Gaza. What can explain this disparity? Collective violence theories might attribute this to the relative decrease of violence in the West Bank as compared to Gaza, while transitional justice would link this disparity to the divide in the judicial systems. Can the differing governmental policies adopted by Fatah and Hamas explain the split in collaborator casualties? This analysis concludes that, though governmental policy differences explain the general trend, the levels of violence between Israel and Hamas offer a more convincing explanation of the yearly fluctuations in collaborator casualties. Thus, this paper adds an underexplored layer of analysis to explain the consequences of the political split between Hamas and Fatah.1 Introduction This research paper will analyze the possible explanations for the shift in casualties of Palestinian collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza. The use of collaborators is a major tactic of the Sherut haBitachon haKlali, a branch of the Israeli Security Apparatus that deals with security within Israel and the Occupied Territories. Although their use of collaborators has wide-ranging effects on the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict, intelligence, human rights, and the Palestinian Community, this analysis addresses the puzzling shift in collaborator deaths, which serves as a poignant example of the growing rift between Fatah and Hamas. In this way, this study sheds light on an under investigated aspect of this political split in the Palestinian territories; that of the different policies applied to collaborators by the two Palestinian governments.

The differing policies towards collaborators are indicative of the deep divisions within the Palestinian Authority. It is critical to understand

that the use of collaborators is not just influential in the conflict because of Israeli Intelligence gathered on the Palestinian communities, but because of the possibility that the use of collaborators could undermine peace processes in the future because of a disjointed Palestine (Dudai and Cohen 2007). The sheer amount of Palestinian collaborators, the different solutions employed to combat collaboration, and the violence that has resulted implore the inclusion of this phenomenon in the study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Dudai and Cohen 2007). The division in the Palestinian Authority that the shift highlights is puzzling - the Palestinians share cultural ties, an ongoing conflict with Israel, and a desire for an independent state. This begs the question, why is there such a stark difference in collaborator casualties in Gaza and the West Bank?

The analysis begins by exploring the differing approaches to betrayal through collective violence and transitional justice. Then, these theories will

8 be applied specifically to the deaths of Palestinian Collaborators by Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. In conclusion, it is argued that governmental policies explain the general shift, but the levels of violence between Israel and Gaza explain the specific fluctuations in the data.

Overcoming Betrayal: Models for Addressing Collaboration For the purpose of this discussion, it is important to define the term collaborator. In this case, collaborators describes Palestinian civilians who support the Israelis by giving them intelligence, reporting on every day occurrences, land purchases and general activities that support the Israeli position in Palestinian communities (Dudai and Cohen 2007).

The impact that collaborators have is not only evident through divisions within the Palestinian community, but also on the split within the governing authority.

Collaborators in a political environment are viewed with extreme hostility. Dudai and Cohen (2007) argue that they are not just harming their image in the community, they are seen as impeding the success of a cause, which in the Palestinian case, is to end Israeli occupation to regain their homeland.

This results in a sense of betrayal and violence in order to retain control. The internal betrayal by someone that is trusted is much harder to cope with and leaves a lasting impact (Dudai and Cohen 2007). In cases of political violence, the collaborator is, Ben-Yehuda (2001) argues, seen as a “traitor” who directly betrays the communal trust. This sense of betrayal from collaboration leads to more hatred and condemnation because the population feels their trust was violated - when a spy is planted, the community only feels deceived (Akerstrom 1991). This failure to forgive collaboration and the betrayal that it represents is

even more difficult for a community to overcome than forgiving an external enemy (Dudai 2012). As a result, the phenomenon creates major communal divisions, persecution and victimization both during and after conflict.

Violence During Conflict Addressing the phenomenon of collaboration with violence is more prevalent in periods of conflict, and can be perpetrated by the government or civilians (Rigby 2001). Rigby (2001) points to several conditions that make a community more susceptible to the use of violence; the desire to hurt those who betrayed the community, and a new government that believes it has control because of the population’s support of the government in power. Gaza meets this criterion more so than the West Bank; Hamas uses rhetoric to entrench the sense of betrayal and took complete control of Gaza after a popular vote, while the West Bank is still divided with Israeli control, and was weakened after Hamas won the election and split from Fatah.

In times of conflict, Rigby (2001) argues justice is not emphasized and lawlessness therefore increases.

The fear that is felt during conflict leads to rumors and suspicion of collaboration, and therefore heightened violence as a way of coping (Rigby 2001). In this context, the term “culture of suspicion” can be used to describe the atmosphere that exists in communities undergoing political violence (Cohen and Dudai 2005). Analyzing the impact of suspicion and rumor is particularly relevant here as it offers a theoretical perspective on the reasons behind communal divisions and, in turn, the violence that results (Dudai 2012).

The suspicion and hatred of collaborators in the community lead to rumors motivated by anger and fear, Knapp (1944) argues, which cause cleavages in

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics the community. Moreover, as a result of collaboration and rumors, a “culture of revenge” can develop (Rigby 2001). The natural reaction in a society that has been betrayed is to accuse others of collaboration and being traitors out of fear (Ben-Yehuda 2001). In the Palestinian case, the pervasiveness of the rumors in society can explain the scale of the hatred and violence, as well as why so many innocent civilians were killed solely based on rumors and the need for revenge.

Attacks on suspected collaborators can also be explained through the concept of collective violence, which is conflict that occurs within a community for political, ethnic, or other various reasons. In this analysis, the collective violence is referencing collaborators as a subgroup of Palestinian society, a classification set out by Staub (1993). The government exacerbates the suspicion and violence through active participation in it, which, in turn, lends legitimacy to the violence (Mattaini and Strickland 2006, Rigby 2001). In Gaza, therefore, Hamas is perpetuating the violence against collaborators both directly and indirectly. Hamas’ participation and rhetoric, as well as the lack of enforcement of laws that are attributed to the increased violence (Rigby 2001), are responsible for the increased deaths of collaborators in Gaza.

Thus, according to the collective violence theory, government policies are largely the cause of the shift in communal violence and collaborator deaths in the West Bank and Gaza.

However, what contributes to the increases in lawlessness and violence that result in collaborator casualties? Conflict with another actor threatens the government and community, which in turn causes higher levels of violence and lawlessness within society (Mattaini and Strickland 2006). A causal relationship has been established between the two by Wood et al. (2012): as the enemy gets stronger, the violence

9

against collaborators does as well. This trend has been attributed to preemption, where the government harms collaborators as a way of exerting control and to protect itself (Mattaini and Strickland 2006).

The motivation for targeting collaborators involves their “inferiority”, de la Roche (1996) asserts. As the state becomes less capable of combatting the enemy, they increasingly target the weak, in order to retain some control (de la Roche 1996). This is especially true when the external enemy is threatening the “vital interests,” which is what makes the betrayal so poignant; ultimately the external threat causes an increase in collaborator casualties (Staub 1993). In the Palestinian case, Hamas’ violence against collaborators can be attributed to their inability to counter the Israeli offensives in Gaza after the Second Intifada (Wood et al. 2012). In the West Bank the decrease in violence after the Second Intifada offers a convincing explanation as to why there was less emphasis on searching for and persecuting collaborators and therefore an increased will and ability to stop extrajudicial violence.

Transitional Justice Post-Conflict After conflict has ended, societies address collaboration in a variety of ways that are often indicative of the shift from violence. World War II is an example of this cited by Rigby (2001) – when the war was ending, the persecution and killing of collaborators decreased substantially. The West Bank has not completely ended the conflict with Israel; however, violence has dropped significantly since the Second Intifada, especially in comparison with Gaza.

Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis, the West Bank will be analyzed as a society emerging from violent conflict. This period is known as transitional justice, which is the time after conflict where societies

10

Randall

address and attempt to move past the wrongs committed (Dudai and Cohen 2007). Every process is different, so there is not one clear way to approach the anger that remains, though there are some common models (Dudai and Cohen 2007). These categories are classified as justice, truth and reconciliation (Dudai and Cohen 2007). Although there are different approaches, they nevertheless establish the general strategies to overcome conflict and hatred that have experienced success. South Africa utilized forgiveness through truth and reconciliation, while Chile settled for nonviolent coexistence, Dudai and Cohen (2007) point out. The West Bank is following Chile’s model at this point, as the government is no longer searching for and executing collaborators. The strategy of coexistence is typically associated with the pursuance of justice, rather than truth and reconciliation.

Adjudication is the most common form of transitional justice, though there is a large debate on its effectiveness. Elster (2006) argues that it can be important in the movement towards peace, though Rigby (2001) believes it is flawed because it does not help people to move forward. The success of justice is also questioned by Dudai and Cohen (2007), because the government must be committed to the process and help in the organization of it. Therefore the disparity in collaborator deaths can be attributed to the actions of the government in the West Bank and Gaza. Recently, there has been an emphasis on improving the judicial system in the West Bank. Trials do address the issue of vigilante violence, Rigby (2001) argues, as people feel that there is justice in the courts. Some would argue that this sense of justice is what helps the population move beyond the conflict, though others believe that this is not a perfect solution.

Although scholars disagree on the effectiveness of adjudication, they do agree on the administration

of it. In their arguments, multiple scholars emphasize that the intent of the collaborator should impact the punishment in the transitional period (Akerstrom 1991; Elster 2006; Rigby 2001). A developed system should include pardons based on the intent, as Charles de Gaulle did in post-World War II France, Akerstrom argues (1991). Pardons are necessary in Palestine, because of the mass accusations and victimization of the innocent who are wrongly accused. Pardoning the innocent is important for true justice, however there are problems with the widespread use of pardons. A balance needs to be achieved between total forgiveness and the mass persecution of all accused collaborators Dudai and Cohen (2007) argue. There is disagreement over this however, as others believe the most effective form of transitional justice involves healing. Rigby (2001) asserts that, although government must be involved in this process, ultimately the government cannot order forgiveness and the transition from violence.

Often in the post-conflict period, international actors will help the state in the reparation process.

These actions can have a major impact on the peace process, and in turn, the level of violence against collaborators (Staub 1993; Wood et al. 2012). Without international intervention to stop the violence, there is a sense of approval given to the violent actors regardless of whether they are associated with the state, Staub (1993) believes. In Palestine, it can be argued that the improved relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank after the separation with Hamas is partially responsible for the decrease in collaborator casualties. The emphasis on the justice system in the West Bank is a result of the increased interaction with the international community. However, international intervention does not just occur in the justice process; they can also help

The Split in truth and reconciliation, though in this analysis, the involvement is limited to the legal process.

In processes like truth commissions, the goal is to achieve honesty and reconciliation between the actors. The commissions allow people to acknowledge and accept the past, and then move beyond it (Dudai and Cohen 2007). The use of non-governmental organizations in South Africa, for example, is argued to have led the success of the commissions there, more so than government involvement, although even proponents of truth and reconciliation acknowledge that it takes time after the violence has ended (Rigby 2001). In the Palestinian case, this model would not be effective at this point. Societies often strive for coexistence at first, which seems to be the current situation in the West Bank (Rigby 2001). Although the scholars approach transitional justice and the role of the government differently, it seems that the government’s policies during the process have a large impact on the violence against collaborators.

Thus, from the scholarly debate above, two hypotheses emerge to explain the shift in collaborator casualties in Gaza. The first posits that the governmental policies towards collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza are responsible for the shift in collaborator casualties. The second argues that the differing levels of violence in Gaza and the West Bank explain the disparity in the casualties of collaborators.

The Shift: Possible Explanations for the Disparity of Collaborator Deaths There are two working hypotheses that will address the shift in collaborator casualties in the West Bank and Gaza. The first is that the variations in government policy and the criminal justice system explain the disparity in the number of Palestinian collaborators killed. The second hypothesis is that the

11

increase in violence in Gaza resulted in the increase in collaborator casualties, while the decrease of violence in the West Bank led to the decrease of collaborator deaths. As the analysis will show, both hypotheses offer a convincing explanation of the shift in collaborator deaths, yet ultimately that the overall shift in collaborator deaths is resultant of governmental policies, but the fluctuations after the Hamas-PA split are better explained through the levels of violence.

The research question first emerged from a review of the B’Tselem data that indicates a distinct shift in the number of collaborators killed

by Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza. The analysis will also utilize an interview with a B’Tselem researcher, focusing on the cause of the disparity of the data on collaborator fatalities. The news and media outlets used for case studies, legal and public policies, and execution stories will include reliable news sources such as The New York Times, Haaretz, Reuters and Al Arabiya. Human Rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, will be used for data on death sentences and executions, as well as stories of collaborator deaths, and the policies of the judicial systems.

Government Policies and Judicial Systems Collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza have both been targeted at various points in time. During the First Intifada, collaborators were sought out by the Palestinian Authority, with the number killed estimated at 1,000 between 1987 and 1993, data from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor (2001) shows.

Hamas’ policy on collaboration can be traced back to their founding, and was a major piece of their policy at the end of the First Intifada. Between 1992 and 1993, more than 150 collaborators were killed, with the majority of the murders in Gaza, Be’er and ‘Abdel-

12 Jawad (1994) show. The disagreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas on the issue of collaborators was further highlighted in Hamas’ rejection of the Israeli agreement with the PLO to stop pursuing collaborators (Be’er and ‘Abdel-Jawad 1994).

After the agreement, from 1995-1999, there were no collaborators executed or sentenced to death by the Palestinian Authority, data from B’Tselem shows. During the Second Intifada however, the prosecution of collaborators resumed, though the Palestinian Authority did not impose the death penalty regularly (B’Tselem). This upset Hamas, who believed that they needed to be more aggressive, a Haaretz article reported.2 In the case of Taher Jaber, detailed by Arutz Sheva,3 a sentence of life in prison was issued for collaboration, despite the expectation of a death sentence. This particular incident is indicative of the fundamental split in the policies on collaboration, which Amnesty International shows were institutionalized in 2007 after Hamas’ victory led to their isolation in Gaza.4 This split in the government is illustrated by the respective policies towards

collaborators, as Hamas was now able to exercise complete control over the treatment of collaborators in Gaza.

Widmer (2011) explains that the governments in Gaza and the West Bank have very different judicial policies. The flawed judicial system in Gaza does not mean that the West Bank has a highly functioning system; however, since the Second Intifada, the judicial system in the West Bank is not actively pursuing death sentences and executions, Widmer (2011) says. This, in turn, can begin to explain the increased collaborator deaths in Gaza, as shown in Figure 1.

More collaborators are sentenced to death in Gaza than in the West Bank. Moreover, there have been no executions in the West Bank by the PA since the Second Intifada, while executions by Hamas in Gaza continue. The data reveals a trend that after 2011 death sentences are inversely related to actual executions – when death sentences drop, executions rise. Further, the increased executions are accompanied by an increase in extrajudicial violence, Human Rights Watch describes.5 A UK Border Agency Report (2009) illustrates that this is indicative of

Figure 1

Sources: The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and B’Tselem.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Hamas’ biased policy of enforcement, when the crimes committed support their policy objectives. Figure 1 demonstrates a notable spike in deaths in 2012, while sentences decrease. In the same year, a mob murdered six suspected collaborators and defiled their bodies in the street, Phoebe Greenwood reported.6 This suggests a relationship between extrajudicial killings, and increased executions - with increased extrajudicial killings and executions, the need for Hamas to sentence collaborators decreases because the policy goal is ultimately accomplished. Although Hamas was not officially responsible for the deaths of the suspected collaborators, the failure of the government to universally enforce laws and norms speaks to their biased judicial system. Sarah Leah Whitson, a human rights activist, argued in a Human Rights Watch piece “Hamas’s inability or unwillingness to investigate the brazen murders of seven men makes a mockery of its claims that it’s upholding the rule of law in Gaza.”7 Hamas’ ultimate goal of rooting out and punishing collaborators is accomplished in many ways, not just through government executions.

Hamas prioritizes bringing collaborators to “justice”, while the Palestinian Authority does not focus on this in their policies, Thameena Egbaria said in an interview.8 The renewed executions by Hamas illustrate the policy divide between the two groups, Janine Zacharia states,9 and directly challenges the authority of President Abbas.10 Fatah’s perception of Hamas and their gangs as “packs of animals,” a quote

by Fatah leader Yasser Abd Rabbo during an Al Jazeera interview,11 demonstrates differing policies on the issue of collaboration. Fatah further condemns this because Hamas’ labeling and killing collaborators is a way to keep control, especially with the fear of Fatah supporters in Gaza, Jewish Virtual Library reported.12 According to Palestinian Law, Hamas needed Abbas’ approval to execute collaborators as the President

13

of the Palestinian Authority, but because Abbas had stopped ratifying sentences, Hamas had formed councils to continue with the executions in 2009, Diana Atallah described.13 The Palestinian Authority did issue death sentences during the Second Intifada, and announced its intent to continue executions under Abbas in 2005, said a report by Arlene Kushner.14 Yet, Abbas ratified only 4 death sentences during the entire intifada, with five executions, including convictions from previous years. Further, none of the executions that he officially ratified were of collaborators, B’Tselem data shows, though news outlets portrayed this differently.15 This explanation of the sentences, coupled with Isabel Kershner’s article highlighting Israeli support for Abbas against Hamas, offers an explanation as to why there was such a significant decrease in death sentences and executions of collaborators in the West Bank after the Second Intifada.16 The policy division offer an explanation as to why deaths in Gaza continue, while those in the West Bank dropped entirely, as demonstrated in Figure 2, which illustrates the decline in death sentences in the West Bank as a result of Abbas’ policy of no executions.

While the numbers in the West Bank plummeted, Gaza steadily increased executions once the judiciary council was created in 2009 to ratify the sentences, Atallah shows.17 Though the numbers in Gaza fluctuate, especially in 2012, Figure 2 clearly illustrates the absence of sentencing and executions

by Fatah, while Hamas continually sentences and executes criminals and suspected collaborators. Fatah in the West Bank has shifted their focus away from collaboration after the end of the Second Intifada and the split from Hamas in Gaza, Thameena Egbaria said in an interview.18 Collaborators are not pursed, and killings by gangs which cannot or will not be addressed in Gaza, are not common because of the judicial system in the West Bank, a Jerusalem Post

14

Randall Figure 2

Sources: The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and B’Tselem.

article reported.19 The rhetoric of collaboration as an “epidemic” that needs to be purged is exclusive to Hamas, and is reflected in the judicial system. The judiciary in the West Bank recognizes the authority of Abbas to ratify the death sentences, and does not allow mass mobs to commit violent acts that benefit the government.20 Although the judicial system in the West Bank is not entirely democratic, it does generally abide by established criminal procedures and the policies of Abbas, which Hamas does not, Mel Frykberg suggests.21 Hamas’ emphasis on ridding Gaza of collaborators is continually reflected in public statements and government policies. Statements made

by Hamas in an Arutz Sheva by Elad Benari illustrate the commitment to persecuting collaborators - a senior member, Salah Addin Abu Sharkh, was quoted as saying that Hamas had “a clear goal and several means to eradicate this dangerous epidemic”.22 Hamas’ emphasis on collaboration has led them to offer lighter

punishment if collaborators come forward and admit their guilt, Khaled Abu Toameh reported;23 however, those that did not were pursued, and even those that confessed after the “deadline” were punished. This policy, enacted in early 2013,24 can offer an explanation for the decline in executions after 2012, as illustrated in Figure 2.

Hamas conducts show trials, campaigns and executions to frighten the public, and even hung a father and son in public for suspected collaboration in 2011 to send a message, The Electronic Intifada detailed.25 The brutal pursuit of collaborators in Gaza and the failure of the legal system to give them a fair trial offers a convincing explanation as to why the number of collaborator deaths in Gaza is far greater than in the West Bank. The shift in the sentencing and execution of collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza reflects the different criminal justice policies in the two entities. The substantial decrease in death sentences, as well as Abbas’ halt on ratifying death penalties,

The Split does not necessarily reflect a successful legal system.

Instead, it suggests a larger emphasis on following traditional policy as opposed to adjusting procedures to pursue unlawful acts. Further, Fatah is not making collaboration a priority Thameena Egbaria said in an interview, and therefore would likely condemn extrajudicial killings.26 Although the Palestinian Authority and Fatah did pursue and prosecute collaborators previously, they are currently benefitting from Western aid and a slowly improving relationship with Israel that is far more of a priority, data from Freedom House (2011) suggests.

In summation, the trends in the data illustrates the differing governmental and judicial policies of Hamas and Fatah, and can offer a general explanation for the disparity in collaborator deaths between the West Bank and Gaza. These differing governmental policies of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas directly affect the level of collaborator deaths in the West Bank and Gaza. It also suggests a correlation between government policies and the fluctuations in collaborator deaths, though hypothesis two offers a more convincing explanation for this.

15

(Be’er and Jawad 1994). However, collaborators were still targeted, especially during the Second Intifada; a total of 22 collaborators were sentenced to death in Gaza and the West Bank by the Palestinian Authority, data from B’Tselem (2013) illustrates. In the West Bank, nine suspects were shot in the street in 2002, The Guardian reported.27 Figure 1, as discussed earlier, illustrates the number of death penalties issued by the Palestinian Authority for collaboration in both the West Bank and Gaza. Although the number is higher in Gaza, the data highlights the presence of executions by the Palestinian Authority during the Second Intifada. After the Second Intifada however, violence in the West Bank dramatically decreased (Freedom House 2011), as did the deaths of collaborators under Fatah’s rule (B’Tselem 2013). Isabel Kershner described Fatah’s improving relationship with Israel, and how the group emphasized diplomacy instead of violence.28 Comparatively, Hamas’ aggressive policies towards Israel, reflected in the levels of violence in Figure 3 below, resulted in continued conflict, and in turn, increased sentencing and casualties of collaborators in Gaza.

Hamas fundamentally believes that they should Changing Levels of Violence resist Israel’s occupation violently, Elhanan Miller The second hypothesis is that the decrease asserted.29 Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas official, discussed of violence in the West Bank, and the simultaneous the separation between the West Bank and Gaza in this increase in Gaza, resulted in the search for and Times article, stating “We had agreed to give popular killing of more collaborators in Gaza. During the resistance precedence in the West Bank, but this does First Intifada, collaborators were sought out by the not come at the expense of armed resistance.”30 Fatah Palestinians, with the number killed estimated at 1,000 in the West Bank has recently attempted to work between 1987 and 1993, data from the Palestinian with Israel and the West, a New York Times reported, Human Rights Monitor (2001) shows. Both Hamas and favoring negotiations over violent tactics while Hamas the PLO perpetrated the violence, as both sides were and splinter groups have continually attacked Israel in direct conflict with Israel (B’Tselem 2013). In the from Gaza.31 This isolated violence officially began in period after the Intifada, peace negotiations between 2008, Toni O’Loughlin shows, when Hamas rejected the PLO and Israel resulted in an agreement that the the ceasefire with Israel.32 The rhetoric of Hamas persecution of collaborators would stop, as part of Oslo leaders justifying their violence is most evident during

16 times of conflict, which has recently occurred during the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. A Hamas leader, Moussa Abu Marzook, promoted the violence in a Time article, stating that they were in no rush to end the conflict with Israel.33 Hamas’ violence is not just directed towards Israel, however.

The spike in attacks, seen in Figure 3, around 2008 and 2012, reflect Operation Cast Lead and Operation Pillar of Defense respectively. Operation Pillar of Defense in late 2012 correlates to an increase in collaborators executed in Figure 2. Data received from B’Tselem (2013) shows that all six executions that occurred in 2012 happened during Operation Pillar of Defense. Further, six suspects were murdered in the street during the conflict, without any legal response from Hamas, a Telegraph article reported.34 This specific instance is indicative of a wider trend in Gaza during periods of intense conflict; the government focuses its energy on executing collaborators, while

simultaneously neglecting to enforce order when it suits their purpose. This is demonstrated in the inverse relationship between death sentences issued and levels of violence – as the violence increases, the sentencing decreases. This suggests an emphasis on immediate justice and violence in times of conflict. Hamas’ fear of collaborators and the belief that they are impeding the success of a Palestinian state causes larger emphasis in violence as a means of combatting the internal enemy.

The increase in levels of sentencing after the violence has ended supports the argument that during times of intense violence, collaborator deaths rise, and in turn fall when violence does as well.

The graphs illustrate not only the fluctuation in casualties in Gaza in relation to the attacks, but also the absence of any collaborator deaths in the West Bank.

As discussed above, after the Second Intifada Fatah moved away from a policy of violence and towards cooperation with Israel and the West. Fatah

Figure 3

Source: B’Tselem, “Rocket and Mortar Fire Into Israel,” from ISA.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics also saw the pursuance of collaborators as unnecessary for their policy objectives, Thameena Egbaria said in an interview.35 It can be argued, however, that the shift in policy was a result of the decreased violence.

After the Second Intifada ended, the emphasis on negotiations grew, so violence was not an important piece of diplomacy (Freedom House 2011). Figure 1 illustrates the number of suspected collaborators killed in the West Bank during conflict, as well as the complete absence of casualties after. This supports the hypothesis that without the fear of collaborators divulging military or strategic information, they did not pose a significant threat to Fatah.

Statements by Hamas leaders support the hypothesis that increased violence correlates to an increase in collaborator deaths. During conflict, there is a clear emphasis on finding and prosecuting collaborators. A government official from Hamas declared at the end of Operation Cast Lead in 2009 that, “the government differentiates between violations of the law and those acts undertaken by the resistance during a time of war to protect itself from the danger of collaborators.”36 Hamas’ no-tolerance policy for collaboration is only heightened during times of increased violence, as they see the killings as a form of protection. Hamas’ justification of the killings for security, however, is problematic. Saleh Hajuj was a suspected collaborator who escaped during an Israeli bombing, but was then killed by a mob while seeking medical treatment.37 The heightened paranoia and anger that arises out of the deep sense of betrayal during conflict is evident in Hamas’ public statements and treatment of collaborators, and can offer an explanation as to why more collaborators were killed in Gaza than the West Bank after the Second Intifada.

In summation, the data presented here establishes a correlation between levels of violence and deaths of collaborators, especially during

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Operations Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense. The data demonstrating the level of collaborator deaths, when correlated with the levels of attacks, supports the hypothesis that the casualties of collaborators are related to increased levels of violence, and provides a more convincing explanation for the fluctuations in both casualties and sentences after 2009.

