The London Globalist - Issue 1

Issue I Summer 2010 

THE LONDON GLOBALIST 

A Media Eclipse: 

Israel-Palestine and the World’s 

Forgotten Conflicts 

image credit: flickr “tsweden” 

Interviews with Sir Howard Davies 

and Lord Nicholas Stern 

Latin American socialism 

in the 21st Century 

Washington’s covert campaign against 

Islamist militant movements in Pakistan

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The London Globalist: Issue I Summer 2010 

Contents 

5 Editorial 

FEATURE ARTICLE 

A Media Eclipse: Israel-Palestine and the World’s Forgotten Conflicts 

6 

Cry Havoc! And Let Slip the Drones of War... 

The Great Game Redux 

Interview with Lord Nicholas Stern 

The Right Kind of Financial Education 

New Labour and the Death of the Ideas 

Credit Crunched - Governing Global Finance 

21st Century Socialism 

12 

16 

20 

22 

23 

24 

28 

HIGHLIGHTS 

The Fight of Her Life 

32 

33 

34 

38 

40 

The Human Cost of War: How Canada is Coping with its Soldiers’ Mental Health Issues 

The EU and India: Bigger than the sum of their parts? 

Enter Asia, Exit the West? 

CULTURE 

The Man Booker Prize


Interested 

in Working for 

The London 

Globalist? 

The editorial team is currently recruting: 

WRITERS PHOTOGRAPHERS DESIGNERS 

EDITORS NON-EDITORIAL STAFF 

Email editor@londonglobalist.og.uk or visit 

www.londonglobalist.org.uk for more details

Dear 

Globalist Readers 

W 

elcome to the inaugural 

issue of The London 

Globalist, an LSE magazine 

devoted international affairs. Written 

and compiled by your fellow students, 

the magazine will publish tri-annually 

featuring LSE’s best authors as well as 

international contributors. 

The London Globalist is the result 

of a journey started in 2000 at Yale 

University. Wishing to deliver highquality 

student journalism to inspire and 

provoke debate among their peers, The 

Yale Globalist soon developed into more 

than just an independent magazine and 

today consists of 10 chapters worldwide. 

We are proud to include LSE within 

the Global21 and hope to enable our 

dynamic and engaged student body to 

contribute in global discussion. 

In many ways, this magazine is a 

response to a demand; voiced not 

only by LSE students wishing greater 

participation and forum for debate, but 

also by the challenges of our times. As 

The London Globalist is launched and 

The Globalist movement celebrates 

its 10-year anniversary, the world can 

simultaneously look back on the first 

decade of the 21st century. Marked by a 

rising China, Climate Change, the war 

on terror and the global financial crisis, 

the London Globalist dedicates its first 

issue to ‘The 21st century: A decade 

Retrospect”. 

This issue looks at some of the events 

that have marked the past decade 

and will continue to shape our future. 

Simon Black explores the implications 

of the recent crisis for global financial 

governance in a ‘credit crunched’ 

world. Reporting on the implications of 

changing economic forces on classical 

domains of high-politics, Joseph Tam 

disaffirms myths concerning the rise of 

China and a declining West. Balance of 

power continues to feature in Brijesh 

Khemlani’s commentary of the ‘Great 

Game’ between bordering nations 

over Afghanistan. The role of ideology 

in the past decade is covered in Joe 

Rowley’s examination of the socialist 

phenomenon in Latin-America and Olly 

Wiseman’s obituary for ‘New Labour’ 

in British politics. Hero Austin and 

Kimia Pezeshki interview LSE Professor 

Nicholas Stern, a major contributor 

to the definitive escalation of Climate 

Change on the international agenda. 

The feature article, by Noah Bernstein, 

addresses the controversial question of 

perceived disproportionate attention 

devoted by the media to the Israel- 

Palestine Conflict. Distancing himself 

from the exhausted pro-Palestine versus 

pro-Israel debate, the focus is instead 

on implications for other contemporary 

but ‘forgotten’ conflicts such as the 

one raging in the North-east of the 

Democratic Republic of Congo. 

With few of the challenges from the 

last decade resolved, the 21st century 

might not have yet lived up to promises 

of a better future envisioned by many, 

and although history remains at 

best an imperfect tool for predicting 

the future- the demand for strong 

voices representing our generation is 

heightened. 

Enjoy, 

Elisa Vieira and Henrik Vaaler 

(Editor’s-in-Chief, The London Globalist) 


EDITORIAL STAFF: 

Editors in Chief: 

Elisa de Denaro Vieira 

Henrik Vaaler 

Managing Editors: 

Marlies Dachler 

Ben Sarhangian 

Catherine Tsalikis 

Associate Editors: 

Simon Black 

Wilson Chew 

Leonor Gonzalez 

Vivien Lu 

Juha Saarinen 

Noah Schwartz 

Francesca Washtell 

NON-EDITORIAL STAFF: 

Publisher/Executive Editor: 

Jeremy Smith 

Advertising & Sponsors: 

Julia Hug 

Eleonore Mouy 

Production Editor: 

Eduard Piel 

Webmaster/Online Editor: 

Jeremy Smith 

Editorial 

5


A Media Eclipse: 

Israel-Palestine and the World’s 

Forgotten Conflicts 

Global coverage of world conflicts pales into 

insignificance when compared with reporting on 

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

In a 48-hour period beginning on Christmas Eve 2008 the 

Christian fundamentalist Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) 

killed, dismembered and burned at least 200 Congolese 

civilians. Soldiers raped women and girls, twisted the heads 

off babies, and cut the lips and ears off those they did not 

kill. They hacked the rest to death using machetes or axes. 

Child soldiers helped abduct other children. 


During the same period the Israeli government and Hamas 

officials entered the final stages of failing cease-fire talks. 

War was on the horizon, but had not yet begun. An errant 

Hamas rocket killed two Gazan sisters; otherwise there were 

no cross-border casualties. 

According to AlertNet’s World Press Tracker, the two-day 

Israeli-Palestinian stand-off was reported in the global media 

40 times. There were no reports on the LRA massacre in 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Over the next 

three weeks Israel’s incursion into Gaza left 926 Palestinians 

and 3 Israeli civilians dead. The global media reported these 

events 2896 times. In the same period, Joseph Kony’s LRA 

killed 865 civilians and abducted 160 children. The media 

reported these events a total of 20 times. 

The Western media’s fascination with the Israeli-Palestinian 

conflict (IPC) has long 

overshadowed death 

and oppression in other 

parts of the world. Gilad 

Shalit and the Qassam 

rocket are known to many; the death of 5.9 million in the 

eight-nation Second Congo War is not. Recent Israeli and 

Palestinian elections were covered worldwide in real-time, 

while images of genocide in Rwanda and Sudan did not 

surface until it was too late. Countless articles argue media 

bias in favour of Israel or the Palestinians, yet few address 

the bias towards the conflict itself. 

“Countless articles argue media bias in favour of Israel 

or the Palestinians, yet few address the bias towards the 

conflict itself.” 

image credit: flickr “daveblume” 

The disproportionate media coverage raises several uncomfortable 

questions: why were the deaths of Congolese civilians 

at the hands of the LRA deemed less newsworthy than, in 

the first instance, crumbling cease-fire talks and, later, the 

deaths of Palestinian civilians? More generally, why is the 

West so consumed by the IPC and what are the consequences 

of underreporting other conflicts? Finally, can anything 

be done to redress 

the media balance so 

that the rights of all 

humans – regardless of 

colour, ethnicity, and 

geography – are given equal weight? 

The Explanation 

At first glance, the discrepancy in coverage appears linked to 

racism: how else to explain the ‘sins of omission’ in Rwanda 

and Sudan? Or the laissez-faire attitude towards Sierra 

Leone, Liberia, DRC, and, most recently, the ignored civilian 

massacres in Guinea and Nigeria? It is unlikely that the 

6 

THE LONDON GLOBALIST

international community would remain silent, or only send 

an impotent peacekeeping force, if hundreds of thousands 

(or even hundreds) of Palestinians and Israelis were being 

killed. However, the indifference is not limited to sub- 

Saharan Africa: conflicts in Southeast Asia (Philippines, 

Thailand), Latin America (Colombia), the Caucasus (Georgia, 

Nagorno-Karabakh), the Balkans (Bosnia), and even North 

America (Mexico) have been equally ignored. Consequently, 

the charge of racism may 

be misplaced. 

“…while the IPC may be of greater global 

interest than the LRA’s activities, the rights of the 

865 civilians killed in the DRC are as important as 

the 929 civilians killed in the Gaza conflict.” 

Instead, a more plausible 

explanation is simple selfinterest: 

the geopolitical, 

ideological, and religious 

implications of the IPC threaten global harmony. A sharp 

escalation in violence in the IPC could spark a regional if 

not global conflict. In contrast, a war between Eritrea and 

Ethiopia, regardless of casualties, does not carry the same 

threat to international stability. When Jews, Christians, 

Muslims, and Baha’i jostle for position in the Holy Land 

the religious sensitivities of half the world’s population 

are at stake. Conversely, internecine fighting between the 

Kikuyu and Luo of Kenya, again regardless of casualties, is 

seen as a tribal matter of little consequence to the outside 

world. Finally, and perhaps most important, the IPC is 

a proxy for a much larger ideological clash between the 

West and the Muslim world. Israel is either perceived as a 

symbol of Western imperialist power conducive to Western 

regional interests – particularly those of the much-reviled 

United States – or as a beacon of democracy amongst a sea 

of oppression. The Palestinians are seen to either represent 

the menace of the Arab and Muslim world or as a David 

righteously fighting the world’s Goliaths. The framing of the 

conflict in these ways permits the West to justify its actions 

in the Arab and Muslim world and allows Middle Eastern 

leaders to deflect attention away from their own repressive 

autocratic regimes. The Israelis and Palestinians are pawns 

in a greater ideological game, one whose every move is 

crucial to the national self-interest of every Western, Arab 

and Muslim country alike. 

It is clear then that the IPC is important and that the global 

media have a vested interest, perhaps even an obligation, 

to closely monitor the ongoing turmoil. However, while the 

conflict itself may be of prime (self-)interest, the human 

rights violations that occur in the IPC are of no greater 

comparative importance than those that occur elsewhere. 

Yet the global media does not make this crucial distinction 

and instead conflates the two. For example, while the IPC 

may be of greater global interest than the LRA’s activities, the 

rights of the 865 civilians killed in the DRC are as important 

as the 929 civilians killed in the Gaza conflict. Consequently, 

the explanation behind disproportionate media coverage is 

in no way a reasonable justification. 

The Justifications 

Still, arguments are made that human rights in the IPC are 

distinct from others and need to be prioritized. However, 

each attempted justification reveals contradictions when 

compared to past and ongoing conflicts. 

1. Special Responsibility 

One justification for the media’s fixation is that the world, 

and the West in particular, bear a unique responsibility for 

the IPC as they abetted the creation of a state for a displaced 

people by displacing 

another. However, if a sense 

of post-partition or postcolonial 

responsibility is 

the justification then what 

of Pakistan and India? 

Kashmir, another tragic byproduct 

of colonial mapmaking, has largely flown under the 

Western media radar despite the deaths of 67 000 civilians 

since a rebellion broke out in the Himalayan region in 

1989. The conflict is over a territory twenty times the size 

of Israel and the Palestinian territories, involves twice as 

many people, and has resulted in ten times as many deaths. 

There are other post-partition losers – Nigeria, Ethiopia 

and Western Sahara, for example – who do not attract the 

same media spotlight as the IPC despite heavy civilian 

casualties and rampant oppression. If the West feels a moral 

obligation towards Palestinians and Israelis, then a similar 

obligation should be felt towards the hundreds of millions of 

others whose lives were also permanently disrupted due to 

historical Western meddling. 

2. Democratic Accountability 

A second justification for the media’s dogged attention is 

that Israel as a democracy is accountable to higher standards 

of behaviour – most importantly on human rights. Their 

actions deserve magnification, hence the global media 

attention. However, if membership in the club of democracies 

demands greater accountability through the free press 

then Sri Lanka – a democracy of 20 million – should have 

featured as heavily in the media during and especially after 

its war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 

in early 2009. AlertNet’s World Press Tracker points in a 

different direction. The daily average of global headlines for 

the two conflicts during hostilities is severely unbalanced: 

image credit: flickr “daveblume” 



7



the IPC, on average, received 148 per day; Sri Lanka/LTTE, 

on average, 29 per day. The contrast is more disturbing 

when considering the civilian death toll: hostilities between 

January and May of 2009 left 20 000 Sri Lankan civilians 

dead. Both cases involved a government force attacking 

a terrorist group in areas dense with civilians. Yet the IPC 

featured in global media five times more often despite the 

death of twenty times more civilians in Sri Lanka. 

The average number of daily headlines for the two-week period 

following the end of hostilities is equally disproportionate: 

IPC, 75 per day; Sri Lanka/LTTE, 19 per day, the latter 

conflict falling off the media map almost entirely. This is 

particularly disturbing as both the Sri Lankan government 

and the LTTE stand accused of war crimes. Israel and 

Hamas’ alleged war crimes received intense media follow-up 

and the UN-sponsored Goldstone inquiry. The UN and the 

international community condemned the LTTE – accused 

of using civilians as human shields – and the Sri Lankan 

government – accused of executing unarmed Tamil prisoners 

of war and shelling hospitals and schools – but faced little 

follow-up scrutiny by the Western media. The UN has not 

initiated a war crimes probe as of March 10, 2010. In this 

instance, democracy did not lead to greater accountability. 

image credit: flickr “Austcare-world Humanitarian Aid’s” 

3. Extreme Oppression and Suffering 

A third justification is that the oppression suffered by the 

Palestinians warrants disproportionate media attention. 

Indeed, suffering incurred by Palestinians should be exposed 

so as to foster change. However, their cause should not 

overshadow the plight of the other 35 million refugees and 

24.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide. 

Millions of Central African refugees who live in constant fear 

of rebel and government attack are oppressed. Millions of 

Burmese IDPs with little or no freedom, including the right 

to leave their country, are oppressed. Yet their plight has been 

lost in the tailwinds of the IPC. 

The IPC involves 4 million Palestinians and 7 million 

Israelis – a relatively small combined population compared 

to the above-mentioned conflicts. Since 1980, total civilians 

deaths in the Sri Lankan conflict have been fifty times that 

of the IPC; Kashmir has seen one hundred times more 

civilians killed; and the conflict in the DRC has claimed five 

thousand times more lives than the IPC. Of course, death 

tolls alone are not a barometer of oppression. However, 

other indicators can be used to contextualize human 

suffering. For example, the UNDP’s Human Development 

Index, which measures “health, knowledge, and standard 

of living”, ranks the Occupied Palestinian Territories higher 

than every sub-Saharan African country, including South 

Africa. The index places the Palestinians in the ‘High Human 

Development’ category for adult literacy rates (93.8%), life 

expectancy at birth (73.3%), and malnourished children 

(3%). In all categories, the territories ranked higher than 

all South Asian and Arab countries, and even outpaced 

Brazil, Russia (adult literacy notwithstanding), India, and 

China. Even after Israel’s invasion of Gaza, World Health 

Organization representative Mahmoud Daher stated that 

“It [Gaza] is, of course, crowded and poor, but it is better 

off than nearly all of Africa as well as parts of Asia. There 

is no acute malnutrition, and infant mortality rates compare 

with those in Egypt and Jordan”. Average aggregate GDP 

per capita in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ($4 400 

in the Gaza Strip, $2 800 in the West Bank) is greater than 

80 other countries including Albania, Armenia, Morocco, 

Uruguay, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Viet Nam. In a recent 

Wall Street Journal article Palestinian President Mahmoud 

Abbas said of the Palestinians living in the West Bank: “[W] 

e have a good reality. The people are living a normal life.” 

These inconvenient truths are not intended to diminish the 

Palestinian right to freedom of movement and a homeland: 

the aim is simply to put the IPC into global perspective and 

to promote a more equitable coverage of global suffering. 

