Lighthouse, MT18 by Oxford International Relations Society

A Note From The Editors This issue seeks to make sense of the trends reshaping our world’s governments, hierarchies and boundaries of power. With the growing influence of China, rising pressure for change in countries like Malaysia and Venezuela, and the emerging threat of cyberwarfare, the world is facing both opportunities and challenges. We are proud to present a range of articles that grapple with the idea of a New Order, with varying insights. We hope this journal will provoke readers to consider new ways of conceptualising the changes we are witnessing and what they might want an emerging order to look like. We would like to start this edition, however, by showing our deepest thanks to all those who have helped us put this issue together. We are particularly indebted to our editor-in-chief Hugh for all his advice and guidance in putting together the journal, as well as his support with finances and ensuring the graphics were done on time. Our team of sub-editors, Thomas, Nicholas, Grace and Julia, have supported the writers to ensure each article is succinct, precise and powerful. Many thanks go out to Ruby Lyons, who has outdone herself as our Graphics Designer. Also to Elena Casale, IRSoc’s President, for her encouragement and help in promoting the journal at events, as well as Robbie Brown, the IRSoc Director of Communications, and Ed Ford, the IRSoc Treasurer. Without the collaboration and effort of all these people, this term’s lighthouse would have been much poorer and possibly even non-existent. Thanks are also due to the Hertford JCR, Sommerville JCR and Wadham SU for their generous donations, without which we would not be able to continue our excellent, independent journalism. Above all we want to thank our writers for their incredible work. We encourage our readers to follow our blog, where we will be uploading even more exciting articles. Michelle Huang and Cara Exall

Conflict The New Middle-East: Order or chaos? Adam Wall “Blood and Water Cannot Flow Together”: South Asia must cooperate to address climate change Emma Wells A Bolivarian Black Hole: Venezuela’s extinguished cry for change Hannah Hodges Cybersecurity: Individual nuisance or systemic threat? Thomas Rizvi

4 7 10 13

Competition China’s Belt and Road: Threat or opportunity for the liberal order? Guiseppe Spatafora East, West or Afar? The Visegrad Group and the future of Central Europe Sasha Thompson Changing of the Guard: Warring inﬂuences in Pakistan Gareth Hynes & Tanyah Hameed Inverting Inequality: Can America’s New Left turn the tide on inequality? Julia Pieza

17 20 23 26

Challenges What next for Malaysia? The temptations and opportunities of reform Thomas Benson Democracy with Rwandan Characteristics: Rwanda in the footsteps of Singapore & China Matthew MacGeoch A New Economic Order: A malign or benign inﬂuence on developing countries? Grace Davis Collaboration and Competition: international scientiﬁc links in a New Order Sebastian Wright Indonesia's Democratic Transition: 20 years on Basil Browdler

30 33 36 39 42

No Order? Surfacing Dissent: The myth of a global rules-based liberal order Daria-Ioana Sipos

Conflict

Conflict The New Middle-East: Order or chaos? Adam Wall

“History is a cyclic poem, written by time upon the memories of man”. Percy Shelley

East’s poorest nation, has further tarnished its reputation in the region. UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has accused the Saudi coalition of contributing to “the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War”. A botched intervention in Libya and the collapse of Syria’s rebel opposition have further made the end of American hegemony seem imminent.

In 1956 geopolitical reality collided with the illusion of Anglo-French hegemony over the Middle East. Much of the world map was still imperial pink, but the sun had long ago begun to set on the empires of old. Just as the Anglo-French order crumbled after the disastrous Suez Crisis, post-Cold War American unipolarity in the Middle East is destined for the same fate. As the old order collapses, competing regional and global powers are vying to ﬁll this power vacuum and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the new order in the Middle East will be anything but orderly.

History does not, however, happen overnight. The US is too thoroughly embedded in the region’s geopolitical fabric to be displaced in a matter of years, in spite of the growing journalistic tendency to dramatise American decline. US military spending still outstrips that of the next 7 nations combined. Immense cultural inﬂuence and popular democratic political values mean American soft power remains unrivalled, allowing her to continue building alliances across the globe. Despite this, the downwards trajectory of American hegemony, a historical anomaly brought about by the Second World War, is clear. Protected by two oceans and stimulated by government spending on armaments, American industry pulled ahead whilst the competition tore each other apart. As this economic

The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end. Since 2003, the US and her allies have suﬀered blow after blow with increasing frequency. Tension between American allies erupted last year when a Saudi-led coalition abruptly severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, the Gulf kingdom which hosts the largest US military facility in the region. The role of American advisors in the bombardment of Yemen, the Middle

gap naturally closes, in what Richard Baldwin calls “the Great Convergence”, unipolarity is making way for multipolarity from Eastern Europe to the South China Sea. As this new order forces global powers to turn their attention towards their immediate surroundings, agency in the Middle East will revert to local actors.

Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani in 2015, ongoing clashes between the Turkish military and Kurdish militants have, according to the Crisis Group, led to over 4,000 deaths. Regional competitors such as Iran have often exploited militant groups like the PKK to undermine Turkish stability, illustrating why Turkey’s solid economic and military platform will not guarantee it the same hegemony the Ottoman Empire exercised for so long. Millenia before the Ottoman Turks ruled the Middle East, Cyrus the Great founded the First Persian Empire. It expanded out of the Iranian plateau to stretch from the Balkans to the Indus Valley. Modern Iran shares old Persia’s fortress-like geography and ethnolinguistic homogeneity. Combined with a coherent revolutionary Islamist ideology, these credentials illustrate why Iran’s claim to the regional throne merits attention. Iran amassed substantial inﬂuence in post-2003 Iraq by supporting the Shia majority Saddam Hussein had brutally oppressed. By aiding elements of the Iraqi paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMU) in their ﬁght against ISIL, Iran consolidated its position, with the PMU-backed, pro-Iran Fatah Alliance coming second in recent Iraqi Parliamentary elections.

However, unlike Southeast Asia, for instance, where China is the natural hegemon, the Middle East lacks a comparable candidate. Power has historically oscillated between Turkey, Iran and the Arab nations, and appreciating these local actors’ idiosyncrasies is key to understanding the emerging regional order. Before 1914, the term ‘Middle East’ was virtually unknown in the west. For centuries, the Ottoman Turks ruled the lands from the Sahara to the Zagros mountains, and the Empire’s abrupt dismemberment by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 still looms large in the Turkish psyche. It is this ‘Sèvres Syndrome’ that President Erdoğan has exploited to consolidate his grip on power since 2016’s attempted coup.His purge of state institutions and stranglehold on the media and judiciary have nudged Turkey towards militarism and authoritarianism. Neo-Ottoman revivalism has been fuelled by the occupation of Afrin in northern Syria and frequent incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan, all ostensibly to counter Kurdish militant groups.However, despite boasting a dynamic economy and an advanced NATO-integrated military, Turkey’s Achilles heel is its 15-million-strong Kurdish minority. Since Turkey prevented aid from reaching the ISIL-besieged

As this new order forces global powers to turn their attention towards their immediate surroundings, agency in the Middle East will revert to local actors. In Syria, Iran has committed capital and manpower to successfully propping up Bashar al-Assad, although urban protests in early 2018 demanding these resources be redirected revealed the domestic cost. Hezbollah, a militia-cum-party founded by Iran during the Lebanese Civil War, even inﬂicted a rare stalemate on arch-rival Israel in 2006. It seems that Iranian dreams of a ‘Shia Crescent’ stretching across the Levant to the Mediterranean are slowly being realised. However, a sanction-laden economy, domestic discontent and intensifying regional disquiet all mean Iran’s march towards regional hegemony will not go unopposed. It is said that only two men have ever managed to unify the Arabs: the Prophet Mohammad and Lawrence of Arabia. Despite this, growing Iranian

As world economies converge and US hegemony in the Middle East erodes, unipolarity will make way for a more localised and unpredictable theatre of international relations. This transition will provide an informative case study for the ﬁeld of International Relations; the merits of myriad ideas ranging from the ‘balance of power’ theory to ‘hegemonic stability theory’ could be put to the test. The Middle East has developed a reputation for being chaotic, and as raison d’état coaxes its powers closer to conﬂict, this is unlikely to change when the new ‘order’ emerges.

and Turkish assertiveness has put the pressure on Arab nations to present a united front. In Iraq a nationalist revival is in its embryonic stages. Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr won a plurality of seats in the fractured unicameral legislature by rebranding himself as a cross-sectarian nationallist opposing both Iranian and American meddling.He even met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) despite deep-seated sectarian animosity. MBS sees extending Saudi influence in Iraq as part of a wider security strategy entailing economic diversification and social modernisation at home. Though superficial progress has been made, such as the much-publicised lifting of the ban on women driving, the prince’s reckless behaviour means Saudi Arabia is struggling to rival Iran and Turkey. The recent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a case in point. General Sisi is too preoccupied with rooting out the Muslim Brotherhood to return Egypt to the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser when it was the cultural and economic centre of the Arab world. Meanwhile, half of Syria’s population has been uprooted in an appallingly brutal civil war. The Arab Spring belied a burning popular desire for reform; unless Arab leaders can harness this mood, they will struggle when American withdrawal from the region leaves them exposed.

“Blood and Water Cannot Flow Together”: South Asia must cooperate to address climate change Emma Wells

most of these deaths have been the result of a territorial dispute. Around 2,400 lives have been lost in this stand-off; however, most of these deaths have been the result of avalanches and other natural phenomena made increasingly common by global warming-induced ice melt. Worse still, as glaciers continue to melt at the site of this ‘frozen conflict’, toxins are carried downstream on the Indus River, threatening the very farmland which the soldiers are supposedly protecting. Demilitarisation of the glaciers is urgently needed, both to protect lives and to prevent further degradation of the environment. Not only are bilateral conflicts aggravating the effects of climate change, as in Siachin, but climate change is also contributing to already high tensions between countries.

Climate change is a formidable and growing threat to South Asia. The region comprises less than four percent of the world’s land area but is home to more than 21 percent of the world’s population. It is geographically diverse, containing both the Himalayas and the low-lying Maldives–the former prone to glacier melt and the higher temperatures that come with increased elevation, and the latter already threatened by rising sea levels. Droughts, cyclones, monsoons and floods: all extreme weather phenomena which are becoming increasingly common due to climate change. Due to the severity of these effects, each government within South Asia accords serious weight to both tackling carbon emissions, and to creating strategies for responding to climate-related disasters. However, if cooperative methods are not used to achieve this, the interwoven issues of conflict and climate change are set to engulf the region.