In Gaza, Hamas’ leadership emphasized violence, and saw collaborators as a direct threat to their military objectives during the Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense Campaigns. As a result, there was an increase in the search for and killing of collaborators.

Conversely, Fatah in the West Bank emphasized cooperation and nonviolent diplomacy, which decreased the importance of collaborators. Therefore, Fatah did not need to enact large campaigns to find and try collaborators, which could explain the extreme decline in collaborator casualties in the West Bank after the Second Intifada. Fatah was beginning the period of transitional justice, attempting to move beyond the betrayal of collaboration and work towards coexistence.

Conclusion This analysis here proposes two hypotheses that can explain the trends in the B’TSelem data. The first posits that the differing governmental policies towards collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza were responsible for the shift in collaborator casualties. The second argues that the differing levels of violence in Gaza and the West Bank explained the disparity in the casualties of collaborators. Although both hypotheses are verified, the ultimate conclusion is that the first offers a more convincing explanation of the general phenomenon, while the second better explains the yearly fluctuations in the casualties.

Looking at the disparity of collaborator deaths in the West Bank and Gaza highlights a new

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perspective on the divide between Fatah and Hamas.

Academics that focus on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict can utilize this analysis as another signifier of the divide between Fatah and Hamas, and the challenges this poses to future peace processes. As a result, this analysis offers an important contribution to the scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, as it examines an underexplored aspect of the divide within the Palestinian Authority, which poses a significant obstacle to peace. It further highlights the implications for collaboration, and the resulting divisions within the Palestinian communities that will need to be overcome if they are to move forward.

This analysis provides a lesson for policy makers and scholars when addressing possible steps forward in the conflict; the examination of the governmental divide, as shown through collaborator casualties, must be factored in to future negotiations. With entirely different governments and laws, the Occupied Territories are two separate entities, and therefore must both be represented in peace talks if a solution is to be found. This analysis addresses a specific aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, though it can be applied to other cases.

Betrayal, collective violence, transitional justice, and judicial systems are widely applicable because of the repercussions that these processes have on communal violence and the targeting of subgroups.

The examination of the Palestinian case provides models for collective violence and transitional justice and the ability to move beyond conflict and betrayal within a society. The analysis also adds examples of the treatment of collaborators and their fate, which adds to scholarly research that addresses the human rights violations of collaborators during and after conflict.

In addition to the examination of the differing governmental reactions to collaborators in the West

Bank and Gaza, future research should consider the differing governmental policies of the Occupied Territories towards minority members of Fatah and Hamas within Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

This is also underexplored, and would illuminate the degree to which Fatah and Hamas perceive the other as a threat. Further, this research would also examine another aspect of government policy that is different between the two entities. The examination of the disparity of collaborator casualties in the West Bank and Gaza is critical to include in the scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict because it looks at a relatively unexplored piece of the Hamas-Fatah split, which poses a significant challenge to future peace processes if it is not addressed.

Notes 1 This research would not have been possible without the support of Dr. Ronnie Olesker, who has provided invaluable mentorship throughout my college career. I would also like to thank Thameena Egbaria for the raw data provided, as well as the anonymous reviewers.

2 Associated Foreign Press, “Hamas Agrees to Allow PA To Handle Informants,” Haaretz, http://www.haaretz. com/print-edition/news/hamas-agrees-to-allow-pa-tohandle-informants-1.120938 (Accessed November 19, 2013).

3 Arutz Sheva, “P.A. Sentences Informant to Life,” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News. aspx/5957#.UowQrL_3D-a (Accessed November 19, 2013).

4 “Occupied Palestinian Territories: Torn Apart by Fractional Strife,” Amnesty International, http:// www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE21/020/2007 (Accessed November 20, 2013).

The Split 5 Human Rights Watch, “Gaza: ‘Collaborator’ Murders Go Unpunished,” http://www.hrw.org/ news/2013/04/11/gaza-collaborator-murders-gounpunished (Accessed November 19, 2013).

6 Phoebe Greenwood, “Gaza: Palestinians Executed for ‘Collaborating’ With Israel,” The Telegraph, http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ palestinianauthority/9691942/Gaza-Palestiniansexecuted-for-collaborating-with-Israel.html (Accessed November 19, 2013).

7 Human Rights Watch, “Gaza: ‘Collaborator’ Murders.”

8 Thameena Egbaria, personal interview with Dr. Ronnie Olesker, phone, November 11, 2013.

9 Janine Zacharia, “Collaborator’ Executions Heighten Political Tensions in Gaza.” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2010/04/15/AR2010041501401.html (Accessed November 19, 2013).

10 Jewish Virtual Library, “The Hamas War on Palestinian Rivals,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Peace/collaborators.html (Accessed December 1, 2014).

11 Yasser Abd Raboo. Interview, Television. Al Jazeera.

Cited in Jewish Virtual Library, “The Hamas War on Palestinian Rivals,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Peace/collaborators.html (Accessed November 19, 2013).

12 Jewish Virtual Library, “The Hamas War.” 13 Diana Atallah, “Palestinian Justice System Still a Work in Progress,” The American Task Force on Palestine, from The Media Line. http://www. americantaskforce.org/daily_news_article/2013/03/04/ palestinian_justice_system_still_work_progress (Accessed November 19, 2013).

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14 Arlene Kushner, “Lack of a U.S. Response to the Planned Executions of ‘Collaborators’ at the Order of the Palestinian Authority,” Israel Resource Review: Behind the News in Israel, http://israelbehindthenews. com/bin/content.cgi?ID=2084&q=1 (Accessed November 20, 2013).

15 Kushner, “Lack of a U.S. Response.”

16 Isabel Kershner, “Israel Will Support Abbas With Millions From Taxes,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/world/ middleeast/25westbank.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (November 20, 2013).

17 Atallah, “Palestinian Justice.”

18 Thameena Egbaria, Interview.

19 Reuters, “Palestinians Kill Suspected Israeli Collaborator in West Bank,” The Jerusalem Post, http:// www.jpost.com/Israel/Palestinians-kill-suspectedIsraeli-collaborator-in-W-Bank (Accessed November 19, 2013).

20 Reuters, “Palestinians Kill Suspected Israeli Collaborator.”

21 Mel Frykberg, “Gaza, West Bank Governments Urged to Abolish Death Penalty,” Electronic Intifada, http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-west-bankgovernments-urged-abolish-death-penalty/10301 22 Elad Benari, “EU Slams Gaza for Executions of ‘Collaborators’,” Arutz Sheva, http://www. israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169477#.

UowRUr_3D-a (Accessed November 19, 2013).

23 Khaled Abu Toameh, “Hamas to Execute 2 Palestinians Linked With Israel,” The Jerusalem Post, http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Hamas-to-execute2-Palestinians-for-working-with-Israel-316311 (Accessed November 19, 2013).

20 24 Hazem Balousha, “Hamas Offers Collaborators Amnesty,” Al-Monitor, http://www.al-monitor.com/ pulse/originals/2013/03/hamas-amnesty-israelcollaborators.html (Accessed December 20, 2013).

36 Al Arabiya, “Hamas Oks Killing of Collaborators During War,” http://www.alarabiya.net/ articles/2009/02/03/65607.html (Accessed November 19, 2013).

25 Frykberg, “Gaza, West Bank Governments.”

37 Al Arabiya, “Hamas Oks Killing.”

26 Thameena Egbaria, Interview.

27 Peter Beaumont, “Palestinians Kill Suspected Collaborators,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian. com/world/2002/apr/02/israel (Accessed November 19, 2013).

28 Kershner, “Israel Will Support Abbas.”

29 Elhanan Miller, “Contradicting Abbas, Hamas says it Still Believes in ‘Armed Resistance’ Against Israel,” The Times of Israel, http://www.timesofisrael.com/ contradicting-abbas-hamas-says-it-still-believes-inarmed-resistance-against-israel/ (Accessed November 20, 2013).

30 Miller, “Contradicting Abbas.”

31 Kershner, “Israel Will Support Abbas.”

32 Toni O’Laughlin, “Hamas Answers Israeli Air Raid With Rockets as Truce Ends Early,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/19/ israel-hamas-gaza-violence (Accessed November 19, 2013).

33 Paul Martin, “Hamas Leader Speaks on Violence, Negotiations and Peace,” Time, http://world.time. com/2012/12/07/hamas-leader-speaks-on-violencenegotiations-and-peace/ (Accessed November 20, 2013).

34 Greenwood, “Gaza: Palestinians Executed.”

35 Thameena Egbaria, Interview.

References Akerstrom, Malin. 1991. Betrayal and Betrayers: The Sociology of Treachery. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

Be’er, Yizhar, and Dr. Saleh ‘Abdel-Jawad. 1994.

Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations.Jerusalem: B’Tselem.

Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. 2001. Betrayals and Treason.

Boulder: Westview Press.

Cohen, Hillel, and Ron Dudai. 2005. “Human Rights Dilemmas in Using Informers to Combat Terrorism: The Israeli-Palestinian Case.”

Terrorism and Political Violence 1-2:229-243. doi: 10.1080/09546550490520709 (Accessed October 23, 2013). de la Roche, Roberta Senechal. 1996. “Collective Violence as Social Control.” Sociological Forum 1:97-128.

“Death Sentences by the Palestinian Authority Courts and by Hamas Courts in Gaza.”

B’Tselem, 2013. From The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and B’Tselem. Email from Thameena Egbaria to Ronnie Olesker, November 20, 2013.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Dudai, Ron. 2012. “Informers and The Transition in Northern Ireland.” British Journal of Criminology 52:32-54. doi: 10.1093/bjc/azr055 (Accessed October 23, 2013).

Dudai, Ron, and Hillel Cohen. 2007. “Triangle of Betrayal: Collaborators and Transitional Justice in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

Journal of Human Rights 6:37-58. doi:10.1080/14754830601084642 (Accessed October 23, 2013).

Elster, Jon. 2006. “Redemption For Wrongdoing: The Fate of Collaborators After 1945.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 3:324-338.

Knapp, Robert H. 1944. “A Psychology of Rumor.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 1:22-37.

Mattaini, Mark, and Joseph Strickland. 2006.

“Challenging Collective Violence: A Scientific Strategy.” International Journal of Psychology 6:500-513. doi:10.1080/00207590500492484 (Accessed December 3, 2013).

“One Year Al Aqsa Intifada: Facts Sheets and Figures: Collaborators,” Palestinian Human Rights Monitor, 2001. http://www.phrmg. org/monitor2001/oct2001-collaborators.htm (Accessed November 19, 2013).

Rigby, Andrew. 2001. Justice and Reconciliation: After the Violence. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. “Rocket and Mortar Fire Into Israel.” B’Tselem. 2013. From ISA. April 17. http://www.btselem.org/israeli_civilians/ qassam_missiles#data (Accessed November 19, 2013).

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Staub, Ervin. 1999. “The Origins and Prevention of Genocide, Mass Killing, and Other Collective Violence.” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 4:303-336. http://people.umass.edu/ estaub/opcm.pdf (Accessed December 3, 2013).

UK Border Agency. 2009. Operational Guidance Note: Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, v. 2.

February: pg. 14. http://www.refworld.org/ pdfid/498ab1642.pdf (Accessed November 20, 2013).

“West Bank.” 2011. Freedom House. http://www. freedomhouse.org/report/freedomworld/2011/west-bank (Accessed November 19, 2013).

Widmer, Mireille. 2001. Human Rights and Legal Position of Palestinian ‘Collaborators’: A Look Into the Fate and Legal Position of Suspected Collaborators Since the Establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Netherlands: BookWorld Publications.

Wood, Reed M., Jacob D. Kathman, and Stephen E. Gent. 2012. “Armed Intervention and Civilian Victimization In Intrastate Conflicts.” Journal of Peace Research 5:647-660.

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Envisioning Cultures of Peace: Artistic Resistance in the People’s Republic of China Michael Gallagher Fordham University In this paper I utilize select concepts identified from the peace studies literature and the 1999 UN Framework of a Culture of Peace to analyze qualitatively whether and to what degree Chinese artists employing a variety of mediums are able to advocate and serve as change agents for cultures of peace in the post-Tiananmen Square era. My work addresses the conventional wisdom that Chinese art has, with only few exceptions, become more depoliticized over time, especially since 1989. This raises the possibility that art as a mechanism for social change and positive peace may be waning in this case.

The works analyzed all include either values of the UN’s Culture of Peace or critique cultural violence within China. The art selected for my analysis addresses four pressing issues facing Chinese society that are related to cultures of violence: the human impact of rapid urbanization and economic development; repression of minority communities, especially the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province; the continued use of Chinese Communist Party propaganda to shape norms; and the strategies China pursues in its aspiring role as a rising an international power. I demonstrate that despite a presumed depoliticization of art after the Tiananmen Square crisis there remains today a strong and diverse effort being developed and implemented within the Chinese artistic community that calls for a less violent society and challenges the aims and direction of China’s domestic and global policies.

Introduction The importance of art and artists in generating and sustaining cultures of peace is recognized and promoted through a range of intergovernmental declarations and frameworks. The preamble of the United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 1945) Charter, for example, emphasizes that “peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.” Moreover, the goal of facilitating a culture of peace has been fully endorsed by the United Nations (UN), which in 2001 formally declared 20012010 to be the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (A/RES/56/5). Specifically, General Assembly Resolution 53/243, hereafter cited as (A/RES/53/243)

cites artists and others engaged in a creative or artistic process as key to the development of a culture of peace. The resolution also outlines the platforms through which a culture of peace can be built.

Activities deemed “integrally linked” to a culture of peace according to the UN include peaceful means of cooperation, democratic institutions, and eliminating poverty, illiteracy, and racial discrimination.

Additionally the declaration goes onto support solidarity among nations, tolerance, inclusiveness, and transparency.

While noble, these principles often face significant challenges as actors attempt to implement them within and across societies. As argued by De Rivera (2004) democracies view norms associated

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics with cultures of peace differently than authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Artists may be welcome as advocates of cultures of peace, partnering with government in some nations, while in others the artist is viewed with suspicion by national authorities.

Using globally adopted values as a springboard for my analysis, I examine the work of select Chinese artists and explore whether and to what degree their efforts constitute the building blocks for a culture of peace in China. The power of art, especially in authoritarian settings, is in part shaped by society’s perception of it as a symbol of resistance against cultures of violence, especially structural violence.

While artists who venture into this realm may be considered subversive by national authorities, I argue that the building blocks they generate through their art can aid in facilitating the conditions for a culture of peace to emerge. That said, the state and the artist are always involved in a highly tenuous relationship with one another. Despite this reality, the state’s material power over the artist has limits and the artistic act may well create spill-over effects in terms of sustaining cultures of peace that even the state cannot control. As advocates for cultures of peace, artists have informal power and in some cases moral authority that can be leveraged as a counterweight to the state’s formal and material power as seen in the research of Barnett and Finnemore (2004).

The Evolution of an Idea: Cultures of Peace Early efforts at the international level to reach consensus on the idea of a culture of peace originated in 1989, with an initiative led by UNESCO. The program was adopted in 1992 and by 1998, the General Assembly proclaimed the decade of 2001-2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. Despite

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widespread support from UN Member States for the idea, a number of states, including many from the Global North, opposed new funding for programs associated with a culture of peace or the declaration (Ratkovic 2010). The lack of material backing by Western governments, in in turn, shifted the locus of implementation onto civil society and non-state actors (Ratkovic 2010). Accordingly Staub (2003) has argued these actors have thus played an important role as agents of potential positive change in settings where cultures of violence are emergent or prevail.

As outlined by Galtung (1990, 292) cultural peace is said to be reflected in societies that embody “aspects of a culture that serve to justify and legitimize structural peace.” In contrast, the concept of cultural violence can be said to derive power from various elements such as ideology, religion, language, art, and science. Importantly, it can serve as a legitimizer of violence (structural and direct). Direct violence is the more traditional idea of violence, murder and assault whereas structural violence occurs when systems are in place that marginalize or oppress specific groups of people (Galtung 1990). This can occur when national authorities deliberately marginalize certain segments of society, or when the state places the creative act into a category of deviance when certain red lines are overstepped or ideological orthodoxies (e.g., economic, legal, or political) are challenged through such acts (Whitehead 2007).

The ideological form of cultural violence, in particular, provides a means of producing categories of groups who are either chosen or unchosen, as well as facilitating nationalist motivations (Galtung 1990).

In the case of China, for example, individuals and groups found to be working against the wellbeing of the People’s Republic of China would be singled out for severe punishment – because their ideas and

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behavior have relegated them to the realm of the unchosen. To enforce this distinction, individuals who speak out against any aspects of a nationalist project (e.g., economic development, unquestioning loyalty to elite authority structures) are more likely to be targeted and sanctioned. Individuals and groups who are indoctrinated into the oppressive culture may vary in their outward support of this kind of culture of violence, but often rely on self-censorship or tacit internalization of its prevailing norms to avoid disapprobation.

In contrast, when effectively nurtured and sustained, cultural peace legitimates nonviolent and peaceful means as desired forms of conflict resolution at all levels, and requires that individuals and groups question and debate the prevailing economic, political, legal, and social norms within their societies. Among the groups from civil society that have stepped into the role as change advocates for cultural peace are artists. Artists give voice to communities and their work symbolizes those voices across a myriad of issues and sectors. Indeed, the creative act features centrally in prominent scholarship on peacebuilding. John Paul Lederach (2005), for example, emphasizes the power of the creative act as being foundational to the principle of the moral imagination, which itself is a necessary condition to transition from cultures of violence to cultures of peace.

Some scholars argue that in the aftermath of the open door policy of Deng Xiaoping and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crisis, Chinese art has taken a distinctively non-political and commercial turn (Shen and Barrett 2011). This may be true at least insofar as widespread acts of political resistance through artistic movements are concerned. However, I contend that select Chinese artists have continued to critique government policy and prevailing social

norms through artistic discourse. By its very nature this art incorporates features deemed integral to a culture of peace and can therefore be considered political art. Art embodying or exemplifying these criteria would include work centered on the chosen/ unchosen dichotomy, discrimination, nationalistic arguments, and democratic or peaceful structures – all of which are specifically articulated by the UN as crucial to a culture of peace (A/RES/53/243). It is important to note that, given the modern political and art history of China, I do not expect to find nationallevel, highly organized groups of artists espousing political freedoms. Nor do I expect to find artwork that is designed to address each of the tenets of a culture of peace in their totality. Rather, I expect to find that independent artists engaged in political art remain focused on the aspects of a culture of peace by which they are most acutely affected, or in which they are intellectually or emotionally invested.

Despite the perpetuation of cultural violence by the Chinese government, a range of Chinese artists has continually expressed elements and critiques which espouse the ideals of a culture of peace and an end to cultural violence. In the paragraphs that follow, I discuss briefly the widespread nature of cultural violence in China that is purposefully supported and carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. I then explore resistance to this cultural violence by focusing on select Chinese artists working towards creating and sustaining a culture of peace.

Methodology and Case Justification To narrow my project scope, I focus upon four specific areas of Chinese art: artistic response to economic development; artistic response to Chinese propaganda; Uyghur artistic resistance; and artistic response to China as an emerging global power. Each

Cultures of Peace of these areas reflect different dimensions of cultural violence within Chinese society and have resulted in rich artistic response. Each area is analyzed by gauging the role of cultural violence which prompted it, and the subsequent artistic response to the policy, structure, or actions. I analyze the cases using primary and secondary sources drawn from scholarly journals and the international media. This desk research is complemented by analysis, where possible of the actual artwork under focus. For the analysis of the art, I have relied upon the testimony of the artists themselves or the commentary and critique of art critics. Also included in some cases is the response and interpretation of the general public.

Despite the significant societal ills caused by rapid urbanization and economic development in China, there are few signs the nation is slowing down (Ng 2004). As outlined in A Declaration on a Culture of Peace exclusionary economic development is inextricably tied with widespread cultural violence (UN General Assembly 1999). To promote and sustain a culture of peace economic development must be sustainable, socially inclusive and work to reduce inequality among people. If the development does not meet these criteria it will lead to structural violence and ultimately a dehumanization of the excluded and exploited portion of the population. The structural violence comes from the populace being economically disenfranchised and suffering from lack of resources and poor conditions (Galtung 1990). The artistic response to this phenomenon raises the following questions: How do Chinese artists frame the national economic development and how in what ways does art help justify critiques of these endeavors?

Examining artistic response in countering political propaganda and nationalist indoctrination also enhances our understanding of select facets of

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the power of cultural violence in Chinese society.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is masterful at using such tools to perpetuate cultural violence. One especially interesting facet of this phenomenon is the idea of performance and performativity. Building on a theory proposed by Judith Butler, Woronov (2007) argued the sustained power of nationalism derives from performance and indoctrination at a young age.

In the case of China, the Little Red Pioneers program represents this type of effort. Aimed at grade school youth, participants are taught to be highly patriotic and nationalistic in their language and reasoning, and devote their highest loyalty to China.

In addition to youth propaganda programs, Shambaugh (2007) has documented how other government bodies ensure that nationalist indoctrination reaches the adult population as well.

The CCP Propaganda Department, for example, has utilized persecution, intimidation, arrests, and in some cases lethal violence to ensure compliance with nationalist norms and ideology. It also effectively polices information through self-censorship by instilling high levels of fear among the general population. Penalties for violating Department guidelines include detention within the state, exile from it, or punishment of friends of families. This latter punishment, in particular, is used to silence foreign intellectuals and activists abroad (Link 2005).

The continued presence of such heavy handed national and ideological indoctrination provides yet another interesting test case for the cultural violence and culture of peace framework. It is a tangible example of the type of cultural violence stemming from an ideological source. Artistic response to the continued use of propaganda within China may face its most serious challenges in this case. Building a culture of peace through artistic resistance may be fragmented

26 and disjointed owing to the near total permeation the government has within society in this area.

Alongside artistic response to economic development and propaganda, the structural and direct violence aimed at the Uyghur population in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region merits examination because this group has experienced some of the harshest repression within China (the Tibetans being perhaps the most well-known of China’s oppressed groups). The history of the Uyghur struggle to advocate for greater political, religious, and cultural autonomy has been met by heavy-handed responses by Chinese authorities, including harassment, detention, and torture of Uyghur civic leaders and activists as documented by the Minorities at Risk database. The Uyghurs endure systematic marginalization within Xinjiang, and many have been forcibly “reeducated” away from their cultural roots (Baranovitch 2007a).

Cultural hegemony by the Han, the preponderant ethnic group in China, over the Uyghurs manifests itself in sectors such as employment and education.

This raises questions concerning how art has been used in the service of resistance to cultural violence, and whether artistic response, where it is engaged, is peaceful or non-peaceful. Is the artistic response constructive or destructive? How does it advance the norms (if at all) of a culture of peace?

The fourth and final area of analysis centers on art which critiques China’s role in the international community. Questions abound as to China’s intentions as it becomes a global mover and shaker. Currently the world’s second largest economy and one of the two most populous nations, China’s rise is still hampered by deeply embedded structural and sporadic direct violence (Suri 2013). Whether and to what degree artists in China can shape the future of peace nationally through their work may have important

implications for China’s role on the international political, economic, and cultural landscape. This raises questions about whether and how linkages can be fostered between nationalist visions of peace and their projection onto the global realm.

From Idea to Reality? Building a Culture of Peace through Artistic Resistance The pervasive nature of state power and decades of widespread cultural violence in China have left an indelible mark upon the work of Chinese artists. The beginning of the contemporary art scene in China coincided with the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The easing of censure and control in Deng’s Open Door policy allowed for the spread of Western ideas of self-expression and abstraction not formerly present in the Chinese artistic tradition. The culmination of newfound artistic freedom was the ’85 movement and the exhibition of ’89, which represented a celebration of freedom of the arts and triumph of the artistic community, but generated a great deal of controversy.

Subsequently, the Beijing Massacre served as a turning point in Chinese art. After the power of the state was demonstrated so decisively against civil and political activists, including members of the artistic community, artists grew disillusioned and were left with a realization of the impotence of their art against the Chinese regime. Many left the country to live abroad (Lu 1997). Others reflected the trauma of Tiananmen in the form of scar art. Scar art is a form of art which criticizes the Cultural Revolution by creating realistic but sentimental painting of the period (Jiang 2007).

While some Chinese art became distinctly apolitical during this time, other artistic movements formed, among them political pop and Cynical Realists, but to a large extent the artistic community remained

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics relatively splintered in their method and means of producing political art. The following sections will examine and analyze the art without regard to specific schools or movement, only with respect to the forms of cultural violence they respond to or critique. As noted before they do not represent a comprehensive feature but a selection of especially powerful and pertinent art.

Collectively they include many different media and styles but all focus on advocating for and building a new peaceful society.

Artistic Resistance to Economic Development A fact of life for the Chinese is the nation’s breakneck economic development since 1989. Although China’s economic miracle has benefitted large swaths of the population, it has been characterized by endemic corruption, a near total lack of civic consultation or accountability, Figure 1. Terrific New World

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and government policies that reify growth at any cost. Economic development planning has led to significant value shifts in the Chinese people, and has profoundly shaped the development of major cities, and the everyday lives of citizens. It has produced a reaction among artists in China. Many have expressed anxiety and concern about the sudden change in their socioeconomic reality, which contravenes a long held cultural respect for tradition (Lu 1997). A range of artists have used their art to advocate for sustainable economic development and free flow of information. Others engage in fundamental critique of the consumer society they see emerging from a values-free approach to economic growth. For example, Chinese artist, Weng Fen, completed Terrific New World in 2004 (Figure 1), a 4Ă—8 meter-long installation. Viewed from close perspective, the piece features a miniature replica of a city made purely out of

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thousands of ostrich, chicken, and duck eggs. An aerial view, however, reveals the city resembling a 50 reminbi note, and has the outline of a farmer, intellectual, and a worker within the city. The design is thought to be an allusion to the Chinese saying “as delicate as a pile of eggs” and it stands as a critique of the newfound values of Chinese consumerism. The consumption and monetary motivations that are now hallmark to Chinese economic development are displayed as an unfit and fragile foundation for the Chinese people (Lu 2007). While this artwork does not explicitly advocate for a culture of peace, it exposes structural violence through its focus on the contested nature of development norms and the negative livelihoods effects this may have on Chinese society, especially in the long-term.

