Plutocrats Are Only Part Of A Larger Problem

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 2020

A pink name card with "Tim Cook" (also written in characters below) features in the foreground against the backdrop of a green, felt table and iPads.

BEIJING, CHINA – MARCH 18: Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) attends China Development Forum 2017 – Economic Summit at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on March 18, 2017 in Beijing, China. The forum sponsored by Development Research Center of the State Council centers on “China and the World: Economic Transformation through Structural Reforms”. Source: ITHome.

William R. Hawkins
Former US House Foreign Affairs Committee member

I ran across a review of the Plutocratic Insurgency Reader in an unusual place. Not in the usual left media outlets, like Jacobin, Dissent or The New Republic as its title would seem to fit, but in Parameters, the quarterly journal of the U.S. Army War College (AWC). This is because the book is not edited by the usual “progessive” activists, but by Robert J. Bunker, adjunct research professor at the AWC Strategic Studies Institute and his wife, Pamela Ligouri Bunker, a specialist in counter-terrorism. And the book is published under the auspices of the Small Wars Journal (SWJ), not known for leaning left.

The book collects 31 short essays by 15 authors, six of whom have ties to either the AWC or the SWJ, thus giving a high expectation that national security would be its primary concern. Its self-avowed purpose is to present the core of a scholarly movement that originated in 2012 from correspondence between Robert Bunker and Nils Gilman of the Bergguen Institute concerning how the wealthy “opt out of participation in the collective institutions that make up society.” The Bergguen Institute was founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Gilman’s interest is apparently reshaping the relationship between globalized capitalism and national sovereignty. As one reads through the essays, there is a tension that undermines the national security side of the discussion in favor of a domestic policy focus on income inequality and a radical desire to transform property rights that leaves the welfare state in the dust. Gilman is not an editor, but I would argue, his is the stronger voice.

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Legislatures Elected by Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR): An Algorithm

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2020

A cartoon depiction of hands in blue, red, purple, yellow, green, pink and orange against a white backdrop.

Source: Pixabay

Stephen Bosworth, Anders Corr, Stevan Leonard1

Abstract

Unlike existing voting methods, this article describes a new method that gives all voters every appropriate reason to be pleased. Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR) invites each citizen to grade the suitability for office of any number of candidates as either Excellent (ideal), Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, or “Reject” (completely unsuitable).  EPR allows each citizen to guarantee that one of the elected members of the legislature has received either their highest grade, remaining highest grade, or proxy vote – no vote is needlessly wasted. Continue reading →

Chinese Scholars Are Calling For Freedom And Autonomy – How Should Western Universities Respond?

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2020

A black and white image depicting a war with black characters written in ink.

Red Guard political slogan on Fudan University campus, Shanghai, China, toward the close of the Cultural Revolution (Spring 1976). ‘Defend party central with blood and life! Defend Chairman Mao with blood and life!’ Source: Wikimedia

John Fitzgerald
Swinburne University of Technology [1]

In stifling free and open inquiry, China’s universities are being faithful to the party’s Marxist values and authoritarian principles. Universities in the West could display similar backbone by standing up for the values and principles of their own communities, including academic freedom and institutional autonomy, when they deal with education authorities in China. People in China who value freedom and critical inquiry expect nothing less of us.

On December 18, 2019, China’s Ministry of Education announced the latest in a series of revisions of national university constitutions to ensure that the party takes pride of place in their management, curriculum, and international engagements. Public attention was drawn to changes in the charter of Fudan University when footage went viral of students singing their school anthem in protest at the damage done to their school constitution. The Ministry of Education had deleted two phrases from the Fudan charter still preserved in the old school anthem: ‘academic independence and freedom of thought.’[2]

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Scientific Publishers Disregard International Law

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 2019

Republic of China's 11-dash line, which succeeded the 9-dash line in 1947.

Republic of China’s 11-dash line, which succeeded the 9-dash line in 1947. Secretariat of Government of Guangdong Province, Republic of China – Made by Territory Department of Ministry of the Interior, printed by Bureau of Surveying of Ministry of Defence. Now in Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China. Source: Wikimedia

Clive Hamilton
Charles Sturt University

Why are prestigious scientific journals endorsing China’s illegitimate territorial claims?

Times Higher Education reports that journals including Cells, Diversity and Distributions, Molecular Ecology, New Phytologist and Plos One have published maps of China that incorporate the ‘nine-dash line’, hand-drawn on a map in 1947 that marked out China’s claim to virtually all of the South China Sea and the islands and reefs within it.

China’s assertion of jurisdiction within the nine-dash line—including the right to its rich resources and deployment of its navy and maritime militia to force other long-term users out of the sea—has raised military tensions and prompted a series of maritime disputes. Filipino fisherman can no longer trawl around Scarborough Shoal, which is within the Philippines exclusive economic zone. Vietnam has been forced to abandon oil exploration in its zone after pressure from Beijing.

When the Philippines challenged China’s claimed jurisdiction within the nine-dash line, an arbitral tribunal was constituted in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In July 2016, the tribunal delivered a ‘sweeping rebuke’ of China’s behaviour in the South China Sea. The tribunal ruled that there is ‘no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the “nine-dash line”.’

Yet prestigious scientific journals are disregarding international law and legitimizing China’s claim by publishing maps showing everything within the nine-dash line as belonging to China. This legitimization process is subtle propaganda, part of Beijing’s campaign to slowly and invisibly induce the world to accept its claim.

The maps occur in articles that have no bearing at all on the South China Sea, such as ones covering the distribution of butterflies, trees and grasses in China, and are included solely as political statements.

The insertion of the nine-dash line in an article in Palgrave Communications, owned by Springer Nature, was gratuitous because its subject is the development of agriculture in China since ancient times. As if anticipating objections, the paper carries a ‘publisher’s note’ at the end. It reads: ‘Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.’ Continue reading →

Making Political Risk More Politically Relevant

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 2019

Ukraine's Independence Square depicted from above against a blue backdrop.

Ukraine’s Independence Square in Fall 2013, taken only months before it erupted into violent protests culminating in the overthrow of the sitting government. A busy commercial and tourist hub that day, there was no sign of the war zone it would soon resemble. Photo: Alicia Ellis.

Alicia N. Ellis, Ph.D.
Arizona State University

Executive Summary

This report assesses the state of the academic literature on political risk and evaluates its contribution to understanding and mitigating risk for both business and political professionals. This assessment concludes that policy-relevant research has been in some cases limited and, in most cases, ineffectively communicated. Several major problems contribute to the persistent disconnect between policy, industry, and academia. Political scientists do not approach their research questions in a communicable way, nor do they often take the necessary step of connecting their research to an end use. Risk rating organizations have become overly reliant on cross-national aggregate models. Mixed methods research has been applied inappropriately and thus, ineffectively. Systematic biases have been introduced to models at a structural level, and conceptual difficulties plague some of the most basic questions for risk analysts.

Despite these problems, opportunities do exist for bridging the gap between research and practice, and producing policy-relevant research. This article proposes some recommendations for moving forward. Research questions must be structured in new ways to reflect the needs of end consumers that include non-academic professionals. Several research agendas in need of a practical-minded researcher are put forth, including the rise of China and what it means for global trade patterns, the ‘buy local’ movement spreading across the United States, and the problem of democratic consolidation. For each problem identified, the article makes suggestions for how we might reframe the questions in a way that produces more useful research on political risk. Continue reading →