Natural disasters (increasingly common due to global warming) wreak havoc on state institu lose by renouncing law and order. In 1970, a cyclone tore through East Pakistan, leaving tions, which translates into threats to political stability. The loss of life and livelihoods induced by a ﬂood or hurricane causes tensions to heighten and leaves citizens with less and less to behind not only physical ruin, but also civil disorder as residents ﬁnally let their grievances with the Punjab-cen

Since 1984 the Siachin Glacier, which stands at 18,000 feet above sea level, has hosted around 10,000 soldiers from Indian and Pakistani troops, the result of a territorial dispute. Around 2,400 lives have been lost in this stand-oﬀ; however,

tric Pakistani state boil over. A full-scale civil war erupted, resulting in which resulted in the creation of the new nation-state of Bangladesh the following year. Disasters also tend to cause large-scale displacement, adding to the already substantial number of South Asians forced to abandon their homes due to a scarcity of food, water and land as a result of climate change. In Bangladesh, depletion of groundwater caused by temperature increase is making the earth physically sink. This both exacerbates ﬂood risks (already a major problem for the country) and leads to intrusion of salty water into the drinking-water supply. 70 percent of the 400,000 people who migrate to Dhaka from within Bangladesh each year are estimated to be climate refugees. Yet Dhaka cannot sustain this inﬂux for very long, and soon Bangladeshis will be compelled to move across borders in search of a safer home.

by floods. Pakistan also suffers from increasing food scarcity. As temperatures have increased, desertification has spread, with dwindling agricultural yields heaping further pressure onto the population, almost half of whom are already suffering from food insecurity. A report by the GMACCC also predicts significant migration from Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal into neighbouring South Asian states. shifts from climate-induced migration. No state has the resource capacity to accept more citizens through into its borders. Therefore, cooperation is essential to soften the impact of demographic is essential to soften the impact of demographic shifts from climate-induced migration.

Not only are bilateral conflicts aggravating the effects of climate change, as in Siachin, but climate change is also contributing to already high tensions between countries. If new legal agreements are not quickly established between nations to meet this rapidly developing issue, a double-fold threat will arise. First, if bilateral relations have been historically dominated by suspicion and distrust, an inﬂux of refugees from one country into another is likely to increase social tensions within communities, sparking violent clashes which could escalate to the national level, leading to all-out war. Furthermore, if no legal framework is established between nations, and refugees are forced to seek entry into a country by illegal means, they are vulnerable to exploitation by gangs of drug-smugglers and terrorist groups, which both pose serious threats to national security and international peace.

So, what are the prospects for cooperation so far? Recently, a joint action plan was agreed upon by India and Bangladesh to defend the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world (a World Heritage site) and an essential natural defence against sea level rise which threatens coastal communities. There is also already a potential forum for multilateral cooperation, which has been functioning for over 30 years, where similar cooperative initiatives could be carried out by all seven countries in the region: the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. However, tense Indo-Pakistani relations have recently caused pessimism about this arena for cooperation on climate change. Following the September 2016 Uri attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir by suspected Pakistani militants, India announced that it would boycott the summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan later that year. It was followed into this boycott by three other countries, leading Pakistan to cancel the summit completely.

Climate-induced migration triggers are not only present in Bangladesh. In the 2009 ﬂoods which displaced one million Bangladeshis, 1.5 million Indians from the state of Assam also became homeless. In the following year over 20 million Pakistanis were forced from their homes, again

These bilateral tensions have even corrupted the Indus River Treaty, which until 2016 had been a largely successful model of cooperation between the two countries -- annual meetings continued as scheduled throughout the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965, 1971 and 1999. However, declaring that

“blood and water cannot flow together”, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to the 2016 Uri attack by announcing plans to accelerate the construction of dams in Kashmir on rivers which flow into Pakistan, and to suspend the Indus Waters Commission which is responsible for managing disputes which arise over the treaty. Yet this bilateral breakdown need not spoil prospects for future cooperation. The Indus Treaty had been successful for so many decades because of three principal reasons. First, unrelated political issues had been kept completely separate from the operations of the treaty. Second, data concerning the riverways (which to this day is still considered ‘sensitive’) had been shared transparently and freely. Third, a hierarchy of conflict resolution mechanisms was established involving arbitration by independent adjudicators. There is no reason why these tenets of cooperation could not be replicated with respect to climate change. Unlike territorial conflicts, if climate change is not addressed there can be no winners, only losers. Either cooperation through climate change can flourish, promote stability in the region and the pursuit of a mutually beneficial goal, or blood will flow. It remains to be seen which course South Asia will follow.

A Bolivarian Black Hole: Venezuela’s extinguished cry for change Hannah Hodges

change in the country’s political order?

2018 has seen the establishment of a new political order in Mexico and Brazil. Mexico elected its ﬁrst leftist leader in 30 years, and after a turbulent election campaign far-right Jair Bolsonaro ended left-wing Worker’s Party dominance in Brazil. In 2017 Chilean elections revealed a signiﬁcant shift to the right, and in the same year Paraguay insisted on a new order by preventing the re-election of President Cartes through protests and Vatican-backed talks. Despite the success of new political orders in the region, one country seems stuck–Venezuela.

What has happened to Venezuelan insurgence and what options are left for a country seemingly unable to break free from the grip of Chavismo? To understand this stagnation of political opposition in Venezuela we need to re-evaluate the 2016 protests. Although it is easy to present the events as a failed coup d’état (and Maduro supporters like to see it as such), they may be more accurate in viewing it as evidence of Maduro’s alarming attempt to limit opposition inﬂuence within the government. In 2015 the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (or MUN) won a majority in the National Assembly. With this majority, the Assembly could pass a constitutional amendment to shorten Maduro’s presidential term. Threatened, Maduro allowed the pro-government Supreme Court to assume the legislative powers normally assigned to the National Assembly, rendering the democratically elected Congress powerless.

In 2016 the prospect of a new order in politics in Venezuela seemed to be on the table as the country saw some of the largest protests in its history. On October 26, 2016, an estimated 1.2 million Venezuelans took to the streets to protest. People were fed up of worsening economic hardships, failed government strategies and the increasing humanitarian crisis in the country–but most of all, they were fed up of their president Nicolas Maduro.

The opposition responded with protests. Maduro’s over-ruling of the National Assembly was a worrying step towards authoritarianism, eﬀectively removing the MUN from Venezuelan government. The next six months would be deﬁned by protests which escalated in October as Maduro’s newly established National Electoral Council decided to suspend the referendum on

Two years on: Maduro has been elected for his second six-year term, 87 percent of the population are living in poverty and yet there are no protesters on the street. There is no sign of political reform and it appears that most of the Venezuelan people have given up campaigning for it. Why did the 2016 demonstrations fail to ignite

the president’s removal. It looked like protests were set to continue, but in a surprise turn of events both sides agreed to go into dialogues backed by Pope Francis.

However, it would be wrong to only place blame on Maduro. The opposition’s failure to trigger any political change goes further than Maduro’s moves against democracy. Since the end of military dictatorship in 1958, Venezuela has been critically divided between left and right. Maduro belongs to the legacy of Hugo Chavez’ Bolivarian Revolution: a socialist politics which represent the poor and non-white population. Although many belonging to this group are critical of Maduro, they are nevertheless reticent to leave behind the values of the Bolivarian Revolution. The problem is that the MUN is comprised of many rich white individuals who have been unsuccessful in using the ﬁve years of Maduro’s unpopular policies to win over the poor and non-white population. Failing to cash in on this opportunity has cost the Coalition. Before the May elections, 51 percent of the Venezuelan population said they wanted neither Maduro northe MUN to win the election.

These talks broke down, and after two months the Vatican pulled out. In April 2017 there was a brief but powerful revival of opposition protest after the arrest of opposition officials and attempts by Maduro to rewrite the constitution. However, the failure of the government to recognise the results of a referendum on the constituent assembly significantly took the wind out of the protests. Some feared repression from an increasingly militarised governmental response. Others lost hope in the absence of any democracy, and, following regional elections in which the few opposition candidates who did win governorships “jumped ship” and agreed to recognise the undemocratic Constituent Assembly, others gave up hope in the opposition itself. In 2018, whilst the protests which seemed to define the previous two years have died out, Maduro’s efforts to minimalise political opposition certainly haven’t.

The problem is not only how the MUN can gain back power in the face of Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian governance but also how the how they can oﬀer a new order that would appeal to more than half the country.

The likelihood of Venezuela plummeting further into humanitarian and economic crisis before any prospect of change emerges is high.

In a country distinctly torn between the left and the right, this leader will have to reach out to the former Chavistas, maintaining Chavez’s legacy of supporting the poor but also providing coherent, extensive economic strategies that will attract private investment, reform the oil industry and improve international relations.

Although Maduro did follow through on his promise for elections and has released 39 political prisoners, his eﬀorts have convinced few people. He continues down the path towards authoritarianism: altering the number of delegates allowed for each municipality and state capital in his favour; bringing forward the election date from December to May (seen by MUN as an attempt to stunt their chances); refusing to free opposition leader Leopoldo López, among others; and crucially, failing to recognise the democratically elected National Assembly. The opposition boycotted the election, turnout was only 46 percent, the one opposition member who broke ranks and did stand for election claimed the results were rigged. The international community (with the notable exceptions of Russia, China and Cuba) refused to accept the result. If Maduro continues to secure his hold on power by removing political opposition, then there is next to no hope for change within the country.

Stuck in a political stalemate, with inflation set to rise to over one million percent this year and the number of refugees fleeing the country since 2014 estimated at 2.3 million, Venezuela is experiencing a real impasse. What will happen if Brazil and Columbia introduce harsher migrant policies? And what if Trump’s increasing sanctions on Venezuela finally deter Chinese and Russian

economic crisis before any prospect of change emerges is high. It is clear that President Maduro is not the man to lead Venezuela out of its dilemma. But the more worrying question is, if not Maduro, then who? Not only does the prospect of Venezuelan political change depend on Maduro resigning (something which seems very unlikely), but it also depends on there being an alternative leader who has the peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s backing. The Venezuelan opposition is facing the age-old question: can a party rooted in the upper and middle classes win over the poor? In a country distinctly torn between the left and the right, this leader will have to reach out to the former Chavistas, maintaining Chavezâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; legacy of supporting the poor but also providing coherent, extensive economic strategies that will attract private investment, reform the oil industry and improve international relations. Until then, Venezuela will remain stuck in its political and economic drought.

Cybersecurity: Individual nuisance or systemic threat? Thomas Rizvi

In an era where vast quantities of personal data are stored in internet-connected devices, many individuals are concerned about their privacy – and recent hacks of Facebook and Equifax validate their concerns. But what are the implications of cybersecurity for the balance of power in international relations? We hear news occasionally about government departments being hacked, or companies suﬀering data breaches, but can this have a meaningful impact upon entire countries, or is it simply a problem that their citizens will be burdened with? If it can, what eﬀect will it have on the global balance of power?

rarely developed in a university lecture hall; instead, they are developed through experience and interaction with other like-minded individuals across the world on forums, an opportunity available to anyone connected to the internet. Furthermore, in many ways the traditional powers are disadvantaged in the field of cyberwarfare. They often face difficulties in recruiting talented workers. Nearly 40 percent of FBI cybersecurity jobs were left unfilled through 2014, with the then-director James Comey lamenting the fact that “I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview”.