4. Type of Conflict 

A final justification for disproportionate media attention is 

that the IPC is an ongoing national liberation movement 

(NLM) rather than a civil war. This line of reasoning raises 

two problems. First, there exist other ongoing wars of national 

liberation involving large-scale death and destruction that 

receive little or no media coverage. Second, coming full 

circle, the type of conflict cannot be conflated with human 

rights violations: individuals are equal under international 

8 


human rights law. 

Other NLMs 

Tibet is a NLM that has claimed one million lives, many of 

them horrifically, since 1959. In pre-Olympic violence in 

March of 2008, Chinese police shot dead 140 protesting 

Tibetans. The events did make global headlines, but 

the coverage ended once the Olympics did – despite the 

continuation of human rights abuses. 

The conflict in Chechnya, classified as a NLM by several 

groups, has left 60 000 Chechen civilians dead since 1994. 

The Russians have massacred civilians and assassinated 

Chechen politicians, while the Chechens have launched 

suicide attacks and sown terror – violence similar to that of 

the IPC yet largely unreported. 

Western Sahara is a NLM where 

the Sahrawi people reject Morocco’s 

1974 annexation of the former 

Spanish colony. A 2 700 km wall 

(the Berm, or Wall of Shame), 

constructed by Morocco in the 

1980s, divides the country. It 

is manned by Moroccan armed 

forces, limiting the movement of 

the Sahrawi. The US, the EU, the 

AU, and the UN do not recognize 

Morocco’s occupation of Western 

Sahara. AlertNet has a record of 

3 international headlines for the 

conflict during the whole of 2009, 

all linked to Sahrawi human rights 

activist Aminatou Haidar’s monthlong 

hunger strike in a Spanish airport. The number of 

casualties in the conflict is ‘only’ in the low hundreds, but its 

similarities with the IPC – including accusations of human 

rights abuses on both sides – demonstrate that NLMs do not 

necessarily receive an equal place under the global media 

spotlight. 

Human Rights Law 

Differentiating - and prioritizing – a certain type of conflict 

over another ignores the fundamental concept of human 

rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention: a civilian 

oppressed or killed in any part of the world under any 

illegal circumstances is a violation of their human rights. 

Every individual is entitled to the same protection under 

international human rights law, international humanitarian 

law, and international criminal law regardless of the intensity 

or breadth of the conflict causing their deadly or oppressive 

circumstances. This includes the 150 000 Liberians killed 

in the civil war of ‘99 – ‘03, the 300 000 North Koreans 

starved or worked to death in gulags since 2005, and the 

37 000 Kurds killed by Turkish forces since 1984. Yet there 

were no protests over Liberia, nor have any UN resolutions 

been passed on behalf of the North Koreans, and there have 

been no calls for divestment of Turkish assets. None recieved 

image credit: flickr “Zoriah” 

media coverage proportionate to that of the IPC despite 

vastly higher casualty numbers and thoroughly oppressive 

conditions. The message this conveys to these victims is clear: 

their human rights are secondary to the rights of others. 

Further, individual victims of human rights abuses who have 

no internal mechanism for recourse are more vulnerable 

than victims of formal conflicts such as the IPC. For example, 

women stoned to death for suspected adultery, men publicly 

executed for suspected homosexuality, albinos killed for body 

parts, lesbians ‘correctively raped’, or adults and children 

used as slaves - these isolated groups can all have their safety 

enhanced through increased international media attention. 

Yet advocacy on their behalf through the media (and even by 

human rights groups) is minimal when compared to the IPC, 

leaving them out of sight and, consequently, out of mind. 

The Consequences 

Ultimately, there is no justification for the media’s 

preferential coverage of human rights abuses in the IPC. 

The immediate consequences of this conflict bias are further 

polarisation of an already fragile divide and the export of its 

inflammatory politics to the rest of the world. An indirect but 

equally important consequence is that the media attention 

helps the IPC command a disproportionate chunk of global 

humanitarian aid, to the detriment of refugees and IDPs 

around the globe. Finally, while the IPC is at the forefront of 

the public consciousness, dozens of other conflicts involving 

hundreds of millions of people are almost entirely ignored. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine 

Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides education, 

health care, social services and emergency aid to 400 000 

Palestinians. There exists no other UN agency dedicated 

solely to refugees from a specific region or conflict. The 

rest of the 60 million refugees and IDPs around the globe 

rely on the United Nations High Commission on Refugees 

(UNHCR). In 2000, UNRWA spent $72 per Palestinian 

while the UNHCR spent $53 on refugees from the rest of the 

world, an inexplicable shortfall of 25%. The UNRWA claims 

it is under funded and makes repeated funding appeals to its 

two main donors – the United States and the European union. 




9



Israel is the largest recipient of US aid in the world, topping 

2.5 billion dollars in 2009. Although the majority of aid is 

tied to military spending, this works out to more than $400 

per Israeli. In 2006, Israel received 12% of all US foreign 

assistance while the whole of Africa (minus Egypt) received 

12%. For reference, the population of Israel is 7.3 million. 

The African continent is home to over 1 billion. GDP per 

capita in Israel is $28 900 while the average African GDP 

is under $3 000. With 300 million Africans living below the 

poverty line and 27% of their children malnourished, it is 

not difficult to argue that US aid is closely tied to its own 

interests and not to where it is needed most. 

The tragedy of disproportionate aid is that it perpetuates the 

conflict – perhaps intentionally – providing little incentive 

for leaders to move beyond the status quo. Military aid to 

Israel has fostered belligerence, political rigidity, and a 

regional arms race. Israeli governments act with impunity 

knowing that the US is loath to 

withdraw aid. The UNRWA has 

propped up governments dedicated 

to violence, seen millions of dollars 

siphoned off by officials, and has 

employed known terrorists. Former 

UNRWA general-counsel James G. 

Lindsay stated in 2009 that the 

UNRWA “has taken very few steps 

to detect and eliminate terrorists 

from the ranks of its staff or its 

beneficiaries, and no steps at all to 

prevent members of organizations 

such as Hamas from joining its 

staff. [...] No justification exists for 

millions of dollars in humanitarian 

aid going to those who can afford 

to pay for UNRWA services.” 

Accordingly, Canada redirected 

aid earmarked for the UNRWA 

to projects strengthening the Palestinian judicial system 

to “ensure accountability and foster democracy.” In short, 

not only does disproportionate aid leave millions of others 

worse off, it helps reinforce intransigence in the IPC thus 

propagating its survival. 

The greatest consequence of disproportionate media 

coverage is that many conflicts involving gross violations 

of human rights never reach the public consciousness. As 

demonstrated above, the rights of Liberians, Sudanese, 

Sri Lankans, North Koreans, Rwandese, Colombians, 

Congolese, Guineans, Burmese, Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans, 

Mexicans, Tibetans, Chechens, Sahrawis, Kurds, Kashmiris, 

albinos, women, homosexuals, children, and even those of 

Palestinians outside the Occupied Territories have been 

largely ignored. While the slightest event in the IPC (such 

image credit: flickr “bissane Gaza Solidarity ” 

as the building of an Israeli museum on top of a 15th century 

Palestinian cemetery parking lot) is covered in nearly every 

major Western newspaper, ongoing human rights abuses in 

the rest of the world (such as the continued killing of Sudanese 

civilians) do not. CNN International’s one year retrospective 

on the ‘War in Gaza’ is a fitting example: during the show, 

two statistics scrolled by at the bottom of the screen “...15 000 

civilians estimated dead in Mexico drug wars...225 000 child 

slaves in Haiti.” That these disturbing realities were not the 

focus of the show – rather than a war that had ended one year 

ago – is further evidence that the media’s fascination with the 

IPC outstrips that of any other conflict today, regardless of 

the scale of human rights abuses. 

The Solutions 

Redressing the media balance will not be simple: after 

decades of reinforcement the IPC is firmly entrenched in the 

hearts and minds of Westerners, Arabs, and Muslims alike. 

However, if one conflict can turn so many heads, so can 

others. The international media reaction to Darfur, while too 

late, likely stopped further atrocities and was an indication 

that diversification of human rights coverage is possible. 

Unfortunately, most conflicts don’t have enough geopolitical, 

ideological, or religious significance to trigger a global 

response. However, as outlined above, global media consumers 

are motivated to act on behalf of others when self-interest 

and/or guilt are present. While difficult to manufacture, these 

sentiments can be communicated through various conduits 

such as images and world leaders. 

A single image from the Ethiopian famine of 1984 sparked 

an unparalleled response from the international community. 

10 


Since then, horrific and shocking images of suffering are 

required if a natural disaster or conflict is to penetrate the 

public’s consciousness. Both the Palestinians and Israelis 

harness this potential expertly. Unfortunately, other conflicts 

are unable to generate images due to lack of access and 

material. There were no images of the LRA massacre in DRC 

because there were no reporters. “You cannot fight for what 

you do not see,” was the 

reply of a Congolese 

villager when asked if 

he begrudged the world 

for ignoring his plight. 

Similarly, there were 

few images of the 20 000 dead Sri Lankan civilians due to 

government media restrictions. However, citizen journalism 

– whereby civilians are armed with smart technology that 

can easily diffuse images of suffering – has proven to be an 

effective awareness-raising technique that erases problems 

of both access and material. 

“The greatest consequence of disproportionate media 

coverage is that many conflicts involving gross violations 

of human rights never reach the public consciousness.” 

However, even if images are produced they are often 

ineffectual on the receiving end due to overload and 

sensitization. The competition between tragedies is fierce 

and can quickly overwhelm the media consumer to the 

point of inaction. One awareness-raising method that has 

proven to be remarkably effective is using world leaders to 

diffuse messages. Particularly powerful is the celebrity-asspokesperson 

approach. While it may seem trivial, the level 

of importance the world attributes to its celebrities cannot 

be underestimated. Concerts for debt relief, telethons for 

earthquake victims, and special UN goodwill ambassadors 

have all proven exemplary at helping causes rise from 

obscurity and into the living room of the mass media 

consumer. 

Once images are generated – and world leaders and celebrities 

attached to them – they can be used as tools by activists and 

diasporas to instigate change. Again, Palestinians and Israelis 

demonstrate that this method can be exceptionally effective 

for publicizing discontent. The cynic, of course, would argue 

that the media is a vehicle of the agenda-setting elite and that 

any attempt to breach the hegemony is futile. While pushing 

unheralded stories 

through various media 

channels is not easy, 

recent WTO and antiwar 

demonstrations 

have shown it is 

possible. In addition, recent campaigns by human rights 

groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights 

Watch have confirmed civil society’s importance in public 

debate and demonstrated that if communal will is strong 

enough, change is possible. 

Conclusion 

The debate surrounding humanitarian intervention and 

the responsibility to protect has stalled. In the meantime, 

soft power in the form of the global media should be used to 

ensure equal representation. This will, in turn, ignite public 

opinion and promote change without infringing on state 

sovereignty. While perfectly equal representative coverage 

would be difficult to achieve, proportionate diversified 

coverage is entirely possible. 

This does not imply that support for Palestinians or Israelis 

should be abandoned; only that it should be shared with 

those who are ignored. If our moral code guides us in the 

IPC then let it be our beacon elsewhere as well. Concern for 

human right’s abuses needs to stretch beyond a small patch 

of land in the Middle East. 


image credit: flickr “Julien Harneis” 

Noah Bernstein 

n.bernstein@lse.ac.uk 


11

Cry Havoc! 

And Let Slip the Drones of War... 

Since 2004, Washington has waged a relatively covert campaign against 

Islamist militant movements in Pakistan’s North-western regions. In the 

past two years, the campaign has increased considerably, drawing international 

criticism. As a part of the criticism, two questions have become 

commonplace: Is the campaign effective, and is it justifiable? 


Background 

In America’s Global War on Terror (GWOT), there have 

been two major theatres, Afghanistan and Iraq. Both 

countries experienced forceful removal of old regimes 

by an American-led invasion followed by attempted statebuilding 

campaigns; the ideological premises of these actions 

could not to survive realities on the ground. Perhaps 

inevitably, both countries saw a rise in insurgent activity, 

leaving the occupying forces to wage counter-terrorism and 

counter-insurgency campaigns. While the Islamist uprising 

in Iraq seems to be waning, the neo-Taliban insurgency in 

Afghanistan is gathering pace. 

A substantial element in the persistence of the neo-Taliban 

threat results from the region’s geopolitical peculiarities. The 

terrain in Afghanistan, especially near the Pakistani border, 

offers a natural safe-haven for insurgents. The mountain 

ranges in South-eastern Afghanistan and North-western 

Pakistan have been a permanent base since 1979. It has not 

helped that insurgents inside Afghanistan have established 

a regional infrastructure network to facilitate the smuggling 

of arms, drugs and munitions, taking full advantage of the 

porous borders surrounding them, which also enabled crossborder 

raids. 

The quintessential beneficiary, and more recently, victim 

of Afghanistan’s porous borders has been Pakistan. After 

the withdrawal of Soviet forces, Pakistan sought to install a 

friendly regime in Kabul, most recently in the form of Taliban, 

to gain strategic depth in its rivalry against India. However, 

the pyrrhic nature of Pakistan’s Taliban-policy became 

clear as the neo-Taliban insurgency intensified. Pakistan’s 

efforts to support the Taliban backfired and led to the talibanization 

of Pakistan’s own Pashtun-dominated areas in the 

North-western Frontier Provinces (NWFP) and Federally 

Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). These areas suffered 

from Pashtun irredentism generated by the often ambiguous 

Durand Line, reinforced by genuine social grievances, lack of 

government legitimacy and absence of public services. 

The intensification of the Islamist insurgency in Pakistan 

meant NWFP and FATA became a sanctuary and an operational 

base for militants, conveniently out of ground forces 

reach. International forces were unable to engage the militants 

on the Pakistani side of the border and other than 

establishing a presence in South Waziristan, the Pakistani 

military has largely resisted launching large-scale assaults 

on the militant strongholds. Despite mounting pressure on 

Pakistan’s military to deal with militant-controlled areas, 

the insurgents have established a virtual safe-haven in the 

regional provinces. The question on the Pentagon’s mind is 

how to resolve this problem. 

Drone Them into the Stone Age 

Washington’s air campaign in the NWFP and FATA tribal regions 

has become the cornerstone of counter-insurgency and 

counter-terrorism strategy in Pakistan. Operations started 

after Washington became increasingly frustrated over perceived 

failure by Islamabad to prevent the militant action 

and infiltration into Afghanistan. Since 2004, Washington 

has conducted a covert program to target and eliminate 

al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders and fighters, including 

their external operations networks based in Pakistan’s tribal 

regions. According to New America Foundation (NAF) and 

the Long War Journal (LWJ), who have been compiling a database 

on the drone campaign, there have been 10 Predator 

drone strikes between 2004 and 2007. Casualty estimates 

vary between 87 and 109- of which 77 to 100 were militantskeeping 

civilian deaths to a minimum. 

12 


The Obama Administration has not viewed such numbers as 

credible deterrents against militants operating in and out of 

NWFP and FATA- prioritizing the strategic importance of 

disrupting militant activity in the tribal regions. The drone 

campaign has now become the foundation of Washington’s 

counter-terrorism in Pakistan. The objective has not 

changed: to root out and decapitate senior leadership of al 

Qaeda, the Taliban, and other allied terror groups, like the 

Haqqani Network (HQN) and Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) to 

disrupt al-Qaeda’s global and local operations in the region. 

However, the intensity has increased, including considerations 

in March 2009 to widen its geographic scope to include 

Balochistan. 

Osama al-Kini, al-Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan and 

one of the masterminds behind the embassy bombings in 

Kenya and Tanzania. Moreover, drone strikes have claimed 

numerous HQN leaders. NAF and LWJ both report that 

while the attacks have increased, civilian casualties have remained 

relatively low. 

The Strategic Impact of the Drone Attacks 

The drone attacks are a typical tool in Washington’s arsenal 

to combat militant activity in Pakistan. However, prevalence 

of the drone strategy does not necessarily imply effectiveness. 