Another artist whose work addresses the cultural violence of economic modernization in China Figure 2. Provisional Landscapes

is Ai Weiwei. In his work Provisonal Landscapes (Figure 2), Ai creates a broad narrative by using the architectural transition taking place in Chinese society.

The installation consists of dozens of photographs of the void left by the destruction of old buildings and then the process and creation of new buildings in different cities across China. The series questions the way modernization and economic development of Chinese society is taking place. Ai Weiwei puts a voice to the work when he says, “no one asks the question of who is behind it, how is that in a communist country when the people supposedly own the land they have no rights over it: it’s a short moment, but in that moment nobody wants to look. There’s a question mark there, a big, big void” (Merewether 2012). As an artist, Ai Weiwei gives voice to that which is missing among the rapid development and tacitly encourages all who view this installation to lend their voices in questioning

Cultures of Peace what the government’s economic development policies signify for Chinese citizens as well. Embodying culture of peace values such as transparency and democratic participation, Provisional Landscapes represents art as a political act, but one that espouses the values of a culture of peace while questioning the norms he sees emerging from a culture of violence connected to Chinese economic development.

Another example of art which embodies the exclusionary practice of urban development across China is performance artist Zhang Huan’s 12 Square Meters (1994) (Figure 3). It comprises a series of photographs of the artist in his (then) village home in the eastern section of Beijing, and contrasts the conditions in this artistic village against the rapid, often ostentatious modernization and development of many parts of China. In preparation for this piece, the artist coated himself in honey and sat still in an Figure 3. 12 Square Meters

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outhouse for one hour while flies landed on and eventually covered his body. The first picture is of Yang sitting naked in the village’s public toilet, the measure of which, 12 square meters, gives the work its title.

The next three photographs depict Yang walking into a nearby pond to wash away the waste and flies (Wu 1999). Through the art the viewer clearly sees the villages on the periphery are ignored and the people are subject to dehumanizing conditions. It focuses on structural violence and exposes the downside of rapid urbanization and its implications for local communities that lack any voice or input into these processes.

Across these works a common theme emerges: the use of cultural violence by Chinese authorities to pursue development at the expense of average Chinese citizens. Indeed, claims by the government that it is committed to sustainable development principles is

30 directly contradicted by its failure to consult local communities affected by rapid urbanization, which is fueled in large part by profit and economic growth motives rather than responsible urban planning (Ng 2004).

Artistic response to Chinese propaganda While commercialized and not explicitly political the art of the Cynical Realists in the 1990s nevertheless combatted cultural violence by demystifying and largely mocking traditional symbols of Chinese power. The work of the Cynical Realists does not offer solutions or political alternatives; it does however present a critique of the political power that serves as the foundation for cultural violence. In doing so the art peacefully and powerfully calls for an end to the domination of Communist power. They advocate for the end of Communist domination in the thought of everyday citizens. The artists do not call for the

violent attack of the authorities; they aim for a more subversive ridicule through the juxtaposition in their art. It may seem unrealistic to assert the artists’ ability to make such claims about cultural change but the ignorance of the PRC is to thank. Instead of seeing the new art being produced as manipulation or alteration government officials the production as a new form of praise. Lin quotes officials saying it shows “a deep admiration for… Communist and socialist values.”

The freedom to create such art stemmed from, among other things, a fundamental misunderstanding of the art’s and artist’s purpose (Lin 2007).

An ideal example of the penetrating irony of the Cynical Realists is the portrait by Wang Jingsong.

Taking a Picture in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace (1992) (Figure 4). This piece represents a parody of both the 1963 social realist style portrait, titled In Front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace and the monument of the same name. The mocking nature of

Figure 4. Taking a Picture in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics the portrait and the monument represent the artist’s efforts to depower and ridicule the official history, a false history, surrounding the image and gate. Wang accomplishes this by incorporating a number of subtle yet unmistakable critiques into his portrayal of these subjects. For example, instead of painting tiles to form the gate’s roof, the artist paints cigarettes. Instead of depicting only peasants in front of the gate Wang chooses to feature urbanites. The humor and power of the satire come from the cultural value these changes signify. The replacement of tiles with cigarettes is indicative of the change from the ideal of a socialist society to the rapid transition to a capitalist one. The peasants were the supposed victors and heroes of the Cultural Revolution, whereas the urbanites represent the new heroes of China’s rise to global economic superstardom.

As explained by Lin (2007) Wang’s alterations to the classic icons also serve as a critique of the socialist ideals espoused by Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. His art attempts to counteract cultural violence by mocking the power of ideology that is used to sustain that violence. Ideology represents a critical mechanism for sustaining cultural violence and the ideological values formerly attributed to the peasants and the proletariat over all Figure 5. Fighting

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other citizens is reflective of Galtung’s “chosen and unchosen” (1990, 297). By establishing the dichotomy through propaganda and other means between these two groups within a society, it becomes psychologically and culturally acceptable to partake in violence against the unchosen. And such violence is intimately connected with cultural violence. Whereas the chosen were once the peasants, Wang is making a subversive claim that they are now the unchosen, replaced by a new class of chosen individuals – the urbanites.

Other Cynical Realists utilize their art to mock the icons and symbols of Chinese state power. The work of Yue Minjun, for example, depicts the human cost of communist party rule, and the use of violence to achieve state goals. His subjects typically are groups of men, hysterically laughing, and his artwork is produced through mediums of sculpting and painting.

The work which best depicts a rejection of cultural violence is Fighting (2002) (Figure 5). It is a painting depicting his trademark laughing men pretending to shoot and kill others. In the words of the artist his work represents “a way to ridicule those who try to solve conflict through violent means” (Albertini 2008, 152). It is also a tacit acknowledgement of the benefits in nurturing and sustaining a culture of peace, which would avowedly reject the use of violence as a conflict

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resolution tool. The influence of Yue’s art is not only in the world of the elite. Yue’s work is widely known among the street markets around China and is widely imitated (Lankarani 2012).

It is admittedly hard to measure the conceptual understanding of Yue’s art by the general public.

Unfortunately, like all artists working and living in China, Yue must tread carefully when voicing criticism via art. Accordingly, his art never explicitly states his criticism; this would place him in grave danger. To a certain extent, the skill of Yue and other artists reveals the mutual understanding between the PRC and the artists. It does tolerate a certain level of understated criticism which does allow the international community to speak of some improvement of conditions and expansion of freedom of expression.

However, no one is fooled into thinking this small carefully maintained space indicates true freedom of speech and expression. Their artists’ actions must be guarded, measured, and to a certain extent, concealed in order to be tolerated. This being said his power and resonance comes not from high minded art theory but from his adroit use of existing Chinese cultural themes. The art of Yue and others may not be explicitly to concrete action for change but it undeniably adds a voice calling for peace and reform in Chinese culture.

It is important to note that these artists are attacking the propaganda symbols of the socialist state, but they are doing so in a time when those symbols are much less revered by the public or protected by the Chinese Communist Party than in decades past.

Had their work proliferated during the former era, the harsh critiques would have resulted in punishment and the prohibition of exhibition within China. Today, however, their work is exhibited and showcased internationally, gaining the artists newfound attention among wider audiences – as well as increasing the

commercial value of their art. Herein lies the deep irony surrounding this work. As outlined by Lu (1997) many Cynical Realist artists combine embarrassing portrayals of classic images of the socialist regime with capitalist imagery as part of a critique of the former and the latter, but they then sell their work for profit through global commercial networks.

The profit driven nature Cynical Realism may erode the potency of its protest and independent nature, but it still forms part of the tradition of artistic protest of the earlier decades. Therefore, it represents the continued dream of freedom from the socialist state and its preplanned society and culture. The mockery of the symbols may be less jarring now, but the need and motivation to mock through art emanates from the same imperative. These include artistic freedom and self-expression, and the desire to portray the artist’s interpretation of reality that is not defined or dominated by state mandated views or definitions as cited by Croizier (1999). The evidence suggests Cynical Realism remains illustrative of how artists respond to the indoctrination of Chinese citizens. It is a response to programs like the abovementioned Little Red program. Rather than allowing the symbols and institutions of the regime, including cultural violence, to wield power over them, the artists reject the psychological power of cultural violence altogether through their art.

I do not claim the art has led to concrete political action. Rather, it poses a question. It forces a reconsideration of the culture Chinese citizens are subject to and are living with. Contributing to a culture of peace does not necessarily mean concrete action.

While it may be an empirically ill-defined result it is an important one nonetheless.

This genre remains important because it keeps the tradition of political art alive within Chinese

Cultures of Peace culture. Amid the trends of coopting political art for monetary gain, the Cynical Realists present works that contribute to a broader social and political discourse which is just important now as it was during the democracy movement of the 1980s. China is facing a myriad of new political, economic, and social challenges in its global rise. These challenges may create the conditions conducive to legitimating further the abuse of state power at the expense of the civilian population. If the people are not reminded of the power of art they will lose a powerful voice offering a counter narrative. The mocking of state symbols exposes their role in perpetuating cultural violence through state goals and ambitions.

Uyghur Artistic Resistance Another group of artists whose work calls for a culture of peace are artists of the Uyghur community.

Their art invokes song and the written word, and includes individuals such as Askar, Arken, and Anwar Muhammad. Their work represents a response to the political and economic plight of the Uyghurs in their native Xinjiang. Their art is significant because it espouses many of the goals and values laid down in articles 1 and 2 Declaration on a Culture of Peace, including respect for and promotion of the right to development, and the end of discrimination based on ethnicity, race, or identity (A/RES/53/243).

For example, the songs of Askar, a popular Uyghur rock artist, are defiant in nature and call for the end to the cultural domination of the Han Chinese in the traditional Uyghur homeland of Xinjiang.

Askar employs the cultural symbol of the Uyghur people, the grey wolf, as his first album and calls for the Uyghurs to realize their power in refusing to be subject to discrimination and subjugation. The lyrics of Grey Wolf (1996), for example, are based on a plea

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for change: “occasional rainwater cannot solve my long-enduring thirst/permanent rain and snow cannot freeze the raging fire in my hear…/the silent tears cannot be shed in my heart forever/please don’t come again to disturb my peaceful desert/I want to expose your false face.” The lyrics are a constructive call for an end of the domination by Han Chinese, for they are the group disturbing his desert. The government has curbed the development of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang by discriminating against the native Uyghurs in favor of the Han Chinese. The false effort to development, “the occasional rainwater” is not enough for the Uyghurs. They want real development efforts.

His urging of the Han to leave his land is direct call for both the right to self-determination and development, as well as demanding an end to ethnic discrimination.

Although the official line of the PRC is for peaceful development this cannot be taken seriously due to the continued violent suppression of the local Uyghur population. It does not qualify as promoting a culture a peace because their words are so blatantly betrayed by their actions.

Askar’s art has since gained the notice of Chinese regime, which has censured his songs in Xinjiang. He resides in Beijing, and while the government allows him artistic freedom there, it disallows live performances by Askar in Xinjiang and provincial authorities have opposed playing his music on local radio stations. Baranovitch argues he is allowed to live with relative freedom due to the apathy and ignorance of Beijing officials. He asserts that local party officials stationed in Xinjiang would be more aware of the latent symbolism in the songs of Askar (Baranovitch 2007a).

Another Uyghur artist cited by Baranovitch (2007b) whose work reflects the principles of cultures of peace is Arken, a younger singer-songwriter who

34 rose to prominence during the 2000s. Arken’s music is less threatening and politically hostile than Askar’s, and can be classified as being part of a pop music genre. Whereas Askar’s music called for independence for Xinjiang, Arken’s work represents multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence with the Han Chinese.

He celebrates his Uyghurness but does so without attacking or disparaging Han culture. Throughout his songs Arken calls for multiculturalism and an acceptance of Han culture and his Uyghur roots. In his song “Where is My Girl” he sings “Whoever is beautiful is fine/ Beijing is fine ah, Xinjiang is fine ah/ Wherever you are is fine.” The song is lighthearted but the lyrics are nonetheless important. Arken cites the majority Han Beijing and the Uyghur home Xinjiang equally praiseworthy by using identical language to describe the two places. With the citation of Beijing being “fine” the song and art demonstrate an openness to peaceful relations between two historically adversarial groups.

Anwar Muhammad is another Uyghur artist producing art which contributes to creating a culture of peace. Unlike the Askar or Arken, Anwar Muhammad is an author of short stories. His work speaks poignantly about religious discrimination of Muslims in Xinjiang. One such example is his short story Sin (1998), which features a family whose father is punished because he demands that his son attend a religious school. Among the many critiques of Uyghur village life in Xinjiang depicted in Sin include the lack of religious education for Muslims in Xinjiang and the disparity between Uyghurs and corrupt provincial party officials. His story signifies a plea to end religious discrimination and ultimately the denial of an intimate piece of Uyghur identity. The power of the story comes from the exposure of racial and religious discrimination and despite the harshness of the criticism is also a work which explicitly shares

the experience of the Uyghur. Therefore it advances the understanding between two disparate groups (Baranovitch 2007a). As opposed to advocating violent resistance, Anwar Muhammad chose the device of the story to convey protest and ultimately convey a largely peaceful vision for all Uyghurs. The absence of religious tolerance is both a violation of the norms of a culture of peace and the wealth disparity is characteristic of structural violence (A/RES/53/243).

Artistic Resistance to China’s Global Rise The framework of the moral imagination can serve as an especially useful mechanism to reflect on art which embodies resistance to China’s rise as an emerging power on the world stage, and the broader homogenizing effects of globalization. Developed

by John Paul Lederach (2010), realizing the moral imagination requires four interrelated steps: an ability to see past a relationship defined by dichotomy, the ability to imagine ourselves as being in a web of relationships that includes one’s enemies; the ability to embrace complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; a core belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and acceptance of the risks required to step into the unknown that lies outside landscapes characterized by violence. China’s self-proclaimed “peaceful rise” as a global economic mover and shaker and its effort to define itself as a cultural and political power has not been entirely peaceful; many within the artistic community view that rise as being profoundly and culturally violent. Many critics of globalization condemn its homogenizing effects, and the question of whether an increasingly globalized world will look more Western or Eastern is a subject of heated debate.

Analyzing artistic response to these trends sheds important insights on the potential for a global culture of peace.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics One such effort to highlight the relationship between East and West alongside globalization is Ai Weiwei. Ai is currently the most well-known and celebrated Chinese artist in the world. As chronicled

by Wines (2012) Ai’s father was Ai Qing, a famous poet who was purged during the Cultural Revolution for his criticism of free speech restrictions but eventually rehabilitated by the regime. Ai has taken up the mantle of his father, and continued to speak out against and criticize the Chinese government.

Given Ai’s family history and his own personal history his art has a special resonance with the Chinese people. Ai’s Sunflower Seeds (Figure 6), for example, is an installation art exhibit featuring an empty room with one half of the floor covered in ceramic sunflower seeds. The seeds were handcrafted by 1,600 Chinese workers over two and a half years.

Displayed in London’s Tate museum, the work denies the dichotomy of east and west by bringing the Figure 6. Sunflower Seeds

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work of Chinese artisans to a western audience. By creating an installation on such a grand scale the artist invites the viewer to experience a new relationship with the Chinese artisan and reconsider their role in the economic relationship of producer (China) and consumer (the West). As one visitor remarked, “now I’ve seen Sunflower Seeds and watched your video, I realize that there are many other people in this town in China who have made this exhibition possible for us and I feel closer to them for having seen the seeds.” The installation also features interviews with the artisans who created the sunflower seeds. In its entirety, it represents an effort to create a closeness and solidarity among individuals, regardless of their origin. As Ai himself emphasizes, “the world is sphere, has no East or West” (Hancox 2011, 270). It is a creative way to imagine a new relationship among citizens around the world.

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Another artist whose work seeks to eliminate differences between cultures and people is Gu Wenda.

Beginning in 1993, Gu created a series of installments around the world entitled, United Nations. In it, he uses human hair to construct massive installation art by monuments in the cities where the art is located.

He then writes in Chinese and English script but in a way that cannot be understood. As explained by Gu, his work is meant to “target is the United Nations, an organization whose utopian purpose is to create a better world by unifying its different races and cultures – a vision that probably won’t exist in our lifetime. But it can be realized in art, whose function is to serve as a projection of our imaginary” (Leung 1999, 92).

By using the world stage as the setting for their art, these artists give voice to the promise of nurturing a truly global culture of peace, and facilitating a community of nations. Both artists use their work to imagine China in a web of relationships with other nations and peoples, including nations which are skeptical of China’s peaceful rise. And, both artists engage the moral imagination because they use a creative medium to reimagine relations between people and nations in a novel and peaceful manner.

These works also attempt to transcend the dichotomy of a world divided by geography and ideology to create a world premised on a culture of peace which, while at present is only imaginary, but is made tangible through art.

Conclusion The purpose of this paper was to examine the role of artists in fostering a culture of peace in settings where cultural violence prevails. The case of China represents both sides of this puzzle – on the one hand it is a nation with a rich, historical artistic history, and on the other hand it is a nation with a long history of widespread and pervasive cultural violence. I have

focused my analysis on whether and how artists could manage to produce art in an environment with such heavy censorship and a strong authoritarian regime – and whether their work aligns with principles that are foundational to cultures of peace. The answers I reached through the analysis are varied. Some artists, such as the Cynical Realists and Ai Weiwei, appear to have more freedom to display their art abroad where it receives global attention, but that attention for China may be a double-edged sword. It both shines a light on the outstanding art that Chinese artists produce, but it also highlights the social injustice and cultural violence that art often portrays. Other artists, such as the Uyghurs, continued to produce art and advocate for social and political change despite domestic censorship and denial of a wider audience for their work.

At times the sheer volume of possible art to analyze for this project was overwhelming and suggests that further research in this issue area would be helpful in establishing a more nuanced and deeper understanding of the role of art in realizing cultures of peace. This project represents but a small examination of what is a very broad area of research, replete with many other brave artists producing art to better imagine their social situation and contemplate a new culture based on peace. Relatedly, continued research in this area would offer a stronger empirical backing to the study of cultures of peace and further insights into the artist’s role in the creation of them. Of course research into the role of art and the artist in cultures of peace by no means should be limited to China. All countries have artists creating work which in whole or in part advocates for such a culture. These works and artists exist within authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies. Peace research would inarguably benefit from examination of their work and its effects in building a future where cultures of violence become the exception rather than the norm.

Cultures of Peace Reference Albertini, Claudia. 2008. Avatars and Antiheroes: A Guide to Contemporary Chinese Artists. New York: Kodansha America.

Baranovitch, Nimrod. 2007a. “Inverted Exile: Uyghur Writers and Artists in Beijing and the Political Implications of Their Work.” Modern China 33 (4): 462-504.

Baranovitch, Nimrod. 2007b. “From Resistance to Adaptation: Uyghur Popular Music and Changing Attitudes among Uyghur Youth.” The China Quarterly 58 (July): 59-82.

Barnett, Michael and Martha Finnemore. 2004. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Crozier, Ralph. 1999. “The Avant-Garde and the Democracy Movements: Reflections on Late Communism in the USSR and China.” EuropeAsia Studies 51 (3): 483-513.

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Jiang, Jiehong. 2007. Burden Or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Lankarani, Nazani, “The Many Faces of Yue Minjun,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes. com/2012/12/06/arts/06iht-rartminjun06. html?pagewanted=1&_r=2& (Accessed December 5, 2012) Lederach, John Paul. 2005. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Leung, Simon. 1999. “Pseudo-Languages: A Conversation with Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, and Jonathan Hay.” Art Journal 58 (3): 86-99.

Lin, Xiaoping. 1997. “Those Parodic Images: A Glimpse of Contemporary Chinese Art.” Leonardo 30 (2): 113-122.

Link, Perry, “China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier,” The New York Review of Books, 11 April, 2002.

De Rivera, J. 2004. “Assessing the Basis for a Culture of Peace in Contemporary Societies.” Journal of Peace Research 41 (5): 531-48.

Lu, Hsiao-peng. 1997. “Art, Culture, and Cultural

Galtung, J. 1990. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27 (3): 291-305.

Merewether, Charles. 2012. Ai Weiwei: According to What? Munich: DelMonico.

Hancox, Simone. 2011. “Art, Activism and the Geopolitical Imagination: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Sunflower Seeds’.” Journal of Media Practice 12 (3): 270-90.

Minorities at Risk Project. 2006 “Chronology for Turkmen in China.” University of Maryland. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/ (Accessed January 1, 2014).

Hsing, You-tien. 2006. “Land and Territorial Politics in Urban China.” The China Quarterly 187 (September): 575-591.

Ng, Mee Kam. 2004. “Viewpoint: The Role of Urban Planning in China’s Sustainable Development.”

The Town Planning Review 75 (4): 1-5.

Criticism in Post-New China.” New Literary History 28 (1): 111-33.

38 Ratkovic, Viktorija, and Wener Wintersteiner, eds.

2010. Culture of Peace: A Concept and a Campaign Revisited. Drava : Center for Peace Research and Peace Education Shambaugh, David. 2007. “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes, and Efficacy.” The China Journal 57 (January): 25-58.

Shen, Kuiyi, and Julia F. Andrews. 2011. Blooming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art, 1974-1985.

New York: China Institute.

Staub, Ervin. 2003. “Notes on Cultures of Violence, Cultures of Caring and Peace, and the Fulfillment of Basic Human Needs.” Political Psychology 24 (1): 1-21.

Suri, Manik V. 2013. “Conceptualizing China Within the Kantian Peace.” Harvard International Law Journal 54 (1): 219-58.

UN General Assembly. A Declaration on a Culture of Peace: Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, 13 September 1999, A/RES/53/243A. http://www.un-documents.net/a53r243a.htm (Accessed January 1, 2014) United Nations. UNESCO Constitution, 16 November 1945.

Whitehead, Neil L. 2007. “Violence & the Cultural Order.” Daedalus 136 (1): 40-50.

Wilson, Mark, and Sue-an van der Zijpp. 2008. New World Order: Contemporary Installation Art and Photography from China. Groningen: Groninger Museum.

Wines, Michael, “China’s Impolitic Artist, Still Waiting to Be Silenced,” New York Times, 27 November, 2009.

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Anthropological Quarterly 80 (3): 647-72.

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Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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The Myth of Democracy in Ukraine Ukraine’s Struggle to Democratize Amanda Marie Lawnicki Beloit College The Euromaidan movement drew international attention to Ukrainian democracy; demands

by Ukrainians for new elections and closer ties to the West were reminiscent of the Orange Revolution in 2004-5. But if the Orange Revolution had been a success, why were protests renewed? Ukrainian democratization has faced numerous obstacles before, during, and since the Orange Revolution. These include deep-rooted systemic corruption, an absent civic identity, a weak civil society and lack of vertical and horizontal accountability, and the geopolitical position of Ukraine between the West and Russia. The media’s labeling of the Orange Revolution as a democratic victory was overly optimistic and, over time, interest in continuing Ukrainian democracy declined. Despite the optimism, democracy never actually consolidated. Lessons learned from the failure of the Orange Revolution can be applied to Ukraine today, affording a better understanding of how to create a supportive environment for future democracy efforts.

Introduction The Euromaidan protests of 2014 and the earlier democracy protests of the Orange Revolution in 2004-5 offer convenient temporal points by which we can analyze the progress of Ukrainian democracy in the intervening decade. The Orange Revolution, alongside the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the Rose Revolution in Georgia, was part of a global post-communist call for democracy. Despite their apparent successes and the media’s optimistic praise, it eventually became clear that the so-called Color Revolutions failed to instill lasting democratic change.

In 2014, Freedom Houses’ Freedom in the World Report ratings for all three ex-Soviet states fell under “Partly Free,” though the extent of their authoritarian leanings varied.

Despite the high profile revolutions and Western applause, democracy floundered in the exSoviet states (excluding the Baltics); Ukrainian scholars

agree that the Orange Revolution did not create the vast, systemic change touted by the media (Votey 2014). Though not necessarily doomed to failure from the start, the Orange Revolution was highly unlikely to succeed in creating a liberal democracy – but why?

To begin, the Revolution itself was not a popular revolution; it was a rotation of rulers achieved through elite-mobilized protests whereby divisive societal fault lines continued to be capitalized on throughout the post-Orange Revolution decade. Furthermore, complex internal politics and competing external pressures prevented truly democratic structures from ever emerging.

The media myth of Ukraine’s successful democratic revolution aided in decreased attention from Western politicians; external aid decreased and the Ukrainian public became disillusioned with the idea of democracy, seeing few noticeable

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Lawnicki

changes between their old system and their new “democratic” society (Carriere-Kretschmer 2010).

Ukraine between Western and Russian influences.

Additionally, external and internal actors fell into the

replacing the constitution of the Ukrainian SSR.

trap of directing attention toward institutions that

Through it, Kuchma consolidated the powers of the

embody democratic practices (i.e. political parties and

president to the detriment of the prime minister and

elections) while largely forgoing work on the informal

the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.

institutions inhibiting democracy growth (i.e. civil society groups combating corruption).

Democratization in Ukraine was and is far

In 1996, the constitution of Ukraine was adopted,

Later in his presidency, the “Kuchmagate” scandal revealed Kuchma’s involvement in a series of corrupt and criminal dealings, including the high-

from inevitable; barring deep changes in internal

profile murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze,

structures and the external environment, the country

inspiring mass protests and shifting popular opinion in

will have trouble in advancing democracy. I begin my

favor of the West. Following the protests, former Prime

analysis of Ukrainian democracy with a brief overview

Minister Viktor Yushchenko, along with his cabinet

of Ukrainian history and democratization theory. I

member Yulia Tymoshenko, formed the Orange

then examine the internal environment of Ukraine,

Coalition against Kuchma’s hand-picked successor, the

focusing first on the transition to a market economy

leader of the Donetsk-based Party of Regions, Viktor

and the problem of corruption, second on Ukraine’s

Yanukovych. In November 2004, Yanukovych was

regional divisions, and third at the dismal state of

named president after the internationally criticized

Ukraine’s civil society. I then look at the external

and fraudulent elections, spurring mass protests on the

effects of competing neighbors – notably the West

Maidan (Independence Square, in central Kiev) and

and Russia. Though there are many specific factors

across the country.

that I have chosen not to include simply due to the

The peaceful protests, otherwise known as the

limited scope of this paper, I believe that the factors I

Orange Revolution, successfully forced a new election.

do examine provide an introductory insight into the

Despite dioxin poisoning and multiple attempts on

fundamental impediments to democracy in Ukraine.

his life, Yushchenko and the Orange Coalition won

A Brief History of Ukraine Ukraine gained lasting independence from

the presidency and held the majority in parliament.