While rich Western nations have long dominated international politics thanks to their ability to commit vast sums to military technology and capabilities, cyberwarfare oﬀers a much more level playing ﬁeld. Whereas facing up to the US in conventional warfare requires billions of dollars of military hardware, a single person armed with a laptop and an internet connection can do untold damage to US infrastructure. With such low barriers to entry, almost any state can get involved in cyber-espionage. Certainly, the West currently has an advantage in terms of number of agents and their skills. But hacking skills are

In addition, while internet connectivity is rapidly spreading across even the most deprived areas of the world, its adoption has mostly been by consumers, and particularly through mobile phones. In contrast, Western nations have seen a rapid increase in the connectivity of infrastructure such as hospital records, power grids, and rail infrastructure. Though many of these systems are just beginning to be connected to the internet, the underlying infrastructure may be decades old. As a parliamentary report on cybersecurity noted, “Many CNI [critical national infrastructure] computer systems were designed before cybersecurity

building up military strength or to track the movement of naval groups throughout the world’s oceans, but it is almost impossible to see the preparations for a cyberattack. Every day, secure servers around the world face login attempts from all directions, like a Jenga player constantly tapping a block to see if it will come loose. It goes without saying that a well-conﬁgured system will easily resist these attempts, one overlooked weakness, one port left open, and the threat of attack increases exponentially.

was a major concern. More hardware means that more devices need to have security patches installed, vulnerabilities addressed, and that there are more opportunities for devices to be hacked. Perhaps more concerningly, this also means a much greater opportunity for human error. All it takes is for one doctor to click an infected email attachment, and the whole system could be under threat”.

Whereas facing up to the US in conventional warfare requires billions of dollars of military hardware, a single person armed with a laptop and an internet connection can do untold damage to US infrastructure.

Furthermore, a skilled attacker might be able to remain undetected for months, surreptitiously intercepting communications and stealing information. In addition to these concerns, network infrastructure may also introduce potential supply chain issues that are unlikely to be encountered with traditional military hardware. Even if the products that end up being plugged in are made by a Western company, many computers, servers, and other network infrastructure devices contain chips made in China. A recent investigation by Bloomberg has alleged that more than 30 companies, including Apple and Amazon, installed servers that were compromised by a tiny chip installed during the manufacturing process. As the authors of the article point out, “Hardware hacks are more diﬃcult to pull oﬀ and potentially more devastating, promising the kind of long-term, stealth access that spy agencies are willing to invest millions of dollars and many years to get”. A military rarely has to fear that their equipment has a secret weakness that only their enemy knows about, but the same can’t be said for network equipment.

Certainly, I don’t think that the major battles of international conflict will be moved from the real to the virtual world. You can’t (yet) hack a soldier wielding a gun, so conventional military force will continue to be a key measure of a state’s international influence. It may be interesting to consider, however, that rising automation of the military may eventually leave it vulnerable to cyberattack. But one should not be quick to write off the threat that cyberwarfare and espionage pose. Of course, a cyberattack is unlikely to cause the same casualties as an attack by more tangible means. However, consider the consequences of an attack that takes down the power grid, or causes the stock market to plunge. It might not cause as much loss of life as a bombing, but it could nonetheless cripple a nation. You do not need to look any further than the WannaCry ransomware attack to see the chaos cyberespionage can cause: the attack crippled the NHS for several days in 2017 and forced some hospitals to resort to pen and paper. What is more concerning about the attack is the fact that it exploited a vulnerability that had been discovered by the NSA years earlier, which was stolen from them when they were themselves hacked in April 2017. Cyberwarfare also offers a great deal more uncertainty than traditional conflict. A state can use satellites and spy planes to observe an enemy

We have already begun to see cyberespionage being utilised by governments. Russian influence in the US election remains fiercely debated, but most accept they had some influence on the outcome. North Korea has long been suspected of engineering several cyberattacks against the West, including the November 2014 Sony hack. In addition to using it to damage their enemies, they have also allegedly used cyberespionage to help sustain themselves in the face of sanctions. A hack of the Bangladesh central bank, which was meticulously planned to take advantage of national holidays in two different countries, netted the attackers 81 million USD, which would make it one of the most expensive bank heists of all time. Similarly, Oxford and Cambridge have had research stolen by Iranian hackers, which allowed the state to get around sanctions that it still faces from many Western states. The first cyberweapon has already been deployed: the Stuxnet virus, suspected to have been created by either the US or Israel, infected computers at Iranian nuclear facilities, and caused centrifuges to fail, going undetected for more than a year.

While conventional warfare is not going away any time soon, it would be unwise to underestimate the threat that cyberwarfare and espionage poses. Keeping a nation and its infrastructure safe requires constant vigilance, careful network design, and proactivity in updating and monitoring equipment. Sadly, governments (and frequently private sector businesses) all too frequently adopt an “if it ain’t broke don’t ﬁx it” attitude to IT and network security. The NHS computers infected with WannaCry, for instance, were still running Windows XP. If the West wishes to extend its privileged position in the new emerging global order into the much more level ﬁeld of cyberwarfare, they would be well advised to modify this strategy and commit to investing in network infrastructure.

One overlooked weakness, one port left open, and the threat of attack increases exponentially.

Competition

China’s Belt and Road: Threat or opportunity for the liberal order? Guieseppe Spatafora

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the idea of building a ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ across Eurasia. After a few months, he proposed a ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ in a speech to the Indonesian Parliament. Five years later, these two projects have merged in what is arguably the most ambitious economic and diplomatic enterprise of the 21st century: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or One Belt One Road (OBOR). BRI involves over 80 countries across three continents and along six economic ‘corridors’, plus an additional route to the Arctic. It encompasses infrastructure and development projects cumulatively worth US $900 billion. The most remarkable projects include the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the trans-Eurasian railways network, Ethiopia's Eastern Industrial Zone and the construction of ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Djibouti, and Algeria.

mainstream explanation is that China is rejecting liberalism and embracing neo-mercantilism. Neo-mercantilism is the economic equivalent of political realism: in a world of finite resources, the accumulation of wealth and resources in the hands of one state will increase that state’s power and prosperity. Hence the state should promote its national companies abroad and ensure a net inflow in the country’s funds. Chinese practices in OBOR seem to follow this strategy: over 80 percent of BRI projects are contracted to Chinese companies, often state-owned enterprises, and Beijing controls most of the funding for these projects through institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), and China’s own Silk Road Fund. It can also exert heavy influence on the Beijing-based Silk Road Dispute Settlement Tribunal. China’s neo-mercantilist strategy looks aggressive and revisionist; it seems to challenge the rules of the liberal world order -based on the centrality of multilateral cooperation -- as well as respect for rule of law and transparency, the nexus between economic and political liberalisation, and

The United States and regional powers in Asia and Europe have grown concerned about China’s strategy: what is the rationale behind this gigantic endeavour? The

local ownership of development projects. The AIIB and the Silk Road Fund have loose requirements in terms of transparency and political guarantees to issue a loan. This makes their loans attractive to developing countries which are in need of cash but unwilling to enforce the stringent political and economic standards set by the World Bank, the IMF, and the European Union. In addition to normative concerns, countries and institutions are afraid that BRI may cause immediate material disruptions. One issue is a surge in global debt: IMF Director Christine Lagarde has argued that BRI’s ventures could lead to a problematic increase in debt, creating balance of payment challenges and disrupting the global financial infrastructure. For example, a single BRI project in Laos is worth more than the whole nation’s GDP. How will the country pay it back? What will the company request in case of non-compliance? A second issue is the loss of sovereign control. Recipient countries such as Malaysia and Sri Lanka have complained that Chinese projects may de facto become Beijing’s extra-territorial enclaves in their respective homelands. Uncertainty and fear about China’s true intentions behind OBOR has provoked increasingly assertive counter-initiatives by other countries. Washington has expressed its scepticism, refusing to take part in any BRI-related project or institution. However, given the Trump administration’s criticism of international arrangements, it has not proposed an alternative structure. On the other hand, Japan presented the ‘Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure’ in 2015, and together with India launched the ‘Asia-Africa Growth Corridor’ in 2017. Joined by the United States and Australia, these countries now discuss harmonising their efforts within the so-called ‘Quad’, initially a security dialogue format. Lastly, the EU has recently put forward its ‘Sustainable Connectivity Strategy’, aimed at promoting higher political, regulatory and environmental standards in the very same area where BRI operates. In sum, BRI worries many supporters of the existing order. But is all this concern justified? Are we sure that China’s project is incompatible with the liberal order? Although some elements of BRI do remind us of economic nationalism, there is an evident contradiction between the neo-mercantilist approach and China’s economic-financial position.The rationale behind neo-mercantilism

is the accumulation of wealth and resources. However, China is already a capital-intensive economy and is in a consistently positive Net International Investment Position (NIIP). Beijing does not need to accumulate further capital by investing abroad; rather, its focus should be on consumption-driven growth.

Recipient countries such as Malaysia and Sri Lanka have complained that Chinese projects may de facto become Beijing’s extra-territorial enclaves in their respective homelands. China’s alleged revisionism is a matter of debate. We tend to assume that Beijing’s ultimate goal is globalising the assertive stance that it has recently displayed in its neighbourhood. In other words, BRI would be the economic equivalent of China’s construction of militarised islands in the South China Sea. But while China has obvious strategic incentives to alter the status quo in its maritime vicinity because it regards it as part of its national territory (whether this is justiﬁed or should be accepted is another matter), it has no strong motivations to overturn the existing order completely. Despite the numerous criticisms of its human rights record and existing tensions with the West, China thrives in the liberal capitalist order. It enjoyed a massive, unprecedented economic expansion as it gradually opened up and accepted free market and its institutions, chief among them the World Trade Organisation (WTO). China’s prosperity depends in large part on the continuation of the existing order, which allows it to trade and invest. And it has acted to sustain it in the past; Beijing assumed a key role in cushioning both the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 18

1990s and the global ﬁnancial crisis of 2008. The West often complains about China not doing enough for the international community, yet they usually forget how Beijing helped them avoid a ﬁnancial meltdown.

involvement as a responsible stakeholder. Will China use the Belt and Road Initiative to overturn the international rules-based order? The answer is not that straightforward. Certain aspects of BRI seem to pose a direct challenge to the existing infrastructure of development. China’s unilateral behaviour has raised legitimate concerns. However, BRI is not fundamentally opposed to the liberal order: there is at least the potential for it to become an additional tassel in the jigsaw of global governance. This new interpretation calls for a different, more engaging Western strategy vis-à-vis BRI. If they keep containing or ostracising the initiative, they will soon be alienated from an expanding project that attracts many developing countries, some of which are ready to accept China’s assertiveness. By participating in BRI projects, instead, Western leaders can influence the financing process, by pushing the inclusion of higher standards in the lending process; they can counter instances of Chinese unilateralism by blocking projects that do not have a minimum level of local ownership; and they can bridge the standard gap between Chinese and international requirements. They have the opportunity to lock in China as a responsible actor, linking the economic and security governance elements of BRI to the existing structure of global governance. In short, engagement can turn the diplomatic enterprise of the 21st century not into a threat to the rules-based order, but into a new asset. This is consistent with the post-WWII, US-led order’s commitment to guaranteeing prosperity through the promotion of the free market.

A more careful reading of BRI suggests that its premise is, in fact, compatible with the liberal order. OBOR is, at its heart, a market-based development initiative: it aims to create the conditions for non-debt based ﬁnancing in emerging countries. It is not a new Marshall Plan, because it is not based on grants, but on investment. BRI uses the market to build markets and the necessary infrastructure to sustain them. This is consistent with the post-WWII, US-led order’s commitment to guaranteeing prosperity through the promotion of the free market.