While there is considerable support for the continuation, if 

“If we want to strengthen 

our friends and weaken our 

enemies in Pakistan, bombing 

Pakistani villages with 

unmanned drones is totally 

counterproductive” 

image credit: flickr “Helmandblog ” 

“Washington’s air campaign in Pakistan’s tribal region 

has become the cornerstone of counter-insurgency and 

counter-terrorism strategies in Pakistan.” 

Correlating with the intensifying insurgency, Predator drone 

strikes increased to 34 in 2008 and 59 in 2009. 2010 has 

already witnessed 25 strikes. The casualty levels have also 

grown increasingly. According to NAF, “the 122 reported 

drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 26 in 2010, 

from 2004 to the 

present have killed approximately 

between 

867 and 1,281 individuals, 

of whom around 

582 to 915 were described 

as militants in reliable press accounts, about twothirds 

of the total on average.” The increasing number of 

drone attacks has resulted in the elimination of several notable 

militants. Between 2004 and 2007, only four top-level 

militants were neutralised. 

In contrast, by 2009, the drone strikes have caused the death 

of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of TTP, his deputy, in addition 

to Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda’s external network leader, and 


not escalation of the drone attacks, there are also critical voices 

being heard. Dr. David Kilcullen, one of the leading thinkers 

on counterinsurgency, and an advisor to both General 

David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Condoleezza 

Rice, errs on the side of caution: “If we want to strengthen 

our friends and 

weaken our enemies 

in Pakistan, bombing 

Pakistani villages with 

unmanned drones is 

totally counterproductive” 

he quipped in an interview with Danger Room, a notable 

national security blog, in early 2009. 

There is logic to Dr. Kilcullen’s argument. On the one hand, 

while eliminating terrorists will no doubt reflect well on 

Obama’s domestic approval ratings, it does little to address 

the strategic balance between the insurgents and the counter-insurgency 

efforts. It can hardly prevent cross-border 

infiltration into Afghanistan and in the medium term will 


13

likely drive an increasing number of militant leaders underground, 

making it more difficult to gather intelligence. 

Furthermore, Pakistani authorities have systematically condemned 

American drone attacks on their territory, despite an 

alleged “mutual understanding” behind the scenes. While there 

undoubtedly is coordination between Islamabad and Washington 

on the drone campaign, it is most likely to further decrease 

Drones are best utilized as a surgical strike force, to be used 

sparingly against high-value targets. They cannot change 

the strategic balance in Pakistan against the militants, and 

neither should they be deployed as cost-effective, risk-averse 

extrajudicial assassination schemes. This only furthers the 

alienation of the Pakistani population. Many Islamabad officials 

have long claimed drone attacks fuel the insurgency, 

only to have their statements fall on deaf ears in Washington. 

“Sometimes we might have to 

[attack with drones] — but 

only where larger interests 

(say, stopping another 9/11) 

are directly affected…” 

Dr David Kilcullen 


the legitimacy of Pakistan’s capital in the tribal regions. Likewise, 

the drone strikes have further upset the delicate balance 

in FATA and NWFP - tipping it in favour of the militants, 

who are ready and eager to exploit the upheaval caused 

by attacks. While “low civilian casualties” might be acceptable 

to the Pentagon, it is unlikely that such acceptance exists 

in Peshawar, or even Islamabad. Civilian casualties are 

consistently exaggerated in the Pakistani press, further aggravating 

domestic opinion of Washington. In a Gallup poll 

conducted in August 2009, paltry nine percent of Pakistanis 

expressed support for the drone strikes, while 67% opposed 

them. Comparatively, 41% supported military action against 

the Islamist militants by the Pakistanis, while only 24% opposed 

such actions. 

However, the drones can have a role in this conflict. As 

Kilcullen also noted in the interview with Danger Room, 

“Sometimes we might have to [attack with drones] — but 

only where larger interests (say, stopping another 9/11) are 

directly affected… ...We need to be extremely careful about 

undermining the longer-term objective - a stable Pakistan.” 

This reveals the overall problem of Obama’s drone strategy. 

There is considerable overreliance on drone attacks, and little 

consideration over their impact on the socio-political dynamics 

in the tribal areas and wider Pakistan. 

However, no effective counterinsurgency strategy can ignore 

the population. This might become a lesson Washington 

needs to learn again. 

The Next Generation War Criminals 

Herein lies an additional problem facing the Obama Administration’s 

drone campaign. Forget strategic limitations of the 

drone attacks and their operational misuse, it is within the 

political, or legal battleground that the additional negative 

implications of the drone campaign are found. 

Problematically, it is not the US military that is in charge of 

the drone campaign in Pakistan. Although the drones over 

the Afghani skies fly under Air Force command, their jurisdiction 

ends at the border. On the other side, the Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) takes over. Hence, this puts Washington 

in an awkward position for two reasons. First, as the 

drone attacks are CIA operations, Washington is in a position 

where it can neither confirm nor deny the occurrence of these 

attacks. Essentially, this means that Washington is waging a 

publicly known “secret war” in Pakistan. Washington’s inability 

to address the aftermath of these attacks, either vis-àvis 

Pakistan or the international community will surely create 

further schism as the campaign intensifies. Second, CIA’s 

operational responsibility casts doubt over the legal status of 

14 


the pilots as civilian participation in combat is prohibited by 

two protocols of the 1949 Geneva Convention. According to 

several critics of the drone campaign, this ironically brands 

the drone pilots as unlawful combatants under international 

law. In theory, this opens the door to prosecute the pilots and 

top US officials as war criminals in the future. 

The ambiguous legal position of pilots has left Washington 

scrambling for a justification of the attacks. In a recent conference 

address, State Department Legal Adviser Harold 

Koh stated that: “The United States is in “an armed conflict” 

with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban 

and its affiliates as a result of 

the September 11 attacks, and 

may use force consistent with 

its inherent right to self-defence under the international 

law.” Washington’s drone policy neatly underlines the political 

subjectivities of applying international law to the GWOT 

and the drone campaign. Prior to September 11 attacks, 

former CIA chief George Tenet argued that for the CIA to 

deploy drones like the Predator, would be a “terrible mistake.” 

But the current CIA chief, Leon Panetta acknowledges 

the strategic utility of Predator drones in the battle against 

Islamist militants. For Panetta, strategic benefits, not legality, 

matter the most. 

“Washington needs to realize the drone attacks 

do not occur in a strategic vacuum.” 

disregard by the Obama Administration for the effects of 

the drone attacks presents a major strategic pitfall. In order 

to optimize its current strategy fully reap the benefits 

from using drones, Washington needs to redress several 

problems. First, it needs to reconsider the role of the CIA. 

The problematic status of the unlawful pilots, the erosion of 

extrajudicial assassinations and U.S. inability to address the 

drone campaign publicly will likely alienate Washington’s 

European allies and Pakistan, who can do little more than 

publicly condemn the attacks. Second, the over reliance and 

excessive deployment of the drones to strike various targets 

will further alienate Islamabad, 

and turn popular opinion 

against Washington’s counterinsurgency 

efforts. While 

Washington is unlikely to make any new friends in Pakistan, 

it needs to better balance the gains of neutralizing militants 

and disrupting their operations with the negative repercussions 

of continuous drone attacks in a hostile environment. 

Additionally, whether one ultimately agrees with the legitimacy 

and justifiability of the attacks, extrajudicial assassinations 

of terrorists is likely to contribute to an already visible 

trend, making ‘targeted killings’ more acceptable. After all, 

it was not long ago Washington coherently condemned Tel 

Aviv’s inclination to use ‘targeted killings’ of Palestinian militants. 

Likewise, the assassination of Hamas military commander 

Mabhoud al-Mabhoub in Dubai drew robust international 

criticism, and was also condemned by Washington. 

The erosion of the moral and legal status of extrajudicial 

targeting is likely to make the assassination of individuals 

more commonplace. A question that cannot be substantially 

answered now arises: how will Islamist militants respond to 

such occurrences? 

The Drone Question: Problems and Prospects 

Washington’s drone campaign faces many problems, but is 

not an entirely useless policy in the fight against insurgents 

and terrorists in Pakistan. The initial criticism toward Pakistan’s 

inability or unwillingness to earnestly exert pressure 

over the militants operating in the tribal region rings true, 

and Pakistan’s course is unlikely to change radically in the 

near future. With the absence of any other threats to the 

militants in NWFP and FATA, the drone campaign presents 

one of the few viable policy options. The drones are capable 

of performing surgical strikes to eliminate high-value 

targets within the senior leadership of Islamist movements, 

disrupting their regional operations. However, the drone attacks 

also have a destabilizing effect. 

They generate more grievances against the GWOT and Islamabad, 

further fuelling the insurgency. The perceived 

image credit: flickr “Swamibu ” 

Washington needs to realize the drone attacks do not occur 

in a strategic vacuum. There is no long-term solution 

without a stable Pakistan. And while the drone attacks offer 

a limited resource against the militant problem, they also 

present a long-term contradiction by fuelling the insurgency 

and increasing the legitimacy deficit of Islamabad. Washington 

needs to find a balance between these elements. If the 

U.S. government wishes to further intensify its drone campaign, 

as advocated by former RAND analyst Seth Jones, it 

needs to find a way to alleviate its impact in Pakistan. Thus 

far, such approach has been lacking in Obama’s “Secret War 

in Pakistan”. 

Juha Saarinen 

j.p.saarinen@lse.ac.uk 

www.postgradbonanza.wordpress.com 



15

The Great Game 

Redux 

As Western forces gear for a withdrawal from the Afghan theatre, regional 

powers prepare to face-off in a shadowy proxy war for the control of the 

crossroads of Asia. 

Coined by 19th century British imperialists, the term 

Great Game was used to illustrate the Russian-British 

geo-political struggle for dominance on the strategic 

chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia. Marked by limited 

military engagements and intelligence forays, the Great 

Game was the Machiavellian embodiment of great-power 

politics and dominance in the region. 

Western as well as Indian intelligence sources, stem from its 

strenuous efforts to contain India and re-gain its lost strategic 

depth once Western forces evacuate the country. In a rare media 

briefing to journalists in February, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, 

Pakistan’s powerful Chief of Army Staff, put it succinctly, 

Fast-forward to a century later and the game still continues. 

This time, however, the number of players has proliferated, 

the intensity of the violence is deadlier and the regional 

stakes are much higher. Seven years after being toppled by 

an American invasion, the Taliban has staged a bloody comeback 

as the besieged Hamid Karzai administration is rapidly 

losing credibility both home and abroad. Afghanistan is once 

again a proxy battleground as regional powers such as India, 

Pakistan, Russia, China and Iran jockey for power and influence 

in a nation poised on a razor’s edge. 

India and Pakistan 


Augmenting its soft power, India is playing a major developmental 

role by pledging more than $1.2 billion to build 

Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure. Some of the major 

Indian development projects include the new parliament 

building, erecting power transmission lines in the north, and 

building roads to facilitate transport. This rising Indian profile 

in Afghanistan has rattled Pakistan as the two archrivals 

escalate their presence in the war-torn country. Pakistani officials 

accuse Indian embassies and consulates in Afghanistan 

of arming, training and funding Baloch insurgents as 

well as elements of the Pakistani Taliban for sabotage and 

subversion operations against Pakistan. In the same vein, 

India blames Pakistan for rising attacks against Indian interests 

within Afghanistan. The Indian Embassy in Kabul has 

been the site of two deadly suicide bombings blamed on local 

Taliban elements. Allegedly aided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services 

Intelligence (ISI), an increasing number of Indian nationals 

working on reconstruction projects have been targeted. 

Islamabad’s continuing links with the Taliban, reinforced by 

image credit: flickr “DVIDSHUB ” 

“Afghanistan is once again a proxy 

battleground as regional powers 

such as India, Pakistan, Russia, 

China and Iran jockey for power 

and influence in a nation poised on 

a razor’s edge.” 

16

“We want a strategic depth in Afghanistan but do not want 

to control it”, he adds, “A peaceful and friendly Afghanistan 

can provide Pakistan strategic depth.” Pakistan’s readiness to 

train the Afghan army in response to a similar offer made by 

New Delhi reflects Islamabad’s concerns over rising Indian 

influence in Kabul. Expect a rising body count as an intensifying 

proxy war between the two mortal foes plays out in the 

Afghan theatre. 

“...the Chinese have seemingly announced 

their intentions of leveling 

the playing field with the US through 

economic and possibly military assistance 

to Afghanistan.” 

Russia 

Still smarting from its disastrous intervention in Afghanistan 

in the 1980’s, Russia has no stomach for another military adventure 

in the region. Yet, the Kremlin harbors no desire to 

witness another Taliban takeover in its strategic backyard 

which could embolden Jihadist fighters in Chechnya, Dagestan 

and Central Asia as a whole. Having faced the ignominy 

of a military defeat in Afghanistan, the Russians are 

more interested in a diplomatic rather than military solution 

to the crisis and provide significant economic assistance to 

the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul. Moscow views with 

image credit: flickr “rob7812 ” 

image credit: flickr “Chronic420life ” 

disquiet the increasing American military presence in the 

region, as well as recent American overtures to Central 

Asian countries for bilateral transit treaties that would allow 

the flow of critical military supplies into Afghanistan as 

an alternative to Pakistan. Not willing to play second fiddle 

to their Cold War rivals and highly suspicious of Pakistani 

machinations, the Russians have stepped up their engagement 

with the Karzai administration in tandem with key 

players such as Iran and India through regional forums 

such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). 

China 

Another major actor in the arena, China has huge stakes 

in a stable and prosperous Afghanistan to secure its Western 

corridor in order tap its growing energy interests in 

Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia. Moreover, Beijing is wary 

of a Taliban victory as this could directly impact the restive 

Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang. Like its enormous 

African safari, Beijing is also pumping 

massive economic firepower into infrastructure 

projects in Afghanistan. With 

an eye on Africa’s treasure trove of natural 

resources, China has embarked on a massive 

aid and investment spree to modernize 

the continent’s creaking infrastructure 

by building new and better roads, schools, 

computer networks, telecoms systems and 

power plants. While China’s foray into Afghanistan 

barely measures that of Africa, 

Beijing has reportedly promised to invest 

$3 billion in one of the world’s largest copper 

mines south of Kabul. Through this 

calculated maneuver, the Chinese have 

seemingly announced their intentions 

of leveling the playing field with the US 

through economic and possibly military 

assistance to Af- ghanistan. On the eve of President Karzai’s 

bilateral visit to Beijing in March, Zhang Xiaodong, Deputy 

Chief of the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies, 

told the government-owned China Daily, “As Afghanistan’s 

neighbour, China is very concerned about the country’s 

future”. In a subtle hint of shifting geopolitical priorities, 

Zhang hinted, “Afghanistan should cut reliance on the US. 

At the moment, Washington is deeply involved, and it makes 

other neighbours nervous. Karzai now hopes to seek more 

support from other big countries and find a diplomatic balance,” 

At the twilight of the Afghan War, the stage is set for 

Beijing’s increasing involvement in its embattled neighbourhood. 

Iran 

Finally, Afghanistan’s enormous neighbour to the west, Iran, 

faces a dangerous ideological adversary in the Sunni Taliban. 

The Iranians will not easily forego the brutal murder of their 



17

diplomats at the hands of the Taliban in 1998 that almost escalated 

into a military conflict. The regional giant commands 

significant influence among the Shia Hazara minority as it 

also pumps in significant economic investment to develop 

the country. Tehran certified joint investment companies, 

sponsored food fairs, opened cement factories, extended 

purchase credits to traders, and trained commercial pilots. 

The extension of an electric 

line into the western Afghan 

city of Herat and joint sponsorship 

of highway projects 

with India throughout the 

Afghan west have been some 

of Tehran’s key projects. While Iran is loath to accept a Taliban 

take-over of Afghanistan, it is wary of the presence of 

US-led NATO troops on its eastern frontier. Pentagon officials 

allege that Tehran supplies arms and other material 

to Taliban insurgents and other groups in Western Afghanistan. 

With Iran’s deepening ties with various Afghan communities 

such as the Shia Hazara and others, it is inevitable 

that any heightening of US-Iranian tensions can be played 

out in a violent proxy face-off in the fiery deserts of the wartorn 

nation. 

