How Political Party Names Can Be Misleading

May 26th, 2011 • No Comments

When elections come around people want to elect candidates whose ideals directly reflect their own. One of the ways candidates try to signify their beliefs is through the name of the party they are affiliated with. They hope that by labelling themselves a Liberal or Conservative that they will win liberal and conservative voters to their campaign. While this trick works, it does not necessarily mean that a liberal voter is voting for a liberal candidate. This phenomenon is not limited to liberalism, or to any specific country. All candidates and parties try to win votes through strategic naming. The difference between a Liberal and a liberal can be staggering, and many are unwittingly fooled by the mere capitalization of a letter. One must be vigilant in assessing parties and candidates claims to ideologies rather than taking their word for it.

Canada has perhaps one of the hardest ideological landscapes to unmask, as the three major parties all have similar platforms. As Pierre Elliot Trudeau once said of the Canadian Liberals, “We are the extreme centre, the radical middle.” True liberals believe in small government, laissez-faire economics and oppose any measures which unnecessarily limit the freedom of the people. Liberalism was supposed to advocate for the rights of the individual to act as they see fit, and to protect the autonomy of the person. If you look at the Liberal Party of Canada, which has implemented measures such as universal health care and student loans, among other things. I am not saying these are not good programs, but they are definitely not liberal. In fact, they are more socialist than anything.

The Chinese Communist Party falls into much the same boat. While they masquerade as communist, the Chinese economy has become increasingly capitalist. Capitalist activities are supposed to be anathema to communism, and yet the Chinese think they have found a way to balance both worlds. What they have really created leans more towards a warped version of fascism than anything else. Everything is controlled by the state and some people are mandated by the state to do certain jobs, but there are also those who are able to operate with limited amounts of freedom economically. This has made China the powerhouse it is today, but makes it increasingly difficult to fit its ideology into a specific box.

Germany lived through a bout of this, with the National Socialist German Workers Party, otherwise known as the Nazi party. Rather than being socialist this party was in fact one of the models of a fascist regime. Instead of improving life for Germans through social programming and income distribution the Nazis gave money to the wealthy that they took from those that they imprisoned. Most Germans saw little to no change in their lives other than an increase in currency stability. The party was concentrated on the war effort for most of its existence, and ended up worsening people’s conditions of living as an expense of its agenda rather than making them better.

The moral of the story is always investigate the tenets that a party builds its platform on, rather than relying on the name they choose to market themselves with.