Despite the numerous criticisms of its human rights record and existing tensions with the West, China thrives in the liberal capitalist order: Moreover, the values promoted in BRI – openness, joint development and consultation, and win-win cooperation – are not too different from the established goals of international cooperation. There are at least two ways in which the Belt and Road platform can strengthen the existing order. First, BRI reaches the parts of the world that the Western financial infrastructure has been the least able to penetrate: China’s own Western regions, South and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa. These countries and regions look at OBOR as a way to insert themselves into financial markets and into the global value chain. Second, by investing in underdeveloped and politically volatile regions, China will increase its stakes in the preservation of peace and prosperity. In order to protect the soon-to-be-built infrastructure in Northern Pakistan, Beijing will need to establish a mechanism for security governance together with the Pakistani government. Similar security concerns arise in Central Asia and Africa. China has already increased its stake in international security operations, sending peacekeeping forces in a number of international missions, from Mali to South Sudan to Darfur. BRI epitomises the nexus between economic and security governance, both of which require greater Chinese

East, West or afar? The Visegrad Group and the future of Central Europe Sasha Thompson

Russian disinformation campaigns. Zeman and Orbán’s backgrounds as liberal dissidents may seem surprising in this light, with both men championing liberal democracy in their youth. As for Slovakia, the former Prime Minister, Robert Fico, visited Moscow in 2015 to commemorate the 70-year-anniversary of the end of the Second World War, denounced EU sanctions and has questioned western narratives regarding the war in Eastern Ukraine.

In 1991, the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary met to form the Visegrad Group, an alliance of central European countries throwing oﬀ the shackles of Communism and hoping to join the European integration process. As the 30th anniversary of 1989, the year that signiﬁed the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, approaches, the Visegrad Four are rejecting ‘EU values’ of liberal democracy while some are advocating closer ties with Russia. The four countries are also facing an unexpectedly strong pull towards another eastern power, China. How far are these countries willing to abandon EU principles and what are the disparities between the attitudes of their leaders, and that of their societies?

By contrast, Poland’s de facto leader, Jarosław Kaczyński is less inclined to support the Kremlin, especially considering his belief that Moscow was behind the 2010 Smolensk crash that killed his brother, the former president Lech Kaczyński. Poland remains one of the greatest advocates of EU sanctions against Russia.

Considering past relations between the Soviet Union and the countries of the Visegrad Four, it would seem surprising that their leaders have become some of Europe’s most vocal Kremlin supporters. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary invited Vladimir Putin to Budapest after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and more recently criticised EU sanctions towards Russia in February 2017. Putin’s authoritarianism has inﬂuenced the creation of so-called ‘illiberal democracy’ in Hungary. President Miloš Zeman of the Czech Republic has called the Crimea annexation a “fait accompli” and has openly voiced his support for Russia. He has also repeatedly attacked the Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats, established in January 2017 in Prague to combat

Support for Moscow can be partially explained by economic pragmatism. A huge proportion of these countries’ energy supplies comes from Russia, making criticism of the Kremlin risky. Furthermore, the four leaders are not entirely sycophantic: all have expressed anti-Kremlin views, including opposition to the Nord Stream II pipeline and its potential to be used in the blackmail of Ukraine. Three of the four (Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic) expelled Russian diplomats after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. While the pro-Kremlin tendencies of most of the Visegrad Group leaders may worry Brussels, what

do recent elections reveal about the population’s attitudes towards Russia? In Slovakia, the fascist and pro-Russian People’s Party-Our Slovakia (LSNS) entered parliament for the first time with 8% of the vote. In the Czech Republic, January 2018 saw Zeman re-elected for a third term, while another pro-Russian far-right party entered parliament for the first time in October 2017 with 10.6% of the vote. Once more, Poland is an anomaly in this regard, with no mainstream pro-Russian political parties. Hungary’s ruling party Fidesz is staunchly pro-Russian as is the far-right party Jobbik, the second largest party in parliament. Aside from politics, GLOBSEC (a global think-tank based in Bratislava) has published several reports on the attitudes of the societies of the four countries. Its 2017 ‘Vulnerability Index’ highlights the various ways in which Russia has influenced attitudes in Central Europe, with multi-pronged disinformation campaigns through the internet and its international TV channels, RT and Sputnik.

and the former members of the Soviet bloc in Europe. 16+1 is also linked with China’s Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to link 64 countries from Asia to Europe. The initiative has led to sizeable Chinese investments in the region. From 2012-2016, China’s infrastructure investment in the Visegrad 4 totalled over $4.5 billion, although it is yet to invest in Slovakia. Chinese banks have also funded a railway connecting Belgrade to Budapest, the construction of which began in November 2017. In the same year, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences opened a branch in Budapest, in order to promote “mutual understanding and intellectual cooperation.” The Chinese have found allies in Orbán and Zeman.

A 2018 GLOBSEC report notes that Slovak society displays the highest level of pro-Russian support among the Visegrad Four. The idea of pan-Slavism and the role of the Soviet Union in the Slovak National Uprising of August 1944 has remained in the collective memory of the Slovak public. This explains the increasing desire to be allied with Russia (13% of the population according to polling data), the highest proportion of the four countries. In stark contrast, 71% of Poles consider Russia to be a threat.

The crushing of the Budapest Uprising and Prague Spring still play a role in the public’s imagination, with only 5% of respondents in both countries desiring an eastward alignment.

In the Czech Republic and Hungary, Zeman and Orbán do not speak for the majority of their populations with their pro-Russian views. The crushing of the Budapest Uprising and Prague Spring still play a role in the public’s imagination, with only 5% of respondents in both countries desiring an eastward alignment. The 2018 GLOBSEC report concluded that around half of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak populations would prefer their countries to ﬁnd a middle-ground between West and East. Pragmatism is once again favourable, suggesting that claims of an imminent Russian takeover of Central Europe are alarmist.

The eﬀects of the 2016 migrant and refugee crisis compounded by EU criticism of their authoritarian policies have pushed these countries towards China. Orbán has stated that he will seek Chinese investment should the EU fail to provide suﬃcient funds, while Zeman has been cultivating links with China for years. In 2015, he was the sole western leader to attend a military parade in Beijing, and he was close with the now-arrested Ye Jianming, founder of CEFC China Energy.

While this struggle takes place in the heart of Europe, a third power, China, has sensed an opportunity. Established in April 2012, the 16+1 initiative aims to forge closer ties between China

This potential co-operation could pose major problems to the EU. Through its influence over these countries, China can thwart attempts to oppose its actions regarding the South China Sea, Taiwan, and human rights issues. China is seen much more favourably than Russia, or at least neutrally, amongst the majority of populations in the Visegrad Four and this makes cooperation less likely to cause domestic backlash. Furthermore, Chinese money comes without the caveats of transparency associated with EU funding, increasing and abetting corruption in the region. Both East and West are competing to create new spheres of influence in the heart of Europe, forging a new order. The EU is still heralded as the best means to prosperity, freedom and democracy by the majority of the Visegrad Four’s populations, and the outcome of negotiations over EU budget allocations will play a huge role in the struggle for influence. Yet, dependence on Russian energy and public disinformation campaigns mean the Kremlin is tilting attitudes eastwards, particularly in Hungary and Czech Republic, even though it is still encountering resistance in Poland. All the while, China offers a tantalising alternative to eastern Europe’s political leaders. Looking beyond 2020, the battle for the future of the Visegrad Four is very much in the balance.

Changing of the Guard: Warring influences in Pakistan Gareth Hynes & Tanyah Hameed China and the US increasingly find themselves vying for dominance in world affairs. This year has seen tensions between the two countries in the trade arena, a breakdown of the 2015 cyber espionage ‘ceasefire’, and continued jostling for strategic sea lanes in the South China Sea. Fresh accusations of Chinese meddling in the US elections indicate a more publicly aggressive stance from the Trump administration. However, as the two superpowers jostle for influence, the impacts have been felt in a less prominent arena of world politics: South Asia. Host to a quarter of the world’s population, the region is dominated by the nuclear states of India and Pakistan, both of which are entwined with China and the US in complicated and yet constantly evolving relationships. As America’s politicians adopt an increasingly isolationist posture on the world stage, China is now seeking to challenge the traditional US strategic dominance in the region.

troops, the alliance has again weakened and the two countries are drifting apart once more. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that US objectives for the region are viewed as self-serving. Though many feel it is justified to use sanctions to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially in a state with such a history of instability (in Pakistan’s history to date, no Prime Minister has seen out a full term in office, and military coups have been common), such measures are not well received, especially by a country trying to keep on a military par with its regional rival to the east. Such efforts to limit Pakistan’s military capability are also contrasted with the US-led interventions in the Muslim nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, which provide a reminder of the extent of the US military force around the world. In particular, the assassination of Osama bin Laden was seen as a flagrant violation of the national sovereignty of an ally, with Pakistanis turning their ire towards the US rather than questioning why this terrorist leader was housed in the heart of their country. As a consequence of Pakistan’s long-standing support for al-Qaeda

Since its formation in 1947, Pakistan has had a turbulent relationship with the US. The US has taken a somewhat capricious approach to its ally, alternatively drawing Pakistan close when it suits and chastising it when it doesn’t. During the Cold War in the late 1970s, Pakistan and the US allied to actively train and arm the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the USSR. As the alliance weakened after the war, the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan to curtail its development of nuclear weapons. After 9/11 Pakistan was again drawn close with substantial aid in the form of Coalition Support Funds, amounting to some $13 billion, to allow supply lines through its territory for the NATO war eﬀort in Afghanistan. In more recent times, however, as the US began its drawdown of

and the Haqqani network in Pakistan and Afghanistan, used by Pakistan to to bolster its influence in the region, $300 million in US aid has recently been halted. As a result, Pakistan considers the US an unreliable ally. In stark contrast, China is seen in Pakistan as an ‘all-weather friend’. Pakistan was one of the first countries to officially recognise the People’s Republic of China in 1950, and supports China’s position on Taiwan, Nepal, and the South China Sea. In return, China has been instrumental in supporting Pakistan’s nuclear development programme and has previously sided with Islamabad against Delhi over the disputed region of Kashmir. However, what was once a relationship of equals has more recently tilted towards China. Beijing is increasingly looking to flex its economic and military muscle in in the region and the world at large. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a powerful symbol of this new Chinese desire for economic and strategic predominance, and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship project in this series of large-scale infrastructure projects. Signed in 2015, CPEC connects Western China to Gwadar in southern Pakistan and the Arabian Sea. CPEC was estimated to be worth $62 billion in 2017. The promised projects within Pakistan, focusing mostly on energy and infrastructure, were met with great optimism from the government and most citizens at first. Plagued by political and economic instability, Pakistan is far from a natural choice for foreign investors, and with the promise of an economic upswing, it seemed that Pakistan’s all-weather friend had once again come to the rescue. As a result, its condition that only Chinese firms and workers undertake construction activities was overlooked.

prey to China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’. Sri Lanka’s inability to pay for the Chinese-built port in Hambantota has led to control being handed over to China as part of a 99-year lease, as well as ceding 70% of its proﬁts. China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy of building and owning ports along the Indian Ocean fuels concerns that Beijing will try to dominate maritime trade in the years to come.