He chose Tymoshenko, of the nationalist Fatherland party, to be his prime minister. Hope in Yushchenko’s

Russia in 1991, when Leonid Kravchuk became

ability to inspire change stemmed from his prior

the first democratically-elected president of an

liberal reforms: he introduced Ukraine’s currency,

independent Ukraine. The Russians were surprised at

the hryvina, when he led Ukraine’s central bank in

the move for independence, long considering Ukraine

1996; eradicated barter systems; repealed “unjustified

to be “Little Russia”; even today Russians have a hard

budgetary preferences for individual businesses”; and

time accepting the concept of an independent Ukraine.

reduced unpaid pension arrears in 2000 (Paskhaver

Elections were held again in 1994; Leonid Kuchma won using the rhetoric of establishing closer ties to Russia, though in practice he sought to balance

and Verkhovodova 2007, 19).

However, popular opinion quickly turned against him amid harsh criticism from Yanukovych

Myth of Democracy in Ukraine

41

and a 2005 inflation rate of 15% (Maksymiuk 2005).

Constitutional Court’s decision to transfer powers

His reluctance to push for a transparent, market-

from the prime minister and parliament to the

oriented economy rapidly disillusioned the middle

presidency, reversing a 2004 ruling, and making rule

class, the largest socioeconomic group supporting the

by law an even more prominent source of political

Orange Revolution (Freeland 2014). Like Kravchuk,

power. In 2011, Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced

Yushchenko’s focus was geared towards building a

to seven years in prison for fraud and misuse of

national Ukrainian identity that was separate from

power in a trial deemed unfair by a report published

Russia, rather than combating corruption and poverty.

by the Danish Helsinki Commission for Human

He also relied on antiquated, undemocratic practices;

Rights (2011) that same year. Following Euromaidan,

he quickly dismissed Prime Minister Tymoshenko

Tymoshenko was freed and campaigned for the

amid mutual rumors of corruption before new

presidency against the current president, Petro

laws limiting presidential authority came into force

Poroshenko.

in 2005. Yanukovych mobilized anti-Yushchenko support, encouraging large groups of Ukrainian protesters to camp outside the parliament for weeks

Democracy: A Theoretical Overview Thomas Carothers noted five false assumptions

until Yushchenko approved the Rada’s nomination

underpinning what he called the transition paradigm,

of Yanukovych to Prime Minister. Yushchenko’s first

referring to countries assumed to be transition to

Chief of Staff, Oleg Rybachuk, explained his own

democracy: “(1) that every country where a dictator

decision to quit only six months after the January 2005

is overthrown should be assumed to be moving

elections:

towards democracy; (2) that democratisation must

“There were enormous opportunities

always follow the same formula in the identical

specifically in the first year of Yushchenko’s presidency.

sequence; (3) that elections are the guarantee of

Enormous, enormous opportunities because there was

stable, liberal democracy; (4) that such things as the

such a big level of trust on the part of the people…

level of economic development, political history, and

There were more freedoms, yes, there was less control,

legacies of various kinds are irrelevant to the course or

yes, but there was no democracy in institutional form.

prospects of democratisation; and (5) that the so-called

Courts have been neglected; we didn’t pass through the

‘third-wave’ democratic transitions have been taking

parliament major democratic laws. The Soviet-trained,

place in coherent, functional states” (Ramet 2013, 64).

Soviet-prepared bureaucracy remained in power” (PBS Newshour 2011).

In 2010, Yanukovych won the presidency after

Sabrina P. Ramet (2013, 65) critiques Carothers by saying that these assumptions are so obviously false that the vast majority of scholarly work already rejects

running against both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko,

them. Even so, they can still serve as a reminder of the

whose coalition had fractured. During Yanukovych’s

complexity of post-communist democracy building.

presidency, Ukraine shifted away from prior reforms

In examining Ukrainian democracy, I use

and re-consolidated the presidential powers that

these assumptions as guidelines. First, elections are a

Yushchenko disbursed. The most prominent example

fundamental part of democracy, but are not sufficient

of Yanukovych’s reconsolidation efforts was the 2010

in and of themselves; I refer to Fareed Zakaria’s (1997)

42 definition of a “liberal democracy,” including both

Furthermore, the network of Ukrainian elites

electoral democracy and constitutional liberalism. This

is intricate, marked by false-propaganda even within

broader definition allows for a more complete analysis

elite groups, and ever-changing; true elite alliances are

of hybrid regimes, which, based on Robert Dahl’s

exceedingly hard to discern and would take extensive

concept of polyarchy, arise from dichotomies between

private knowledge of the inner machinations of both

providing “free” versus “fair” elections (Hale 2011, 35).

Ukrainian and Russian elite circles. One EU diplomat’s

Hybridity occurs when elections are free, but unfair,

comment illustrates this point: “What I need is an

and characterize “the combination of significantly

organigramme that tells me which Ukrainian oligarch

contested elections with state political coercion and

is backing which political party at any given time”

corruption” (Hale 2011, 35).

(Rettman 2013). Thus I chose to examine systemic

Second, the first assumption of Carothers’

factors hindering accountability in general, as opposed

transition paradigm also reminds us that hybrids have

to individual personalities, in order to target the

staying power. Hale’s (2011, 30) analysis of hybrid

fundamental impediments to democracy and avoid

regimes over time (classified by Polity IV and Freedom

entanglement in the shifting web of Ukrainian politics.

House) confirms this: “regardless of longevity…about

Fourth, the weakness of the government and

a fifth of all hybrid regimes eventually switched to

the absence of a unified civic identity contribute

democracy, while around a quarter to a third became

to Ukraine’s lack of a “coherent, functional state.”

authoritarian.” From the outset, hybrid regimes are

Vladimir Gel’man (2003, 87-104) reviewed popular

more likely to backslide or remain hybrids than to

explanations of post-Soviet theory, which he found

democratize. Though elite political contestation

to be insufficient in explaining democratization, and

marks a noticeable step toward democracy, progress

determined that the two most important variables in

will stagnate if horizontal accountability (among

democracy building are institutions and actors, which

government institutions) and/or vertical accountability

translate to state-building and political contestation.

(between the government and the public) is lacking.

Often, post-Soviet systems have a weak state resulting

Third, Paul Kubiczek reminds us that path-

from constraints on state capacity (in particular,

dependency is extremely important in explaining

violent actions taken by non-state actors, some of

Ukraine’s institutional legacies (Kuzio 2005, 168).

whom claim to act for the state), and the lack of the

Ukraine’s regional divisions are a result of centuries of

rule of law (Gel’man 2003, 91). Gel’man (2003, 92)

rule under various regimes which attempted to erase

reasons that the lack of rule of law is equivalent to

the Ukrainian national identity, and contributed to the

the dominance of informal institutions, particularly

difficulty of creating a unified civic identity. Ukraine

clientelism and corruption. Political contestation is a

has never been a democratic country, so democratic

result of political actors and their strategies for coming

norms are slow to be established. It is especially hard

to power, and states can range from competitive to

to combat corruption, as the combination of Soviet

non-competitive. The spectra of intuitions and actors

legacies and post-independence privatization efforts

produce four quadrants of possibilities (See Figure 1);

create an environment where corrupt practices are

in 2003, he considered Ukraine to be a competitive

commonplace.

regime dominated by informal institutions.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Gel’man (2003, 96) argues that political contestation results from deep-rooted cleavages and conflicts among the elites, as opposed to “pacts” among members of the government. He suggests these conflicts only work to advance democracy if the outcome is not zero-sum – the problem then becomes institutionalizing conflict through formal channels rather than informal ones; in essence, state building.

Taras Kuzio (2001, 168-77) similarly stresses the importance of state building, but argues that the “triple transition” of democratization, marketization, and state-building is not enough for post-Soviet states in particular; instead, he suggests a “quadruple transition” with the addition of nation building. In the post-Soviet sphere, identity is a particularly convoluted issue, as the former “Soviet” identity did not simply disappear when the Soviet Union broke up; instead it remained one of many possible identities, which in Ukraine consisted of Ukrainian, “Little Russian” (both

43

Ukrainian and Russian), Soviet, and other (Hrytsak 1998, 266).

Kuzio (2001, 170) cites Margret Canovan, Robert Dahl, and Dankart Rustow in their conclusions that democratic consolidation needs an established a civic nation, defined as “a consensus on certain values and beliefs through which the community is united, boundaries are fixed and the composition of citizenship is made ‘continuous,’” and which shares a common loyalty across varying groups. Civic national identity supports the development of civil society, which in turn supports democratic consolidation and tames “marginalising ethnic nationalism;” absent an inclusive civic identity “the state does not possess the necessary preconditions to create a civil society, an effective constitution, laws or citizenship because the core of civil society is the ‘dominant nation’” (Kuzio 2001, 172). Furthermore, exclusive and fundamental nationalism based on ethnicity will most likely work to

Figure 1

Classification of Regime according to competitiveness and institutional dominance (in 2003)

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Lawnicki

actively oppose civil society (Kuzio 2001, 173).

The lack of a shared civic identity inhibits group solidarity and trust, and hinders cooperation and mobilization toward common political and economic goals, including among civil society groups (Kuzio 2001, 171). Territorially, a survey

by Yaroslav Hrystak in 1998 found that in both the eastern and western regions, the borders of Ukraine were conceived of as immutable; for better or for worse, they were against the physical split of Ukraine (Kuzio 2001, 272-73). The regional divisions, then, allowed Ukrainian political elites who felt threatened by democratization efforts to draw upon divisive ethnic nationalism, promote institutional weakness and manipulation, and borrow either Western or Russian ideologies as sources of legitimacy while still maintaining the notion of a civic Ukrainian state (Kuzio 2001, 175).

Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way (2010) also address internal weakness, though they frame it in terms of external influences, a factor not covered in Carothers’s transition paradigm. They split external influences between linkage and leverage.

Linkage is defined as “the density of ties…and crossborder flows…among particular countries and the United States, the EU…and Western-dominated multilateral institutions” (Levitsky and Way 2010, 40, 43). It is determined by six factors – economic, intergovernmental, technocratic, social, information, and civil society linkages – influenced by history, development, and proximity (Levitsky and Way 2010, 43-44). Leverage is simply “governments’ vulnerability to external democratizing pressure,” and is derived from three factors: the size and strength of the economy, alternate foreign-policy objectives by Western states, and the existence of “black knights,” or strong anti-democracy powers, including Russia (Levitsky and Way 2010, 40-41, 43). They suggest that

linkage is more important than leverage for a lasting democracy: “In the absence of extensive linkage, international pressure often ceases after an electoral turnover, which may allow successor governments to violate democratic norms at low external cost” (Levitsky and Way 2010, 54). Their analysis resonates with the results the Orange Revolution, as Western interest in Ukraine waned simultaneous to Ukraine’s rise in authoritarianism, at least until the Euromaidan protests.

The relative strength or weakness of a state, termed “organizational power,” includes measurements of state coercive power and party strength, both evaluated in terms of scope and cohesion. They argue that first and foremost high linkage promotes democracy, but in the absence of high linkage, organizational power helps determine the end result – high organizational power encourages stable competitive authoritarian regimes. In the case of low linkage and low organizational power, Western leverage plays a role – low leverage invites a more stable regime, whereas high leverage results in an unstable one. Levitsky and Way (2010, 234) found Ukraine to have low linkage, low organizational power, and high leverage, which means their predicted outcome was unstable competitive authoritarianism.

Though in the post-Orange Revolution atmosphere, they determined Ukraine’s actual political system to have democratized, in retrospect the country has more closely resembled their initial prediction.

The Internal Environment The main internal factors I focus on include the landscape of corruption before, during, and after the Orange Revolution; Ukraine’s regional divisions and the question of national identity; and the condition of civil society. I draw from the concept of “embedded democracy” used by the National Center of

Myth of Democracy in Ukraine Competence in Research (NCCR) Democracy (Figure 2) and examine these factors as forces contributing to “stateness,” which in turn contributes to successful democratization.

Admittedly, NCCR Democracy evaluates the quality of established democracies; however, I found many of their approaches to be in line with post-communist scholarship. Regarding Figure 2, Bühlmann, Merkel, and Wessels (2007, 28) describe the “the concentric circles in which a democracy is externally embedded [as] conditions of possibility and impossibility that may have an enormous positive or negative impact on the working of democracy, but are Figure 2

Embedded Democracy (NCCR DEMOCRACY)

45

not defining components of the democratic regime itself.” Thus, while the presence of supportive social and economic factors does not necessarily equal the development of a strong civil society, nor does the presence of a supportive civil society automatically equal the rise of democracy, the environmental conditions impeding the growth of civil society are the same conditions that impede the growth of democracy.

Corruption Corruption in Ukraine infiltrates every aspect of Ukrainian politics and society and inhibits the development of both civil society and the state itself.

46 Tataiana Zaharchenko (2012) describes the corruption environment in Ukraine: “The word ‘corruption’ is not adequate to describe present-day Ukraine, and in fact, distorts reality. Western listeners, often aware of corruption in their own countries, and certainly it exists everywhere else, shrug their shoulders and remain unimpressed. But what has taken place in Ukraine all these years, and accelerated rapidly under the current government, goes far beyond corruption. It is a policy of looting the country, transformed over the last several years into systematic and institutionalized extortion that reached all the way down into society, after not much was left to be stolen at the top.”

Zaharchenko (2012) cites the rushed privatization process in an environment lacking norms of accountability, transparency, and democracy as a foundational step in creating Ukriane’s modernday corruption norm. Similar to Russia, post-Soviet privatization led to the accumulation of stock in the hands of a few and facilitated the rise of the oligarchs.

Among the elite, corruption norms encouraged bureaucrats to form regional clans and alliances in an attempt to consolidate wealth and political power in both Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian oligarchs never captured the market as extensively as Russian oligarchs, but Putin’s centralized authority gave him firm control over Russian oligarchs. In Ukraine, however, a similar measurement of control has not emerged. Among the general public, rapid privatization completely upset the social, political, and economic systems. Real wages decreased, social safety nets disappeared, the state struggled to enforce laws, and socialist political culture and institutions were undermined (Fedirko 2013). To cope with the shock, people turned to familiar, informal institutions such as blat (social networks and connections) and the shadow economy.

Corruption in Ukraine, according to Freedom House (Sushko and Prystayko 2013) improved or remained stable from 1998 until it worsened in 2012, after Yanukovych took office, but the World Bank (World Bank Institute n.d.) places the negative turn in 2006, still four years before Yanukovych’s election.

According to Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (2013a), Ukraine scored 25 out of 100 and was ranked 144 out of 177 countries, receiving the same score as Cameroon, Central African Republic, Iran, Nigeria, and Papua New Guinea (see Figure 3 for rankings over time).

Domestic perceptions of corruption according to TI’s Global Corruption Barometer (2013b) are extremely negative: 95% believe that the level of corruption over the preceding two years stayed the same or increased, 97% say that corruption of the public sector is a problem (74% calling “severe”), 99% believe that their country is at least somewhat run by “a few big entities acting in their own interests,” and only 4% believe that the government’s actions against corruption have been effective (a 12% decrease from 2010/11).

Corruption is extremely detrimental to the development of a civil society and a democratic culture. It undermines the legitimacy of governments and institutions, thrives on inequality, distorts policymaking, weakens the rule of law, and interrupts the efficient provision of services: “Corruption violates the centrality of civic virtue. The net result is that corruption undermines the value of democratic governance and erodes the institutional legitimacy and capacity of governments to deliver services, ensure the security of citizens and deliver socio-economic development” (Samuel 2011).

Corruption in Ukraine occurs across TI’s divisions of petty, political, and grand corruption:

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics

47

Figure 3

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL - CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX

petty corruption occurs in everyday situations when ordinary citizens attempt to access basic goods and services (i.e. hospitals, schools, and local government agencies); political corruption occurs when politicians and bureaucrats manipulate existing institutions and rules in order to obtain wealth, status, and power; and grand corruption occurs when the highest levels of government abuse the state for personal benefit (Transparency International 2013a).

Petty Corruption Ukraine’s Post-Soviet inheritance of petty corruption has been particularly hard to let go. As one Ukrainian proverb states, “You don’t grease – you don’t ride” (Fedirko 2013). Petty corruption actively undermines democracy by contributing to fundamental inequalities in access to services and goods, such as health or education, and facilitating smuggling, trafficking, and informal activities and the shadow economy (U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre n.d.). It erodes public trust in the government,

and in civil society organizations, leading to an unstable government and a civil society incapable of holding the government accountable (Hollingshead 2012). In Ukraine, bribery is so intrinsic that around 70% of Ukrainians choose not to report it because they deemed it futile or unnecessary, rather than out of fear (European Research Association 2011, 42). In 2013, 49% of Ukrainians reported paying a bribe to the police, 41% to medical services, and 33% to education services (Transparency International 2013b). The institutions deemed most corrupt include the judiciary (87% felt it was corrupt or extremely corrupt), the police (84%), and public officials and civil servants (82%) (Transparency International 2013b). Over the past ten years, regardless of political changes, these perceptions have remained fairly stable.

Political Corruption Paul D’Aneri (2007, 13) analyzed the effect of inherited Soviet institutions and found two main factors influencing Ukrainian democratization post-

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independence: the Communist Party’s monopoly

Before the 2010 elections, only 4.5% of voters

on power, and state control of the economy, which

believed that the elections would be fair and 29.5%

resulted in an institutionally divided government,

believed that there would be violations but that the

vast presidential powers, and numerous incentives

verdict would not be affected; this means that 66% of

for corruption. D’Anieri (2007, 13) argues that, like

Ukrainians thought that corruption would undermine

all post-Soviet regimes, this combination of political

the fairness of the elections (Interfax-Ukraine 2010a).

and economic power was amassed by a set of highly

Encouragingly, the majority of voters did not plan

connected elites, and that “political power is highly

on selling their vote (73% rejected bribes outright),

concentrated in Ukraine because it started out that

and 51% of voters condemned those who sold votes

way, and because the system tends to reinforce that

(Interfax-Ukraine 2010b). This gives hope that even in

concentration rather than to disperse it.” After Ukraine

the face of endemic corruption, citizens may choose to

gained independence, Kuchma actually “promoted a

pursue democratic norms; this potential is increased

system in which government officials were corrupt,

through exposure to democratic institutions, civil

because he could then exchange his willingness to

society, and access to a free media. Indeed, the Orange

look the other way for financial and political loyalty

Revolution was inspired by Yanukovych’s obvious

from subordinates” (D’Aneria 2007, 253). Some of

attempts to control the vote. But ironically, in the 2010

the most visible aspects of political corruption occur

elections the country voted in Yanukovych in “an

during elections; in competitive authoritarian regimes

‘impressive display’ of democracy” (Harding 2010), the

political elites must use informal institutions in order

same candidate the Orange Revolution rallied against

to ensure electoral victory.

on the basis of election fraud.

Corruption of political parties leads to a lack

In 2012, there were noticeable backslides in

of internal democracy and accountability whereby

the provision of free and fair elections. Despite the

“political parties are reduced to ‘interest’ networks to

presence of multiple parties, “the ability of candidates

capture and control the power of the state.” (Samuel

to get their messages to voters and compete under

2011) Political corruption brings into contact the

equal conditions was hampered in a significant

economic, social (media), and political elites who

number of districts due to harassment, intimidation,

abuse the system at the detriment of society in general.

and misuse of administrative resources that blurred the

Though the government is no longer as clintelistic as it

line between the state and the ruling party” (Sushko

was under the Soviet system, Ukrainian elections are

and Prystayko 2013) and the National Democratic

still dominated by manipulation and uneven playing

Institute deemed the elections undemocratic (Fox

fields (Brun and Diamond 2007). Though single votes

2012).

may be bought, other practices, such as ballot stuffing, “voter tourism” (bussing voters from one polling station to another), and “dead souls” (including on the

Grand Corruption Corruption in Ukraine runs deeper

voter registry the names of the deceased, who then

than merely flouting the law. Although formal

“cast” votes) are common (Koerner 2004; Schabner

institutionalization of rules and laws is important,

2006).

such laws are not neutral vehicles for policy

Myth of Democracy in Ukraine

49

implementation, but products of the elites creating

is little political will and system capacity to prosecute

them. Often these elites are not necessarily looking

high-profile corruption…due to the dependence of

for democracy, but rather are looking to further their

law enforcement agencies on their patrons through

political and economic power, and so turn to instances

appointment and parliamentary immunity” (Kokhan

of grand corruption. Even though Yushchenko made

2011, 4).

some democratic reforms, he never attempted to

Ukraine made few gains in the area of

change the law giving the president power to appoint

corruption under either Yushchenko or Yanukovych,

regional governors. He was accused of refraining from

and the propensity of the Ukrainian ruling elite to not

prosecuting those he had made political deals with,

only flout the law, but also to rewrite the laws entirely

while simultaneously accusing Tymoshenko and her

points to the grand scale of corruption in Ukraine.

supporters of abusing government powers to pursue

Oleh Rybachuk remarks that after Yanukovych’s

commercial interests. The judiciary struggled to obtain

election: “They consolidated all power, ignoring the

independence, and even today is seen as the most

constitution, not having checks and balances. So they

corrupt institution in Ukraine.

have the central government, they have all cabinet of

When Yanukovych came into office, he

ministers under their control, they control parliament.

introduced new reforms to the constitution, reversing

Now they made so-called legal reforms where, as

Yushchenko’s deconsolidation of presidential powers.

the result of which, they totally control the court –

A Freedom House assessment (Sushko and Prystayko

constitutional court, supreme court. Most Ukrainians,

2013) found that, “according to the revised charter,

the absolute majority of people would say, that there

the parliament is no longer authorized to appoint

is a backslide of democracy and this is felt in the air”

and dismiss cabinet ministers, though it retains the

(PBS News Hour 2011).

right to confirm the prime minister, who is appointed

Overall, corruption remains widespread throughout all levels of society; there is little political will to enact and follow laws that would initiate real change, and only 29% of the population feels as if the actions of ordinary citizens can make a difference in the fight against corruption (Transparency International 2013b). This reveals a deep-seated lack of trust in both the government and vertical accountability mechanisms.

by the president. In practice, the parliament lost its authority over the executive branch,” and meaningful horizontal accountability was virtually nonexistent.

Freedom House also noted that Yanukovych’s political allies (including his son Oleksandr and referred to as “the Family”) started to occupy more predominant positions in the government.

At the same time Ukraine adopted the Anti-Corruption Law in 2011, which was supposed to be an attempt toward meeting goals set by the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

Regional Divisions Regional divisions in Ukraine have historical,

However, the only high level officials charged under

ethnolinguistic and economic bases, with political

the corruption law were opposition leaders, such as

divisions often mirroring regional ones. In the

Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko. A review of the law’s

2004 presidential election the eastern and southern

adoption by the UNCAC Coalition found that “there

provinces voted for Yanukovych at levels above 60%,

50 while the western provinces voted for Yushchenko by similar margins (Fisher 2004).

Regional economic divisions surfaced during the Orange Revolution: “Why do we support Yanukovych?” asks a Ukrainian man in the eastern province of Donetsk, “It’s because we live better than western Ukraine, understand? So we are for the stability that was all those years” (Kolodiy 2012). The divide was prominent even among the elites: “The poor compatibility of two such different [economic] programs implies the poor compatibility of the future position of the respective financial and political elites.

The acute problems associated with use of the Russian language, entry into NATO, and relations with Russia merely conceal the profound conflict of interests” (Grigor’ev, Agibalov, and Salikhov 2009, 14).

Economic differences do not necessarily follow the ethnolinguistic east-west divide, but rather the traditional urban/rural one. That being said, though not mutually exclusive, the majority of urban industry is found in the eastern and coastal parts of the country (average monthly incomes mainly fall between $250300), while the west and center has a large population of agrarian farmers (incomes range from $200-250, excluding Kiev) (Mantravadi 2014). This means that eastern provinces tend to be richer than the western ones. That the regions benefit from different economic policies fuels sentiments that regional economic gains are being siphoned to the other side of the country (Grigor’ev, Agibalov, and Salikhov 2009, 12).

Regional divisions are exacerbated by clanbased economics and politics. Under Kuchma three main clans reflected the regional power bases of the Soviet era: Kiev (Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), Dnipropetrovsk (Labour Party), and Donetsk (Party of Regions). (Kuzio 2005, 170) Kuchma acted as a neutral party that balanced these clans; however Yanukovych, the leader of the Donetsk clan, was seen

as biased and incapable of maintaining Kuchma’s balance (Kuzio 2005, 171). Yanukovych’s nomination thus encouraged the Kiev elites to throw their support behind anti-Yanukovych campaigns. Political contestation grew, but was not followed by the formal institution building that Gel’man cites as necessary to build democracy; politics was and is assumed to be zero sum.

National Identity Often the media and elites wrap economic divisions in “ethnolinguistics,” a loaded term that should be broken down into its component parts (language and ethnicity). First, many Ukrainians do not exclusively speak Russian or Ukrainian. Though the official state language is Ukrainian, creoles of Ukrainian and Russian, called Surzhyk, are widely spoken in rural areas and by the lower classes (Kuzio 2000). Russian is the main language spoken in the east, but also is the predominant street language in most cities, excluding some western cities, such as L’vov, which have fewer historical ties to Russia; many Ukrainians, especially those in the center regions and main cities, are bilingual (Kuzio 2000).

Second, not all Russian-speakers are ethnically Russian, nor do they act as a unified entity. Excluding Crimea, the majority of Russian-speakers in Ukraine are ethnically Ukrainian, though there is a large ethnic Russian minority in the East. The divisions along both ethnic and linguistic lines relate to Kuzio’s (2000) assertion that multiple ethno-national identities place automatic constraints on those attempting to unite Ukrainians under a civic identity. The confusion surrounding ethnic, linguistic, and civic identities in Ukraine has been at best unduly simplified by media outlets, and at worst deliberately manipulated by internal and external forces alike.