“While Iran is loath to accept a Taliban take-over 

of Afghanistan, it is wary of the presence of US-led 

NATO troops on its eastern frontier.” 

In the aftermath of the London Conference, the end game 

has intensified fears of further instability as Western forces 

gear for an eventual withdrawal. Held on January 28th 

2010, the London Conference, attended by major actors in 

the international community, endorsed plans to transfer 

military leadership from NATO to Afghan security forces 

beginning at the end of this year and for the reintegration of 

the Taliban into the Afghan 

political structure via monetary 

benefits. Simmering 

tensions between regional 

powers are likely to boil 

over as consensus emerges 

regarding negotiations with the Taliban. A possible political 

settlement with the Taliban, with the involvement of Pakistan, 

is likely to spark reactions from India, China, Iran and 

Russia including the backing of other anti-Taliban groups 

undermining any peace and stability in the region. Recent 

weeks have witnessed an upsurge in regional diplomacy as 

world leaders shuttled between New Delhi, Moscow, Kabul, 

Islamabad and Tehran - be it Prime Minister Manmohan 

Singh’s visit to Riyadh, President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad 

’s visit to Kabul, President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Islamabad, 

or Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to Delhi. As 

the clock in Afghanistan ticks down, the coming weeks and 

months are likely to witness an escalation of intensity in the 

cloak and dagger game being played between regional powers 

for the ultimate prize that is Afghanistan. 

image credit: flickr “Chuck Holton” 

Brijesh Khemlani 

b.khemlani@lse.ac.uk 

“...the coming weeks and months 

are likely to witness an escalation 

of intensity in the cloak and dagger 

game being played between regional 

powers for the ultimate prize that 

is Afghanistan.” 


18

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Intervi 

“To say we are giving upon markets is actually 

almost to say we are giving up.” 


image credit: flickr “World Economic Forum” 

TStern is a refreshing 

experience; 

pragmatic approach leaves 

space for constructive solutions 

alongside criticism. 

He famously published 

the Stern Review in 2006, 

presenting climate change 

as the result of market 

alking to Nicholas 

failure and subsequently 

provides market-based 

solutions. Among other 

things, he currently chairs 

the Grantham Institute for 

Climate Change and the 

Environment at the LSE 

and heads the India Observatory 

within the Asia 

Research Centre. 

Despite the shortcomings 

of the Copenhagen 

Summit, Stern retains a 

positive outlook, insisting 

we should view it as a 

platform for future 

change. It is easy to be 

sceptical of this optimism, 

perhaps partly because the 

summit was presented to the 

average person as the summit, 

where countries would 

agree on binding emissions 

plans and stringent 

targets. When these did 

not materialise, it seemed 

a significant opportunity 

had been wasted. Stern 

admits the disappointment, 

but at the same time notes 

it could have been much 

worse and, in support of 

his hopefulness, points to 

several positive, concrete 

results. One outcome was 

recognition of the need to 

limit global warming to 2 

degrees, the implications 

of which amount to some 

radical action. He outlined 

the following figures: we 

currently emit around 

47 billion tonnes of CO2 

equivalent per annum; to 

meet the target we would 

have to reduce this to 

around 44 billion tonnes 

in 2020, well below 35 

in 2030 and 20 in 2050. 

Presumably then, the challenge 

faced by countries at 

the future climate summit 

in Cancun, Mexico, will be 

to lay down more concrete 

plans for achieving this; no 

small feat considering the 

inevitable political wrangling. 

However even here 

there are indicators that it 

is possible to work together. 

The High-level Advisory 

Group on Climate Change 

Financing, responsible for 

investigating how to spend 

the money promised at Copenhagen, 

will be chaired 

by both Gordon Brown 

and Mr. Meles Zenawi, 

Prime Minister of the Federal 

Democratic Republic 

of Ethiopia. 

On a more local level, we 

face the challenge of making 

our government commit 

to meaningful domestic 

initiatives to combat 

climate change. Undeniably 

the government has a 

large role to play, especially 

in Stern’s rhetoric where 

emissions are an externality 

that must be addressed 

through government intervention. 

However, the 

question remains over how 

best to mobilise our politicians. 

Should we portray 

the long-term benefits (be 

it humanitarian or economic) 

or should we appeal 

to their short-term 

electoral interests? Stern 

opts for the former: he 

feeds research papers and 

policy into government to 

convince them of the necessity 

and benefits of action. 

The latter requires 

many individuals modify 

their behaviour to be more 

environmentally aware. 

This would prove people’s 

20 


ewith 

With the dust of Copenhagen still in the air, Hero Austin 

and Kimia Pezeshki converse candidly with worldrenowned 

climate economist Professor Nicholas Stern 

about the future of the climate change debate and his 

reasons for hope. 

Lord Nicholas Stern 

commitment to the issue, 

allowing parties to 

implement radical initiatives 

without fear of the 

electorate. In actuality, it 

transpires that both are 

crucial, even complementary. 

Stern’s policies and 

research provide sound, 

detailed evidence for the 

British government to act 

upon, but to ensure action, 

this has to be seconded by 

popular demand to reassure 

any party facing the 

electorate. 

Nevertheless Stern is clear 

that some approaches 

are simply not useful. We 

asked him about his views 

on a dedicated section of 

the green movement, invaluable 

to raising awareness 

of climate change and 

committed to meaningful 

lifestyle changes. The 

issue for Stern over this 

section of the green movement 

arises in their denial 

of market solutions. This 

view is often adopted because 

of pragmatic and 

ideological concerns. First, 

there is a question about 

whether schemes such as 

carbon trading will work. 

Sceptics often point to the 

first phase of the European 

Union Emission Trading 

Scheme that over allocated 

carbon credits and allowed 

electricity companies to 

make windfall profits. 

This was counterproductive 

to the aims of carbon 

trading because companies 

that received excess credits 

had no incentive to “green” 

their practices. The cap 

was meaningless. Although 

a legitimate concern, the 

problem seems to lie in 

the implementation rather 

than the theory itself. More 

stringent regulation and 

allocation would alleviate 

these difficulties. 

Secondly, however, Stern 

is faced with a more ideological 

challenge. This is 

the belief that a capitalist 

society is based upon unlimited 

consumption that 

necessitates the depletion 

of resources and damage 

to the environment. The 

counter-argument to this 

revolves around the concept 

of a green economy 

and sustainable development/growth, 

which is 

outlined in Stern’s book 

Blueprint for a Safer Planet. 

Ultimately though, it is 

clear that Stern considers 

these objections to be peripheral: 

“I don’t think you 

can claim that markets 

have no role to play. Most 

of what happens in a modern 

economy happens as a 

result of private sector decisions, 

and the question 

is what the incentives are? 

In what context are people 

making those decisions? 

What regulations do they 

face, [and] how are risks 

shared?” 

“To say that we are giving 

upon markets is actually 

almost to say we are giving 

up.” 

A more universally appealing 

aspect of Stern’s 

approach is his desire to 

find solutions that have 

the least painful impact. 

For instance, by 2050, our 

population is estimated to 

be 9 billion. Evidently, this 

means our carbon emissions 

per capita have to be 

cut more drastically than 

if there were less people 

in the world. This is sometimes 

used as an argument 

for population control so 

we can more easily meet 

targets for total emissions. 

Stern’s response is that the 

only acceptable form of 

this involves increasing sex 

education and awareness 

of women’s rights. 

Other options, according 

to Stern, entail being radical 

in an undesirable way. 

Death control is obviously 

not a viable choice, but neither 

is stringent birth control; 

it is an illiberal solution 

generally accepted not 

to be compatible with our 

society. 

We agree with Stern’s 

judgement that “if you’re 

going to be pessimistic 

then you have basically 

given up”. His characteristic 

optimism coupled with 

a realistic analysis of the 

current status will hopefully 

contribute to desired 

improvements, particularly 

at Cancun. After speaking 

with Stern, the most 

significant sentiment we 

are left with is that in order 

to have chance of success 

“you have to keep persuading 

and presenting the arguments.” 

Hero Austin 

h.austin@lse.ac.uk 

Kimia Pezeshki 

k.pezeshki@lse.ac.uk 



21

The Right Kind of Financial Education 

The Right Kind 

Financial Education of 

If the credit crunch has taught us anything, it’s that we are all 

invested in the financial sector. So why do few of us know precisely 

what happens to our money? And most importantly, how can we 

change it? 

Banking is the lifeblood of the 

economy. Without banks 

safeguarding our deposits, 

we would waste time keeping track of 

our money. Without banks keeping a 

portion of our deposits and lending out 

the rest, businesses would find it hard 

to raise capital. Historically, societies 

have flourished on a free flow of credit. 

The derivatives sector alone amounts 

to up to $60 trillion. It’s little surprise 

that when it blew up, it took the rest of 

the world with it. 

But until I was 20 years old, I didn’t 

know how a bank worked. Had I not 

learned this for an introductory economics 

class I took in hopes of an easy 

first (it wasn’t), I would still be operating 

under the vague notion that the cash I 

deposited at the bank just sat there, and 

that banks magically always had money 

to issue mortgages and credit cards. 

How had I, a girl not exactly stupid 

or uneducated, never even thought to 

question the economy or financial markets, 

a sector that, as the past two years 

have shown, has profound consequences 

on our lives? Part of it was because, as 

a young person who doesn’t yet have to 

pay taxes, learning about money – where 

it comes from and how to use it – did 

not seem immediate or relevant. Part 

of it was a dismissive fear that finance 

was too complicated for me to even 

contemplate understanding. But mostly 

it was because I believed, as an aspiring 

writer, I had loftier concerns than 

money. Bankers were all power hungry 

and soulless. My snobbishness seemed 

vindicated when I first started studying 

at the London School of Economics, 

dominated by investment-banker wannabes 

whose only concerns seemed to be 

networking, career workshops and how 

little work they need to do to get a 2:1. 

My distaste of bankers is nothing new. 

Historically, generating profit from 

handling money is not considered noble 

and a long-standing prejudice has 

existed between those who work with 

money and those who are seen as doing 

m o r e 

“…three-quarters of the school-leaving population 

are unequipped to make simple financial 

decisions.” 

productive 

w o r k , 

l i k e 

agriculture or medicine. It’s a prejudice 

reinforced in literature, artwork, 

even religion – Christianity enforced 

the sin of usury, which banned lending 

on interest, something still banned 

under Muslim Shariah Law. Like all 

prejudices, it’s largely unjustified, but 

bankers, on their part, have never had 

an incentive to demystify themselves. 

Deposit-taking banks depend upon 

consumer confidence, and the less 

consumers know about the risks banks 

take with their money, the better. 

The challenge for our generation is 

to see education in personal finance 

as a social mission. We can start by 

advocating for financial literacy programmes. 

Consumers deserve to know 

what banks do, and the best way for 

people to understand how banks manage 

money is to start by managing their 

own. Financial literacy has to be taught 

to children. A study by the Jump$tart 

foundation, America’s largest financial 

literacy non-profit organisation, shows 

that most people become financially 

literate at university. But, given only a 

minority of high school graduates make 

it to college, this still leaves three-quarters 

of the school-leaving population 

unequipped to make simple financial 

decisions. 

School curricula are not ready to teach 

financial literacy. But there are arguably 

better ways in the form of community 

outreach schemes. In the UK, they are 

largely organized by professional bodies 

such as the Institute of Chartered 

Accountants in England and Wales, 

who work with the secondary school 

teachers to deliver a tailored curriculum 

for students. Financial literacy 

could easily be expanded into volunteer 

schemes for young people. You don’t 

need advanced mathematical knowledge 

to explain compound interest to a 

five year old. 

Next, economics and finance curricula 

need to cover behavioural economics 

and financial 

history. 

Understanding 

the evolution of our current economic 

system requires knowledge of 

financial history. Behavioural economics 

teaches us that far from being rational 

decision makers, we’re hardwired 

to make irrational decisions by following 

innate psychological biases. These 

include everything from short-sightedness 

to avoiding emotional distress by 

avoiding financial planning. Teaching 

about the psychology of financial behaviour 

will help us understand financial 

crises, and more importantly, dispel 

a common notion that all financial 

risk can be controlled. Learning about 

past financiers’ methods and mistakes 

will help promote a long-term, sustainable 

view of finance. 

Thanks to the financial crisis, a debate 

that was previously the privilege of 

academia has gone mainstream. As the 

next generation of leaders, we should 

take this by the horns. We need to 

question why our economy is the way 

it is and how it affects us. We need to 

keep the debate alive for our children, 

so they may see how money and those 

who control it, affect everyone’s lives, at 

all times, not just in the wake of financial 

crises. 

Eunice Ng 

e.s.ng@lse.ac.uk 

22 


New Labour and 

The 

Death 

of Ideas 

May 1997 saw Tony Blair stride into 

No.10 Downing Street, his gait 

matching the optimism optimism 

and hope encapsulated in the 

feverish flag waving and fresh spring air of 

that day. Blair, it was thought, was leading 

his party and even the country on a grand 

project of modernization, creating a politics 

and a nation for the 21st Century. This 

venture was New Labour. Now, over 12 

years later, with the faces of that movement 

worn and furrowed by events and stresses, a 

number of lessons need to be learnt. 

Blair saw his modernisation Labour Party as 

the realisation of an idea born at the London 

School of Economics. His admiration for 

Anthony Giddens, the cerebral father of the 

Third Way, verged on a desire for doctrinaire 

implementation of the University’s former 

director’s ideas. Retrospect shows us that 

ideology has in fact been the biggest victim 

of Blair and Brown’s project. Rather than 

becoming the ideology to rule all ideologies, 

transcending the clash between left and right, 

the Third Way has sucked ideas out of British 

politics altogether. This is evidenced by the 

nature of debate in the Westminster village 

today. In a time when events have challenged 

fundamental assumptions of the economic 

orthodoxy, the political community has been 

discredited as nepotistic. Numerous global 

problems persist without clear answers and it 

is staggering to contemplate the narrowness 

in the range of remedies proposed by 

mainstream politics. 

Some see the limited choice we face as a victory 

for free-market based liberal democracy over 

rival systems of government and economics. 

This End of History reasoning (promulgated 

by Francis Fukuyama), undoubtedly has 

some merit when applied to domestic politics 

but does not explain everything. Whilst 

the society Britain has created for itself has 

been a successful one, there is widespread 

recognition of persisting problems. Poverty 

image credit: flickr “Robertsharp” 

“We have lived under a 

government without an 

ideology for nearly 13 

years.” 

has not been eradicated, provisions for 

health and education are not of an acceptable 

standard, grave threats to our well-being 

such as climate change are not met with an 

adequate reaction and the role of a post- 

Imperial Britain in the world remains unclear. 

In short, we haven’t solved everything and 

one would thus expect debates on the kind of 

government action or inaction that is needed. 

History tells us that unanswered questions 

such as these should lead to an exaggeration 

of differences in ideas, presenting citizens 

with a noteworthy choice as to the objectives 

and methods of government. This is certainly 

not intended to be a call for extremist 

ideology. Ideas are powerful instruments 

and can be forces for evil as well as good. 

Radicalism can be dangerous, but variation 

of some description and for the right reasons 

is the lifeblood of a liberal democracy. 

New Labour is inculpated in this end to ideas 

for a number of reasons. Primarily, its own 

The New Labour post mortem 

certainly demands a wide 

range of questions, but above 

all we must ask of our politics: 

where have all the ideas gone? 

emptiness is to blame. We have now lived 

under a government without an ideology 

for nearly 13 years. Perhaps we have simply 

forgotten what it looks like. Commitments 

such as the famous 1997 manifesto promise 

to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes 

of crime’ seduced us into thinking we were 

at a landmark moment, putting the dogma 

of left and right behind us and adopting 

a set of universal beneficial values. Such 

aphorisms are successful because they are 

so hard to disagree with. Who wouldn’t 

want to tackle crime as well as its causes or 

accept responsibility along with their newfound 

rights? Sadly, these visions never 

became a reality. Rather than achieving 

its transcendental goal and becoming the 

ideology to rule all ideologies, the third 

way revealed itself as an act of overcautious 

triangulation. The electorate unconsciously 

swapped honesty as to the difficult choices 

intrinsic in making policy and effecting 

change for a politics in which presentation 

rules supreme. Tragically, government in 

this way inescapably results in a race to the 

bottom. While blame does not lie exclusively 

with the Labour party, opposition of 

substance is awkward when one has nothing 

concrete to push against. The Conservatives 

chose to play by Labour’s new rules rather 

than rewriting them for the better. 