As visible Chinese influence grows, Pakistani media is increasingly voicing concerns over “neo-colonialism” and drawing parallels with the British East India Company. Pakistan’s new government, under Prime Minister Imran Khan, views CPEC with much more scepticism than its predecessor. It is actively scaling down activity, suspending many projects and criticising agreements it regards as unfair to Pakistani companies. A move towards more transparency on ﬁnancial details has revealed that most loans for CPEC are funded by private Chinese banks. These loans are paid directly by the banks to Chinese building companies, which buy their equipment in China and often employ Chinese workers, so that most of this money never ﬁnds its way into Pakistani banking channels. Pakistan does, however, pick up the tab, and now faces a foreign reserve crisis requiring an imminent bailout of up to $7-12 billion from the International Monetary Fund, which has in turn demanded full disclosure over Chinese loans before it acts. While China’s banks have provided

However, this optimism now stands tainted. In Balochistan, a province of Pakistan, critics have strongly challenged the alleged re-routing of the ‘eastern route’ which would run through this often-neglected region. As visible Chinese inﬂuence grows, Pakistani media is increasingly voicing concerns over “neo-colonialism” and drawing parallels with the British East India Company. This is primarily linked to China’s 40-year lease on the Gwadar port, and its plans to build an International Port City for over 500,000 Chinese professionals around it, something which could have demographic consequences in the sparsely populated Balochistan province. Examples elsewhere further fuel the anxiety of falling

short term financing to counter fiscal default, it has showed little interest in bailing Pakistan out, much to Khan’s consternation. Activity has also slowed down under the second phase of the projects, which involves more sensitive decisions on the location of industrial parks. Pakistan now stands caught between its two supposed allies. If Beijing continues to refuse to fund its bailout, this may well drive Pakistan back to the US-dominated IMF. With many in the US reluctant for IMF funds to be used to pay off Chinese loans, there is something of an impasse. However, Pakistan does have cards to play. Its cooperation is necessary for ongoing US efforts in Afghanistan, and it effectively stalled the war effort in 2011 when it cut NATO supply lines. With CPEC being the flagship BRI project, if Pakistan chooses to take money from the IMF and renegotiate its BRI deals, the balance of international power may be seen to tilt back towards the US. Khan is expected to visit Beijing in the near future, and this visit should shed light on not only the future of CPEC but also how the competition between China and the US might play out in the region and the wider world. Whatever path Pakistan decides to take, it will serve as a reminder to the two superpowers to consider carefully the political and strategic needs of their smaller allies, without which their international ambitions may quickly flounder.

Inverting Inequality: Can America’s New Left turn the tide on inequality? Julia Pierza

midterms, running on a platform of free healthcare, a carbon-free energy system by 2035, and the abolishment of ICE. At the age of just 29, she is the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress.

America’s endemic inequality problem is now more acute than ever. We heard it before: the 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, but what does this really mean? To be a part of the 1% a family in America needs a household income of around $450,000; and in 2015 the 1% earned more than 22% of all income. To put this in perspective, the last time the 1% owned so much wealth was just before the Great Depression of 1928.

To get this far, she had to beat the epitome of the Democratic establishment: Joe Crowley, Chair of the Democratic Caucus and incumbent since 2013, during the Democratic primaries in June. CNN called his loss “the most signiﬁcant for a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade”. The resurgence of class rhetoric was evident in Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign - she asserted that “This race is about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money.”

Today the bottom 90% holds 73% of all debt and young Progressives are bringing the issue of inequality, whether it be social, economic or political, to the forefront of US politics. Cue the 2018 midterms and an inﬂux of Democratic Progressives have shocked the Democratic establishment. Young, socially diverse, and charismatic these Democrats are more likely to call themselves ‘socialists’ than ever before, redeﬁning the historically contentious label. Their vision for a socialist America is a democratic system that works to achieve a more equal society through greater social ownership, whilst rejecting a wholly state planned economy.

It saw Syriza’s victory in Greece, Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party, and the popularity of Podemos in Spain. A clear sign of a surge in support for more radical socialist solutions to economic stagnation. However, fragmented by New Labour and the ‘third way’ approach the Old Left struggles to make itself palatable to voters who no longer identify with a class. Almost a decade of the Eurozone’s lacklustre growth made Europe a fertile ground for a new left-wing populism that has brought today’s anti-establishment left into the mainstream.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her seat in the House of Representatives for New York’s 14th Congressional District during this November’s

In Greece, the Coalition of the Radical Left known as SYRIZA came into power during a vacuum; PASOK and New Democracy, the two mainstream parties bore the electoral fallout of the country’s economic disaster in 2010. The party led by students and left-wing intellectuals promised to reverse the unpopular austerity measures. That same year, the UK’s newly elected Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, attacked austerity, founding the grassroots movement we know as ‘Momentum’. Yet, if we are to judge these parties by their eﬀectiveness at reducing inequality we won’t ﬁnd much Although the politics of class has been a traditionally European endeavour, growing inequality in the US has raised today’s generation of candidates, who relate to the struggles of wage insecurity, student debt and inadequate healthcare coverage. The left’s moment in America mirrors that of Europe’s in 2015; a watershed year for European left-wing parties. Success.

‘America First’ approach which gloriﬁes the white American worker. The American left has also taken cues from the success of Europe’s populist left. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign embraced vague promises of economic nationalism, which, if implemented, wouldn’t have tackled economic inequality where it remains greatest -- in the Hispanic and African-American communities. However, Sanders has since then been outshined by progressive newcomers. Candidates such as Ilhan Omar, a former Somali refugee who won Minnesota’s 5th district in the 2018 midterms, or Christine Hallquist, the ﬁrst transgender candidate for Vermont’s Gubernatorial seat who narrowly lost: they represent the future. Their use of anti-establishment rhetoric is a product of frustration over rampant inequality. It is a powerful political tool that has made inequality salient with mainstream voters and this alone doesn’t threaten democracy: populist demagoguery does.

Syriza was at its core a populist party, willing to disregard its principles at the first instance by forming a coalition with the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL). The party’s 2015 referendum on the EU deal for fiscal and structural reforms brought a politically humiliating U-turn forcing the country to accept virtually the same deal months later. It is estimated the Third Memorandum signed by Tsipras in 2015 cost the country €86 billion and forced it to adopt further austerity measures, such as privatisation. In 2018, the economy is beginning to show signs of a slow recovery, yet inequality is rampant due to chronic unemployment, 43% among young people as of March 2018. Meanwhile the centre-right New Democracy shows a 10-point lead in the polls as of September 2018. Syriza’s ineffectiveness is rooted in its fundamentally populist approach: denouncing a corrupt elite and promising radical left-wing reform, which reinvigorated the electorate but offered no real solutions.

“This race is about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money.” Progressives now entering Congress, following the November midterms, will be a crucial base of support for policies such as Elizabeth Warren’s American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, which tackles the roots of social and economic inequality caused by the discriminatory legacy of zoning laws. More significantly, these candidates will affect local level changes. Julia Salazar, now a New York State Senator, has vowed to pass a state ‘Health Act’ replacing the current multi-payer system for state-wide coverage, reducing overall spending on healthcare by 15%. However, these candidates of progress continue to face an uphill struggle against the behemoths in the American political system: the super PACs and corporations. Just this September, Cynthia Nixon lost the New York Democratic Gubernatorial primary to incumbent, Andrew Cuomo. Despite this, her impressive campaign had received 2,214 small-dollar donations (less than $200) by March 2018, compared to Cuomo’s just 1,369 since 2011. As a face of the Democratic establishment in New York, Cuomo was endorsedby figures such as Hillary Clinton, and is one of the Democratic Party’s most prolific

Granted Corbyn has not enjoyed the same level of political power, but his leadership of the Labour Party overshadowed by anti-Semitism scandals such as his attendance of a wreath-ceremony for Palestinians associated with the Black September attacks. Politico labelled Corbynism “Britain’s most dangerous export”, citing Corbyn’s reference to ‘NATO belligerence’ as a cause for the annexation of Crimea in 2014, among other reasons. Corbyn shows an increasing aﬃnity to the tactics of individuals such as Trump; his #BuildItInBritain speech eerily echoes Trump’s

corporate fundraisers. With big money on his side and Nixon’s pledge not to accept corporate money at all, her chances of winning were slim. The lack of strong regulations on campaign ﬁnance has started to trouble many Democratic Senators, such as Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, who have also pledged to stop accepting corporate money. America’s left may ﬁnally see its opportunity to turn the legal tide against inequality as a new ‘blue wave’ crashes into Congress. Yet, with the Senate remaining Republican and a conservative Supreme Court likely to resist change, today’s progressives have a long way to go. Much like Europe in 2015 there is a sense of hope and change; one can only hope it provides practical, as opposed to populist, solutions.

Challenges 29

What next for Malaysia? The temptations and opportunities of reform Thomas Benson

Malaysia’s dramatic general election in May 2018 attracted worldwide attention for its multiple paradoxes. The incumbent right-wing party, Barisan National (BN), was overthrown for the ﬁrst time in the country’s 60-year history by a progressive centre-left coalition. Remarkably, this progressive victory was delivered by former right-wing BN prime minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, who joined the left-wing coalition in order to overthrow his own successor and mentee, Najib Razak. Shortly after winning the election, the 92-year old Mahathir freed opposition politician and former enemy Anwar Ibrahim from prison, indicating he would cede power to Ibrahim within the next few years. This turn in political fortune for Ibrahim was especially strange, as Mahathir had played a key role in his original jail sentence in the 1990s on questionable charges.

president Najib Razak faces imprisonment on corruption charges, the direction of Malaysia’s political reform is now largely dependent upon the developing anti-corruption initiative that formed the centerpiece of the victorious coalition Pakatan Harapan’s election campaign. Perhaps no issue could have united the disparate forces within Mahathir’s coalition like the multibillion-dollar corruption scandal involving Malaysia’s state development fund 1MDB. Anti-corruption’s broad appeal lies within its juxtaposition of revolutionary acts and rhetoric – the imprisonment of political opponents, sweeping reform, swift justice – and its conservative upholding of rule of law. The prosecution of political corruption can either be an anti-democratic abuse of power or a democratic invocation of justice, and it remains to be seen what road Malaysia may take. South Korea provides a democratic model for prosecuting corruption, having imprisoned multiple leaders over corruption scandals, most recently and notably former president Park Geun-hye in April this year, in response to popular

Malaysia’s new political landscape is a hotbed of contradictions. Will it bring a new hope for progressive democracy in Asia or the reinstillation of an autocrat on a bed of nationalist nostalgia? As former

What positive lessons can be drawn from South America? Both progressive and conservative factors are in play. Democracy can be a powerful force for legitimacy and transparency in government, but it relies on the strength of proper legislative and judicial oversight. The data from South America arguably demonstrates that corruption is curtailed when public accountability meets an independent judiciary and functioning legislature.However, as former president ‘Lula’ da Silva protests that his imprisonment was engineered by ‘right-wing elites’ to remove him from Brazil’s presidential race and prevent him from seizing power, the ambiguities between the exercise of power and its abuse are never absent from the discourses of anti-corruption.

protests calling for government accountability. However, in neighbouring Thailand, corruption has repeatedly been used to justify military coups against the government. If anti-corruption is a platform both to enforce the law and to reform the system, it is only as good as its enforcers and its reformers. As an electoral issue anti-corruption has reached beyond South-East Asia. In Central and South America, a wave of anti-corruption activity has recently overtaken the region after a decade of endemic governmental corruption. In Brazil, a particularly bizarre instance of anti-corruption eﬀorts within politics has seen the former president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, leading polls for the October election despite being behind bars for corruption and money laundering. Meanwhile in Peru, allegations of corruption have forced a change of administration after the resignation of former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. In Guatemala, Panama, and El Salvador, former presidents from all three countries are being tried under corruption and money laundering charges. Analysis carried out in the Washington Post by German Petersen used the dataset Varieties of Democracy to isolate the driving factors of this anti-corruption push. Using linear models to test the impact of four factors -- economic liberalisation, electoral democratisation, legislative constraints on the executive branch, and judicial constraints on the executive branch -- Petersen has argued that neither economic liberalisation or democratisation had much bearing on curbing corruption within Central and South America. Instead, the proper implementation of legislative and judicial oversight proved most eﬀective for reducing corruption. However, this oversight was exercised most commonly in instances where public demands for accountability were loud and clear: widespread public protests that demonstrated popular intolerance of corrupt governance.