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51

Civil Society

charitable foundations were registered in 2012 (United

I focus on civil society as a component of vertical accountability associated with democracy and democratic norms, even though most research on civil society deals only with consolidated democracies (Pace 2013). While civil society may further democratic growth in post-communist states, it also has the potential to hinder it (Pace 2013). For example, civil society may worsen “existing social divisions instead of bridging them, especially where the income distribution gap is growing…[and] ethnic divisions may depress civic engagement and may even lead to political activity which seeks to erode or dismantle democratic institutions” (Badescu, Sum, and Uslaner 2004, 7). Therefore, I evaluate civil society not as a prerequisite for democracy, but as a barometer for the status of democracy in the country, borrowing again from NCCR Democracy’s “embedded democracy” concept.

States Agency for International Development 2013,

In referring to civil society, I use the definition provided by Marc Howard, defining civil society as: “the community of citizens, who come together and associate within the public “space” that is distinct from the individual, family, and friendship networks, on the one hand, and the state and market, on the other… [consisting] of intermediary groups, organizations, and associations that are formally established, legally protected, autonomously run, and voluntarily joined by ordinary citizens” (Badescu, Sum, and Uslaner 2004, 4).

of modernization: “The democracy-promoting effects of the media cannot materialize under authoritarian conditions…what this implies is that the effect of media proliferation on democratization increases with the level of democracy already achieved. For this reason, widespread access to media outlets defers backsliding from these achieved levels rather than triggering movement toward more democracy.”

Or, to put it another way, “richer countries were less likely to de-democratize not because they were rich, but because they provided broad access to media” (Teorell 2010, 70).

Finally, corrupt environments tend to restrict media independence, as a free media “can play an essential role in publicizing corruption, and in doing so, [make] political elites pay a price for it,” putting it in elites’ best interests to maintain control over media outlets (D’Anieri 2007, 253). Media-promoted

Because the more nebulous definition of a “community of citizens” is difficult to measure, I defer to civil society organizations (CSOs), included in Howard’s definition, as measurable indicators of the overall health of civil society.

In brief, CSOs in Ukraine are struggling despite the fact that 71,767 public associations and 13,475

209-210). CSOs face numerous problems, including bureaucratic obstacles, a lack of qualified personnel, the prevalence of GONGOs (Government-Organized NGOs), access to funding and reliance on foreign donors (Palyvoda and Golota 2013, 9), lack of norm codification, and negative perceptions associated with transparency advocacy (Kuts 2006, 61).

Another hindrance to Ukrainian civil society is a lack of media independence. A free media can strengthen vertical accountability by publicizing corruption and leaking information to the public, but a controlled media can be subsumed under the political system to publish polarizing propaganda.

Jan Teorell (2010, 6) offers statistical insights into democratization, finding that the most strongly significant factor for increasing the probability of democratization was media freedom as a measurement

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protests, and roundtable discussions between the Yushchenko and Yanukovych camps (Pifer 2007, 2842).

Furthermore, the internal confusion surrounding Ukrainian identity can be partially attributed to the Orange Revolution. Russian assistance to Yanukovych was “understood by Ukraine’s ruling elites as an attempt to export Russia’s ‘managed democracy’ model,” and Russian political advisers were instrumental in creating east-west divisions to The External Environment confuse civic identity (Kuzio 2005, 171). Andrew Wilson (2005, 178-79) investigated the formation of Though the internal environment is extremely this divide and found that Russian advisers wanted important to the development of Ukrainian to create “the schism of Ukraine as a virtual reality” democracy, the country was (and is) subject to major pressures from its neighbors, and some scholars believe and depict Yushchenko its creator; Yanukovych its future is “more dependent on the actions of external would be portrayed as the only power that could draw actors than on the choices of the national political the country back together. A plan created by Marat elite. Competing forces affect the domestic actors’ Gelman, a Russian political adviser, was leaked in political and economic decisions. [And so Ukraine] 2004; the plan called for direct conflict, destabilization often swing[s] between the EU and Russia, depending (political, not economic), and the cooperation of the on which makes a more attractive offer” (Giusti and media in creating an “ontological ‘East-West’ conflict, Penkova 2012, 135). Thus analyzing Ukraine’s external a conflict between Our Ukraine and the Party of environment can shed light on the activities of internal Regions, and a personal conflict between Yushchenko political actors. and Yanukovych” (Wilson 2005, 179).

For example, during the Orange Revolution, The leaked report offered strategies for stirring the country became a proxy of U.S.-Russian politics up animosity in the west against the eastern Donetsk as both the West and Russia exerted influence over clan and others with close relations to Yanukovych, the elections. At the start of the Revolution, the U.S. rousing hostility between Poles and Ukrainians in increased democracy and governance assistance the west, or using Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks aid to NGOs, CSOs and the government; following to provoke land disputes with Crimean Tartars. the Orange Revolution, aid decreased to NGOs but Yushchenko would be portrayed as an enemy to continued to support Yushchenko (Gillis 2013, 35Ukrainian-Russians and Russia as a benevolent force 36). EU monetary aid tended to be more reactive than willing to protect the interests of Crimeans (Wilson proactive, and so did not have a substantial influence 2005, 179). The crafted divisions affected east-west accusations of corruption were political liabilities while Yushchenko was in office, forcing him to fire some of his close associates, including Petro Poroshenko (D’Anieri 2007, 254). The media in Ukraine are controlled by the business elite, often in conjunction with political interests; in 2013, Reporters Without Borders ranked Ukraine at 131 out of 178 countries on its World Press Freedom Index, Ukraine’s lowest ranking since 2004.

on the Revolution (Gillis 2013, 40). Other sources of democracy support included election monitoring, vocal pressure to resist the use of force during the

dynamics and, though this did not ultimately secure Yanukovych the presidency in 2004, east-west tensions assisted his victory in the 2010 elections; furthermore,

Myth of Democracy in Ukraine

53

the portrayal of Russia as a benevolent force was used

the business elite will switch allegiance very quickly…

during the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, and

They are thinking about their long-term financial

in continuing attempts by Russia to gain influence in

interests” (Meyer, Choursina, and Krasnolutska 2013).

Ukraine’s east.

Further exacerbating tensions from competing pressures is the political control of the Ukrainian economic elite, who are instrumental in determining the course of domestic and foreign policies, as evidenced by the 2014 election between Yulia Tymoshenko, the “Gas Princess,” and Petro Poroshenko, “the Chocolate King” (Rettman 2014).

Yanukovych’s presidency ended in February 2014 and, following his removal, Akhmetov backed the new government under the call for national unity (Kochan 2014).

oligarch and long-time supporter of Yanukovych,

In terms of foreign aid, the U.S. has historically been Ukraine’s largest bilateral donor. Its main interests in the region have tended to center on acting as a counterbalance to Russia, maintaining a stable relationship with Ukraine, and influencing election results (Gillis 2013, 23-28). The EU has more concrete interests due to the country’s geographic size, military, geopolitical proximity, and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant; though EU aid has focused primarily on economic development, democracy assistance increased following the Orange Revolution (Gillis 2013, 29-31). Mainly led by Poland, the EU has encouraged Ukrainian democratization through agreements such as the Eastern Partnership, the European Neighborhood, or the Association Agreement, while shying away from discussions of EU accession.

Overall, though, neither the EU nor the U.S. really matched Russian influence in Ukraine.

Russian influence has been more tangible, especially considering Ukraine’s position as a transit country and major gas pipeline from Russia to Europe. A 2012 report by the Canadian Parliament found that “some 80% of Russia’s gas exports to the EU are transported through Ukraine” (Canadian Parliament Standing Committee Foreign Affairs and International

remained loyal during the Euromaidan protests, but

Development 2013). This has provided Russia with

his public allegiance shifted as the conflict evolved.

considerable influence when it comes to Ukraine, and

Jan Techau remarked that “once it becomes clear that

may be one reason why the EU held reservations about

Yanukovych has become a liability rather than an asset,

extending EU membership prospects.

Before the Euromaidan protests, Ukraine’s cabinet was largely made up of ministers loyal to Yanukovych and Akhmetov, and any independent-leaning individuals had been removed from government posts (Krushelnycky 2013). Like the rest of Ukraine, the oligarchs find themselves caught between Russia and the West. Though the majority come from eastern Ukraine and had ties with Russia, many opposed joining the Eurasian Economic Community with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan because it would mean competition with the Russian oligarchs. The older oligarchs, who had consolidated their wealth, were more enticed by the opportunities afforded by EU collaboration; younger oligarchs still amassing their fortunes (including former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov) preferred to avoid EU regulations and favored Russian partnership (Kramer 2013; Krushelnycky 2013).

Additionally, the elite do not exhibit any form of lasting cohesion and are thus vulnerable to outside pressures; Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s wealthiest

54 In 2010, the general Ukrainian public reported

2013). The $7 billion penalty came on the heels of

wariness of Russian gas; 73% expressed concerns over

the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) decision

energy dependence, ten points higher than in 2007

to suspend loans (Krushelnycky 2013). The U.S. and

(Carriere-Kretschmer 2010). This may be a result of

EU, at times advocates for more lenient measures of

the 2010 Kharkiv Accords negotiations, where Putin

IMF policy toward Ukraine, appeared frustrated by

used economic leverages, offering lower gas prices in

Yanukovych’s democratic backsliding and remained

order to secure the lease of Crimea’s Black Sea port

silent, furthering Yanukovych’s incentive to reconcile

to the Russian navy. Still, 46% of Ukrainians reported

with Moscow (Pifer 2012).

that Russia had a good influence on their country, while only 25% believed Russia had a bad influence; the majority (58%) of Ukrainians named Russia as a dependable ally (Carriere-Kretschmer 2010).

Later, Putin attempted to influence Ukrainian

Levitsky and Way’s “linkage and leverage” analysis helps explain the failure of Western influence to assist Ukrainian democracy. Ukraine lacked “linkage” to the West, but was subject to high leverage; a case which their model implies will result in an

opinion by offering to decrease gas prices by 40% if

illiberal democracy (Levitsky and Way 2010, 234). For

Ukraine agreed to join the Russian customs union;

the post-Soviet states, they argue that low linkage was

Yanukovych refused to join and instead held

a result of the post-communist legacy: “The Soviet

talks regarding the EU Association Agreement. This

regime restricted flows of people and information to

spurred Russia to claim $7 billion in gas penalties

and from the West, isolating the country from global

in October 2013, influencing Yanukovych’s decision

cultural, economic, and ideational trends” (Levitsky

to forgo the Association Agreement (Krushelnycky

and Way 2010, 184). While the collapse of the Soviet

Figure 4

Source: Compiled from annual reports to the Commission of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Union’s Development and External Assistance Policies and their Implementation, accessed at: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/multimedia/publications/index_en.htm

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics

55

Union increased linkage, especially to Europe, “the

trading, and avoiding radical change” (Motyl 2008, 19).

EU did not embrace the former Soviet states as it did

Furthermore: “Popular disillusionment was inevitable

Eastern European states” and offered aid structures but

because fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid

never the possibility of EU membership (Levitsky and

change was never in the cards; the Orange coalition’s

Way 2010, 185). Weak organizational power meant

split was inevitable because the rhetoric of revolution

that Ukraine was also sensitive to external leverage –

could only clash with the realities of Ukraine’s

both from the West and Russia. So, although Western

evolutionary politics. The ancien regime represented

aid influenced strategic moments, such as the Orange

by Yanukovych was able to return in 2006 because it

Revolution, the domestic balance of power was never

had never quite left” (Motyl 2008, 17).

fundamentally altered.

In 2008, well before the Euromaidan protests,

The rhetoric of the Orange Revolution was not backed by commitments to building a democratic

Alexander Motyl wrote that “the main threat to

society. Yanukovych’s presidency saw an increase in

Ukraine’s continued democratic development would

electoral fraud and a lack government accountability;

come - if it comes at all - from Russia” (Levitsky and

economic divisions perpetuated opportunities

Way 2010, 19), one of Levitsky and Way’s (2010)

for corruption and exacerbated regional tensions.

“black knight” countries that counteract Western

Ethnogeographic divisions were used by competing

democratization influence. Levitsky and Way were

forces in and outside the country as Ukrainian

hesitant to classify Russia as a black knight power in

politicians pit the two identities against each other in

Ukraine due to Ukraine’s heavy reliance on Western

hopes retaining power. When these tensions played out

aid; however U.S. assistance decreased following

on the international stage, Ukraine was forced into a

the Orange Revolution, and EU assistance steadily

vicious circle of attempting to please both the West and

decreased post-2009 (see Figure 4), allowing Russia

Russia, while incurring the frustrations of both.

to gain greater relative influence. Simultaneously,

Nonetheless, international media touted

aid focused more on intergovernmental approaches

Ukraine’s success even while democratic indicators

rather than transnational aid to NGOs and the media

fell. Though the Color Revolutions also occurred in

(Shapovalova 2010, 13). Additionally, CSO’s extreme

Georgia and Kazakhstan, Ukraine was the only one to

dependence on foreign assistance, combined with

achieve democratic status by Freedom House and so

high-level corruption, meant the decrease in funding

became a representative of democracy for the post-

directly impacted CSOs covering accountability,

Soviet states (excluding the Baltics). This led to the

human rights, and the provision of an independent

Euromaidan protests being portrayed by the media as

media (Shapovalova 2010, 6-7).

a response to the tragic loss of Ukrainian democracy,

Conclusion Three years after Yushchenko took office, the same democrats who had made the Orange Revolution possible were “cutting deals, engaging in horse-

rather than another step on the way to a democratic society. While this distinction may seem small, I believe portraying the myth of democracy when it does not exist in reality encourages potentially harmful assumptions about the nature of democracy, leading to international disinterest and domestic disillusionment.

56

Lawnicki

Addressing democracy in Ukraine requires long-term commitments that neither the ruling elite nor the international community have succeeded in giving. It requires acknowledgement of the societal divisions and systemic corruption that inhibit civil society development and make elite-led changes and legal reform insufficient, and sometimes even irrelevant. If the Euromaidan frustrations are to be eased, then Ukraine needs to focus on reducing corruption, creating a united civic identity, and supporting a growing civil society and independent media. Ukraine must also receive meaningful Western democracy support, and feel safe to pursue democratic reforms without incurring Russian hostility. As Petro Poroshenko, a wealthy politician connected to past regimes, is the current president and as Russia continues to antagonize internal societal tensions, the prospects for these reforms are slim, though not nonexistent. NATO and the EU have taken up a renewed interest in Ukrainian democracy, which must continue into the future. The consolidation of liberal democracy in Ukraine is far from inevitable, and future discussions of “Ukrainian democracy” would do well to avoid being clouded by myth.

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Homonormativity Rhetoric and Imagery in the 2008, 2009, and 2012 Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Measure Campaigns.

Patrick Burke DePaul University This paper shows that pro-same-sex marriage campaigns between 2008 and 2012 overwhelmingly used homonormativity rhetoric and imagery in their advertisements and pamphlets. Such rhetoric and imagery conveys that a gay individual adheres to heterosexual societal norms concerning gender presentation and gender roles. In order to understand how homonormativity has been instrumentalized by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns I conduct a quantitative content analysis of 189 of these campaigns’ television and internet advertisements. Drawing from the scholarly literature, I argue that because campaigns that heavily utilized homonormativity rhetoric and imagery were victorious, homonormativity will continue to dominate campaigns’ tactics in the future.

Introduction This paper shows through a quantitative content analysis that homonormativity rhetoric and imagery has emerged as the dominant tactic used by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns. Rights language dominated the losing campaigns in 2008 and 2009.

The shift to homonormativity rhetoric occurred in 2012, when the majority of campaigns were victorious.

These findings suggest that homonormativity rhetoric and imagery will continue to dominate the tactics of campaigns in the future. Homonormativity rhetoric and imagery conveys that a gay individual adheres to heterosexual societal norms concerning gender presentation and gender roles (Stone 2012, 172-173).

For example, many campaign ads feature two middle class well-dressed lesbians who emphasized how their lives, including their ability to raise children, were similar to that of the larger heterosexual society.

By contrast, transsexuals and other members of the gay community unable or unwilling to adhere to heterosexual norms and/or gender presentation are members of the non-homonormative community.

Thus, non-homonormative rhetoric and imagery emphasizes the differences between the heterosexual and the gay community, while homonormative rhetoric emphasizes the similarities.

First, I conduct a literature review of the conflicting views on same-sex marriage within the gay community. This debate can be split into three factions: (i) Assimilationists, (ii) Anti-Marriage Radicals, and (iii) Pro-Marriage Radicals. This review will focus on how these scholars view the use of homonormativity rhetoric and imagery by campaigns, as well as how they view the social and legal ramifications of the legalization of same-sex marriage for homonormative, and non-homonormative gays. This literature review will also examine polling data of Americans’ attitudes towards same-sex marriage, mainly focusing on the attitudes toward homonormativity in pro-samesex marriage campaigns. Second, I will explain the methods I used to conduct a quantitative content analysis of video advertisements and pamphlets used by campaigns. Included in this section is a detailed

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Burke

explanation of how I created and coded the main frames and sub-frames used in my analysis. I conclude with an analysis of my findings.

Literature Review Assimilationist scholars believe that samesex marriage will improve the legal rights, and social standing of the gay community (Chambers 1996; Sullivan 1989; Wolfson 1994; Wolfson 2004).

They believe that the legal rights conferred through marriage will stabilize the practical, and tangible aspects of same-sex relationships, such as: economic, childrearing, immigration rights, etc.2 Many Assimilationists argue, however, that the social benefits gained through marriage are a far more substantial contribution to the improvement of gay social standing among the larger American society. Legal scholar David Chambers (1996, 450), notes: “In a lawdrenched country such as ours, permission for samesex couples to marry under the law would signify the acceptance of lesbians and gay men as equal citizens more profoundly than any other nondiscrimination laws that might be adopted.”

Due to their emphasis on “social” over “legal” rights, Assimilationists view the instrumentalization of homonormativity rhetoric and imagery in marriage campaigns as a practical, and positive tactic for prosame-sex marriage campaigns. Wolfson (1994) argues that the “homonormative gay couple” is a logical exemplar for the same-sex marriage campaign, mainly due to the reality that they are more relatable to the majority of Americans than non-homonormative gays (e.g.; transsexuals, masculine lesbians, feminine gays etc.). Both Wolfson (1994, 604) and Chambers (1996, 491) deny the contention by Anti-Marriage and Pro-Marriage Radicals who argue that the dominant use of homonormativity rhetoric and

imagery will result in the delegitimization, and further discrimination of non-homonormative gays. Both Assimilationist scholars contend that the increase in the societal acceptance that homonormative gays accrue through marriage will open the door for an incremental acceptance of non-homonormative gays.

Many Assimilationists, however, do not discount the critique of same-sex marriage’s affect on nonhomonormative gays. Wolfson (1994) asserts that the myriad of opposing intra-gay community views on same-sex marriage should be vocalized. For reasons of practicality (mentioned above), however, he believes that such views should be espoused through sources other than campaigns and legal cases; e.g., through scholarship, activists, community organizers, etc.

(Wolfson 1994, 600).

Anti-Marriage Radicals view same-sex marriage as a detriment to the attainment of legal rights and social acceptance of the nonhomonormative gay community. This group of scholars believes the social detriment brought on by same-sex marriage is caused not only by the homonormativity rhetoric and imagery instrumentalized by same-sex marriage campaigns, but also from the institution of marriage itself (Polikoff 1993; Warner 1999; Yep et al.

2003). These scholars view the institution of marriage as detrimental to the social standing of gays in mainly two ways. First, Polikoff (1993), in her analysis of William Eskridge’s “A History of Same Sex Marriage” (1993), concludes that the institution of marriage, in and of itself, produces repressive gender norms characteristic of heterosexual marriages in samesex marriages. Second, Warner (1999, 96) and Yep et al, (2003, 56) view marriage as the legitimation of the State’s regulation of sex. In their view, marriage legitimizes monogamy, and in effect, delegitimizes promiscuity, and non-standard relationships (e.g.,

Homonormativity Rhetoric polyamorous trios). These anti-marriage radical scholars view Assimilationists as creators of a false consciousness among the gay community, who violate the social goals of the Gay Liberationist Movement.

They argue that the Gay Liberationist Movement, which emerged in the 1970’s (Chauncey 2004, 9394), never had the goal of conforming to repressive heterosexual norms, or institutions – especially marriage. Rather they fought for the exploration, and liberation of homosexuality through promiscuity (Warner 1999).

Anti-marriage radicals view the attainment of legal rights through same-sex marriage as the death knell to the universalization of legal rights to singles, non-homonormative gays, and those in non-standard relationships (Polikoff 1993; Warner 1993; Yep et al., 2003). This logic mainly relies on the assumption that the legalization of same-sex marriage will reinforce the exclusivity of the special legal rights currently reserved for heterosexual marriage. Polikoff (1993, 1546), writing before the emergence of large-scale samesex marriage campaigns, accurately predicts these campaigns’ utilization of stories from homonormative couples experiencing “adversity from their unmarried status: a partner who lacked healthcare because he was not eligible for spousal employee benefits, or who was denied hospital visitation...” She goes on to say: “Marriage would be touted as the solution to these couples’ problems; the limitations of marriage, and of a social system valuing one form of human relationship above all others, would be downplayed.”

Pro-same-sex marriage radicals occupy a middle ground between anti-marriage radicals, and assimilationists. This group of scholars views the utilization of homonormative rhetoric and imagery in marriage campaigns as detrimental to the social and legal rights of non-homonormative gays (Currah1997;

63

Hunter 1991; Kimport 2014; Minter 2006; Robson 2007; Stone 2012). However, they support same-sex marriage mainly because they believe the attainment of same-sex marriage—if executed correctly—could effectively dismantle the current repressive gender norms inherent in marriage (Currah 1997; Hunter 1991, 19). That is, they are supporters of Wolfson’s (1994) and Chamber’s (1996) vision of incremental change, but believe that the disregarding of nonhomonormative gay issues by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns results in the perpetuation of social and legal discrimination of non-homonormative individuals, especially Transsexuals (Minter 2006, 157158).3 But what are the issues affecting nonhomonormative gays? And how does the use of homonormativity in marriage campaigns actually affect this group? This subject is extensive, and a comprehensive review of the issues falls outside the scope of this paper. Rather, this literature review offers a brief overview of the social and legal issues affecting Transsexuals in order to convey the seriousness of the Pro-Marriage Radicals’ position. Transsexuals are examined because they experience the greatest degree of legal violence (Cover 1986),4 and societal discrimination of any member of the gay community (Minter 2006).

Legal scholars Robson (2007), Currah (1997), and Minter (2006) assert that the exclusive use of homonormativity in gay rights campaigns reinforces the social de-legitimation of transsexuals. This social discrimination becomes embedded into some State’s laws, which results in real legal violence against transsexuals. For instance, in In re Estate of Gardiner,5 in 2002, The Kansas Supreme Court went so far as to invalidate a transsexual female’s marriage and rule that the State’s laws do not recognize her as having an

64 opposite sex, and thus could not marry anyone: “The words ‘sex,’ ‘male,’ and ‘female’ in everyday understanding do not encompass transsexuals. The plain, ordinary meaning of ‘persons of the opposite sex’ contemplates a biological man and a biological woman and not persons who are experiencing gender dysphoria.”6 Many State Courts will not allow a Transsexual parents to share custody of a child because they believe such a relationship would have a detrimental impact on a child’s moral development (American Civil Liberties Union 2013; Currah 1997, 1367;).

No Court has “establish[ed] a general rule that transsexual parents are inherently unfit to parent (American Civil Liberties Union 2013, 7),” and not every Court will rule to disallow Transsexuals to marry. However, when Courts do choose to enact legal violence against Transsexual parents or spouses, it is simply because these individuals do not conform to “gender normativity;” i.e. “ the belief that gender ought to be organized according to traditional and firmly established gender identities, practices and arrangements,” (Currah 1997, 1380). “Gender normativity” is a social construct, and can thus be dismantled by social activists (Currah 1997, 1380), as I will explain below.

Marriage campaigns’ use of heteronormativity, in and of itself, does not delegitimize transsexuals.

Rather, campaigns’ contribution to the social and legal discrimination against transsexuals results from their refusal to tell Transsexuals’ stories of love and commitment. Doing so could result in a substantial contribution toward American society seeing Transsexuals as equal citizens, thereby delegitimizing the social and legal idea of “gender normativity” that has resulted in legal violence against Transsexuals.

Instead, these campaigns act with political expediency

and exclusively show images, and tell the stories of middle class gays and lesbians (Stone 2012, 155-178).

Although Transsexuals enjoy many of the legal benefits of same-sex marriage, if Transsexual equality is not depicted in campaigns, redressing the legal violence stemming from societal views on gender normativity will come at a painfully slow pace, or not at all.7 As Kitty Calavita (2010, 146) so eloquently puts it: “if law is to bring about progressive social change, it will be partnered with a social movement that challenges and transforms the social realities on the ground at the same time that it presses the legal system to accommodate the shifting realities.”

Although America’s favorable opinion of legalizing same-sex marriage steadily increases8 among every demographic polled (Lewis and Hatalsky 2012), empirical evidence suggests that the image of a homonormative middleclass gay couple comes to mind when Americans reply “yes” to pollsters.

This conclusion is supported by the fact that most Americans who support same sex marriage do so because they view gays as marrying for “love,” and “commitment,” rather than legal rights and benefits.

Exit polling conducted by The Third Way following the 2012 Washington ballot initiative on samesex marriage found that 85% of those who voted “yes,” did so because they believed gays desired to marry for reasons of “love” and “commitment.”

While 75% of those who voted “no,” believed gays desired marriage for attainment of legal rights and benefits (Hatalsky and Trumble 2012). These results are similar to national polling data collected by the Third Way in 2011 (Erickson 2011). The significance of this dominance of “commitment” over “rights” language is profound. The legal benefits of marriage are universal to the gay community, including transsexuals. However, polling data suggest that

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics heterosexual Americans are not compelled by such rhetoric or imagery. Rather polling suggests that only the depiction of gays who are relatable to the majority of Americans increase the likelihood of victory for same-sex marriage.9 The shift from campaigns use of “rights” to “commitment” was common amongst all the marriage campaigns in 2012, as I will explain in the “results” section of this paper.