Into the vacuum of ideas pours techniques 

of style and packaging. It is deeply troubling 

that some of the most employed tools of 

policy formulation and government emulate 

the operations of an advertising agency. 

Does it seem likely that the answers of how 

best to flog a packet of crisps and what the 

best way to regulate immigration lie in the 

same process? With this phenomenon, 

scrutiny falls down the wayside. Criticism 

of politicians centres on pointing out gaps 

in their polished presentation rather than 

questioning values or policy proposals. This 

election has the potential to be a crossroads 

for our society where important questions 

are met with worthy answers. Sadly, and 

largely thanks to New Labour, May will 

undoubtedly be a triumph of form over 

substance. Ideology, R.I.P. 

Oliver Wiseman 

o.wiseman@lse.ac.uk 

New Labour and the Death of the Ideas 

23

image credit: flickr “bitzceit” 

Credit Crun 

- Governing Global Finance 

The first decade of the new millennium demonstrated 

both the power and fragility of the 

financial industry, but prospects for reining it 

in look increasingly uncertain. 

che 

In 1986 international political economist Benjamin Cohen 

presciently observed that “high finance can no 

longer be kept separate from high politics.” That same 

year, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher shook the 

City of London by enacting her ‘Big Bang’ reforms, deregulating 

finance and unleashing market forces. Almost a quarter 

of a century later, the financial sector has 

grown exponentially in size, market share 

and importance for the world economy. 

Capital markets have become liberalised, computerised, securitised 

and politicised. Stocks, flows and types of financial 

instruments have boomed beyond comparable metrics. Average 

daily turnover of foreign currency rocketed from $490 

billion in 1989 to $4 trillion in 2007. The facilitation of 

trade – international finance’s primordial function – became 

a footnote in the story. In 1980, international flows of capital 

were roughly double the value of trade. Today, conservative 

estimates begin at around sixty times the value. 

The noughties were a dizzying decade. Values of outstanding 

derivatives grew from $100 billion at the turn of the century 

to over $600 billion by 2007. Credit default swaps, a favourite 

innovation among yield-hungry traders, reached a 

staggering peak value of $60 trillion – five times the GDP of 

the United States. Then, in late 2008, the crisis hit. Markets 

seized up, lending ceased, and regulators appeared impotent. 

Unparalleled levels of market intervention in the resultant 

‘Keynesian Resurgence’ prevented a global 

depression, but have left countries 

around the world deeply invested in financial 

markets. At the turn of the second decade of the new 

century, the question of what to do with finance has come to 

colour policy debates the world over. Regulation is in the air. 

But amidst the cacophony of demur and declarations, will 

anything substantive emerge? 

“Regulation is in the air.” 

Through an analysis of past experience and present political 

difficulties, this article argues that a shift towards a stronger 

international regulatory regime may emerge, but that its 

chances post-crisis are depreciating with time. Finance is 

the exemplar of globalisation: interconnected, mobile across 

borders and politically powerful. Any coordinated regulatory 


“Any coordinated regulatory 

response must not only overcome 

obstacles of interest and ideology, 

but diplomacy as well.” 

image credit: flickr “taberandrew” 

24 


“The lesson of the East Asian 

financial crisis for governance is 

that reform follows perception.” 

dresponse must not only overcome obstacles of interest and 

ideology, but diplomacy as well. ‘Opportunity in crisis’ is a 

cliché that belies the realities of international relations. Reform 

requires leadership, commitment, and the agreement 

or imposition of alternative frameworks. At the root, it requires 

a rejection of the status quo and the existence of an 

alternative. But, first and foremost, regulating global finance 

requires a cohesive answer to the question: ‘Where did it all 

go so wrong?’ 

The Early Noughties: Lessons from East Asia 

But perceptions and diagnoses change. As months turned 

to years, Krugman and others began to believe that markets 

were largely to blame, irrationally perceiving risk in countries 

that were otherwise fiscally sound. It gradually became 

clear that Malaysia, which had been the exception by declining 

IMF assistance and instituting strong capital controls, 

was recovering quicker than others. The IMF subsequently 

abandoned formalising its advocacy of open capital markets, 

but poor countries and non-governmental organisations 

were still pushing for reform. In 2002, the WTO, IMF, World 

Bank and UN met in Monterrey, Mexico to discuss “closing 

the gap between our aspirations and the realities of finance.” 

Results were haphazard and mixed. While the World Bank 

opened its doors to civil society, the IMF remained broadly 

closed. In the words of its own historian James Boughton, it 

still wanted to be “respected, not loved”. 

image credit: flickr “KristyR929” 

It started off well enough. In the wake of the East Asian financial 

crisis of 1997-8, calls for international monetary reform 

reached a new peak. The IMF’s earlier strong advocacy 

of liberal capital markets seemed to be in tatters. In April 

1997, Stanley Fischer, Managing Director of the International 

Monetary Fund, gave a speech to an audience of colleagues 

advocating an amendment to the IMF’s charter, enabling it 

to “promote the orderly liberalization of capital movements.” 

Three months later, Thailand was going cap-in-hand to the 

IMF and the East Asian financial crisis hit in earnest. Hotmoney 

poured out of the region, even from countries that 

appeared fiscally sound. The East Asian miracle had turned 

into a contagious nightmare. 

However, far from seeking to rein in financial markets 

through implementing capital controls, in the early postcrisis 

stages the overall push was in the opposite direction. 

The IMF argued staunchly that it was not irrational markets 

that had precipitated the crisis, but poor governance and 

‘crony capitalism’. Even Paul Krugman initially argued that 

a lack of transparency, lacklustre standards and widespread 

nepotism were the root causes of the contagion. Such analyses 

enhanced the domestic power of liberal reformers, such 

as those in South Korea, which subsequently (albeit superficially) 

began shifting from a dirigiste model of capitalism to 

a more Anglo-Saxon and laissez-faire version. 

The lesson of the East Asian financial crisis for governance 

is that reform follows perception. Just as pride comes before 

a fall, contemplation precedes change. As with interpretations, 

outcomes need not converge: different diagnoses lead 

to different responses. While Malaysia blamed capital markets 

and acted to stem the tide, South Korea blamed itself, 

and opened the gates further. Internationally, this lack of 

consensus resulted in little action beyond lip-service and internal 

shuffling within the disparate international financial 

institutions. The alphabet soup of discordant institutions – 

the IMF, WB, FSF, OECD, IASB, IASC, FATF, BIS, IOSCO, 

IAIS, IFIAR – were left largely unscathed. The second Basle 

Accord on international banking supervision took 6 years to 

be agreed, and was on a voluntary ‘best endeavours’ basis, 

which the Federal Reserve never fully took up. Rather than 

undermining capital account liberalisation and the Anglo- 

Saxon model, the East Asian crisis largely reinforced it, while 

more radical voices became steadily imperceptible in the 

white-hot growth of the mid-noughties. 

Credit Crunched 

Then the crunch came. The general story is well-known: the 

August 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers precipitated a global 

contraction in credit markets, as inter-bank confidence 

dissipated amid toxic assets and uncertainty. Now, once 

again, the world is in a phase of evaluation. As with a decade 

ago, diverging diagnoses are leading to differing prescriptions. 

Today, these can be generally summarised as ‘blame 

the bankers’ versus ‘blame the foreigners’. Two opposing 

views of two eminent economists are illustrative. 

Consider the case of Barry Eichengreen, the well-respected 

political economist at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Eichengreen is one of many academics noting the correspondence 

between the rise in finance and the demise of 

strong regulation in the 20th century. The gradual dilution of 



25

the Glass-Steagall Act – the 1930 US response to the Wall 

Street Crash that legally split banks between ‘commercial’ 

and ‘retail’ versions – is the primary suspect. Thatcherite 

deregulation in the UK and ‘Reagonomics’ in the US underpinned 

the Anglo-Saxon model from the 1980s onwards. 

As economists from Keynes to Krugman are wont to 

point out, financial markets have a perennial tendency 

towards disequilibrium: bubbles and bursts, credit expansions 

and credit crunches. Individual and collective 

rationality need not coincide. Former Citigroup chief executive 

Charles O. Prince is famous for noting at the height 

of the upsurge in 2007, “As long as the music is playing, 

you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.” 

From this perspective, the solution lies in regulation. 

Markets must be reined in and risks prevented from ‘going 

systemic’. One ‘out-of-the-box’ solution, according to 

Eichengreen, is a Global Glass-Steagall. Collectively, states 

would agree to impose stringent limits on the activities of 

financial institutions, distinguishing between deposit-taking, 

economy-serving institutions and the more leveraged 

profit-driven institutions that banks themselves became 

at turn of the twentieth century. The problem is systemic, 

and the solution is a regulator’s very-visible hand. 

By contrast, Arvind Subramanian of Columbia University, 

New York, takes a rather different view. Like many observers, 

Subramanian believes the root causes of the crunch 

were not reckless markets, conflicts of interest and moral 

hazard- but global imbalances. From this perspective, East 

Asia’s export-led growth, facilitated through exchange-rate 

interventions, had a dark distortionary side. Buying US 

debt in the form of ‘T-bill’ government bonds ($800 billion 

in the case of China) in order to keep domestic currency 

low and competitiveness of exports high, artificially lowering 

interest rates and discouraging saving. With plentiful 

cheap money, investors had powerful incentives to ‘get 

creative’. ‘Sub-prime’ became the order of the day, served 

as sliced-up, pre-packaged collateralised debt obligations. 

This unsustainable credit-bubble, so the argument goes, 

could not be burst gently, even if economists at the Federal 

Reserve had both the foresight and will to attempt doing 

so. Monetary meddling abroad fed systemic risk at home. 

Through this perspective, private actors are relieved of 

blame; the efficient market hypothesis stands intact, while 

China becomes prime suspect in a market-distortion game 

of ‘whodunit’. This prognosis is patently less conducive to 

the harmonious, collaborative international relations needed 

for the market-instability approach. Instead of international 

agreement on regulating financial markets, some nations 

must effectively ‘gang-up’ to place pressure on China. 

The Future 

Unsurprisingly, the ‘blame the foreigners’ approach is the 

preferred by US regulators. Timothy Geithner, upon being 

confirmed as treasury secretary in the Obama administration, 

made noises about China’s currency “fiddling”. Conversely, 

old grandees are displaying more contrition. Inflation-hawk, 

former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was uncharacteristically 

apologetic in front of Congress. He expressed 

“shocked disbelief” that the “whole intellectual edifice” of modern 

risk-management collapsed. Speaking of his ideology, he 

said, “I found a flaw… and I’ve been very distressed by that fact.” 


image credit: flickr “Ben Heine” 

“Obama’s proclamation to put up 

a fight against the financial lobby 

is laudable, but he must choose 

his battles wisely.” 

Political leaders also seem to be falling into the ‘blame the 

markets’ camp. French conservative President Nicholas 

Sarkozy rapidly back-peddled from his rhetorical support 

of the Anglo-Saxon model declaring “laissez-faire capitalism 

is dead.” In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon 

Brown voiced early support for a Tobin-like financial transactions 

tax to pay for the bailouts or international development 

goals. The Tobin tax’s latest incarnation is being 

branded the ‘Robin Hood Tax’, and has a lively campaign 

behind it in Europe. Even US President Barack Obama 

has taken a hostile tone towards the financial industry: 

“if these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.” 

For international regulation, the last proclamation is the 

26

“I found a flaw… and I’ve been 

very distressed by that fact.” 

image credit: flickr “DavidFDesign” 

the most promising. Like most areas of global governance, 

much of what happens internationally (still) depends on 

what happens in Washington DC. But although Wall Street is 

not Main Street, as Barack Obama is at pains to emphasiseneither 

is Capitol Hill. Subject to, and yet somehow removed 

from the ebb and flow of electoral politics, Washington is 

awash with entrenched 

interests. Preventing anything 

remotely regulatory 

is a lucrative business. So 

powerful is this lobby that former Chief Economist of the 

IMF Simon Johnson even argues, with exaggeration, that 

the US government has been “effectively captured” by the 

finance industry. 

What all this suggests is that inertia, path-dependency and 

fragmentation look set to remain the defining characteristics 

of international financial regulation. Undoubtedly, some 

meagre reforms will emerge in the coming decade. Basle 

III may appear, with a likely increase in the reserve ratios 

required of banks. The IMF has found a new post-crisis 

role, has had its spending 

power tripled, and its current 

chief economist Olivier 

Blanchard has even 

pledged support for capital account restrictions – a taboo at 

the Fund just a decade ago. But all such measures are likely 

to follow the pattern of piecemeal and chaotic reform that 

has come to characterise international financial regulation. 

“In the US, the backlash now seems to be against 

‘big government’ rather than high finance.” 

Obama’s proclamation to put up a fight against the financial 

lobby is therefore laudable, but he must choose his battles 

wisely. Interest in stable and regulated finance is diffuse, 

while antipathy is concentrated, well endowed and knows 

how to make itself heard. With so many other fires in need 

of extinguishing – from climate change to healthcare reform 

– putting off the less politically pressing might be temptingly 

expedient. Indeed, one of the most perplexing outcomes of 

the crisis is that the backlash has been so muted. While German 

politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit predicted the financial 

collapse would be “for capitalist neoliberals what Chernobyl 

was for the nuclear lobby,” voters in Europe shifted rightward, 

not left. For all the initial populist outrage, while big 

bonuses have returned, it is governments who are under 

pressure to retrench. In the US, the backlash now seems 

to be against ‘big government’ rather than high finance. 

The 2008-9 crisis will be remembered as a calamitous financial 

failure, wiping out trillions of pounds of financial assets 

and pushing upwards of 80 million into extreme poverty. 

But as disastrous as the collapse was, the perverse irony is 

it may not have been cathartic enough to herald the global 

ideational shift needed to overcome the substantial international 

and domestic barriers to a closing of the gap in global 

financial governance. 

Simon Black 

black@lse.ac.uk 



27

21st 

Century Socialism 

Twenty-first century socialism may not have lived up to 

many of its promises, but there is little sign that the ‘pink 

tide’ sweeping Latin America has yet started to ebb. 

or the majority of Latin Americans, the first decade 

of the twenty-first century has been marked by dra- 

Fmatic improvements in both the standard of living 

and the quality of democracy. Record-breaking economic 

growth combined with the longest period of political stability 

in the region’s history has now led to the lowest number 

of people living in poverty since the 1980s. A recent poll 

conducted by Latinobarómetro shows satisfaction with 

democracy to have increased significantly throughout the 

decade, rising from 29% in 2003 to 44% by 2009. This includes 

a 7% increase in 2009 alone- no mean feat considering 

this was a year seen by many as the apex of the worst 

global recession the world has experienced since the 1930s. 

In political terms, the Latin American landscape has changed 

dramatically since the start of the decade. After the ‘turn to left’ 


image credit: flickr “POP” 

28 


largely due to their charisma and their opposition to the status 

quo. The second group, made up of leaders such as Lula 

and Bachelet, came from institutionalised parties and are a 

part of the political system rather than against it. 

This adversarial element of the ‘twentieth-century socialist’ is 

shown in Hugo Chávez’s rise to power. Both before and after 

his election in 1998, the blusterous president of Venezuela has 

continued to make international headlines with both his fervent 

promotion of a Latin America built upon socialist ideals 

that began around 2000 with the election of Ricardo Lagos 

in Chile, in country after country Latin Americans have 

chosen different shades of left-wing presidents to represent 

them. These have included governments in charge of some 

of the largest economies in the region, such as Brazil with 

the election of former trade union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da 

Silva, Argentina following the successive victories of the dynastic 

husband and wife team Nestor Kirchner and Cristina 

Fernández de Kirchner, and Chile with the election of the 

first female president Michelle Bachelet. In total, fourteen 

elections in 

the first decade 

of the 

twenty-first 

century have 

p r o d u c e d 

left-of-centre 

governments. 