The prosecution of political corruption can either be an anti-democratic abuse of power or a democratic invocation of justice, and it remains to be seen what road Malaysia may take. Closer to Malaysia, China offers an illustrative example of the autocratic power of anti-corruption campaigns. A far-ranging anti-corruption campaign was one of the most significant defining features of Xi Jinping’s ascendancy to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012. Its ‘tigers and flies’ philosophy of prosecuting both high-level and low-level civil servants alike led to more than 100,000 indictments, including more than 120 high-level officials. Scholarly and popular debate is currently divided over the political motivations of the campaign, variously characterising it as a political purge, a factional struggle, an attempt to reduce the power of party elders, such as former president Jiang Zemin, or more simply as a genuine attempt to enact positive change and weed out endemic corruption within the Chinese civil service. Whatever motivation or combination of motives, however, it seems irrefutable that the campaign has tightened Xi’s increasingly authoritarian hold over the party.

China’s recent turn towards authoritarianism casts a troubling shadow over hopes for reform, with many progressives in Malaysia recalling Mahathir’s own past as authoritarian ruler. Instilling reform relies not only on Mahathir’s personal transformation from autocrat to democrat, but a transformation of Malaysia’s entire politics. Malaysia’s legislature is in dire need of reform. The democratic anger that unseated Razak relied on an unwieldy coalition of interest voters, and political transparency is complicated by the mass destruction of files and documents related to government debt and stolen funds. Mahathir is a singularly charismatic figure within Malaysian politics, running a smaller government with fewer ministers than his predecessor. Without reform of Malaysia’s institutions, Mahathir’s anti-corruption reform could easily become an authoritarian tool for strengthening his position at the expense of government and country. For the moment, however, there is hope that Malaysia’s first change in ruling party will occasion real chance for political reform. Early reports from Malaysia indicate that the task ahead of them is substantial, if not overwhelming. For reform to be truly progressive, the new ruling coalition must focus on re-establishing the rule of law and increasing transparency and accountability in government. Perhaps more importantly, it must resist the temptation to exploit anti-corruption initiatives to consolidate political power and thus become no less corrupt than the government it replaced. Ibrahim, looking towards his own ascension to power, has predicted a ‘new beginning’ for his country; it now remains to be seen what this new beginning will achieve for the future of Malaysia.

Democracy with Rwandan Characteristics: Rwanda in the footsteps of Singapore & China Matthew MacGeoch

when people have no food, no education, no access to hospitals?’” According to the World Bank and other development indicators, Kagame appears to be justiﬁed. Since 2000, Rwanda has averaged 7.6 percent annual GDP growth; 97 percent of children now attend primary school; 29 higher education institutions now exist, up from one in the year 2000; people drive on the streets without worry of corrupt traﬃc police; all citizens have basic health insurance; and the government continues to pursue data-driven policymaking, with ministers held accountable to measurable targets.Rwanda, in stark contrast to its neighbours, including the likes of the DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania, has had much success in curbing corruption and cultivating a rule of law.

In March 2018, around 1,600 people gathered in the Rwandan capital of Kigali for the second Next Einstein Forum (NEF), a science and technology event which hosted a keynote speech by Rwanda’s President of 18 years – Paul Kagame. This event also witnessed the launch of Africa’s first scientific journal, The Scientific African. This event came following many years of investment from the Rwandan government in education and information technology. The government’s aim is to overcome the landlocked country’s physical remoteness by covering the country with a network of fibre optic cables. The success of these policies is reflected by the number of internet users in Rwanda surging from 5000 in 2000 to 3.7 million in 2015, an impressive 31.9 percent of the population, and a mobile penetration rate of 76 percent in 2018.

Ministers and police oﬃcers are among many who have been tried and jailed for corruption.The watchdog Transparency International says that Rwanda is less graft-ridden than Greece or Italy. Furthermore, Rwanda does not seem to have progressed at the cost of gender equality. Ventures Africa, a news outlet based in Nigeria,

At this conference, Kagame refuted critics of Rwanda’s policy of investment in ICT education, saying “When we started investing in ICT around the year 2000, many people thought it was a joke. They would say ‘how can you start investing in ICT

The parallels between Rwanda and Singapore and China are not coincidental. Rwanda created the ‘Kigali Special Economic Zone’ – modelled onChina’s Special Economic Zones which led to rapid development during Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Open Door’ Policy. Kagame refers to Rwanda as the ‘Singapore of Africa’, and cultivates Singaporean expertise on everything from urban planning to the police. A year after China reopening its embassy in Kigali in 1994 – the ﬁrst country to do so after the 1994 genocide – Rwanda sent a delegation to China to study the country’s economic development. This relationship continues: members of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front went to Beijing in 2015 to study the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leadership structure, and hundreds of Rwandan students are hosted on scholarships to study in China every year.

states that local councils and non-proﬁts are “dominated by women who intend to ensure that Rwanda does not return to the days prior and just after the genocide”. Kagame even stated, “If oppressed women should wage a war, I would readily smuggle ammunition to them, for it would be a justiﬁed war”. Additionally, Rwanda has one of the highest rates of female labour force participation in the world at 86 percent, with women also getting three full months of paid maternity leave – in part thanks to a parliament that is representative: two thirds of parliamentary ministers in Rwanda are women.

Rwanda, in stark contrast to its neighbours, including the likes of the DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania, has had much success in curbing corruption and cultivating a rule of law.

Rwanda’s ambassador to China during that state visit, Rugaba Silas, said that “The part that Rwanda wanted to learn was how China managed to grow despite its history. It’s not a matter of Rwanda emulating exactly what China did but understanding the logic behind why China did not fail when it had such a complicated and bloody history”.

Conversely, not everything is so peachy about Rwanda’s post genocide development. Kagame has always won more than 90 percent of the vote, and opponents are often prevented from campaigning and are harassed. Moreover, a constitutional term limit that would have ended his 2017 campaign hopes was amended by a referendum, in which 98 percent of voters supported extending term limits so his presidency can continue to a maximum of 2034. These practices, both in terms of eﬀective economic policy and one-party rule, have been learned from the likes of Singapore and China, where single party rule has provided a stable government that developed society eﬃciently, but at a cost to personal and social freedoms.

China’s President Xi Jinping, prior to his 2018 visit to Rwanda, echoed this in Rwanda’s leading newspaper The New Times, “Both our two countries endured great suﬀerings in history. That is why we cherish the national stability, ethnic unity and economic development we now enjoy, and take pride in what we have accomplished along the way.” Kagame himself was asked about Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) soon after the Singaporean founding father’s death. He responded “Evidently, an inspiration. A great man, driven by great principles and who achieved great things with a small country. LKY has transformed Singapore and the lives of his people. This is also what we are doing in Rwanda.”

This learning stretches from economic and educational policies that drive the country towards a knowledge-based economy, policies on corruption, and an obsession with clean streets.Visitors to the capital, Kigali, are often surprised by the carefully ordered traﬃc, spotless roads, and absence of rubbish; although Kagame hasn’t gone quite as far to follow Singapore’s infamous chewing gum ban, he has outlawed plastic bags.

However, even LKY’s methods of controlling the press have been learned. In Rwanda, Article 38 of the Constitution states that “Freedom of press, of expression, and of access to information are recognised and guaranteed by the State”. However, the press is often limited, in an almost identical fashion to Singapore, using laws that criminalise any media that breed hate or genocidal ideology, incite insurrection among the population, threaten national security, or are deemed genocide denial.

investing 150 million USD in Rwanda. Singapore has also contributed heavily to Kigali’s urban planning, as well as Rwanda’s aviation and technological industries.

These practices, both in terms of effective economic policy and one-party rule, have been learned from the likes of Singapore and China, where single party rule has provided a stable government that developed society efficiently, but at a cost to personal and social freedoms.

Since 2013, China has become Rwanda’s biggest trading partner and project contractor. Rwanda has also welcomed and actively invited Chinese business in Rwanda. Star Times, a Chinese TV provider, began its overseas expansion in Rwanda in 2008, and now rivals Africa’s largest TV provider DSTV in 30 countries on the continent. Chinese engineers designed and built the tallest building in Rwanda – Kigali City Tower, the Rwandan Foreign Ministry building, Rwanda’s Amahoro National Stadium, and 80 percent of the country’s roads. Rwanda and Singapore have also had strong relations, with Kagame making his second visit to Singapore in 2015. Singapore is also Rwanda’s sixth largest export destination, buying exports worth 20.2 million USD, and

The models of governance adopted by China and Singapore that prioritise stability and economic growth over personal and social freedoms have long been praised and critiqued by many, and a similar discourse has begun among Africans – with some encouraging other nations to learn from Rwanda while others stress the civil liberties that have been lost since Kagame’s rise. Ultimately however, Deng Xiaoping and LKY were both lionised not only because of their ability to achieve higher standards of living and economic growth, but because they were rare examples of autocrats who managed to develop institutions – although often reliant on the ruling party – that nonetheless have outlived their own rule. The question still stands however, whether Kagame will be able to achieve that same goal. Rwanda, in the footsteps of Singapore and China, oﬀers the world a new exemplar of governance policy, which, as the ﬁrst of its kind outside Asia, suggests a shift in notions of ideal government.

A New Economic Order: A malign or benign influence on developing economies? Grace Davies

The increasing trend towards protectionist policies means that many Western countries are now trying to be at least somewhat more self-sufﬁcient. With more of a drive to produce their own agricultural goods, this creates a problem for countries who rely on agricultural exports.

The world today is a far cry from that of 50 years ago – the fragile relations between our political unions, and the rise of protectionism and populism, all serve to challenge our previous views of the world. The increasing dominance of such ideas presents a shift in politics: a new world order. With this inevitably comes a change in how countries interact with one another. Increasingly, populations and politicians adopt an insular viewpoint, with patriotic ideas which do more harm than good by isolating economies from the globalised world. Individualism becomes harmful for the countries who can aﬀord it; devastating for those who can’t.