The competing voices examined in this literature review offer depth to the intra-gay community debate over same-sex marriage that has been rarely publicly discussed in recent years (Duggan 2003, 43-66; Stryker 2008; Ward 2008, 1-26). The domination of the instrumentalization of homonormativity rhetoric and imagery has been championed by the Assimilationists, anathema to the Anti-Marriage Radicals, and cautioned against by the Pro-Marriage Radicals. Exit polling from the 2012 Washington ballot initiative evidences the prudence of homonormativity rhetoric by showing voters’ approval of “commitment” over “rights” rhetoric.

Amy Stone’s (2012) qualitative study of anti same-sex marriage referendums between 2004 and 2010 verify the dominance of the use of homonormativity rhetoric and imagery by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns.

This paper hopes to contribute to the literature on same-sex marriage and the instrumentalization of homonormativity through a quantitative content analysis of advertisements and pamphlets utilized by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns from the 2008, 2009, and 2012 campaigns.

Homonormative rhetoric & imagery in campaign ads: Methodology of Frame Analysis In order to understand how homonormativity has been instrumentalized by pro-same-sex marriage campaigns, I conducted a quantitative content

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analysis of these campaigns’ television and internet advertisements, and informational pamphlets.

Quantitative content analysis is “a set of procedures for collecting and organizing information in a standardized format that allows analysts to make inferences about the characteristics and meaning of written and other recorded material,” (General Accounting Office 1989, 6).

Both the rhetoric and imagery are examined using frame analysis, defined as: “different variables systematically grouped together in a specific way, thereby forming a certain pattern that can be identified across several texts in a sample,” (Matthes and Kohring 2006, 264). In order to identify frames, two coders examined a random sample of 20 television advertisements. We identified four main frames: “Rights,” “Equality,” “Family/Children,” and “Identity Politics.” These frameworks will be detailed below.

Under each main frame, additional sub-frames were identified in order to increase the clarity of each main frame (Simon and Xenos 2000, 371). Generating frameworks through a preliminary qualitative analysis of a sample of data has been utilized by scholars from a variety of fields (e.g., Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad 1998; Segvic 2005; Simon and Xenos 2000).

I selected three different types of pro-samesex marriage campaign advertisements: televised video advertisements (n=93),10 internet only video advertisements (n=80), and informational pamphlets and documents consisting of text only (n=16). These advertisements and pamphlets were collected from nine separate pro-same-sex marriage ballot measure campaigns from 2008,11 2009,12 and 2012.13 All of the data was collected from the Internet. Both televised and solely internet-based video advertisements were collected from YouTube.com. Informational pamphlets were collected using archive.org, which allows users to

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view websites that have been discontinued. Each State featured one main pro-marriage campaign.14 The data was collected directly from these campaigns’ respective YouTube channel, or achieved website.

When coding the data I watched the videos and read the pamphlets several times in order to identify rhetoric and imagery that fit into the distinct sub-frames. The “Identity Politics” framework was solely based on imagery, rather than rhetoric. This will be explained further below. All other frameworks were primarily based on rhetoric from videos, and exclusively based on written rhetoric from pamphlets.

Only one notation was made under each specific sub-frame. For instance, if an argument fitting the “medical rights” sub-frame was featured multiple times in a single video, only one notation was made on the coding sheet. This method was used because “... there is no theoretical basis for weighing documents which make repeated use of one discursive framework more heavily than documents which make use of that framework only once. Coding documents this way also prevents longer documents from weighing more heavily on the results than shorter ones” (Mello 2012). In order to evaluate inter-coder reliability, a Cohen’s Kappa score was calculated (Cohen 1960). I found a Kappa of .93, indicating very good inter-coder reliability.

Frameworks Explained Rights rhetoric was coded when tangible legal rights were referenced. The sub-frames identified are unsurprising, and have been re-occurring rhetoric used in same-sex marriage for years (Stone 2012): “general reference to protecting rights;” “medical rights;” “economic rights;” “right to privacy;” “religious freedom;” “familial rights vis-à-vis children;” familial rights vis-à-vis a spouse or partner.” As stated above,

Polikoff (1993) correctly predicted the manner in which rights rhetoric would be instrumentalized.

When gays were featured in these ads, middle class lesbians or gays were speaking of some type of medical, or economic struggle that has befallen them due to their inability to marry. For example, in a television ad from the 2012 Washington campaign titled “Angie,” a white, middle class, middle-aged lesbian couple tell the story of when one partner is not told of the other’s surgical complications, due to their insufficient domestic partnership. However, heterosexual people conveyed most of the rights rhetoric.

The Equality framework was coded when ads used rhetoric asserting that homosexuals generally possess the ability and desire to love and commit to another person in equal measure to heterosexuals, and thereby should be allowed the freedom to marry. This framework makes the argument that gays are equal citizens primarily on a social level, and thus acquiesces Erickson’s (2011) recommendation for campaigns to frame same-sex couples’ desire for marriage as stemming from a sense of “love” and “commitment,” rather than a desire for legal rights. Five sub-frames are identified under the Equality framework: “gays and lesbians should be treated equally;” “supporting same-sex marriage is the morally “right” or “fair” thing to do;” “gays and lesbians are just like everyone else; i.e. can “love” and “commit;” “law against same-sex marriage is “unfair,” “biased,” “intolerant,” or “discriminatory;” and “don’t Limit or Abrogate freedom of gays and lesbians.”

The Family/Children framework was coded when ads referred directly to the affect of same-sex marriage on American families and children. This framework referred to both gay and heterosexual families and children. For instance, of the five subframes identified, two refer specifically to the affect

Homonormativity Rhetoric same-sex marriage will have on gay families and children: “helps children in gay families,” and “gay parents are competent at raising children within social norms.” One of the frames: “same-sex marriage wont be taught to children in schools,” is specifically targeted to quell the fears of heterosexual parents. The remaining two frames: “general mention of family,” and “teaches children the right message/values,” could be referring to same-sex or straight families. This framework has been a prominent tactic for marriage campaigns for decades. For instance, Currah (1997, 1380) notes that marriage campaigns in the 90s argued that same-sex couples’ children would be no more likely to become homosexuals, and would be no “less normal” than children of straight parents. This was featured most explicitly under the “gay parents are competent at raising children within social norms” sub-frame. In this sub-frame only straight, middle class children were featured, speaking of the aptitude of their homosexual parents in raising “normal” children. Although less explicit than the latter sub-frame, the entire Family/Children framework Figure 1

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conveyed the message that same-sex parents could raise children in a homonormative manner.

As mentioned above, the Identity Politics framework differs from the other frameworks in that it was coded based on the imagery used in campaign videos. I identified 18 distinct identities: “Gays and Lesbians;” “African Americans;” “Latinos;” “Asian;” “Republicans;” “Military;” “Religious Individuals;” “Religious Officials;” “Parents/Friend of a Gay Individual;” “Celebrity;” “Elected Official;” “School Official;” “General Expert;” “Youth;” “Straight Couples;” “Seniors;” “Straight Married Mothers;” “Transsexuals.” It is important to note that I only coded these individuals if they were depicted in an ad, whether in person, or in a photo. I did not code individuals if they were only verbally mentioned.

As Figure 1 shows, all three frameworks were featured in the pro-same-sex marriage campaigns’ video advertisements and pamphlets. Comprising 75% of the rhetoric used, the Equality framework was used substantially more often than any other framework. The second most popular frame was the

68 Family/Children at 52%. The third most popular was the Rights framework at 39%. The most substantial finding was the third place ranking of the Rights framework. Rights language, I argue, is repellant to the American public because rights are seen as a finite resource, and thus the public will only approve of their distribution to citizens they see as equals on a social level. Rights are universalizable, thus the use of such rhetoric does not indicate the type of person that will enjoy them. According to Erickson (2011), and Hatalsky and Trumble (2012), the American public is only comfortable allowing same-sex couples to marry if they desire to do so for reasons of “love” and “commitment,” rather than attainment of a bundle of legal rights. This suggests that the American public is only comfortable allowing same-sex couples to marry if they participate in the institution of marriage in a homonormative manner. Therefore, because homonormativity rhetoric is inherent in the Equality, and Family/Children frameworks, they indicate to the American public that gays will abide by the heterosexual norms of marriage. Thus, the first Figure 2

and second place rankings of the frameworks is not surprising; i.e., campaigns choose the frameworks they perceive result in a “50 percent + 1 victory” (Stone 2012).

However, heavy use of the Equality and Family/Children framework is not the only variable leading to victory for same-sex marriage. Figure 2 seems to contradict my above assertion. The Equality framework was featured in 89% of the winning ads, and only in 53% of the losing ads. The gap between the winning (57%) and losing (46%) campaigns use of the Family/Children framework was less substantial relative to the Equality framework. However, winning campaigns only used the Rights framework in 29% of their ads, where as losing campaigns use the framework in 54% of their ads. Thus, it is likely that marriage campaigns perceive the dominant use of the Equality and Family/Children framework over the Rights framework as casual to victory.

Indeed, Equality and Family/Children rhetoric is more attractive to most Americans than the Rights framework. Further, the tactics used by pro-same-

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics sex marriage campaigns surely contributes to the constantly, and consistently increasing public approval of same-sex marriage across the board both nation wide,15 and within each State (Lewis and Hatalsky 2012). However, victory in same-sex marriage campaigns, as with most rights based movements, is due to a myriad of factors; e.g., popular culture, legal victories, approval of political leaders, etc. (Calavita 2011). Further, internal efforts of the gay community itself—such as the coming out movement—play a major role in gaining social acceptance by the majority of Americans (Chauncey 2004).

It is impossible to know the exact factors, or to what degree these factors have contributed to the exponential increase in approval for same-sex marriage between the losses in all of the 2008 and 2009 campaigns, and the victories in all the campaigns in 2012—except for North Carolina.16 However, it Figure 3

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is certain that all of the factors (mentioned above) contributing to societal approval of same-sex marriage also contributed to the victorious ballot measure campaigns. Unfortunately for transsexuals and other non-homonormative gays, the fact that pro-samesex marriage campaigns likely perceive the shift from Rights framework to the homonormativity laden Equality and Family/Children frameworks as a casual link to victory, indicates the continuing dominance of homonormativity rhetoric in future campaigns.

Figure 3 shows the dominance of homonormativity imagery in video ads. For the purposes of clarity, I have selected the six identities that contribute most substantially to the understanding of homonormativity imagery in campaign ads. Of these six identity sub-frames the most frequently used in victorious campaigns were: Relative/ Friend of a Gay Individual (30%), and Straight Couple (28%).

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Losing campaigns only used the Relative/Friend of a Gay Individual, and Straight Couple in 7%, and 8% of their ads, respectively. In these ads the relative/ friend of a gay individual, or a straight couple who knew a gay individual or couple, would mainly talk about the degree to which gay people they know abide by heterosexual norms. For instance, an ad from the 2012 Minnesota titled “James and Anita” depicts two straight white middle class parents of a gay son. In the ad, the mother, talking about her son’s relationship with his partner, states: “ he’s learned from us how to manage the relationship and be respectful. And yes, it’s very similar to ours.” The frequency of the use of Gay individuals (17%), Republicans (15%), and Religious Individuals (17%) was fairly similar among the winning campaigns. Gay individuals were depicted slightly less in losing ads at 15%. Religious individuals were depicted at almost equal frequency in losing ads at 18%. However, losing ads only depicted Republicans in 4% of their ads. The similarity in frequency of use of the three latter sub-frames in winning campaigns, along with the heavy use of Relative/Friend, and Straight Couple sub-frames, indicates that although gays were depicted relatively often, campaigns only feel comfortable portraying gays if they are depicted less frequently than straight individuals: i.e., only 32 of the 189 ads in my sample featured gays.

The majority of gays depicted were white or African-American middle class individuals, and always conveyed homonormative rhetoric. For instance, an ad from the 2012 Maryland campaign titled “The Masons” depicts a middle class African-American Father and Son. The Father conveys how “proud” he is of his son, and that he would like to see he and his partner get married. The son talks about how he and his partner of “14 years” would like to get married in order to strengthen their relationship. Not surprisingly,

Transsexuals were not depicted, or even spoken of in any of the ads. Again, these findings indicate that in future marriage campaigns the use of homonormative imagery will dominate campaign tactics.

Conclusion In this paper I have shown through a quantitative content analysis that pro-samesex marriage campaigns overwhelmingly use homonormativity rhetoric and imagery in their advertisements and pamphlets. I argued that because the increase in homonormativity rhetoric and imagery between the 2008/2009 campaigns and the 2012 campaigns correlates to victory, homonormativity will continue to dominate campaigns’ tactics in the future.

I began this paper with a review of the conflicting views on same-sex marriage within the gay community, as well as the American public’s views on same-sex marriage. This review showed that Anti-Marriage Radicals reject marriage all together, seeing it as a repressive heterosexual institution that would degrade the social standing, and legal rights of gays. Pro-Marriage Radicals caution against the use of homonormativity in marriage campaigns, while Assimilationists view the tactic as positive. ProMarriage Radicals argue that the dominant use of homonormativity by same-sex marriage campaigns misses an opportunity to better the social standing and legal rights of non-homonormative gays, and in effect continues the societal view of this demographic as “the bad gays.” Assimilationists argue that there are more appropriate venues to deal with issues of non-homonormative gays than public campaigns.

Further, they argue that non-homonormative gays will benefit from the increase in social capital and legal rights accrued through the legalization of same-sex marriage. The American public is more receptive of

Homonormativity Rhetoric homonormativity rhetoric and imagery than rights rhetoric, indicating that they are only comfortable allowing gays to participate in marriage if they conform to homonormative ideals of what it means to be married.

The aim of this paper is not to settle this intracommunity argument. Rather, this paper has shown that same-sex marriage campaigns have perceived that homonormativity rhetoric and imagery results in victory. This indicates that the voices of the AntiMarriage Radicals, and Pro-Marriage Radicals have been wholly shut out of the marriage debate. My data suggests that this trend will continue. Although both quantitative and historical evidence suggests that the position of Anti-Marriage Radicals is shared by an extremely small portion of the gay community,17 the silencing of Pro-Marriage Radicals may leave out nonhomonormative gays from the accrual of legal rights, and social standing in American society.

Notes 1. Many thanks to Professor Joseph Mello for considerable guidance throughout the formation and writing of this paper. Professor Mello went above and beyond his role as a Professor by not only teaching me how to execute a quantitative content analysis, but also acting as my second coder.

2. For a comprehensive overview of legal rights gained through same-sex marriage, see the 2004 General Accounting Office report: Defense of Marriage Act: Update to Prior Report: “...as of December 31, 2003, our research identified a total of 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges”.

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3. Stone (2012, 157) further suggest that excluding non-homonormative individuals from campaigns delegitimizes the campaign itself in the eyes of the non-homonormative community and can result in the loss of volunteer and monetary support.

4. As the late Robert Cover (1986, 1601) notes: “A judge articulates her understanding of a text, and as a result, somebody loses his freedom, his property, his children, even his life.” ... “When interpreters [judges] have finished their work, they frequently leave behind victims who’s lives have been torn apart by these organized social practices of violence.”

5. 42 P.3d 120 (Kan. 2002).

6. 42 P.3d at 135.

7. Despite Wolfson’s (1994, 600) above-mentioned assertion that Transsexual issues could find an alternative voice than political campaigns, grass roots campaigning, or an academic book or journal article pale in comparison to the impact televised campaigns have on the collective conscious of American society.

8. According to a 2014 Gallup nation-wide public opinion poll, 55% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage. Only 42% disapprove. “Gallup,” Marriage, Accessed July 11, 2014, http://www.gallup.com/ poll/117328/marriage.aspx.

9. In fact, Hatalsky and Trumble (2012, 6) note that compared to the polling data from the 2011 Third Way report, “the number of people who said gay couples marry for commitment in the post-election survey in Washington State was 5 points higher—the exact margin of victory on the ballot referendum.”

10. Televised advertisements were coded based on the length, and quality of the advertisement. These advertisements tended to last around 30 seconds.

72 11. Arizona Proposition 102 (n=13); California Proposition 8 (n=24); Florida Amendment 2 (n=13).

12. Maine Question 1 (n=11).

13. Maryland Question 6 (n=37); Washington Referendum 74 (n=24); Minnesota Amendment 1 (n=41); Maine Question 1 (n=13); North Carolina Amendment 1 (n=15).

14. 2008: Arizona (Vote No on Prop 102); California (Vote No on Prop 8); Florida (Say No 2). 2009: Maine (No on 1). 2012: Maryland (Vote for 6); Washington (Washington United for Marriage); Minnesota (Minnesotans United for All Families); Maine (Mainers United for Marriage). North Carolina (Equality North Carolina).

15. According to a Gallup poll, public approval for same-sex marriage rose from 40% in 2008, to 53% in 2012. Gallup, supra note 8, at 7.

16. It is important to note that public approval for same-sex marriage in North Carolina in 2011 was estimated at 38%. Where as approval in the victorious States in 2011 was estimated to be much higher: Maryland (48%); Washington (54%); Minnesota (47%); Maine (52%). Public approval for same-sex marriage in all of these States rose between 2008 and 2012 (Lewis and Hatalsky 2012, Appendix B).

17. In a study of LGB youth, D’Augelli et al. (2006,90) found that 78% of girls and 61% of boys would be extremely likely to be married in the future if it becomes legal for them to do so. Wolfson (1994, 583) cites a 1994 poll by The Advocate showing 85% of Gay men say they would marry if it were legal. Chauncey (2004, 93-94) notes, Anti-Marriage Radicals were a loud minority, who died out in the 1970’s due to lack of popular support.

References American Civil Liberties Union. 2013. Protecting the Rights of Transgender Parents and their Children: A Guide for Parents and Lawyers.

New York: ACLU. Akhavan-Majid, Roya, and Jyotika Ramaprasad.

1998. “Framing and Ideology: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Chinese Newspaper Coverage of the Fourth United Nations Conference on Women and the NGO Forum.”

Mass Communication and Society 1 (3-4): 131152.

Calavita, Kitty. 2010. Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chambers, David. 1996. “What if? The Legal Consequences of Marriage and the Legal Needs of Lesbian and Gay Male Couples.” Michigan Law Review 95 (2): 447-491.

Chauncey, George. 2004. Why marriage?: The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality. New York: Basic Books.

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Cover, Robert. 1986. “Violence and the Word.” The Yale Law Journal 95 (January): 1601-1629.

Currah, Paisley. 1997. “Defending Genders: Sex and Gender Non-Conformity in the Civil Rights Strategies of Sexual Minorities.” Hastings Law Journal 48 (August): 1363-1385.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics D’augelli, Anthony R., and Arnold H. Grossman.

Lewis, Gregory and Hatalsky, Lanae. 2012. The Big

2006. “Researching Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual

Shift: Changing Views on Marriage for Gay

Youth: Conceptual, Practical, and Ethical

Couples. Washington D.C.: Third Way.

Considerations.” Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues In Education 3 (2-3): 35-56.

Duggan, Lisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.

Eskridge, William. 1993. “A History of Same-Sex

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Matthes, Jörg and Matthias Kohring. 2008. “The Content Analysis of Media Frames: Toward Improving Reliability and Validity.” Journal of Communication 58 (2): 258-279.

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Ph.D. diss. University of Connecticut.

General Accounting Office. 1989. Content Analysis: A Methodology for Structuring and Analyzing Written Material. Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office.

---. 2004. Defense of Marriage Act: Update to Prior Report. Washington D.C.: General Accounting Office.

Erickson, Lanae. 2011. Commitment: The Answer to the Middle’s Questions on Marriage for Gay Couples.

Washington D.C.: Third Way. Hunter, Nan. 1991. “Marriage, Law, and Gender: A Feminist Inquiry.” Law & Sexuality Review 1 (9): 9-30.

Hatalsky, Lanae and Trumble, Sarah. 2012. How Marriage Won in Washington State.

Washington D.C.: Third Way. Kimport, Katrina. 2014. Queering Marriage: Challenging Family Formation in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Minter, Shannon. 2006. “Do Transsexuals Dream of Gay Rights? Getting Real about Transgender Inclusion.” In Transgender Rights, eds. Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Minter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 141-170.

Polikoff, Nancy. 1993. “We Will Get What We Ask for: Why Legalizing Gay and Lesbian Marriage Will Not “Dismantle the Legal Structure of Gender in Every Marriage”.” Virginia Law Review 79 (7): 1535-1550.

Robson, Ruthann. 2007. “A Mere Switch or a Fundamental Change? Theorizing Transgender Marriage.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 22 (1): 58-70.

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Political Communication 17 (4): 363-376.

74 Stone, Amy L.. 2012. Gay rights at the Ballot Box. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Stryker, Susan. 2008. “Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinary.” Radical History Review 100 (Winter): 145-157.

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Realism in the 21st Century: The Theoretical Implications of New Wars Michael Raven University of Kansas Political realism, as traditionally formulated, identifies states as the primary actor in international politics. This paper argues that the same realist assumptions used to describe the motivations and actions of great powers on an inter-state level can be used to explain the actions of non-state actors in a regional context. Relying on Mary Kaldor’s analysis of new wars, the paper posits that globalization has created the conditions for the emergence of a new type of political unit. These units are decentralized, rely on informal economies, utilize identity politics, and operate differently in combat than state-based militaries. The paper labels these political actors global articulating units (GAUs) and makes the following arguments: 1) realist theory does not depend on the existence of states; 2) Eric Voegelin’s account of political articulation explains how political units can emerge outside of contemporary state system; 3) GAUs are power seeking.

Introduction Political realists and Mary Kaldor provide alternative lenses for viewing non-hegemonic conflict.

Kaldor’s book, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, maintains that “during the last decades of the twentieth century, a new type of organized violence developed…which is one aspect of the current globalized era” (Kaldor 2012, 1). She labels these conflicts “new wars” (Kaldor 2012, 1). In this paper, I investigate how new wars interact with, and operate within, the realist paradigm. Stephen Walt argues that such an investigation is needed. That is, he believes that “the entire phenomenon of globalization remains under-theorized” in an international landscape characterized by a “dramatic increase in interconnectedness, in problems like climate change or migration, and in the simultaneous growth of both global identities (e.g., diasporas) and local identities (e.g., separatist movements)” (e-International Relations 2013).

I attempt to expose the intersections between realism and the new form of warfare symbolized by particularistic identity politics, globalized war economies and distinctive fighting units and tactics (Kaldor 2012). My argument is that the same realist assumptions used to describe the motivations and actions of great powers on an inter-state level can be used to explain the actions of non-state actors in a regional context. That is, realists have a set of theoretical tools with which to explain and understand the dynamics of new wars. To do this, I will provide a template for realism, identify the characteristics of new wars, and finally argue that the same types of concerns guide states and new war political units.

Mearsheimer identifies three central premises of realism that explain state behavior. First, states are the primary actors in international politics (Mearsheimer 2014). Second, “the behavior of great powers is influenced mainly by their external

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environment, not by their individual characteristics”

(Mearsheimer 2014, 17). Third, “calculations about power dominate states’ thinking, and that states compete for power among themselves” (Mearsheimer 2014, 18). Though realism comes in a myriad of forms, the above three premises undergird all realist thinking. Moreover, Mearsheimer’s premises contain additional concepts that are associated with realism.

Premise three assumes that the international system is characterized by anarchy, which Robert Gilpin describes as a situation in which “there is no authority or control over the behavior of the actors” (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 27). Such freedom allows states to take any and all actions to increase their power. There are two interconnected reasons why states deem the pursuit of power to be necessary. First, “states can never be certain about other states’ intentions” (Mearsheimer 2014, 31). Second, “states always have some offensive military capability” (Mearsheimer 2014, 3). These reasons have explanatory power because realists characterize states as rational actors (Mearsheimer 2014). On this view, any action that a state takes is intended to guarantee its survival, which “dominates all other motives because, once a state in conquered, it is unlikely to be in a position to pursue other goals” (Mearsheimer 2014, 31). Using this model of realist thought allows for a conversation to emerge between Kaldor and realists that is unhindered by intra-realist debates.

Kaldor suggests that the modern conception of war derives from “a certain phenomenon which took shape in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries” (Kaldor 2012, 15). This type of warfare was related to the creation of the modern state (Kaldor 2012). Though these conflicts passed through varying phases as the overall international structure changed, they were all “a construction of the centralized,

‘rationalized’, hierarchically ordered, territorialized modern state” (Kaldor 2012, 17). However, Kaldor argues that “the irregular, informal wars of the second half of the twentieth century” illuminate conflict’s changing character (Kaldor 2012, 31). This new reality has been ushered in by globalization, which she defines as “the intensification of global interconnectedness – political, economic, military and cultural – and the changing character of political authority” (Kaldor 2012, 4). The process is characterized by “both integration and fragmentation, homogenization and diversification, globalization and localization” (Kaldor 2012, 4). Globalization is a salient factor in new wars, because they all have a “global presence” that has taken a variety of forms: “international reporters, mercenary troops and military advisers, and diaspora volunteers as well as a veritable ‘army’ of international agencies” (Kaldor 2012, 5). Importantly for realists, Kaldor discusses how global interconnectedness will affect “the future of the modern state” (Kaldor 2012, 5). She argues that new wars take place in the context of eroding or disintegrated states (Kaldor 2012). The erosion of the state is simultaneous with the “erosion of the monopoly of legitimate violence” that is catalyzed from above and below (Kaldor 2012, 5). From above, the monopoly has been influenced by “the transnationalization of military forces…and by innumerable transnational connections between armed forces that developed in the post-war period” (Kaldor 2012, 5). By transnationalization of military forces, Kaldor means the increase of alliances and “the bloc system during the Cold War” (Kaldor 2012, 5). From below, privatization is slowly eroding the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence (Kaldor 2012).

New wars are fought in states where state militaries are ineffective or nonexistent, often because the ruined economies of these states lead to an increase

Realism in the 21st Century in criminal activity and the growth of paramilitary groups (Kaldor 2012). In addition to these distinctions, Kaldor highlights three overarching qualitative differences between old and new wars: the focus on identity politics, the changing mode of warfare, and a “‘globalized’ war economy” (Kaldor 2012, 7-10).