The most 

important of 

these elections 

came 

in 2006 with 

the election 

of Evo 

Morales in 

Bolivia and 

Rafael Correa 

in Ecuador. 

Echoing actions of the mercurial Venezuelan president 

Hugo Chávez, both presidents began a process of appropriation 

shortly after coming 

to power. In Bolivia, this 

took the form of nationalising 

a number of ‘key 

strategic sectors’, most 

notably within natural 

gas and food distribution. 

In Ecuador, following a popular referendum allowing 

the president to form an Assembly to re-write the Constitution, 

Correa placed domestic water supplies under state 

control and significantly expanded the role of the state in the 

economy. This growth of the state’s powers also allowed him 

to appropriate two private television channels; he claimed 

they were owned by banks implicated in the December 1999 

financial crisis that wiped out millions in personal savings. 

Was South America to be the epicentre of the ‘twentiethcentury 

socialism’ to sweep across Latin America? 

image credit: flickr “Protesto: a.Andres” 

“Distinguishing between ‘populist leaders’ who openly 

promote ‘twenty-first century socialism’ and the more 

moderate leaders who aim to encourage business and 

investment... there are in essence ‘two lefts’.” 

In his book Contemporary Latin America: Development and 

Democracy Beyond the Washington Consensus, Francisco 

Panizza warns against making such general conclusions. Distinguishing 

between the ‘populist leaders’ who openly promote 

‘twenty-first century socialism’ and the more moderate 

leaders who aim to encourage business and investment, he 

argues that there are in essence ‘two lefts’. The first group of 

leaders including Chávez, Morales and Correa, were elected 

“In total, fourteen 

elections in the first 

decade of the twentyfirst 

century have 

produced left-ofcentre 

governments.” 

and voracious attacks against what he sees as encroaching 

United States hegemony in the region. With his repeated 

‘diplomatic tours’ to 

countries such as Russia, 

China, Iran, Belarus, 

Vietnam and Syria, 

many of Chávez’s actions 

seemed designed specifically 

to antagonise 

the United States. Often ridiculed in the international press, 

Chávez’s nationalisation of the oil and food sectors gave him 

the financial resources to enact his ‘twenty-first century socialism’ 

but, until 2006, no allies. 

At a time when most of Latin America was ruled by rightof-centre 

governments, Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ 

(named after the nineteenth-century Venezuelan leader who 

helped defeat Spain in the Wars of Independence) could only 

find a lone ally in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. With the elections of 

Morales and Correa, he increased his allies to three. Elected 

for second terms in 2009, both Morales and Correa continue 

to support Chávez’s ‘twenty-first century socialism’. 

In a speech delivered at the London School of Economics in 

October 2009, Correa re-affirmed his ties with Chávez, saying 

that “in his vision of socialism, in his vision of justice, in 

his vision of equality, in his Bolivarian vision, there are many 

processes in Chávez’s model that are changing Venezuela”. 



29


Attempting to pin down precisely what ‘twenty-first century 

socialism’ stands for, on the other hand, is difficult. In the 

same speech, Correa defined the movement variously as “a 

concept that is undergoing constant construction”, a “program 

for emancipation capable of strongly facing up to neoliberalism” 

and as an ideology that stresses the importance of 

generating “values of views before values of exchange”. 

“The moment Chávez doesn’t 

have as much economic flexibility 

to subsidise ALBA… 

it becomes much more difficult 

to understand how they 

could relate to each other 

and trade.” 

For Professor Panizza, senior lecturer in Latin American Politics 

at the LSE, the most significant aspect of the movement 

is not so much what ‘twenty-first century socialism’ stands for 

but the fact that it exists at all. “Who would have thought that 

socialism would have become a program of government for 

governments elected in democratic elections” Panizza asks, 

“That would have been unthinkable even a few years ago”. 

But has ‘socialism of the twenty-first century’ lived up to its 

promises? In 2004 Cuba and Venezuela announced the creation 

of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), 

a free trade bloc based on socialist principles. According to 

venezuelanalysis.com, ALBA aimed to overcome trade disadvantages 

through ‘solidarity with the economically weakest 

countries, aiming to achieve a free trade area in which all of 

its members benefit’. 

When gas-rich Bolivia joined in 2006, Stephen Gibbs, BBC’s 

correspondent in Havana, reported that Bolivia’s addition 

added “real weight” to the pact based on creating free trade 

as well as eradicating illiteracy and increasing the provision 

of heath-care. Since then, membership of ALBA has almost 

become a ‘who’s who’ of the poorest countries in Latin America 

and the Caribbean - including Nicaragua who joined in 

2007 and Dominica in 2008. Oil-rich but economically underdeveloped 

Ecuador became the latest member to join in 

2009. 

The unconventionality of combining underdeveloped econo- 

mies of Central American and Caribbean members with the 

Andean countries’ over-dependence on oil and gas, is its 

greatest selling point, but also represents a significant weakness. 

In contrast to other trading blocs in the region such as 

MERCOSUR, which are based on comparative advantage, 

for Prof. Panizza, ALBA remains under-pinned by Chávez’s 

oil money. “I think that that over-dependency is the Achilles’ 

heel of ALBA”, 

he said. “The 

moment that 

Chávez’s doesn’t 

have as much 

economic flexibility 

to subsidise 

ALBA, 

which is happening 

now to a 

certain extent, it 

becomes much 

more difficult to 

understand how 

they could relate 

to each other 

and trade”. 

In 2009 this 

became all too 

apparent as the 

plunging price 

of oil led to 

drastic cuts in public services and welfare spending. Many 

of Chávez’s popular misiones, often staffed by Cuban doctors 

as part of ALBA’s trading agreement, had to be closed. 

According to The Economist, the dependence of Chávez’s 

welfare program on profits in PDVSA, the state oil company, 

led to direct financial transfers to welfare programmes falling 

from $7.1 billion in 2007 to $2.7 billion in 2009. Despite 

promising a stimulus package to ease the pain, Chávez’s government 

has so far failed to deliver. 

By the end of 2009 soaring inflation, daily food and water 

shortages, periodic power cuts, rampant crime and public 

sector strikes led to an increase in public dissent. To quell 

opposition, Chávez began to resort to increasingly repressive 

measures imposed upon sources of independent thinking, 

including private television channels, trade unions, the 

church and universities. 

For Carlos Marquez, a Venezuelan business intelligence 

analyst now working in London, the inability of a political 

opposition movement to organize had always been a major 

problem in Venezuela. “There have always been various petitions 

to get Chávez out of government or not to pass a law”, 

he said “But what a lot of people don’t know, is that if you go 

to any street market, you can often buy the name and contact 

details of the person who voted against these laws. It 

seems designed to intimidate people into not voting for the 

opposition because you never know who can get hold of your 

details”. 

image credit: flickr “rogimmi” 

30 


“The one good thing about ‘twentieth-century socialism’ was 

that it brought to light to everyone in the country that you 

can’t ignore the sheer number of people living in poverty”, he 

added, “But if you ask me things have not got better under 

Chávez.” 

“We’re now having power cuts in the cities, which I’ve never 

experienced before, and in the countryside things are even 

worse. My family live 

in the countryside 

and over Christmas 

last year they only got 

water every eight days. 

Whatever Chávez is saying, many people don’t feel better off 

now than ten years ago.” 

“The one good thing about ‘twentieth-century 

socialism’ was that it brought to light … you can’t 

ignore the sheer number of people living in poverty.” 

With the passing of the constitutional amendment allowing 

Chávez to run for the presidency again in 2012, it would be 

in general, and ALBA in particular, surviving a change of 

administration. 

Also heavily dependent on natural resources, both Morales 

and Correa have to be seen as delivering on their promises 

to the poor to ensure their survival. In contrast to countries 

with more diversified economies, the distribution of natural 

resources represent potentially explosive political issues in 

both countries. In Ecuador 

in 2009, there were already 

indications that the indigenous 

support fostered during 

Correa’s first term was 

beginning to slip through his fingers following his mishandling 

of a proposed new mining law that could allow companies 

to mine in protected areas. 

In addition, a recent study conducted by Vanderbilt University 

has also shown that despite the forcefulness of their 

rhetoric, most Venezuelans and Bolivians still situate themselves 

to the right of the political spectrum. This sits with a 

general trend across Latin America in another study carried 

out Latinobarómetro. 

image credit: flickr “Presidencia de la Republica del Ecuador” 

“What it has tried to do is present an alternative, not just to 

neoliberalism, but to the moderate-left, reformist, capitalist 

government now in Latin America and I think this has a 

certain appeal to many people as socialism had in the twentieth 

century. You cannot dismiss the notion that socialism 

created apart from capitalism is not appealing to very, very 

important sectors of the population of Latin America.” 

With an increasing number of political parties of both the 

left and right moving towards the centre in many Latin 

American countries, Prof. Panizza believes that we should 

not discount ‘twenty-first century socialism’ just yet. 

foolish to write off the president just yet. In a turbulent 

political career that has seen him both lead and survive 

attempted coups against the government, Chávez has almost 

made a policy of defying predictions about his future. Facing 

a crumbling infrastructure, over-reliance on oil revenues 

and years of systematic ‘brain drain’ due to underinvestment 

in creating white-collar jobs, Chávez’s claim that “these 

next ten years will continue to transform Venezuela into an 

international powerhouse” has started to ring hollow for many 

people. With the grumblings of social discontent in Venezuela 

multiplying, Chávez’s use of scapegoats is wearing increasingly 

thin. With many of Venezuela’s trading relations built upon 

cheap oil, which in turn is dependent upon international 

demand within the open market, the recent plunge in the 

price of oil revealed the extent to which Chávez’s political 

survival is dependent upon the very free-market system he 

opposes. If he fails to win re-election in 2012, it is difficult 

to imagine Chávez’s brand of twenty-first century socialism 

Joe Rowley 

j.r.rowley@lse.ac.uk 



31

HIGHLIGHTS 

The Fight 

Through 

of Her Life 

the Parinya Muay Thai boxing camp, 

Thailand’s celebrated Nong Toom seeks to give 

back to her community with the art that made 

possible her transition from male to female. 

The Fight of Her Life 

Akick to the chest. A punch to 

the face. The crowd goes wild as 

Nong Toom sets his foot on his 

opponent’s thigh, hoists himself into 

the air, and comes crashing down with 

both elbows. An instant knockout, 

made all the sweeter by the fact that a 

kathoey — a “ladyboy,” or transvestite 

— would seemingly be the underdog 

in any Muay Thai ring. Much to the 

public’s amazement and delight, this 

kathoey enjoyed international celebrity 

and an extraordinary career of 20 wins 

out of 22 fights. By his late teens, Toom 

had earned enough to make a change he 

had dreamed about for years: In 1999, 

he officially became a woman. 

Sweeping away preconceptions, Toom 

successfully made a name for herself 

in Muay Thai, the world’s most violent 

combat sport. Toom is still celebrated 

today as a champion of Thailand’s 

national pastime; as a woman, however, 

she is banned from the ring. Still, she 

feels tremendous love for the sport. “If 

it weren’t for Muay Thai,” she said, “I 

wouldn’t be who I am today.” Through 

Muay Thai, she hopes to make a 

difference in her community. Along with 

her best friend and business partner, 

Steven Khan, Toom is striving to create 

the Parinya Muay Thai boxing camp, 

a haven for marginalized children, 

women, and members of the LGBT 

community (Although her fans know 

her as Nong, “Parinya” is Toom’s formal 

first name). 

“I’ve always dreamed of having this 

camp,” said Toom, who purchased the 

grounds in Pranburi with prize money 

from fighting in Bangkok’s Lumphini 

Stadium when she was 16. “I don’t 

want to be the sole beneficiary of Muay 

Thai. I would like to share the art of 

Muay Thai and to help other people.” 

Toom’s altruism is aimed at several 

groups in need. Throughout Thailand, 

poor children as young as five are 

encouraged fight Muay Thai; they bring 

home bruises and bloody noses as often 

as they do winnings. The Parinya Muay 

Thai camp is intended “for children 

who want 

real enough” 

for people to 

make major 

contribu- 

to practice “Through Muay Thai, she hopes to make 

the art but 

a difference in her community.” 

who don’t 

want the 

pressure or the risk of competition,” tions, lamented Khan. 

said Toom. 

These children will live, study, train, 

and receive stipends for their families 

at Parinya Muay Thai, which will also 

serve as a school and orphanage. The 

culmination of their hard work will 

be exhibition and performance rather 

than competition. 

Women, too, will be welcome to train 

at the camp, providing them with a 

revolutionary opportunity to partake in 

Muay Thai as well as a chance to learn 

self-defense in a sometimes dangerously 

patriarchal society. Additionally, the 

camp will serve as a much-needed 

sanctuary for the LGBT community. As 

Khan explained, sexual orientation “is 

a don’t-ask-don’t-tell kind of thing” in 

most camps, but “at our camp, you can 

be a ladyboy, you can be straight, you 

can be gay. Everyone has to respect one 

another.” 

Parinya Muay Thai is revolutionary in 

its scope and ambition, but Toom and 

Khan must conquer the challenge of 

funding before their dream can come to 

fruition. “All the groundwork is there,” 

said Khan. “We have the land, we have 

the outer walls, the gate, the permits, 

the planning. We’re just waiting on the 

money.” 

Ultimately, the camp’s operations will be 

funded by foreign Muay Thai enthusiasts 

who will pay for private lessons with 

Toom, with additional funding from 

donations, grants, fundraisers, and 

sponsorship. However, “until we have a 

boxing ring with people training there, 

it doesn’t feel 

Despite this obstacle, both Toom and 

Khan are determined to see this project 

through. “What’s keeping us going is 

that Nong Toom and I really believe 

in what we want to accomplish here, 

and that hasn’t changed,” said Khan. 

“Right now, we only have a wall, a gate, 

the land, and a dream. But we have 

passion.” 

After overcoming imposing obstacles 

to realize her dreams, Toom is 

determined to help others do the same. 

“I want to be an inspiration,” she said. 

“I want people to learn to pursue their 

dreams and face their challenges, even 

if it’s difficult.” Parinya Muay Thai will 

offer marginalized communities this 

very opportunity, along with respect, 

support, and “a big family,” said Toom. 

All will be equal and united in their 

love of “Thailand’s greatest treasure.” 

“I don’t want to be the sole beneficiary 

of Muay Thai boxing. I would like to 

share the art of Muay Thai and to help 

other people.” – Nong Toom 

Monica Landy 

monica.landy@yale.edu 

32 


The Human Cost of War: 

How Canada is Coping with its Soldiers’ 

Mental Health Issues 

HIGHLIGHTS 

War claims lives not only in combat, but 

long after, through the intense psychological 

trauma suffered by soldiers. Canada has taken 

a unique approach- worthy of considerationto 

treating the recent influx of post-combat 

stress in soldiers. If made easily accessible to 

all soldiers, this multi-faceted program could 

impact not only on the victims, but society as 

well, challenging the general acceptance of war 

and the traditional way soldiers are deployed. 

Canada has confirmed 

its remaining 

2800 troops to 

be removed from 

Afghanistan by end 2011. 

Over this period tens of thousands 

of soldiers from other 

countries will also leave Afghanistan. 

It is estimated 

that approximately one third 

of all soldiers deployed will 

suffer from post-traumatic 

stress. 

The difficulty soldiers face 

in transitioning from an 

intense combat zone back 

to former lives and families 

is grossly underestimated 

both by political and military 

institutions. Some feel an 

overwhelming sense of guilt 

having left compatriots in 

the field, others feel angst 

related to acts committed 

or witnessed in combat. The 

resulting influx of soldiers 

returning from Iraq and 

Afghanistan suffering from 

such psychological trauma 

is worrisome. According to 

recent reports by mental 

health experts, postdeployment 

military suicides 

in the US to date outnumber 

the total combat related 

deaths in Afghanistan and 

Iraq combined. In Canada, 

the number of operational 

stress injury cases in 2007 

represented an increase of 

over 400% over the five years 

prior. 