In President Trump’s speech to the American Farm Bureau this year, he remarked that trade agreements would be reviewed in a way favourable to America’s farmers. He was the ﬁrst president in over 25 years to speak before the American Farm Bureau, signalling the administration’s increased emphasis on domestic agriculture. And whilst this created patriotic optimism for American farmers, with his calls to level the playing ﬁeld being received with cheers of admiration from his overly American audience, the impact of such a political rhetoric is likely viewed from more pessimistic lenses for those watching his speech from international TV screens.

Western-centric rhetoric makes it easy to believe that the new world is an issue just for America and other developed nations. Trump’s protectionist measures provoke discussion on how America could cope without China, whilst Britain’s departure from the European Union invites reﬂection upon the future of European nations.

The interdependence of countries in today’s globalised world may make it impossible – or undesirable – for America to cut economic ties with developing countries. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that trade barriers may

But, just as the new order has brought about monumental change for developed countries, so too has it for developing countries.

to follow in the same path.

arise. This will likely have two economic eﬀects on developing countries.

The increasing trend towards protectionist policies means that many Western countries are now trying to be at least somewhat more self-sufficient.

First, the immediate effect: free trade would decrease. Africa has experienced most of the suffering caused by protectionist policies enacted by the US and Europe. Farmers in Africa compete with Western farmers, often without the technological advancements available in more developed countries. Of the 7,000 harmful trade measures implemented by countries across the globe since 2009, more than half have come from the EU, and a significant proportion of these have focused on agriculture.

However, the new order does not necessarily mean that all countries are now adopting protectionist policies, and in fact some may argue that the complete opposite is the case. The second key event of the new order is Brexit. Brexit brings about an interesting case because, whilst many British people voted to leave with the protectionist-style aim to “take back control”, the resulting shift in trade relations may actually open up opportunities for developing economies.

The common agricultural policy (CAP) of the European Union distorted commodity markets by implementing a system of subsidies to members, whilst depressing prices for African maize, sugar and beef at the expense of any competitive advantage many African countries would have under free trade.

Whilst trade is free amongst EU countries, the external trade barrier previously acted as a disincentive for trade between developing countries and Britain. Britain may find it more difficult to trade with some of its key European trading partners – such as Germany and France – but the hoped soon-to-be lack of trade barriers with countries such as India and China, as well as many smaller developing economies, which British politicians have claimed will occur, provides a chance for these countries to find new trading partners even through the emergence of protectionism. Recently, politicians have spoken of opportunities for trade with countries within Africa, as one of the largest continents and potential trade partners.

Trump has also shown his distaste for free trade by pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was a proposed trade deal between the United States and ten other nations. He used an executive order in order not to ratify the trade deal. Second, this protectionism can drive developing countries to move away from agriculture, in order to find new emerging markets and move away from products with high levels of global trade barriers. This creates a subsequent diversification of production. As well as this, the availability of low-skilled, cheap labour in many developing countries can help to see a shift towards a China-style economy. This can very clearly be seen in India, which has in recent years grown from a relatively poor country to a much richer one. Such a move towards the production of manufactured goods for developing economies takes away many of the problems associated with primary product dependency. This causes economies to suffer from over-specialisation, and a diversification of production can therefore help prevent this, and can help to bring about economic growth. If the Trump effect is such that developing economies therefore need to move away from supplying only agricultural goods, this may allow more countries

And although we may remark that Britain is but one small island, its departure from the European Union brings about political waves of discontentment in other EU nation states. Whether they may end up opening up their economies more to countries external to the EU remains to be seen. The eﬀect of the new order on developing economies, therefore, is likely to be drastic. It may be cataclysmic or it may be more positive. Either way, it is unlike that we will see them following the same stable growth patterns we had previously expected of them, and we should prepare ourselves for a future where economies interact in ways incomparable to today.

Collaboration and Competition: international scientific links in a New Order Sebastian Wright

This is a time of change in international aﬀairs. The relations between countries are increasingly marked by confrontation and distrust. The dominance of the US, present since the end of the Cold War, is being undercut by the emergence of new powers, particularly China. Meanwhile, the international institutions created at and since the end of the Second World War, such as the Bretton Woods institutions, decline in relevance. This has led to talk of the rise of a ‘New Order’ in international relations.

a ‘New Order’ looks likely to involve more antagonistic and perhaps more openly self-interested interactions between nations, there may be significant impacts on research. An example is the impact that many fear Brexit will have on research in the UK, due to its potential effects on funding and the ability of researchers to move to and from the UK. There are clear mutual benefits to countries for allowing and encouraging such international collaboration. Using the expertise of scientists across multiple countries, and sharing results between countries, allows research to progress more rapidly, as confirmed by studies which show that papers resulting from international collaboration have significantly greater impact. This can have further directly beneficial effects such as encouraging economic growth or improving healthcare. Moreover, endeavours like international campuses can enable the countries they are in to benefit from the success of educational institutions and systems elsewhere, while giving countries with successful education sectors a chance to project soft power. More generally, success in scientific research may contribute to soft power and be a source of national pride. The resultant risk of economic or diplomatic loss if openness

All of this contrasts sharply with the picture in the scientific community, where international collaboration is widespread and has rapidly grown. Between 1990 and 2015, the number of multiple-author papers with authors from more than one country grew from 10 percent to 25 percent. The migration of researchers is common and international campuses and institutes are proliferating. This therefore raises the question of how this trend is co-existing with the increasingly fraught state of international relations, and how this collaborative enterprise will affect and be affected by the emergence of a ‘New Order’. Since such

towards international collaboration on research were abandoned may be the cause of the continued acceptance and promotion of these links between the research communities in different countries. However, this does not mean that these links are immune to the effects of an increasingly tense international scene. Research which might have military applications, most notably nuclear weapons research, has always been restricted or classified by national governments but one might expect to see this tendency increase, reducing collaboration in certain fields. A recent example is the implementation of a more restrictive visa policy for Chinese graduate students in certain fields by the US on national security grounds. Other changes are also likely to have an effect, even if unintentionally. A particularly important example is that of increasing antipathy towards migration between states. Restrictions on migration may hinder the ability or inclination of academics to travel and particularly to work in other countries, which might have a considerable impact on collaboration. This is particularly the case as the formation of informal links between researchers and institutions which might lead to collaboration might be somewhat inhibited.

Scientific research acts as a clear incentive for states to co-operate and such ties may be able to act as a moderating force on confrontation. to have applications is more likely to have funding supplied). Therefore, a ‘New Order’ may have less of an impact in this area than expected. Nevertheless, there may be some impact, especially since international co-operation entails reliance on research happening abroad, where funding is controlled by a diﬀerent government and (perhaps) diﬀerent institutions.

It is also worth considering the potential effects of a ‘New Order’ on the consideration of scientific evidence in policy and on international collaboration on problems identified by research, particularly climate change and environmental policy. In some cases, there appears to be an increasing tendency for ideological or political concerns to outweigh scientific evidence in decision-making, and even for scientific funding to be allocated and removed on the basis of such considerations, an accusation that has been levelled at the current US administration in particular due to its cuts to NASA’s Earth Sciences budget, which funds missions to study climate change. On the other hand, the Chinese government, for example, has been increasingly committing resources to combating climate change, with renewable energy goals outlined in the most recent Five-Year Plan and sharp increases in electricity generation from solar power since (although it remains a tiny fraction of the total). Furthermore, one might argue that many nations have in any case previously failed to take properaction against climate change for economic or political reasons, and that there has always been a political component to funding allocation (in particular, research likely

Commitments to treaties on international scientific research or based on its results may also come under threat, something that has again been seen particularly with the current US administration, with its notification of intent to withdrawal from the Paris agreement as soon as it can. Were this tendency to extend more widely, something that seems possible given, for example, the rise of politicians sceptical about climate science or international climate change co-operation in various countries such as newly elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (who supported the idea of also withdrawing from the Paris agreement at one point in his campaign), there might be an impact on international scientific research projects with governmental involvement. Therefore, there are a number of potential threats that the rise of a ‘New Order’ might pose to international scientific collaboration, but the extent of 39

the impact may be hard to gauge for a while.

signiﬁcantly moderate these tensions. It is worth noting that scientiﬁc co-operation, such as in Antarctica, occurred during the Cold War and countries were aware of the importance of such collaboration but that tensions, regardless, often remained very high.

Similarly, we can ask how international scientific collaboration might affect an emerging ‘New Order’. The mutual benefits of allowing such collaboration may stop states from discouraging or cutting off such ties, especially for disciplines with economic applications and those which do not arouse strong ideological or political views. Instead, competition between states within a framework of international collaboration may become more pronounced, and lead to greater spending on science and education as countries try to increase their output. This is especially likely to be the case, as not all countries wish to dismantle the wider international economic system; China, for example, is keen to maintain it even as the US and others begin to question it.

Nevertheless, scientific research acts as a clear incentive for states to co-operate and such ties may be able to act as a moderating force on confrontation. There may be some hope that interactions between states on scientific matters can continue even when relations break down in other respects, as indicated by a recent agreement on scientific collaboration in the Arctic signed by the Russian Federation and multiple NATO countries. Therefore, while international scientific collaboration might be under threat from an emerging ‘New Order’, it also has a role to play in reducing the extent to which it is based on confrontation between states.

Some hope that rising tensions in international relations may be moderated by international links between the scientiﬁc community. However, the impact of such ties may not be strong enough to

Indonesia’s Democratic Transition: 20 years on Basil Browdler

Twenty years ago Indonesia saw decades of military rule under the dictator Suharto collapse amid rampant inﬂation and violent secessionist movements. Since then, Indonesia’s government has undergone a remarkable transformation into a stable democracy, turning the world’s fourth most populous country and largest Muslim-majority nation into a thriving economic power. This transformation is particularly noteworthy when compared against Indonesia’s East Asian neighbours. According to Freedom House, a DC-based NGO, only South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia have made comparable developments towards becoming free democracies; on Freedom House’s ‘Freedom in the World’ scale, Indonesia has gone from a 6.5 (where 7 is the highest score, marking a country as entirely ‘not free’) to a 3 in 2014.

and Taiwan’s at comparable junctures, but was also low for the region: $1,154 per capita compared to the East Asian and Pacific average of $4,010. Indonesia has also faced the challenge of democratising a country with massive ethnic and religious diversity. Indonesia consists of over 6,000 inhabited islands which are home to hundreds of different ethnic and linguistic groups. Though 87% of Indonesians identify as Muslim, there are, besides other faiths, significant Hindu, Buddhist and Christian groups. These groups have not always been at peace. The years of Suharto’s New Order regime saw heavy-handed, and increasingly brutal, attempts to take control of East Timor and the early 2000s witnessed significant violence, such as the Bali bombings of 2002, as different ethnic groups sort to settle old scores, vie for local pre-eminence or, in some cases, break away from the state.