Kaldor defines identity politics as “the claim to power on the basis of a particular identity – be it national, clan, religious, or linguistic” (Kaldor 2012, 7). Though all conflicts could arguably be understood as conflicts of identity, Kaldor suggests that a distinct, contemporary form of identity politics operates in new wars. Earlier identities deployed in conflicts, such as “communist” and “democrat,” were forward-looking (Kaldor 2012, 7-8). Identities used in new wars “tend to relate to an idealized nostalgic representation of the past” (Kaldor 2012, 8). This should not be understood simply as a return to the past, but rather these identities are “‘reinvented’ in the context of the failure or the corrosion of other sources of political legitimacy” (Kaldor 2012, 8). To clarify this claim, she makes a distinction between politics of ideas and politics of identity. Politics of ideas, such as communism, “tend to be integrative, embracing all those who support the idea” (Kaldor 2012, 80). Politics of identity are “fragmentative, backward-looking, and exclusive” (Kaldor 2012, 80). New identity politics differ from the identity politics of the past in two other ways. First, they are “horizontal as well as vertical, transnational as well as national” (Kaldor 2012, 88).

Diasporas play a critical role for these identities due to “the speed of communication” (Kaldor 2012, 88).

Kaldor argues that there are two types of diasporas.

First, there are individuals “living in the near abroad, fearful of their vulnerability to local nationalisms and often more extreme than those living on home territory” (Kaldor 2012, 88). Kaldor provides the

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examples of Tutsis in Uganda or Zaire and “Russian minorities in all the new ex-Soviet republics” (Kaldor 2012, 89). Second, there are individuals living a long distance from their home “who find solace in fantasies about their origins which are often far removed from reality” (Kaldor 2012, 89). Diaspora populations send weapons, money, and ideas to their home state (Kaldor 2012). The second distinguishing feature of the new identity politics is that the ability to mobilize politically has increased because of factors such as education and new technologies (Kaldor 2012). The Internet, texting, and radio or television programs aimed at select communities “provide rapid and effective ways of disseminating a particularistic message” (Kaldor 2012, 90).

The second unique characteristic of new wars is the changing mode of warfare. New wars are different in two ways: in combatants and in patterns of violence.

In areas where new wars occur, the state has generally lost control over “the instruments of physical coercion” (Kaldor 2012, 96). Just as the legitimate monopoly on violence emerged along with the rise of the state, the decline of the state leads to a decentralization of armed forces (Kaldor 2012). Kaldor highlights five types of fighting units that operate in new wars: “regular armed forces or remnants thereof; paramilitary groups; self-defense units; foreign mercenaries; and, finally, regular foreign troops, generally under international auspices” (Kaldor 2012, 96). First, any regular forces in new wars are plagued by lack of equipment and low morale (Kaldor 2012). Salary payments may have stopped leading these forces to engage in criminal behavior for economic sustenance (Kaldor 2012). This activity may cause a disintegration of the armed forces, leading to situations in which military officers become local warlords (Kaldor 2012). All of these factors cause regular forces to “lose their character as the legitimate

78 bearers of arms and become increasingly difficult to distinguish from private paramilitary groups” (Kaldor 2012, 97). Second, paramilitary groups are the most common fighting units in new wars (Kaldor 2012).

Kaldor defines a paramilitary unit as “autonomous groups of armed men generally centered on an individual leader” (Kaldor 2012, 97). Paramilitary units are comprised of a variety of individuals: redundant soldiers, defectors, child soldiers, or volunteers (Kaldor 2012). Third, self-defense units consist “of volunteers who try to defend their localities” (Kaldor 2012, 99). These fighting forces are plagued with a lack of resources, potentially leading them to form loose alliances with other military units and enter the conflict (Kaldor 2012). Fourth, foreign mercenaries can either be contracted individuals or independent mercenary groups (Kaldor 2012). Former American and British soldiers working with private security companies fall into this category, as do Mujahidiin forces (Kaldor 2012). Finally, regular foreign troops “usually operating under the umbrella of international organizations” participate in new wars (Kaldor 2012, 100). These forces are generally “not directly involved in the war,” but these different units “operate both autonomously and in cooperation” (Kaldor 2012, 100101). Due to prohibitively high costs, all fighting units, excluding regular foreign troops, use light weapons including “rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, landmines and, at the upper end of the scale, lowcalibre artillery and short-range rockets” (Kaldor 2012, 101).

These combatants participate in a style of violence unique to new wars. Their fighting techniques have their origin in revolutionary units like those of Mao or Che Guevara, whose tactics were created to succeed in asymmetrical conflicts (Kaldor 2012). Revolutionary fighting units aimed

to control territory “through gaining support of the local population rather than through capturing territory from enemy forces” (Kaldor 2012, 102).

To achieve this goal, revolutionaries focused on “winning ‘hearts and minds,’ not just in the territory under revolutionary control but in enemy territory as well” (Kaldor 2012, 102-103). This would allow the combatants to operate successfully amongst the population (Kaldor 2012). Counter-insurgency tactics were “designed to counter this type of warfare using conventional military forces” (Kaldor 2012, 103).

The intention was to make the environment used by revolutionary guerilla fighters uninhabitable (Kaldor 2012). Examples of counter-insurgency tactics include forced resettlement and “area destruction through scattering mines or herbicides or napalm” (Kaldor 2012, 103). Participants in new wars borrow methods from both schools. Like revolutionary fighting units, combatants in new wars attempt to “control territory through political means rather than through capturing territory from enemy forces” (Kaldor 2012, 103). One key difference, however, is that new war participants attempt to acquire political control “through allegiance to a label” rather than by winning hearts and minds (Kaldor 2012, 103). Thus, all individuals living within a particular territory must “admit to the right label” or be eliminated (Kaldor 2012, 104).

Population displacement, a key tactic in counterinsurgency, is therefore used by these new warriors (Kaldor 2012). In new wars, combatants attempt “to create an unfavorable environment for all those people it cannot control” (Kaldor 2012, 104). Kaldor identifies three types of population displacement used in new wars: “systematic murder of those with different labels, as in Rwanda”; “ethnic cleansing, that is to say, forcible population expulsion”; and making an area uninhabitable using physical, economic and

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics psychological means (Kaldor 2012, 104-105).

This informalization of conflict parallels the “informalization of the economy” (Kaldor 2012, 110).

That is, the third characteristic of new wars is that they function in a globalized world economy. While old wars relied on the “classic modern war-economy of the total-war nation state” that “was mobilizing and production-oriented,” new wars lead to the collapse of “territorially based production” due to the removal of outside state support, destruction, the closure of domestic markets for foreign investors, blockades from external states, lack of resources or the interference of combatants (Kaldor 2012, 107; Shaw 2001, 172).

Mark Duffield attributes this process to globalization, for which he provides two different interpretations.

First, hyperglobalization suggests that “globalization is largely understood in terms of a world-wide economic and political convergence around liberal market principles” (Duffield 1999, 22). This conception underlies the WTO and the market liberalization norm to which the United States and other key players in the global economy ascribe. Second, Duffield provides the durable disorder interpretation. This conception rests on the idea that the power of states is being diminished due to “the emergence of new supranational, international, and local actors since the 1970s” (Duffield 1999, 22). It suggests that globalization reacts adversely to social systems in countries that contain the conditions necessary for new wars. Consequences of this interaction include “new durable forms of division, inequality and instability” (Duffield 1999, 22).

Duffield argues that the durable disorder interpretation undermines the neo-liberal position on globalization because the increasing trans-nationalization of trade creates opportunities for “viable political complexes whose dynamic is contrary to that of a traditional liberal democracy” (Duffield 1999, 22).

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These political complexes seek funding in a variety of ways. One method is acquiring the control of valuable commodities (Kaldor 2012). Duffield provides the example of the UNITA in Angola. Prior to the end of the Cold War, the UNITA received “crossborder support from South Africa” (Duffield 1999, 27). During the 1990s, however, the UNITA acquired funding through the control of diamond fields in northern Angola (Duffield 1999). Such activities may require forced population displacement to guarantee geographical control of the high-value commodities (Duffield 1999). This model is not the only form of funding. Kaldor argues that there are two primary funding methods for new warriors: asset transfer and external assistance (Kaldor 2012). She defines asset transfer as “the redistribution of existing assets so as to favour the fighting units,” which manifests itself in two ways (Kaldor 2012, 108). First, activities such as hostage taking, extortion, pillaging, and looting are “the simplest forms” (Kaldor 2012, 108). Second, market pressure allows the combatants to manipulate market prices through checkpoints controlling food and other supplies, sieges, and blockades (Kaldor 2012). Kaldor provides the example of individuals in Sudan and Yugoslavia being required to sell assets at a low price “in exchange for highly priced necessities in order to survive” (Kaldor 2012, 108).

External sources of funding are also necessary “since arms, ammunition and food…have to be imported” (Kaldor 2012, 109). Kaldor outlines four forms of external funding. First, remittances received from outside the state “can be converted into various military resources” (Kaldor 2012, 109). Second, “direct assistance from the diaspora” (Kaldor 2012, 109).

Third, foreign governments may provide aid to groups espousing similar ideological dispositions to their own (Kaldor 2012). This form of aid was more common

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during the Cold War when the superpowers would aid either communist or democratic parties (Kaldor 2012). Fourth, governments and warring parties use humanitarian assistance to fund their projects. This happens through taxation, robbery or ambush (Kaldor 2012).

Though new wars are qualitatively different from the inter-state warfare of the 20th century, my position is that realism retains its explanatory power at both the regional and system levels. Using Mearsheimer’s tripartite realist template, I argue that new war political units fulfill premises two and three.

I do not challenge premise one, but rather contend that the efficacy of realist analysis does not suffer if utilized on non-state political actors. To defend these claims, I contend that the theoretical foundations of realism can be amended to integrate the non-state actors conducting new wars. I outline arguments made

by E.H. Carr, Robert Gilpin and Hans Morgenthau indicating that the state is not guaranteed to be the primary actor in international politics. That is, realism is not a state-dependent theory. Next, I clarify how political units can emerge outside of the contemporary state system by introducing Eric Voegelin’s account of political articulation. To arise, a political unit need not develop in an environment of great power competition.

Finally, I identify how non-state political actors are power seeking and compete for power with their peers.

My argument will begin by outlining various ways that realists conceptualize power. It is important to note that I will not be contributing to this debate by taking a position on the components of power, but rather my intention is to broadly examine power in new wars by taking into account the different ways that it is operationalized. Once a general sketch of power has been provided, I will identify how new war political units exert power at the regional level.

Mearsheimer’s second premise identifies the international environment as the primary element motivating state behavior (Mearsheimer 2014).

However, realist authors do not contend that states are the political units that necessarily arise in every environment. E.H. Carr begins this analysis by suggesting that any discussion of political units must ask two questions: “(a) Are the largest and most comprehensive units of political power in the world necessarily of a territorial character? (b) If so, will they continue to take approximately the form of the contemporary nation-state?”(Carr [1939] 2001, 228).

Carr answers the first question by adopting a historical perspective. While it is true that, currently, the largest political units are territorially based, “in many periods of history of which the mediaeval is the most recent, power has been based ostensibly – and in part, really – on grounds other than those of territorial sovereignty” (Carr [1939] 2001, 228). Kaldor argues that new wars are characterized by the deterritorialization of power. Particularistic identity politics, globalized war economies and the “decentralization of violence” exist across the planet (Kaldor 2012, 185). “Terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid, London and other cities” clarify how territorial ties are not necessary to exercise power in a globalized world (Kaldor 2012, 186). This contemporary phenomenon would not surprise Carr.

He suggests, “few things are permanent in history; and it would be rash to assume that the territorial unit of power is one of them” (Carr [1939] 2001, 229).

Similarly, it would be rash to imagine a future without political groups that coalesce in order to challenge rivals. Carr uses the term “effective group unit” to describe these organized political communities (Carr [1939] 2001, 231). He describes them as both inevitable and distinct from the units currently recognized by international law (Carr [1939] 2001).

Realism in the 21st Century Regardless of the form that these political groups take, it is likely that “the concept of sovereignty” will become “even more blurred and indistinct than it is at present” (Carr [1939] 2001, 230). His position anticipates how new wars involve global and local elements.

Gilpin also addresses the question of political units. He emphasizes that “the essence of social reality is the group” and that “the foundation of political life is what Ralf Dahrendorf has called ‘conflict groups’” (Gilpin 1984, 290). Like Carr’s effective group units, conflict groups are necessary, because “human beings confront one another ultimately as members of groups, and not as isolated individuals” (Gilpin 1984, 290). No group formulation is inherently more effective than another. Rather, the groups dominating international politics are those that are able to most successfully articulate their demands (Gilpin [1981] 1983). Different periods in history have produced a wide variety of group arrangements including “tribes, city-states, kingdoms, empires, and nation-states” (Gilpin 1984, 290). These systems changes can be traced to “economic, demographic and technological factors” (Gilpin 1984, 290). Gilpin uses the Middle Ages to describe how environmental constraints dictate the primary political unit. This time period was characterized by roving criminal gangs that relentlessly threatened the personal security of most individuals.

These conditions allowed feudal barons and kingdoms “to be the most effective mode of economic and political organization” (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 118). Thus, realists cannot hold that the modern state system is inevitable. Similar to feudal barons and kingdoms, it emerged out of a “peculiar set of…circumstances,” that, if altered, “could bring about the demise of the nation-state” (Gilpin 1984, 297). Morgenthau provides a complimentary analysis of political units. Like Gilpin, he stresses the contingency of international

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relations. More specifically, “the contemporary connection between interest and the nation-state is a product of history and is therefore bound to disappear in the course of history” (Morgenthau 2006, 11).

Two main points can be distilled from these comments. First, humans organize in political units that are a function of the geographic, economic, technological, and other pertinent conditions in which they occur. Second, it is possible that the nation-state will not continue to be the primary effective group unit if some or all of these conditions change. Globalization may be a new environmental factor creating conditions that allow groups espousing particularistic identity politics to flourish. Increased interconnectedness facilitates the diffusion of weapons, money and identity-based propaganda in ways unique to the last few decades (Kaldor 2012). It is important to note that I am not arguing that states are obsolete. Rather, my argument is that contemporary conditions, including globalization, are allowing other effective group units to emerge parallel to state actors.

Eric Voegelin’s concept of political articulation is a methodological tool that provides insight into how effective group units come into existence outside of the state system. Voegelin’s arguments explain how non-state political units cohere. Specifically, disparate individuals and groups can coalesce to a point where they develop motivations and goals that are no long self-serving, but represent the unit as a whole. Non-state political units can be explained by realism because, like states, they think as a collective.

In what follows, I will outline Voegelin’s position and then apply his argument to new war political units.

He begins by suggesting that “human society is not merely a fact, or an event, in the external world” open to observation and study (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 27).

Rather, human society is “as a whole a little world, a

82 cosmion, illuminated with meaning from within by the human beings who” utilize this internal structure to achieve self-realization (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 27). This is achieved through the use of symbols that manifest themselves “from rite, through myth, to theory” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 27). Societies do not only seek internal self-realization, but they also become political societies that aim “to be in form for action” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 36). For this to be successful, political communities “must have an internal structure” that enables certain members to assume leadership positions and successfully inspire obedience in the rest of the community (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 36-37). The leaders must provide “the existential necessities of a society” including security and the “administration of justice” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 37). These necessities are vital to prevent the dissolution of the political society. This can happen in three ways: 1) “disintegration of the beliefs that make it an acting unit in history”; 2) “dispersion of its members in such a manner that communication between them becomes physically impossible”; 3) “through their physical extermination” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 31).

Political societies develop over time, and Voegelin labels the “process in which human beings form themselves into a society for action” as “the articulation of a society” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 37).

To become articulate, a political society must have “a representative that will act for it” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 41). Voegelin leans on the work of political theorist Sir John Fortescue to further elaborate on the emergence of political societies. Fortescue uses the word ‘eruption’ to indicate the original instance of societal articulation and the word ‘proruption’ to indicate “advances of articulation, such as the transition from a merely royal to a political realm”

(Voegelin [1952] 1987, 42). Once articulated, a political society has two constitutive parts: elemental and existential (Voegelin [1952] 1987). For a government to be representative in a political society, it must be both constitutionally (elementally) and existentially representative. To be existentially representative, the government must realize “the idea of the institution” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 49). Each political society will do this differently, because every society possesses unique symbols that inform ‘the idea’ of its respective government. That is, an existentially representative government expresses the meanings found within its cosmion. Elemental representation refers to “simple data of the external world” including geographical districts, human beings and the act of voting (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 33). In situations where a government is only “representative in the constitutional sense, a representative ruler in the existential sense will sooner or later make an end of it” (Voegelin [1952] 1987, 49). This suggests that the existential component of political communities can be more valuable than the elemental component. While Voegelin only discuses the two elements in relation to representation, they are useful for understanding all aspects of political societies.

There are two ways that the actors in new wars express Voegelin’s concept of political articulation.

First, the particularistic identity politics of new wars is an example of the existential component of political societies. Individuals participating in new wars achieve self-realization by identifying with symbols of their identity. In Iraq, the desecration of Shi’ite monuments

by Sunni combatants retrenched Shi’ite identities as they collectively witnessed symbols of their political society being destroyed (Kaldor 2012). The common sense of loss reaffirmed Shi’ite connections to their unique cosmion. The Shi’ite political society

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics understood its existential component to be threatened by a group with alternative symbols for self-realization.

Moreover, these identities have an internal structure allowing Shi’ites to articulate themselves by choosing representatives that will provide justice and security for members of the political community. Two further examples of representatives providing security or justice are the Territorial Defense Units in BosniaHerzegovina and the Taliban’s mobile court system (Kaldor 2012). Second, the pattern of violence in new wars is aimed at destroying the existential component of enemy political societies. Population displacement and extermination are methods of dissolving a community and its inner cosmion, which would destroy inter-member communication or kill them all. Thus, particularistic identity groups attempt to achieve both the elemental and existential elimination of enemies.

Gilpin, Carr and Kaldor have also described the phenomena that Voegelin identifies as core aspects of political societies. Each author uses different terms, and, for purposes of clarity, it is important that the interaction between these terms be discussed. Carr’s effective group units, Gilpin’s conflict groups, and Kaldor’s groups utilizing particularistic identity politics are all examples of articulated political societies. “Effective group units” and “conflict groups” both describe political groups without isolating particular characteristics. Therefore, each of Kaldor’s particularistic identity groups is an example of an effective group unit and a conflict group. In these cases, the group is articulated for action, has acquired representation, and its constitutive members share symbols allowing for self-realization and a sense of community. That is not to say that differences will not emerge as various groups erupt into articulation. This variability explains the radical differences between, for

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example, Bosnian Serbs and the Taliban. My argument is that the identity-based units of new wars represent a new form of political articulation that emerged from the conditions of globalization.

Carr, Morgenthau and Gilpin accept that environmental factors affect how groups articulate.

Globalization is a unique environmental factor that allows for the emergence of new, non-state political societies in a regional context. For the remainder of this paper, I will refer to these entities as global articulating units (GAUs). This term was chosen for four reasons: 1) GAUs acquire funding through globalized war economies; 2) the political power of GAUs is not necessarily bound to a state or territory; 3) GAUs mobilize individuals who share their particularistic identity politics from across the globe; 4) GAUs have representatives who provide services to their communities.

Just as realists hold that political units are a function of the surrounding conditions, they also agree that power is variable to external circumstances.

Morgenthau argues that the “content and the manner of [power’s] use are determined by the political and cultural environment” (Morgenthau 2006, 11).

Gilpin argues that power is variable and a function of the environment. He provides the example of the Peloponnesian War. During the Persian wars leading up to the hegemonic conflict between Athens and Sparta, power was secured through “agriculture and land armies” (Gilpin 1988, 603). However, as time went on, the increasing role of commerce emphasized the importance of naval power allowing Athens to challenge Sparta (Gilpin 1988). Realist theory does not, therefore, preclude GAUs from exercising power on a regional level.

E.H Carr isolates three ways that political power manifests itself: militarily, economically, and

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through the power of opinion. It is important to note that while there are differences in these forms, they are so interwoven that “in its essence, power is an indivisible whole” (Carr [1939] 2001, 108). Military power, for Carr, is the “ultima ratio” of power in international relations (Carr [1939] 2001, 109). Since the risk of war is always present in international politics, an individual state’s military power reflects “its political status” (Carr [1939] 2001, 110). Next, economic power is also a variation of political power that is useful due to its symbiotic relationship with military power (Carr [1939] 2001). Economic power can be utilized in two ways: domestically and internationally. Domestically, economic power is harnessed through autarky (Carr [1939] 2001). Carr argues that this form of economic power is uniquely modern due to globalization. In the Middle Ages, for example, autarky was the norm due to difficulties in travel, communication, and in the contemporary world, autarky is “a form of preparedness for war” (Carr [1939] 2001, 121). Internationally, economic power manifests itself in two ways. First, states wield this power through the export of capital (Carr [1939] 2001). Carr cites Britain’s large investments in foreign markets as a reason for their hegemonic status, and also highlights how the United States rose to power by lending to Latin America and post-World War One Europe (Carr [1939] 2001). Second, control of foreign markets is a way to utilize economic power (Carr [1939] 2001). Carr suggests that this was the primary form of economic power exerted between the two world wars (Carr [1939] 2001). One way of wielding this power is through reciprocal trade agreements.

He cites instances of “British purchases of meat and cereals in the Argentine and of bacon and butter in Denmark and the Baltic States” guaranteeing open markets for “British coal and British manufacturers”

(Carr [1939] 2001, 128). However, Carr is quick to point out that a state seeks out markets in areas where that state’s political interests are best served. One example is German investment in southeastern Europe between the World Wars (Carr [1939] 2001). This strategy allowed for the development of mercantilism, an economic theory that holds that a state should do whatever it could to maximize economic gain in hopes of increasing the state’s overall political power (Carr [1939] 2001). The final form of political power is power over opinion. Carr cites Soviet Russia as the state that first began to “preach an international doctrine and to maintain an effective worldpropaganda organization” (Carr [1939] 2001, 138).

The value of harnessing public opinion was realized by states during World War One (Carr [1939] 2001).

They understood that to succeed they must maintain their own morale, while destroying the morale of their opponent (Carr [1939] 2001).

While Carr identifies three forms of power, Gilpin critiques how certain realists characterize power. He argues that states will not attempt to increase state power unless a state deems the transition profitable (Gilpin [1981] 1983). The decision about whether any particular change may be profitable is contingent on a variety of factors that are both domestic and international. This argument also criticizes the billiard ball conception of states held by certain realists. These realists hold “that the distribution of power has far more impact on state behavior and international outcomes than do the internal characteristics of states or the characteristics of individual political leaders” (Levy and Thompson 2010, 32). In contrast, Gilpin suggests that the factors determining whether or not a change is profitable can be divided into three key areas: the material environment, the international balance of power,

Realism in the 21st Century and domestic factors (Gilpin [1981] 1983). Material factors include systems of communication and transport, military technology, and the nature of the state’s economy (Gilpin [1981] 1983). As it is for structural realists, the “static distribution of power” is important for Gilpin with the caveat that the more pressing concern is how the distribution of power changes (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 93). Finally, domestic factors allowing states to determine the profitability of change are varying and thus cannot be formulated “in a systematic and exhaustive fashion” (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 96). However, some contributing factors include political organization, economic interests, personalities, and social structure (Gilpin [1981] 1983).

The descriptions of state behavior given

by Morgenthau, Gilpin and Carr are useful for understanding power on the state level, and are also useful for explaining the intentions of GAUs under the conditions of relative regional anarchy. That is, GAUs fulfill Mearsheimer’s third premise of realism.

In what follows, I will identify how GAUs exert power at the regional level. Morgenthau argues that power “may comprise anything that establishes and maintains control of man over man” (Morgenthau 2006, 11). This definition suggests that GAUs define their interests in terms of power. Kaldor describes “the new identity politics” as a “claim to power on the basis of labels – in so far as there are ideas about political or social change, they tend to relate to an idealized nostalgic representation of the past” (Kaldor 2012, 8). GAUs aim to control and dominate groups not sharing these labels through violence and displacement. Carr’s understanding of power begins with military capabilities. In new wars, GAUs exercise a form military might that is a combination of the strategies utilized by revolutionary units and counter-

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insurgency campaigns (Kaldor 2012). The intention is to harness political, rather than territorial, control over populations that is based on allegiance to a particular identity (Kaldor 2012). For GAUs to accomplish this, they require access to small arms and a lack of organized, state-based resistance. New wars take place in locations where the state’s “monopoly of legitimate violence has broken down” (Kaldor 2012, 122). In these cases, police forces are either ineffective or actively contributing to the conflict. The lack of enforcement allows for easy access to arms via globalized war economies (Kaldor 2012). New war military power is, therefore, distinct from Mearsheimer’s understanding of state-based military power. He argues, “armies are the central ingredient of military power, because they are the principal instrument for conquering and controlling territory – the paramount political objective in a world of territorial states” (Mearsheimer 2014, 43). Though GAUs utilize military units, they are not centralized and hierarchical. Moreover, GAUs exercise military power through violence targeting the civilian population, rather than holding territory. The difference can be explained by the threat of counterattack that is always present in inter-state warfare, but is far less likely in new wars. In inter-state wars state military assets have reinforcements or allied militaries to come to their aid. Thus, maintaining territorial gains by the aggressor is necessary in the campaign. GAUs, on the other hand, “have a tendency to avoid battle” and primarily target defenseless civilians (Kaldor 2012, 106). Military power is exercised in both cases, and the form of military power is a function of the environment that the combatants are operating in.

Economic power, according to Carr, is useful “through its association with the military instrument” (Carr [1939] 2001, 113). Domestically, GAUs seek autarky through commodity theft, asset transfer, and

86 the taxation, robbery, or ambush of humanitarian

Gilpin argues that a state will only attempt

assistance (Kaldor 2012). GAUs also exercise

to increase its power if the state deems the increase

international economic power, but invert Carr’s state-

profitable (Gilpin [1981] 1983). States determine

based understanding. Rather than exporting capital

profit by analyzing the material environment, the

and controlling external markets, GAUs acquire

international balance of power, and domestic factors

power through importation. Remittances, assistance

(Gilpin [1981] 1983). Though GAUs function in a

from individuals in the diaspora, and funding from

different environment than states, they make similar

foreign governments maintain GAUs and allow them

calculations. The primary factor influencing the

to control regional populations (Kaldor 2012). Carr

material environment’s military technology and

highlights how, in the past, wealthier states were able

communications and transport systems is the Internet.

to field larger military forces (Carr [1939] 2001).