Although impossible to make 

a historical comparison, a 

clear phenomenon of the 

20th century is the shift 

away from classical interstate 

to intra-state warfare, 

and thus the disappearance 

of clearly identified actors. 

“Winning hearts and minds” 

of communities also raises 

the issue of heightened 

interpersonal interaction 

with a foreign population, 

for which soldiers lack 

psychological preparation. 

With the disappearance of 

front lines and the lack of 

uniforms, one can neither 

escape to a so-called safe 

area, nor distinguish 

between warring factions psychological 

and civilians. This shift has 

had a profound impact on 

the soldier’s psyche. Exposed 

to hostile environments in 

active combat for extended 

periods of time, they are 

understandably unable to 

cope. 

The US, in their own struggle 

against stress disorders, 

have committed 50 million 

dollars to conduct research in 

order to address the issue of 

post-deployment suicide, but 

“Approximately one third of all soldiers 

deployed [to Afghanistan] will suffer 

from post-traumatic stress.” 

with few concrete implementations 

to date. And yet the 

urgent need persists. An upsurge 

in health claims related 

to tours in Iraq and Afghanistan 

has resulted in a sharp 

spike in unprocessed health 

claims from 253,000 to over 

400,000. This increase has 

slowed processing time and 

access to treatment, averaging 

a considerable delay of 

over five months. Without 

early detection and treatment, 

the soldiers’ symptoms 

of depression, insomnia and 

flashbacks worsen. This can 

lead to self-isolation, the inability 

to work, substance 

abuse, destruction of families 

and ultimately, suicide. 

The term Operational Stress 

Injuries (OSI) was introduced 

to replace the term stressrelated 

disorders as part of 

an initiative to de-stigmatize 

mental illness in the military 

community. The term is not a 

medical condition, but used 

within non-medical contexts 

to describe various types of 

difficulties 

that can develop as a result 

of military operations. To 

address this problem, Canada 

has adopted an innovative 

approach to psychological 

treatment that deserves 

recognition. Since 2001, 

ten OSI clinics have opened 

across Canada, as well as 19 

Support Centers for military 

families, with a commitment 

to hire 218 mental health 

professionals. Dr. Charles 

Nelson, Psychologist of the 

London OSI Clinic, shares 

his perspective with The Paris 

Globalist: “For many veterans 

asking for help does not come 

easy. Thankfully, the peersupport 

program with the 

Operational Stress Injury 

Support System (OSISS) 

helps break down the stigma 

of experiencing mental 

health problems as a result 

of military service.” These 

specialized medical facilities 

are partnered with advocacy 

campaigns and peer networks 

to reach out to sufferers. The 

peer-support program is 

the most innovative part of 

treatment: it breaks down 

the taboo of mental illness 

by enabling soldiers to share 

their experiences, in a safe 

environment. This successful 

grassroots initiative, coupled 

with the OSI institutionbased 

programs, has created a 

image credit: flickr “Chairnam of the Joint Chiefs of Suit” 

multi-faceted, comprehensive 

and effective approach to 

treatment. Senator Romeo 

Dallaire, dedicated advocate 

of OSISS, believes that “peer 

interventions are saving us a 

suicide a day.” 

Acknowledging the progress 

made to date, mental health 

still remains a major issue 

in the Canadian military. 

The available programs and 

services remain reactive, 

but need to be paired with 

proactive solutions in order to 

treat the problem at the root. 

Canada has recently invested 

in psychological testing and 

preventative training in order 

to better identify symptoms 

and stress coping abilities of 

soldiers prior to deployment. 

Despite the realization of the 

tremendous psychological 

repercussions suffered 

by its soldiers, Canada’s 

security agenda and 

decades-long commitment 

to human security is not 

expected to change in the 

foreseeable future. What has 

changed within Canada’s 

military operations is the 

peacekeeping mandate from 

classic observation to NATO’s, 

and the UN’s expanded roles 

in peace-building. Lightly 

armed neutral observers have 

become active combatants, 

a mandate which Canadians 

have accepted, and with it, 

significantly greater risks to 

their personnel. Today, the 

number of PTSD affected 

soldiers seems exponentially 

greater than could have 

ever been predicted. If 

nothing would indicate 

that this progressive 

acknowledgement of the 

scale of the problem could i 

“This can lead to self-isolation, the 

inability to work, substance abuse, destruction 

of families and ultimately, suicide.” 

mpact the political will 

to deploy, it has at least 

piloted the development of 

infrastructure and support 

systems required behind 

such military efforts. 

Leading in the field of 

mental health, this visible 

commitment to personnel is 

a reassuring and humanist 

approach to a once impersonal 

and inflexible military 

institution, a paradigm shift 

that could very well have 

future implications on the 

general tolerability of war. 

Katelyn Potter 

katelyninparis 

@gmail.com 

The Human Cost of War: How Canada is Coping with its Soldiers’ Mental Health Issues 


33

The European Union 

and India: of their parts? 

Bigger than the sum 

In this article we ask whether India’s experience of forging a nation 

out of a messy collection of culturally heterogeneous princely states 

and administrative units holds any lessons for the European Union. 

“One might think of independent India as being Europe’s past as 

well as its future. It is Europe’s past in that it has reproduced, 

albeit more fiercely and intensely, the conflicts of a modernising, 

industrialising and urbanising society. But it is also its future in 

that it anticipated, by some fifty years, the European attempt to 

create a multilingual, multireligious and multiethnic political and 

economic community.” 

- Ramachandra Guha, Indian historian and writer 

image credit: flickr “IDRC CRDI Communications” 


T 

he fact that India is today a 

single political unit defies dire 

predictions of many colonialists 

and political scientists. One prominent 

doomsayer, Sir John Strachey, who 

helped put the British Raj in place, 

wrote that “there is not, and never 

was, an India, or even any country of 

India, possessing, according to any 

European ideas, any sort of unity, 

physical, political, social or religious.” 

Strachey thought it inconceivable 

that national sympathies should ever 

extend to India generally: “that men of 

the Punjab, Bengal, the North-Western 

Provinces and Madras, should ever feel 

that they belong to one Indian nation, 

is impossible. You might with as much 

reason and probability look forward to 

a time when a single nation will have 

taken the place of the various nations 

in Europe.” 

Strachey’s sentiments capture a deep 

foreboding that India lacked essential 

ingredients of a nation, much less a 

democratic one. It was simply too diverse 

and too poor, and with ugly remnants 

of its caste system, had undemocratic 

cultural values. Indeed, following 

in these intellectual footsteps, The 

Economist christened India “the world’s 

most improbable democracy”. Why 

did these premonitions turn out to be 

misguided? Three factors were chiefly 

responsible for keeping India alive: the 

independence movement’s fostering of 

an inclusive national identity, a political 

party (the Indian National Congress) 

that built and still bases its politics 

around these ideals, and the respect 

accorded to the electoral process. 

“a deep foreboding that India lacked 

essential ingredients of a nation, much 

less a democratic one” 

Every five 

years India 

plays host to 

the largest 

democratic exercise in human history. 

At last year’s national elections, 700 

million voters cast their ballots at one of 

828,804 polling stations. These general 

elections in many ways resemble the 

country whose political future they 

decide: always colourful and usually 

chaotic, their magic lies in their very 

existence. Conducted by a fiercely 

independent and well-resourced 

Election Commission and contested 

by candidates ranging from secular, 

Marxist union leaders to right-wing 

Hindu ultra-nationalists, Dalit demagogues 

and Kashmiri separatists, Indian 

elections are not tools in the hands 

of a strong-willed ruling elite, as is the 

case in many developing countries. 

They often trigger important conversations 

about the country India ought to 

be and are one major reason why India 

survives as a political entity. 

A second reason is that elections reinforce 

the 

grand idea 

of India articulated 

by 

the fathers 

of the country’s independence. Their 

vision was calibrated to appeal to vastly 

different ethno-linguistic and religious 

communities thus transcending these 

boundaries. India’s national identity is 

not constructed upon the conventional 

foundations of nationalism. To rally the 

country around a common language 

would be divisive, as no tongue is spoken 

by a majority of the population, 

and 29 languages have over one million 

34 


native speakers. Ethnicity provides an 

equally vacuous bond, since “the term 

Indian accommodates a diversity of 

racial types in which many Indians have 

more in common with foreigners than 

with other Indians”, a point well made 

by Shashi Tharoor, former UN undersecretary 

general, now India’s Minister 

of State for External Affairs. Religion, 

the founding basis for India’s neighbour 

Pakistan, was not a suitable glue 

either: while predominantly Hindu, 

India has large and very old Muslim, 

image credit: flickr “Giampaolo Squarcina” 

Sikh, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and 

Zoroastrian minorities, and has been 

ruled by both 

B u d d h i s t 

“India’s founding fathers elected to 

enunciate a national identity that is 

secular, pluralist and inclusive.” 

and Muslim 

dynasties. 

India’s 

f o u n d i n g 

fathers thus elected to enunciate a national 

identity that is secular, pluralist 

and inclusive. 

This inclusive vision of India – as a 

“house with all the doors and windows 

open,” through which the winds from 

around the world could blow without 

sweeping Indians off their feet – 

emerged in the years leading up to independence. 

Particular credence for it 

must be given to Rabindranath Tagore, 

the celebrated Bengali poet and first 

Asian Nobel Prize winner. Tagore’s writings 

deeply influenced both Mahatma 

Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, and 

Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. To 

become institutionalised, however, the 

high-flown ideals required a political 

entity to drive them forward in a messy 

world of realpolitik. That vehicle was 

the Indian National Congress. 

Imagine a political party claiming to 

represent all the people of Western 

Europe, from Greek-speaking Orthodox 

Christians in Athens to Welsh-speaking 

Catholics in Cardiff. The Indian 

National Congress’ claims have been 

no less grandiose. One could hardly 

find a party whose office bearers have 

more eclectic origins: their current 

parliamentarians include Tibetan 

Sherpas, Tamil blue-bloods and Sikh 

economists; a liberal Scotsman, a 

Mecca-born Muslim cleric and an 

English theosophist feature among 

their past presidents. The party of 

Gandhi and of Nehru successfully 

preserved their ideals of nationhood 

and built a political platform around 

them. 

This is not to suggest that the Congress’ 

liberal, romantic ideology has 

been unchallenged. Indeed, its fragility 

was glaringly exposed by the Muslim 

League, a political party led by Mohammad 

Ali Jinnah, the Father of Pakistan. 

In 1947, the League successfully 

demanded a separate state for India’s 

Muslims, arguing that the community’s 

interests would be threatened in a 

Hindu-majority 

India. 

Its starkest 

c h a l l e n g e , 

h o w e v e r , 

may come 

from Hindu communalists, who seek to 

turn India into a Hindu rashtra, a rival, 

exclusive definition of Indian-ness that 

privileges Hindi culture. 

The tensions stoked by Hindu 

fundamentalist groups are most 

visible and most frightening in North 

India. In 2002, in Godhra, Gujarat, 

one of India’s fastest-growing and 

best-managed states, Hindu mobs 

killed over 1000 people, most of them 

Muslims, in retaliation for the alleged 

burning of a train carriage carrying 60 

Hindu pilgrims by Muslim farmers. 

Many secularists understandably 

feared further communal dividends 

for the Hindu-nationalist Bharata 

Janata Party (BJP) at the 2004 General 

Elections. In a pleasantly surprising 

result, however, the largely illiterate 

electorate voted in the Congress Party, 

led by the Italian-born, Roman Catholic 

Sonia Gandhi. The sight of her stepping 

aside to make way for a Sikh economics 

professor, Dr Manmohan Singh, to be 

sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim 


nuclear scientist, President Abdul 

Kalam, in a country 81% Hindu, 

captured much of what holds India 

together, and suggests inspiring 

possibilities for communities comprised 

of diverse populations. 

Ever since its foundation, marked 

by the Treaties of Rome in 1957, the 

European Union has faced difficulties 

in sustaining enthusiasm for its 

overall project, best worded as a form 

of Pan-Europeanism. This ideology 

encompasses the thought that European 

citizens possess common social, 

political, economic and cultural norms, 

which supersede national divisions. The 

EU’s attempts to establish such a spirit 

among its 500 million population have 

missed their mark. Fifty-three years 

onwards, Euro-enthusiasts remain a 

minority. 

There was a time when the goal 

of fostering a lasting Pan-European 

sentiment did not seem so forlorn. Most 

Eastern European countries were keen to 

join the Union in the 1990s, specifically 

because of economic advantages. 

However, while these benefits were 

the driving force behind the desperate 

desire to be integrated, they were also 

linked with a developing sentiment of 

European pride, undoubtedly due to 

their very recent liberation from the 

USSR’s might. In contrast, now that 

many of these countries have acceded 

to the Union, support has wallowed. 

Even within candidate nations, general 

public shows ambiguity of opinion, as 

for instance, in Ukraine and Turkey. 

The problem has also become 

conspicuous in founder state countries 

as dramatically demonstrated by the 

rejection of the European Constitution 

by French and Dutch voters in 2005. 

Considered a rejection of the concept of 

the EU as a federal governing force, the 

voting stunned governments across the 

continent. In addition to both nations 

being EU founders, France is a main 

beneficiary of the Common Agricultural 

Policy, the greatest drain of the Union’s 

budget. In this light, such a drastic 

rejection seemed incomprehensible. 

The principal purpose of the European 

Constitution was to modernize 


35

image credit: flickr “European Parliament” 

“Fifty-three years onwards, Euro-enthusiasts 

remain a minority.” 


institutions to offer a better service 

to citizens. Powers were to become 

more centralized to ensure efficacy of 

decision-making. This undoubtedly 

surfaced fears of losing national 

identity and sovereignty to an 

apparently far removed and therefore 

unaccountable institution. Low levels of 

familiarity with the Union enhance this 

phenomenon. In the United Kingdom, 

Eurobarometer measured 83% claiming 

to know nothing or very little about the 

EU in 2009: national governments 

have failed to ensure sufficient public 

education about the EU’s workings and 

aims. In addition, smaller countries 

are increasingly worried that they 

will be dwarfed by greater economic 

powers and receive less than their 

share of benefits. The simultaneous 

combination of member-state 

nationalism and lack of transparency 

resulted into the ‘Constitution’ deadend, 

lasting nearly a decade. 

The EU’s most symbolic acts of 

integration - the adoption of a common 

market and the opening of boundaries 

across the Schengen area- remain 

principally means of facilitating the 

freedom of trade and movement 

amongst member states. In other 

words, motivated by economics, rather 

than any celebration of European pride. 

Perhaps another symptom of this selfimposed 

illness is the inclusion in the 

European Parliament of parties critical 

of its very existence. 

It is natural that countries should want 

image credit: flickr “wieland7” 

36 


to ensure that their sovereignty is not 

infringed upon. However, it is crucial 

that the concept of the EU become 

more popular. If enthusiasm can no 

longer be mustered, there is a chance 

that the European Union project will 

come to a standstill, or worse, become 

obsolete. National governments are 

ultimately accountable to their voters. 

If Euro-scepticism lives on, this will 

have to be brought in real terms onto 

the European scene. The EU is a noble 

enterprise, at the helm of common 

values and common economic interests. 

A united political stand on world affairs 

would by sheer force of economic 

weight, give much greater importance 

to member states’ demands. This will 

however not be possible if energy is 

wasted on constantly questioning the 

existence of the organization itself. The 

much needed improvements will also 

not come about unless it is clear that 

citizens are willing to see the EU thrive. 

regulation eases the exchange of goods 

across countries, while freedom of 

movement has allowed for a more 

flexible and successful labour market. 

Schemes such as the ‘Erasmus’ 

university exchange, or more informal 

‘learning’ from other member states, are 

undeniable benefits stealthily brought 

by the Union to its citizens. More 

importantly, the initial 1957 project 

has maintained its crucial goal: peace 

by intertwining economic interests and 

improving dialogue. Half a century later, 

this achievement is too often taken for 

granted. 