The nature of Indonesia’s transition to democracy also markedly diﬀers from these other East Asian examples. Mongolia democratised once its northern protector, the USSR, tottered and fell. In both Taiwan and South Korea, democratisation occurred as both states underwent rapid industrialisation and middle class constituencies, lobbying for political power, grew in importance. Indonesia’s GDP per capita at the time of democratisation was not only far lower than South Korea’s

Democracy in Indonesia has endured these upheavals to become a stable system. Indeed, Indonesia’s very diversity has served as a model for promoting unity, as nationalists have been forced to forge inclusionary national models unlike those of Sri Lanka and Malaysia, where nationalism has frequently been deﬁned around majority ethnic identities. Nothing appears to better encapsulate this than Suharto’s New Order 41

national motto, derived from a 13th century Javanese poem: ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ -- Unity in Diversity’.

families have all but stagnated while the number of Indonesian millionaires and billionaires has sharply risen, despite the fact that frustration with social inequality was one of the factors that brought the New Order regime to its knees. Indonesia’s democracy has also failed to address gender inequality: after the 2014 elections just 17.3% of representatives were women, compared to the world average of 22% and the Asian average of 18.5%. In this respect, Indonesia appears to be reverting: the nation’s place on the UN Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index slipped from 100th in 2011 to 103rd in 2013.

Stability also owes much, however, to systems of patronage in Indonesian politics at both the national and local levels. The cabinets of Indonesian governments, until recently, have been ‘rainbow cabinets’ with all, or at least most, of the major political parties sharing out political offices; a pattern that was upended when Joko Widodo or Jokowo, Indonesia’s current president, declined to form a cabinet across pan-political lines. The decentralisation of political power and financial resources in the post-New Order era has encouraged local elites to contest among themselves locally, rather than challenge the centre of power in Jakarta. All this has helped neutralise the potentially explosive forces of local secessionists. It is a sign of the progress Indonesia has made that even Papuan separatists use Bahasa Indonesian, which is broadly supported as both the official language and lingua franca of Indonesia. Religious political movements, which elsewhere in South Asia continue to be volatile forces, have largely been appeased through a government policy of according official status to major monotheistic religions and generously distributing patronage to religious movements, largely avoiding any potential alienation. Indeed, while Islamic political parties hold a certain sway within the Indonesian government system, they have never come close to a majority.

Indonesia’s transformation, then, is far from complete. The ‘Pancalicca ideology’ of Suharto, which propounded that Indonesia was an organic state in which the rights of the individual were subsumed to those of society, is still occasionally invoked by political leaders who argue that Indonesia isn’t culturally suited for democracy. The 2014 elections were in many ways a battle between the old and new Indonesia: current President Jokowo ran on the back of his reformist and anti-corruption credentials while his opponent, former New Order general Prabowo Subianto, attempted to channel nostalgia for the Suharto era. Jokowo’s victory seems to have underlined Indonesia’s desire for democratic stability: the ascension of the 7th President of Indonesia was also the ﬁrst time that power passed directly from one democratically elected president to another, and Jokowo is the ﬁrst president not to come from an elite or military background. Deeply committed to cracking down on corruption, the President is known for having paid 11 million rupiah ($800) out of his own pocket to claim a signed vinyl Metallica album presented to him by the Danish Prime Minister, in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Democracy in Indonesia has endured these upheavals to become a stable system. Indeed, Indonesia’s very diversity has served as a model for promoting unity, However, the ghost of the New Order remains within Indonesian politics. The military elites of the Suharto era have, in many cases, hung onto access to power, and no military oﬃcer has yet to be successfully prosecuted for human rights abuses. Indonesia is still economically dominated by the conglomerates that arose under Suharto and received his tacit blessing. Indeed, democratisation has not led to greater equality in Indonesian society. The incomes of poor and near-poor

Indonesia has progressed far in the last twenty years, and much within this transformation deserves to be celebrated. Indonesia’s transition to democracy has not been without problems, however: while stability and economic prosperity are worthy goals, it should not be forgotten that all-too often success has come for political and local elites at the cost of most Indonesians. As Jokowo’s presidency draws to a close and Indonesians begin to cast their minds to their political future, questions of corruption and government transparency still have to be addressed. Power sharing and patronage have historically sustained politics in Indonesia and more recently have stabilised the country’s democratic system. While Jokowo’s aims to stamp out corruption therefore have much to admire in them, alternative systems must be found in order to keep Indonesia together, or there is potential that religious and ethnic tensions will once again ignite this vast and complex nation. The case of Indonesia is unique, and the challenges facing this populous, ultra-diverse archipelago nation are singular.

Conflict No Order? No Order?

Surfacing Dissent: The myth of a global rules-based liberal order Daria-Ioana Sipos Enter 2018: Trump, Brexit and the rise of China. Fears are emerging about the collapse of the liberal order and what a new world order in geopolitics would look like. Yet, the underlying questions we actually ought to answer are whether there was ever a stable order to begin with, and why those in the West so readily accept there was.

2018 formal declaration of ‘the Nine-Dash Line’ in the South China Sea and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea have raised fears that this old global order is being challenged. This is mistaken: what we are witnessing is only a more vibrant competition for inﬂuence, enabled by the decentralisation of power away from the West. Geopolitics is not a sequence of orders. Rather, it is dynamic and has players who make their own rules.

1989 brought with it the fall of the Berlin Wall, symbolising the end of the Cold War and the ideological triumph of liberalism. Institutions founded on liberal principles, such as the World Trade Organisation, the collapse of authoritarian regimes across Latin America in the 1980s, and economic globalisation created a popular perception of a global rules-based liberal order. Such an order, seemed to be legitimised by the promises of a freer, fairer world. But was this order ever stable, or even universally accepted?

The election of US President Donald Trump in 2016 seemed a further nail in the coﬃn of the global order. Yet this serves to highlight a key problem in the conception of the ‘old liberal order’: US hegemony. Whilst eﬀective in enforcing a rules-based system, US hegemony fails to amount to a liberal order. The establishment of an ‘order’ requires a more stable foundation than mere unipolar dominance. It also needs (near) universal legitimacy, which, if perpetuated by and dependent on the whims of a single state, will not be achieved. International legitimacy instead arises from recognition by sovereign states that there are certain norms of

Recent unilateral claims to geopolitical power lie outside this framework. China’s

interstate conduct, which conform to their own national, social and cultural norms. It is clear the ‘old liberal order’, founded primarily on Western norms, fails to achieve this recognition.

Nor can the guarantee of reciprocity be taken as foundation for legitimacy. With the US left as the only remaining superpower post-1991, circumventing the rules in the interests of ideology and political expediency was all too easy for US hawks. Military intervention under the guise of the Freedom agenda, without UN backing, proved that the ideological component of the US’ order had become more important than the promise of rules-based stability. The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to legitimise the intervention serves as a key example.

Geopolitics is not a sequence of orders. Rather, it is dynamic and has players who make their own rules. The 1815 Congress of Vienna founded the ‘rules-based system’ on the principles of openness in trade, multilateralism, cooperation on security, and rights protection. However, since then, the concept of a liberal order has evolved dramatically, with the hegemonic role of the US adding more profoundly ideological elements to it, particularly during the Cold War. This is important in assessing its legitimacy. Nations which participated in the evolution of the global liberal order can be seen to have given a diﬀerent type of consent to those that, after the fall of the Soviet Union were faced with the fait accompli of US Hegemony. In its essence, the liberal world order was born in the West as a subsystem of international relations, and then globalized with no alternative. So how can such a system gain legitimacy beyond its founders?

International legitimacy instead arises from recognition by sovereign states that there are certain norms of interstate conduct, which conform to their own national, social and cultural norms Tensions in the Arctic Circle provide further examples of this inequality. Due to melting polar ice, the region, rich in resources and increasingly viable trade routes, has become a scene for competing territorial claims. These are legal disputes rather than imperialistic claims, based on claiming Exclusive Economic Zones under UN law. In that sense, the Arctic landscape seems to conform with the ‘global rules-based system’. However, the actual conduct of nations in the Arctic illustrates that it is not so simple. The 1985 tensions caused by a US icebreaker entering Canadian waters in the Arctic show an American willingness to circumvent rules for expediency. Meanwhile Russia’s recent revival of abandoned Soviet-era military facilities and increased regional military presence risks stability for a show of force. China’s ambition to build a ‘Polar Silk Road’, despite having no legal territorial claims, shows the nation will use its status as a global powerhouse to gain a foothold outside of a legal framework. The current frictions are not an unprecedented rejection of the rules-based system; they exemplify that the ‘rules-based order’ never applied to the world’s most powerful actors to start with, and that they are again willing to prioritise self-interest over legal niceties.

No ideological rival after the collapse of the Soviet Union has attempted to build an alternative order based on their national code of conduct. Does tacit consent to American hegemony count? For many states non-conformity was not an option. The guardianship of international institutions was key to domestic legitimacy after decolonisation. The newcomers to the international system of the 1950s-60s were locked under the patronage of institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, which they did not participate in creating.

Ultimately, a framework of rules cannot be the norm in geopolitics. Some rules inevitably go unenforced and legal ambiguities turn into loopholes for countries seeking to expand global influence. China is cloaking its South China Sea claims in legal ambiguity, claiming them as ‘offshore waters’ rather than ‘territorial sea’. It has thus managed to operate in a grey area between failure to comply and outright non-compliance, as was ruled by the UN in Philippines v China 2016. In these cases, reality is far from the concept of a ‘rules-based’ order and a permanent commitment to a forum for geopolitical conflict resolution.

In its essence, the liberal world order was born in the West as a subsystem of international relations, and then globalized with no alternative. The current geopolitical stage is now much more decentralised, when compared to the Cold War’s bipolar world, and the US-led liberal order is being increasingly challenged. Nevertheless, it is a dangerous, and Eurocentric assumption to view the world that is emerging as a ‘new order’. For many countries, who in the face of US hegemony, were bound to comply, there was no established ‘old order’ to begin with. A stable and near-universally legitimate structure has never been achieved. It is inherent to geopolitical dynamics to prevent stability and uniformity of conduct: as long as there are nation states and no global government, heterogenous histories and cultures cannot achieve a uniﬁed concept of legitimacy. The Western rules-based order has never been a global rules-based order.

A Note about IRSoc Lighthouse is the Oxford International Relation Society’s termly journal. In it are published a collection of student-written articles, both undergraduate and postgraduate, edited by a team of Oxford students. Each article is the result of a collaborative effort between writer and editor, and is written over the first four weeks of term. This finished journal is the final product of countless hours of work put in by the writers, editors, and the committee of IRSoc. If you are interested in being involved in next term’s edition of Lighthouse, please follow the Lighthouse journal page on Facebook. Applications for editing position will be opened in seventh week, and the call out for articles in the print journal will be at the beginning of next term; both will be published on Facebook. Articles are published on the blog on a rolling basis.

Thanks to this term’s team of editors Editor in Chief Hugh Thomas Co-Editors Cara Exall Michelle Huang

Sub-Editors Grace Davis Julia Pieza Nicholas Ching Thomas Benson Graphic Designer Ruby Lyons

October/November 2018 Issue 19 (Formerly ‘Sir’) email: editor-in-chief@oxirsoc.org Printed by Anchorprint Group Ltd. The fonts used are Didot (titles) and Seravek (body)

The Lighthouse Journal 2018 Oxford International Relations Society