Through its use, GAUs are able to easily acquire

Similarly, as GAUs acquire more wealth their ability to

weapons, funding and personnel to wage their new

control populations increases.

wars (Kaldor 2012). Moreover, the nature of the

Population control is also maintained through

GAU’s regional economy makes conflict profitable.

power over opinion. Perhaps the best example of

The economic logic of new wars is intimately tied to

GAUs exercising this form of power can be found in

their political objectives. Population displacement is

the Bosnia-Herzegovina war. In 1974, Yugoslavia’s

both a consequence of the new forms of violence and

constitution ceded power to the republics and the

a contributing factor of localized economies (Kaldor

autonomous regions causing nationalist discourse to

2012). As such, the combatants “need more or less

become the “only form of legitimate debate” (Kaldor

permanent conflict both to reproduce their positions

2012, 38). This development was exacerbated in

of power and for access to resources” (Kaldor 2012,

the 1970s, when each republic and autonomous

117). Thus, the objectives of new wars are not the

region created its own TV and radio station allowing

same as old wars. Not conflict resolution, but the

nationalist propaganda to reach large audiences

continuation of particularistic identities and monetary

(Kaldor 2012). Moreover, Mearsheimer’s distinction

gain is the goal of such wars.

between potential and actual power is useful when

The second factor that Gilpin argues

discussing how GAUs utilize their power over opinion.

determines the profit of conflict is the international

He defines “a state’s actual power” as being “embedded

balance of power. Instead of taking into account

mainly in its army and the air and naval forces that

the capabilities of great powers, GAUs evaluate the

directly support it” (Mearsheimer 2014, 43). Potential

regional balance of power. With new wars taking place

power “is based on the size of the population and

in collapsed states, GAUs operate in an anarchical

the level of its wealth” (Mearsheimer 2014, 43).

regional system that includes various GAUs vying

GAUs have global populations that not only provide

for identity-based superiority (Kaldor 2012).

massive amounts of funding, but also travel to become

Gilpin describes anarchical systems as oligopolistic,

combatants (Kaldor 2012). GAUs, therefore, have an

“characterized by (1) interdependent decision making

immense amount of potential power.

and (2) sufficiently few competitors that the behavior of any one actor has an appreciable effect on some of

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics all of its rivals” (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 87). Such a system

87

GAUs and states, therefore, determine

“stimulates, and may compel, a state to increase its

the utility of power’s use in the same way. The

power; at least, it necessitates that the prudent state

characterizations of power found in the works of

prevent relative increases in the powers of competitor

Morgenthau, Carr and Gilpin are not state-dependent,

states” (Gilpin [1981] 1983, 87-88). The primary

and accurately explain the dynamics of new wars. In

objective of all GAUs is offensive, because GAUs

these conflicts, GAUs fulfill premises two and three of

attempt to eliminate or remove any individual whose

Mearsheimer’s realist model. Great powers retain their

identity does not align with that of their political

position as the primary actor in international politics,

community (Kaldor 2012). As such, GAUs mistrust

but realism is theoretically sophisticated enough to

one another. To put it in realist language, GAUs

explain the motivations and behaviors of smaller actors

operating in a system of regional anarchy rationally

in a regional context. In the increasingly globalized

seek to eliminate rival GAU military assets and civilian

world, GAUs will continue to articulate and operate

populations because the offensive capabilities of other

wherever states collapse. As new wars become more

political communities represent an existential risk.

common, debates and scholarship relating to the

Barry Posen argues that this situation leads to the

changing face of warfare will increase. This article’s

emergence of a non-state security dilemma (Posen

primary contention is that those debates should be

1993). Therefore, the regional balance of power

guided by realist assumptions.

necessitates that conflict between GAUs will occur.

Gilpin’s final determinants of conflict initiation are domestic factors. The political organization and social structure of GAUs are determined by each GAU’s form of articulation. Each represents a community with different histories and symbols, potentially defining the identity of enemies and the proper form of governance. The economic interests of GAUs are tied to maintaining conflict in order to continually maintain external and internal economic power, thereby facilitating military power (Kaldor 2012). Finally, the personalities of paramilitary leaders and other individuals representing each GAU’s existential community may determine how a GAU operates. For example, at the time of Kaldor’s writing, the Afghan “violence [had] not yet taken on an ethnic or tribal dimension,” which may have been attributed to Mullah Omar’s warning against sectarian hatred as well as the Taliban’s recruiting of both Uzbek and Tajik militias (Kaldor 2012, 165-166).

References Carr, E.H. [1939] 2001. The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 19191939. New York: Perennial.

Duffield, Mark. 1999. “Globalization and War Economies: Promoting Order or the Return of History?” Fletcher Forum on World Affairs 23 (2): 21-36. e-International Relations. 2013. “Interview – Stephen Walt.” Last accessed November 27, 2014. http:// www.e-ir.info/2013/10/11/interview-stephenwalt/ (October 11, 2013).

Gilpin, Robert. [1981] 1983. War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 1984. “The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism.” International Organization 38 (2): 287-304.

88 ———. 1988. “The Theory of Hegemonic War.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18 (4): 591-613.

Kaldor, Mary. 2012. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. 3rd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Levy, Jack and Thompson, William R. 2010. Causes of War. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Mearsheimer, John. 2014. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Updated Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Morgenthau, Hans. 2006. Politics Among Nations. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Posen, Barry R. 1993. “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict.” Survival 35 (1): 27-47.

Shaw, Martin. 2000. “The Contemporary Mode of Warfare? Mary Kaldor’s Theory of New Wars.”

Review of International Political Economy 7 (1): 171-180.

Voegelin, Eric. [1952] 1987. The New Science of Politics.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Relative Ethnic Identification and Development Michael Zoorob Vanderbilt University This paper ties Nigeria’s slow pace of development into a narrative of how weak national identification catalyzes corruption and instability by delegitimizing the state. The deleterious effects of potent subnational identities on governance has been cited repeatedly as contributing to the weak performance of many African states. I test this theory using both comparative cases and a quantitative analysis relating relative ethnic-national identification (RENI) to levels of corruption and improvements in infant mortality, finding that countries with higher levels of national identification tend to perform better on both of these metrics. Implications for indigenous and aid agency policies are discussed.

Introduction As Paul Collier (2009, 52) explains, “a society can function perfectly well if its citizens hold multiple identities, but problems arise when those subnational identities arouse loyalties that override loyalty to the nation as a whole.” Since gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria has struggled both as a nation in uniting its various religious, ethnic, and linguistic cleavages and as a state in providing security and public services to its citizens. Due to strong ethnic ties, social cleavages, political instability, and the resource curse of vast petroleum reserves, Nigeria is marred by very high levels of corruption at all levels of government, characterized by patterns of patron-client relationships called Prebendalism (Joseph 1987). As a result, fifty years after independence, the advancement of human development in Nigeria has been hindered by the inefficacy of its political institutions.

In this paper, I tie Nigeria’s slow pace of development into a narrative of how weak national identification may delegitimize the state and thus catalyze corruption and instability. I begin by detailing a general theory of how governance factors mediate the process of human development. Next I identify what I suspect may be a critical intermediary element of the

human development process – relative levels of ethnic and national identification (RENI). Then I perform three quantitative tests examining the effects of RENI on corruption and infant mortality, suggesting that, throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, countries with Ethnic RENI have much higher rates of corruption and a slower pace of human development, and that the effect of RENI on infant mortality appears to exceed that of commonly assumed factors such as foreign aid and change in GNI. Finally, I analyze the potential public policy implications of these findings and identify some future avenues for research.

Theory I argue, as shown in Figure 1, that internal governance factors mediate the transformation of human capital into human development.

In Nigeria’s case, it may be that elections incentivize officials to be corrupt in order to cultivate favor with constituents. This effect may be accentuated by the strong ethnic ties in Nigeria which supersede allegiance to the state for the overwhelming majority of people (Afrobarometer 2008). The country’s large oil revenues also may provide a source of revenue

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Zoorob FIGURE 1: Governance as Mediating Development

that is ripe for pillaging, a classic manifestation of the “resource curse,” whereby extraction of natural resources by the state enables the extraction of the state by corrupt officials. Corruption and state weakness may exert mutually reinforcing effects; state fragility makes stealing from the state less costly and stealing from the state weakens it.

The RENI Variable I propose that a country’s “relative ethnic to national identification” – what I am terming the RENI variable – is an important factor in explaining varied development outcomes between countries. RENI is an indicator derived from a question asked by the third round of the Afrobarometer survey (2008). The data reflect the responses of 20,000 people and about 250 ethnic groups. The question asked respondents to suppose whether they would choose to be a member of their nation (Kenyan, Ghanian, etc) or their ethnic group if they could only choose one. Afrobarometer framed the results in terms of the proportion saying they would choose their nation over their ethnic group. Hence, the complement (that is, the difference from one) of the response to this question is a nation’s

“relative ethnic to national identification” or RENI; higher levels of RENI indicate greater affinity for ethnicity relative to nation. Employing this relative measure of identification confers three particular advantages (Robinson 2013, 9). First, the relative measure allows for simple comparison across the sixteen countries studied. Second, RENI is consistent with the constructivist idea that people hold multiple identities simultaneously. Third and relatedly, RENI “captures the latent variable that we care about more than an absolute measure could, namely the relative importance of the nation vis-a-vis ethnicity” (Robertson 2013, 9).

Figure 2 illustrates the variability in RENI levels across the sixteen cases studied. Higher values in RENI indicate a greater relative identification with an ethnic group over the nation. In the maximal case – Nigeria – a whopping 83% of respondents reported that they identified more with their ethnicity than nationality, the highest of all countries surveyed. In Lesotho, the country with the second highest level of ethnic identification, 75% of people reported that they identified more with their ethnicity; in Ghana (the median case) it was 60%. At the opposite extreme,

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Figure 2: RENI by Country

Data Source: Afrobarometer (2008) in Tanzania just 12% of respondents said that they identified more with their ethnic group than their nation.

Figure 3 provides a more discriminating picture of the variation in the middle of the distribution. The eight-percent decline between Mozambique and Botswana struck me as a “tipping point” around the 50% mark which could delineate between “low” and “high” level RENI countries. I used this distinction to convert the continuous RENI variables into two categories of “low” and “high” RENI countries with which to do comparative analysis. This resulted in ten countries in the “Ethnic” category and six countries in the “National” category, as shown in Figure 3.

Summary Figure 4 shows, in essence, my expectations for the effect of RENI on development. I suspect that

RENI will undermine development by contributing to corruption. The causal mechanism tying ethnic RENI to corruption is that greater identification with one’s ethnic group than with the state promotes perception of the state as a source of extraction, leading to clientalistic relationships between ethnic elites and their coethnics in the population. Political scientists have noted that “as a polity becomes more ethnicized in that citizens become likely to vote following ethnic identity rather than any other marker, the quality of its political representation will worsen” (Banerjee and Pande 2007, 1). Political ethnicization has been linked to clientalistic politics and corruption in developing countries, including India (Chandra 2004) and the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (Bates 1983; Isaakson 2013).

The theoretical actors in this scenario are politicians and their constituents operating in a state that has resources which can be pillaged. In countries

92 Figure 3: RENI “Tipping Point”

Data Source: Afrobarometer (2008) with strong ethnic identification and ethnicized politics, politicians derive their support from their ethnic group. They thus have incentive to bring home spoils from the state in order to gain re-election.

Constituents, in turn, have incentive to push their politicians to pillage the state for resources. Aid, or resource wealth, could enable or exacerbate this corruption. The mechanisms by which corruption diminishes human development are well-studied (World Bank 2013).

Human Development in Nigeria: A Brief Summary Human development remains low in Nigeria in both absolute and relative terms. As a slightly dated UNDP report (2003) eloquently points out: Although Nigeria is relatively rich in natural resources, it has yet to fulfill its economic and human development potential. Its size, wealth and diversity generate high expectations but it remains

“a rich country with poor people.” Its oil wealth and considerable agricultural potential have not translated into better living conditions for most of its people.

Over two thirds of the population lives on less than US $1 per day. Furthermore, the number of people living in poverty has doubled in recent years and, according to most recent economic and social indicators, most Nigerians seem to be worse off than they were in the 1970s. (UNDP 2003) [Emphasis mine] Conditions have not since improved significantly. Twice as many Nigerians lived in poverty in 2008 than in the 1980s, the country has the secondhighest prevalence of HIV in the world, and more than 22 million people cannot read or write (UNDP 2008). Mean years of schooling in Nigeria is 5.3 and life expectancy at birth is still quite low, at a notch over 50 years (UNDP 2013). Nigeria’s 2012 HDI of 0.471 is below the average of 0.475 for countries in SubSaharan Africa and places the country in the HDI’s

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Figure 4: Theorized Mechanism for RENI on Human Development

“low human development” category (UNDP 2013).

Moreover, after accounting for inequality in Nigeria, which is high compared to many other poor countries (perhaps due to oil wealth and the lingering effects of Igbo status as colonial favorites), Nigeria’s performance on the Human Development Index declines by a whopping 41.4%, compared to an average loss of 35% for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (UNDP 2013) . This adjustment leaves Nigeria with an HDI score of 0.276 compared to an average score of 0.309 for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Quantitative Analysis Now I will use quantitative methods to explore the effects of the RENI variable on corruption and human development. In particular, I explore the following two hypotheses: H1: Ethnic RENI status will be associated with significantly slower pace of human development (operationalized by rate of decline in infant mortality).

H2: Ethnic RENI status will be associated with significantly higher levels of corruption.

What I expect to find is that countries with Ethnic RENI status will be associated with higher levels of corruption, leading to less efficient use of resources and a reduced pace of human development.

Test 1: RENI and Human Development In this second test, which explores the hypothesis that countries with greater levels of national identification will have a faster pace of human development, I use data from the World Bank to compare the average annual percentage decline in infant mortality in the 2001-2011 period (this variable operationalizes human development) between the Ethnic RENI and National RENI categories of countries. Figure 7 shows the plot comparing changes in infant mortality in the last decade between these two groups.

I assume unequal variances due to the very low sample size and the significant differences in spread between the two groups. As expected, the average decline in infant mortality in the last decade is greater in countries in the Nation RENI group than in the

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Zoorob Figure 7: RENI and Infant Mortality

Data derived from Afrobarometer (2008) and World Bank (2014)

Figure 8: T-test for RENI and Infant Mortality

Relative Ethnic Identification and Development Ethnic RENI group, as Figure 8 shows (t = -1.87; p = 0.0422). The mean difference between the two groups was 0.01485, which suggests that, all else equal, a typical Nation RENI country experienced about a 1.5% greater annual decline in infant mortality than a typical Ethnic RENI country.

Looking at the continuous RENI data yields comparable results. As Figure 9 shows, there is an inverse relationship between a country’s RENI and the pace of its decline in infant mortality. An R-square value of 0.1968 indicates that about one-fifth of the variation of the decline in infant mortality can be explained by RENI. The coefficient on the RENI variable was borderline significant (p = 0.0851). A coefficient of about 0.045 suggests that moving from the highest RENI (Nigeria with 0.83) to the lowest RENI (Tanzania with 0.12) corresponds to a three-percentage point larger average decline in infant mortality.

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Test 2: RENI and Corruption The Afrobarometer generates a comprehensive Corruption Perceptions Index for the years 2011-2013 which I use to measure the levels of corruption in the states (Richmond and Alpin 2013). The index ranges from 0 (lowest corruption) to 4 (highest corruption).

Figure 10 plots the relationship between CPI and Ethnic or National RENI status. On the face of it, it appears as though National RENI countries have lower levels of corruption, as I would expect. A comparison of means between the groups is shown in Figure 11.

A t-test comparing mean CPI scores in Ethnic RENI countries versus National RENI countries was performed, and the results are in Figure 12.

Afrobarometer does not have CPI data for Madagascar, so that country is excluded from this analysis. The National RENI group has significantly lower scores (i.e. less corruption) on the CPI index than the Ethnic RENI group of countries (t = -2.08, p=0.0299).

Figure 9: Bivariate Fit – RENI and Infant Mortality

R2 = 0.1968

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Figure 10: Bivariate Fit – Parameter Estimates

Figure 11: RENI and CPI

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics The mean difference in scores is about -0.23 on the CPI. That the coefficient reaches statistical significance despite the very small samples employed is noteworthy.

The results suggests that RENI exerts a potent effect on levels of corruption.

Again, looking at the continuous RENI data yields comparable results. As Figure 12 shows, there is an inverse relationship between a country’s RENI and its Corruption Perceptions Index. An R-square value of 0.1343indicates that about 13% of the variation in CPI can be explained by RENI. The coefficient on the RENI variable was not significant (p = 0.1791) though the small-sample size makes the probability of a Type II error quite high. A coefficient of about 0.53 suggests that moving from the highest RENI to the lowest RENI corresponds to a 0.38 decline in CPI score.

Bootstrapping is a recursive process which utilizes resampling with replacement from a sample to generate a normal distribution. To buttress the results produced by the low-sample t-tests, I used a bootstrapping procedure with 1000 re-samples in JMP to compare levels of corruption in the countries with ethnic RENI preferences to the levels of corruption in countries with national RENI preferences. The bootstrapped estimate for the difference of means between the two groups suggests that with about 95% Figure 12: T-Test for RENI and CPI

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confidence there is a difference in corruption levels between the two groups. As Figure 14 shows, the 2.5% estimate is about -0.0006 while the 97.5% estimate is 0.43649. This allows one to say with 95% confidence that the true difference in CPI between the RENI categories of countries falls between these values.

A one-sample t-test using the bootstrapping sample for the difference in mean CPI levels between the two RENI groups indicates that mean levels on the corruption perception index are much higher in the ethnic group. Testing the difference sample against a null-hypothesis of no difference (that is, H0: x̄=0) yields a test statistic of t=64.6 (p<0.0001) as shown in Figure 15.

Boot-strapping is useful for making statistical inferences because the underlying distribution of the CPI data is unknown due to the small size. However, boot-strapping does not remedy the underlying issue that the cases used may be unrepresentative or biased in some way. Consequently, the significance of the boot-strapping findings should not be overstated.

However, the results of the bootstrapping procedure coincide with the totality of the evidence – theoretical and statistical – showing that ethnic RENI countries experience greater levels of corruption.

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Figure 12: Bivariate Fit for RENI and CPI

R2 = 0.1343

Figure 13: Bivariate Fit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Parameter Estimates

Relative Ethnic Identification and Development Figure 14: Bootstrapped Estimate for

CPI Difference in Means

Figure 15: Bootstrapped T-test

(RENI and CPI)

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100

Figure 16: RENI, Aid, and Infant Mortality

Figure 17: GNI Per Capita in Selected Countries

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Test 3: RENI, Aid, and Development

Analysis

Figure 16 shows the regression line formed by regressing average change in infant mortality over the last decade against average aid per capita and RENI for each country. The model was not significant (p = 0.164), and the R-square value of 0.24 suggests that the model explains about a quarter of the variation in infant mortality.

Figure 17 shows the parameter estimates for the model. Neither aid nor RENI were significant at the 0.05 level, though RENI was significant at the 0.10 level (p = 0.0967). Interestingly, this suggests that RENI appears to exert a greater influence on human development than aid.

As Figure 18 shows, incorporating GNI per capita to the regression model does not change these effects and, indeed, growth appears to have an even less prominent effect on infant mortality than aid or RENI.

Taken together, the tests performed indicate that RENI influences levels of corruption and human development. T-tests between the Ethnic RENI and the National RENI countries show that Ethnic RENI categories have significantly higher levels of corruption and significantly slower rates of decline in infant mortality in the last decade. The third-test gives some indication of the magnitude of the RENI factor; it appears to better predict declines in infant mortality and the foreign aid or even changes in per capita GNI. Limitations There are several limitations to this analysis.

For one thing, the very low sample (n=15 or n=16) size could introduce a whole host of problems, as well as the potential for non-random sampling in the 16 or so countries which Afrobarometer selected

Figure 18: RENI, Aid, Growth, and Infant Mortality

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Zoorob

to ask this question. These data also cannot show us causality, and simultaneity between the independent and dependent variables is plausible (it could be the case that corruption or slower human development leads to less identification with the nation). My sense is that the causal arrow may point in both directions simultaneously. Perhaps higher RENI leads to increased corruption which itself promotes even higher levels of relative ethnic identification, a positive feedback loop.

It is also, I think, reasonable to suppose that the countries explored differ on many metrics aside from RENI and thus the bivariate analyses used are unable to account for such factors as the quality of democracy or the cultural homogeneity of a society. In an effort to at least partially address this concern, I ran additional tests of other potentially important variables. Though the tests are not shown here, interestingly, no strong relationships were found between GNI per capita growth in the last decade and any of the other variables used (RENI, Aid, infant mortality decline, or CPI). Moreover, as Figure 19 shows, the countries in the sample are at such significantly different stages of development (Madagascar’s GNI per capita is about a tenth of Botswana’s) that RENI may not affect the development of these countries equally.

Conclusion This paper builds on a nascent literature analyzing the effect of the RENI variable on development. With the exception of one working paper (Robertson 2013), which looked at correlates of responses to the Afrobarometer question from which RENI is derived, this paper may be the only one examining the RENI variable systematically, and may be the first which attempts to use it to predict state-

level differences in human development outcomes. As that author (Robertson 2013, 1) explains, “Attachment to the nation, relative to one’s ethnic group, increases with education, urbanization, and formal employment at the individual level, and with economic development at the state level, patterns more consistent with classic modernization theory…” However, with respect to the final point about economic development at the state level, my analysis is more indicative of causation in the opposite direction. The theoretical mechanisms which I have identified support the idea that ex ante weak national identification delegitimizes the state and contributes to corruption, which undermines economic development. Of course, this is still very much an open question and the methods I used are unable to ascertain causality.

Further areas for research motivated by this paper might be to explore the relationship between the RENI variable and governance factors such as the POLITY IV index and other indicators of human development, such as life expectancy or risk of conflict.

Other mechanisms, such as levels of social service spending, could be studied to determine how RENI affects development. I would predict that governments in National RENI countries would spend more money on social services such as health care and education.

Whether RENI carries any weight in polities outside of Sub-Saharan Africa is also of interest, though data limitations complicate this line of inquiry.

That the RENI variable influences development has important implications for public policy. If national identification leads to less corruption and higher levels of human development, then states would be wise to promulgate policies which promote greater national identification. Of particular note is the Tanzanian case, an outlier in its very high levels of national identification and perhaps the only nation-

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Figure 19: GNI Per Capita in Selected Countries (PPP Dollars)

state in Sub-Saharan Africa (Afrobarometer 2009, 4). Tanzania looks at the individual level much like many other countries with correlates for low levels of national identification, suggesting that statelevel policies seem to be playing an important role (Afrobarometer 2009, 22-23). Four such state level factors identified by scholars (Michel 2004) are the pervasive use of the Kiswahili language, the nationalist curriculum in primary school education, the evenhanded distribution of state resources in the early post-independence era, and the strong personality of Tanzania’s first independence leader, Julius Nyerere.

Contemporarily, a number of African states are adopting similar policies to promote national unity and the effects of these interventions have not been researched (Robertson 2013, 25).

The implications of these findings for development aid agencies are also interesting. Though the risk of criticism for cultural imperialism is very real, this analysis suggests that development agencies might be well-advised to consider projects which

promote national unity in recipient countries, such as infrastructure projects connecting different parts of the country with the capital, the dissemination of national icons, and the promotion of a national language.

References Afrobarometer. 2008. “Round 3 and Round 4 Survey Data.” www.afrobarometer.org (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Rohini Pande. 2007.

“Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politicians Corruption. KSG Working Paper. http://ssrn.com/abstract=976548 (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Bates, Robert 1983. Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa. Cambridge Press.

Center for Systemic Peace. 2010a. “Polity IV Country Report 2010: Nigeria.” http://www. systemicpeace.org/polity/Nigeria2010.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

104 Center for Systemic Peace. 2010b. “Polity IV Country Report 2010: Pakistan.” http://www. systemicpeace.org/polity/Pakistan2010.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

UNDP. 2003. “Country Evaluations: Assessment of Development Results – Nigeria.” http://web. ng.undp.org/documents/NigeriaADR.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Chandra, Kanchan 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Headcounts in India.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

UNDP. 2008. “Nigeria: UNDAF II.” http://web. ng.undp.org/documents/UNDAF_ Nigeria_2009.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Collier, Paul. 2009. Wars, Guns, and Votes. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

UNDP. 2013. “Human Development Report 2013: Nigeria.” http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/ Country-Profiles/NGA.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

IMF. 2003. “External Debt Statistics: Guide for Compilers and User.” IMF, Washington DC. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/eds/Eng/ Guide/index.htm (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Isaakson, Anne-Sofie. 2013. “Corruption on Ethnic Lines: A Study of Individual Corruption Experiences in 17 African Countries.”

Working Papers in Economics: University of Gothenburg Joseph, Richard A. 1987. Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic. Cambridge University Press.

Miguel, Edward. 2004. “Tribe or Nation? Nation Building and Public Goods in Kenya Versus Tanzania.” World Politics 56(3): 327-362.

Robertson, Amanda. 2013. “National versus Ethnic Identification in Africa.” Working Paper https://u.osu.edu/robinson.1012/files/2014/01/ Robinson_NationalismVsEthnicity-13xk2vn. pdf (Accessed March 1, 2014).

Transparency International. 2013. “Corruption Perceptions Index.” http://www.transparency. org/country (Accessed March 1, 2014).

World Bank. 2013. “6 Questions on the Cost of Corruption.” http://web.worldbank.org/ WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK :20190295~menuPK:34457~pagePK:34370~p iPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html (Accessed March 1, 2014).

World Bank. 2014. “Data Bank.” http://databank. worldbank.org/ (Accessed March 1, 2014).