The idea of a pluralist democracy 

is powerful but fragile; Indians and 

Europeans alike would do well to guard 

it, for it will sustain both in the decades 

to come. 

A visit to the Commission buildings 

shows how the Union itself is crying 

for attention. Yet MEPs are unknown 

to the general public, and being sent 

to Brussels is sometimes considered 

political disgrace. Heads of state such 

as President Nicholas Sarkozy have 

been known to pressure disobedient 

ministers to run for EU parliamentary 

elections. More worryingly, only 43% 

of EU citizens support enlargement as 

opposed to 35% who are completely 

opposed to it, demonstrating a narrow 

view of what it means to be European. 

This may derive from the difficulty 

of member states to define their own 

nationality and come to terms with the 

fact that passports are shared within 

a plurality of ethnic origins. It is an 

attitude in contrast with the will of 

the EU institutions that, in a symbolic 

gesture, chose Istanbul as one of the 

cultural capitals of Europe in 2010. 

A solution may reside in publicising the 

European Union’s greatest successes in 

improving the day-to-day of its citizens, 

rather than placing the emphasis on 

its potential diplomatic weight abroad. 

Economic plans have allowed for lower 

prices and greater competitiveness; a 

trade-free zone enables a more efficient 

use of each country’s comparative 

advantages. A common health and safety 

“National governments have failed to 

ensure sufficient public education about 

the EU’s workings and aims” 

image credit: flickr “Ben Sutherland” 

Siddharth George 

s.e.george@lse.ac.uk 

Marion Koob 

m.c.koob@lse.ac.uk 



37

Enter Asia, 

Exit the West? 

In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse and in light of the 

emerging prominence of Asia- are beliefs in an imminent takeover 

of the West justified? This article tackles and refutes five specific 

generalisations heard in media and popular society to remind us of the 

fundamentals that drove the West to the position they are in today. 

1. “There is a power shift 

- West to East” 

It is still quite far-fetched 

to state that Asia will supplant 

the West Asia is still 

nowhere near the West 

in terms of economic and 

military development- the 

emergence of Asia will, at 

most, further enhance a 

multi-polar world. 

Additionally, Asia has to deal 

with serious environmental 

issues. Natural resources 

are depleting, pollution is 

worsening and a shortage of 

water developing. According 

to a World Bank Report 

entitled Cost of Pollution in 

China, 760,000 people die 

prematurely each year due to 

air and water pollution. 

power, China will go through 

a long period of unpredictable 

transition and weak central 

governance, possibly 

even incurring lacklustre 

economic growth. 

Lastly, the possibility of 

geopolitical dominance from 

Asia seems uncertain because 

despite the augmenting 

may seem Asia got it right. 

The growing hunger for 

material betterment in Asia 

appears to beat the greedridden 

American model or 

orthodoxy-dominated ways 

of Europe. Especially as the 

current financial crisis afflicts 

American and European 

strength, the unique way of 

conducting business in Asia 

gains attention. 


Indeed the region 

has produced 30% of 

international economic 

production, but its GDP per 

capita remains only $5,800 

compared to $48,000 in 

America. Even at the currently 

astounding rates of growth, 

the average Asian requires 77 

years (or the Chinese 47 years 

and the Indian 123 years) to 

match the level of income per 

average American. 

Asia also needs to jump 

the hurdles posed by its 

demographics. According 

to the United Nations 

Economic and Social 

Commission for Asia and the 

Pacific (UNESCAP), more 

than 20% of Asians will be 

seniors by 2050. Ageing 

already causes stagnation in 

Japan, for example, and will 

continue to affect the whole 

region as saving rates fall 

under rocketing healthcare 

and pension costs. 

“According to a World Bank Report entitled 

Cost of Pollution in China, 760,000 people 

die prematurely each year due to air and water 

pollution.” 

Furthermore, increased rates 

in military expenditure have 

been misleading. Research 

from the Stockholm 

International Peace Research 

Institute shows that the 

combined spending of Asian 

countries on military in 2008 

was only a third of what 

America spent, and will not 

match American expenditure 

for another 72 years. 

Not to mention political 

stability still remains 

extremely volatile in Asia. 

Rising inequality and 

pervasive corruption in 

China continue to drive 

social unrest and hamper 

economic development. 

Even if democracy pushes 

the Communist party out of 

hard power of an emerging 

economy and expanding 

military, soft power is lacking. 

The so-called Pax Americana 

does not only rely on 

economic and military might, 

but also promises of freetrade, 

Wilsonian Liberalism 

and multilateral institutions. 

The self-confidence being 

felt throughout Asia in 

their ‘newfound’ industrial 

revolution does not seem 

to uphold the same kind of 

leadership and inspiration as 

the West. 

2. “Capitalism in Asia is 

different - it is more 

dynamic” 

In a complimentary knitting 

together of state intervention 

and corporate mentality, it 

image credit: flickr “neonmarg” 

Although state intervention 

is more frequent and 

encompassing in Asia, 

the World Bank study, 

East Asian Miracle, was 

unable to conclude it 

accounted for economic 

success. Furthermore, 

despite structures of familycontrolled 

conglomerates 

and state-owned enterprises 

enabling businesses to evade 

the short-term obstacles of 

Western companies- business 

also become less accountable, 

less transparent, and less 

innovative. Third, the high 

savings rate has helped spur 

economic growth. However, 

sympathy is needed because 

the reason behind such ridi- 

38 


image credit: flickr “Ed-meister” 

culous savings rate is the 

inadequate social safety 

nets installed by the 

governments. 

Although Asian economies, 

with the exception of Japan, 

are of the fastest growing, 

there is little evidence that 

a magically successful form 

of capitalism exists in Asia. 

On the contrary, we see the 

mundane truth of benefits 

from free trade, market 

reforms and economic 

integration. The relative 

backwardness of Asia is 

why we see such rapid 

developments, each country 

starts from a much lower 

base. 

3. “Good in sciences - Asia 

will take over innovation 

A study conducted by the 

BCG firm and National 

Association of Manufacturers 

in March 2009 ranked 

America eighth behind 

Singapore, South Korea, and 

Switzerland for innovation. 

8,731 U.S. patents were 

awarded to South Koreans 

in 2008, compared to only 

13 in 1978. The Japanese 

received nearly 37,000 in 

2008. However, a big gap 

still remains, as in the same 

year Americans were awarded 

92,000 patents- twice the 

combined total received 

by South Koreans and the 

Japanese, according to the 

IFI Patent Intelligence. 

Asia is also behind the West 

in higher education and 

research. To start, none of the 

world’s top 10 universities 

are in Asia. Throughout 

the last three decades, 

only eight Asians, seven of 

them Japanese, have won a 

Nobel Prize in sciences. The 

stereotype of numerically 

advantaged Asians is 

exaggerated. Misleading 

figures, such as 600,000 

and 350,000 graduates with 

engineering majors each 

year in China and India 

respectively compare to 

America’s 70,000- but do not 

take into account that half of 

China’s graduates and twothirds 

of India’s engineers 

only have associate degrees. 

Lastly, Asians are not seen 

as employable as equally 

qualified Americans. A 

2005 study by the McKinsey 

Global Institute, for example, 

found that human resource 

managers in Multi-National 

Coorperations consider only 

10% of Chinese engineers 

and 25% of Indian engineers 

as just ‘employable’ compared 

to the 81% of Americans. 

4. “Autocratic regime type 

in Asia has helped them 

develop 

China again stands out as 

the perfect example of how 

a one-party state has lead to 

economic success. However, 

let us not forget the history 

behind what is happening 

in China today. China under 

Mao is infamous for creating 

the world’s worst famine. 

Only when the Middle 

Kingdom emerged from its 

self-imposed turtle-shell and 

opened to the world economy 

did China experience 

economic growth, leaving 

behind totalitarian rule in 

1978. Other autocracies, such 

as Myanmar, North Korea, 

Laos, Cambodia under the 

Khmer Rouge, and the 

Philippines under Marcos do 

not have the same success. 

Authoritarian rule does 

not offer long-lasting 

contributions to economic 

growth. In fact, China’s 

greater growth occured 

after 1978, as brutality on 

limiting individual liberty 

and economic rights 

decreased. Government 

policies throughout 

the region underwent 

adjustment to encourage 

infrastructural investment, 

conservative macroeconomic 

management, higher savings, 

and more exports. What 

dictatorships do is conceal 

the problems they create 

while democracy excels at 

advertising its flaws. So the 

belief that autocracy in Asia 

has helped them is, at best, 

an optical illusion. 

The United States is looking 

weaker by the day: fighting two 

wars, crippled by economic 

recession and suffering from 

domestic partisan politics. 

Furthermore, their level of 

influence in Asia has been 

hampered by an increasingly 

self-confident China. The 

recent withdrawl of Google, 

one of America’s finest, 

in the face of a relentless 

Chinese government fuel 

such allegations. However, 

it is still premature to argue 

that American geopolitical 

influence is in decline. The 

likelihood is that selfcorrecting 

mechanisms in the 

American political economy 

will enable the United States 

to recover from setbacks 

some now perceive as the 

turning point of an American 

hegemonic decline. 

People in the West might 

consider themselves as 

witnesses to a decline of 

American influence in Asia, 

but many Asians do not. In 

“The West should see Asia’s rise as one that 

brings opportunities rather than threats.” 

5. “America isn’t like before 

- they are losing influence 

in Asia” 

a Chicago Council’s survey, 

69% of Chinese, 75% of 

Indonesians, 76% of South 

Koreans and 79% of Japanese 

say America is not losing its 

influence, on the contrary, 

they consider it to have 

risen in the region over the 

past decade. With polarized 

historical and cultural 

differences and intense 

provocations over territorial 

issues, elites in Asia will 

continue to count on Uncle 

Sam to keep a watchful eye 

on ‘aggressors’, especially to 

keep a swelling China at bay. 

Meanwhile, the West should 

see Asia’s rise as one that 

brings opportunities rather 

than threats. Although Asia 

has become a pillar of the 

international system, the lack 

of cohesiveness and internal 

fissures in Asia should give 

the West more than enough 

time to get their own houses 

in order without being 

worried over the ‘friend or 

foe’ question just yet. 

Joseph Tam 

l.j.tam@lse.ac.uk 



39

CULTURE 

The Man 

Booker Prize 

The prestige, politics and economics of the Man 

Booker prize for literature are discussed with the 

Chairman of the judging panel- our very own 

Howard Davies. 

The Man Booker Prize 

has had an eclectic 

ten years. Its winning 

authors have hailed of diverse 

corners of the globe; its 

triumphal tomes chronicled 

contemporary Texan witch 

hunts, the social neuroses of 

post-apartheid South Africa, 

the bloody feuds and broody 

patronages of the family 

Tudor. 

The Man Booker is an English 

language prize for fiction, 

renowned for plucking its 

little-known winners from 

their literary niches and 

thrusting them into the 

international limelight. It 

chooses its frontrunners from 

Ireland, Zimbabwe and the 

fifty-four member states of 

the Commonwealth, all but 

two of which were formerly 

part of the British Empire. 

In spite of its origins, the 

Commonwealth is no 

longer a political union; 

it is an intergovernmental 

organisation through which 

countries of varied social, 

political and economic 

backgrounds are united 

in the promotion of such 

common goals as democracy 

and human rights. 

Also beholden to general 

questions of relevance, the 

Commonwealth has been 

criticised as a participation 

prerequisite for the Man 

“The Man Booker is an English language 

prize for fiction, renowned for plucking its 

little-known winners from their literary niches 

and thrusting them into the international 

limelight.” 

Booker Prize. Now a largely 

symbolic gesture, the 

Commonwealth is aimed 

to preserve a cultural and 

historical legacy. One can’t 

help but ask how effectively 

this has been enacted given 

that the Commonwealth 

Games, the organization’s 

most visible activity, is 

generally seen as no more 

than an inordinately showy 

Olympic training exercise. 

Is it any more relevant, then, 

as an exclusionary measure, 

encompassing the entirety 

of the Anglosphere, save the 

USA? The “Commonwealth” 

is certainly convenient for the 

purposes of demarcating the 

English-speaking world. But 

what of the exemption of its 

chieftain, the United States 

of America? Howard Davies, 

Director of the London 

School of Economics and 


2. “Capitalism in Asia is 

different - it is more 

dynamic” 

image credit: flickr “loozrboi” 

40 


and Political Science and 

2007 Chairman of the Man 

Booker Committee, opines 

that the prize proscribes 

American literature because 

of the risk that otherwise 

deserving Commonwealth 

winners would be eclipsed by 

a great mass: “If you ended 

up playing into the American 

literary scene you’d get lost,” 

he elicited in an afternoon 

meeting in his book-lined 

office at the LSE. “You 

wouldn’t be noticed.” 

literature” and its American 

counterpart? Are Man Booker 

nominees all reflective of a 

shared imperial experience? 

Do they partake of certain 

sensibilities, vestigial of 

years upon years of jolly old 

English influence? Or are we 

needlessly dwelling on the 

dull business of politics? 

Despite scrutiny of 

the Commonwealth’s 

significance, the Man Booker 

is without doubt a prize of 

sets Man Booker apart from 

other literary prizes is not its 

politics, but its economics. 

It is “done properly”— vast 

cash reserves afford it the 

attentions of a great many 

publishing houses, the luxury 

of careful management, and 

the means to ensure that 

its judges have ample time 

to evaluate submissions 

scrupulously. Hence the 

quality of its winners is high. 

The process, says Davies, 

on the Man Booker website, 

Hilary Mantel elicits that 

the historical genre is “often 

tagged as downmarket”, 

though the success of Wolf 

Hall is perhaps evidence 

that the Man Booker has 

the ability to reinvent entire 

genres. A genre can be taken 

more seriously once given 

this award, making the Man 

Booker almost a brand in the 

same way that Nobel is to 

peace-mongers or Saatchi is 

to art-lovers. 

CULTURE 

So the entry criteria’s minus- 

America clause is meant to 

ensure inclusivity for non- 

American English literature 

given a glut of American 

belles lettres and book 

prizes. Is there any artistic 

rationale for keeping the 

two ilk separate? Are there 

fundamental differences 

between “Commonwealth 

“The process, says Davies, is a search for 

something timeless, not necessarily timely.” 

deserved prestige. Surely, 

on some level, the artistic 

integrity of the accolade 

overrides any debates that 

might ensue about its nuts 

and bolts. Indeed, according 

to Howard Davies, what 

is a search for something 

timeless, not necessarily 

timely. The prize doesn’t 

unavoidably follow the trends 

but has the capability, the 

cultural clout, to set them. In 

a recent interview available 

A look at the past ten years of 

Booker gives ample evidence 

of the winning works’ eternal 

quality. The 2002 winner, 

Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi, 

bounds between epochs; J.M. 

Coetzee took two awards 15 

years apart for opuses on the 

same subject, post-Apartheid 

South Africa. In 2007, 

Davies’ committee singled 

“According to Howard Davies,What sets Man 

Booker apart from other literary prizes is not 

its politics, but its economics.” 

image credit: Veronique Mizgailo (LSE) 

out for the distinction “The 

Gathering”, an Irish novel 

that speaks with a much 

more totalizing tone than 

more timely works submitted 

that year, like The Reluctant 

Fundamentalist by Mohsin 

Hamid. While Man Booker 

does not discriminate against 

the current, it is neither a 

necessity, altogether giving 

the judges reign to choose the 

best book in any given year. 

Even if it is a purely literary 

prize – and for all intents and 

purposes, it appears to be – it 

must at least be noted that 

any prize whose head judge 

can hail from the London 

School of Economics and 

Political Science must have 

at least a rapport with the 

political sphere. These links 

aside, while Man Booker 

has debatably relevant 

participation criteria it has 

certainly carved its niche 

in the literary world as an 

honourthat will endure 

for many years to come. 

The Man Booker Prize 2010 Longlist will be published in July 2010. 

For more information go to www.manbookerprize.com 

Francesca Washtell 

f.washtell@lse.ac.uk 

Sandra Smiley 

s.a.smiley@lse.ac.uk 



41

THESCHOOLFUND 

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Visit us at www.theschoolfund.org


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