The Economics of Aid: Haiti

May 19th, 2011 • 2 Comments

Many developing nations in the Global South have issues being able to break the cycle of poverty and dependence on foreign aid. No country has had a harder time with this than the Caribbean nation of Haiti. Once the most prosperous French colony, Haiti has had a history of totalitarianism, militarism, repression and poverty. Despite being the only successful slave rebellion in history and millions of dollars in aid money from the United States, the Organization of American States and the International Monetary Fund Haiti struggles to provide basic necessities to its citizens. In January 2010 a massive earthquake hit Haiti near Port-au-Prince, the capital. Any sort of progress that Haiti had made previously was reduced to rubble. Why did the earthquake cause so much damage and kill so many people? How is Haiti recovering, and is it possible that in some ways there are benefits that can come out of completely rebuilding the country? How is the international community helping, if they are in fact helping in their intervention? There are lots of questions surrounding the fate of Haiti that only time will tell. The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions, and it seems that while the international community has wanted to do the right thing they could be only making the situation in Haiti worse.
International economic dependence is a fact of the 20th century. More than ever countries are trading with each other, as well as relying on each other for things such as basic supplies and food. Many countries, including Haiti are not food secure in that if all trade were to cease they could not produce enough food to feed the population. Dependency theory, championed by Andre Gunder Frank, seeks to explain the world in terms of colonial traditions. Frank believes that while developed countries today may have at one point been undeveloped, they were never underdeveloped. This means that underdeveloped is not synonymous with traditional or pre-modern society, but that it is a direct representation of colonialist control and the attempt to push economies of the Global South to the same level as the developed world without giving them time to grow and adjust properly. He also argues that countries that are most weakly integrated into the international capitalist system are likely to be the most highly developed of the Global South, illustrated in the case of Japan which has built its own economy without the help of the West and yet has one of the strongest economies because it was never a satellite of the West. Actions such as replacing grassroots enterprises with international subsidiaries, forming an unskilled labour pool to ‘just give people work’, migration of workers to urban centers, and developing completely free trade in accordance with the World Trade Organization’s rules all have harmful, sometimes devastating, effects on the development of the Global South. While it would be impossible for a country to isolate itself from the world economy in today’s integrated market system, movement towards self sufficiency and domestic consumption rather than export are important in being independent from financial aid. All economic theory is contested; however, it is obvious that the prevailing Ricardian model of free trade benefiting everyone by having them specialize in their comparative advantage is not working well for the countries of the Global South.
Haiti has spent the last century locked in the interdependence tango with the international community, more specifically the United States. Aid started flowing from the United States to Haiti in 1915 when the Marines and Navy Bluejackets landed in Haiti to establish a military controlled government with a constitution written by the Americans. This occupation continued until 1934 with the Americans undertaking “A variety of sanitation, public health, education, and communication projects” to improve the country that had little in the way of infrastructure. After WWII Haiti seemed to be looking as though it would continue to develop, with all of its external loans paid off and the Haitian government had complete control over the Bank of Haiti. However, in 1955 Haiti was hit by a hurricane that sent the country into an economic crisis, leading to the election in 1957 of Dr. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier as president. Over the course of the 14 years that Papa Doc was president over $40 million in aid from the United States would be “curtailed, then restored, curtailed again, partially restored, and finally cancelled”, as the brutal nature of the regime was apparent. The aid that was sent went to building infrastructure such as an airport near Port-au-Prince as well as the Artibonite dam. When the Duvalier regime ended after Jean-Claude Duvalier fled Haiti in 1987, democratically elected Aristide was overthrown in a coup d’etat in 1991. The United States, who had decided to provide aid funds to Aristide’s government, promptly enacted a trade embargo when the military took control of the country. While it is hard to measure the impact of this trade embargo, which lasted between 1991 and 1994, because of the lack of record keeping institutions in Haiti, it was nonetheless a devastating blow for the portion of the country living under the poverty line. There was rampant inflation and the Haitian gourde depreciated significantly against the US dollar, skyrocketing the prices of basic goods. The exchange rate has recovered somewhat since then, and it has taken until just recently for it to reach pre-coup levels. Since 2004 when Aristide had to be airlifted to the United States as rioting spread throughout the country during the bicentennial celebration, due to the government’s ineffectiveness, the United States led Multilateral Interim Force (now known as the UN Stability Mission in Haiti) has been present on the island. This amounted to what could be called another US invasion and occupation of Haiti. More than any other country the United States’ interference in Haiti in the last century has greatly influenced the course of the country’s economy and politics.
While economic aid has helped Haiti in some ways, it has come at a dramatic cost as well. Economically Haiti has been in a culture of ups and downs, starts and stops. Because of changes in political leadership and instability it is difficult for companies to take the risk of investing in the country, as they cannot guarantee that their investments would be secure. Haiti currently heavily on the United States as an export destination, with the Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Acts, which provide tariff free access to the American apparel sector, which accounts for 60% of exports and 10% of Haitian GDP. While this may in some way be helping the population, reliance on a single country for trade under special circumstances is not beneficial in the long term. Most people (at least 60%) in Haiti are still tied to the agricultural sector, trying to eke out an existence on subsistence farming. There is no point in them trying to sell their produce, as the country is completely open to free trade and food is imported. 48% of the food in Haiti is imported, 47% is locally grown and the remaining 5% is covered by food assistance. Before the earthquake Haiti was starting to grow somewhat, posting positive GDP increases from 2005 to 2008. This growth was halted by the severe storm season, which damaged much of the country. Once again Haiti had to receive economic assistance to even feed its population. This pattern of small economic growth followed by a natural disaster is typical of the situation in Haiti.
What would have happened had Haiti not had the stop and start aid that it has received over the last century? It is possible that the entire may have died out due to malnourishment and or fled the near constant threat of natural disasters. It is also possible that they would have developed stronger domestic markets for foodstuff instead of being inundated by cheaper produce from places like the United States. If the World Bank and the IMF had not made Haiti remove all barriers to trade, they may have had a history of balanced trade rather than a huge trade deficit. If they had not tried to rush Haiti into this ‘modern’ era of liberal economics and politics, there may have been a solid base for the Haitian economy to build on. Because of all the disasters that have happened in Haiti, it is feasible that without the massive amount of aid they have received they may have actually created a response system to deal with the aftermath of such because they would not be depending on someone else to come and save them. This is purely speculation, but in light of many more coordinated reactions to severe earthquakes such as China in 2008 it leaves one wondering how much could have been averted if the country was better prepared, if indeed there was a way that they could have been.
On January 12, 2010 Haiti was hit with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on the coastline near Port-au-Prince, the capital city. After the 2007-2008 storm season when Haiti was hit by four major tropical storms, this was a devastating blow to the country. While estimates have been as high as 300,000 deaths due to the earthquake, Radio Netherlands Worldwide estimates that the number of casualties is closer to 100,000. This is probably due to the fact that many people were awake and outside when the quake struck at 4:53 in the afternoon, so even if people were inside they were probably able to get out before buildings started collapsing. The fact that more than half of Haiti’s population lives on less than $0.50 US a day was reflected in the number of buildings that collapsed, while the severity of the earthquake was underlined by the collapse of even the most well built structures such as the National palace, the Supreme Court, the National Assembly and the Port-au-Prince city hall. A description of housing in Cite Soleil, one of the poorest parts of Port-au-Prince, says that most structures are made of cement blocks, with floors of cement or earth, doors made of tin or wood and barbed wire to try and keep vandals out. The infrastructural damage sustained made delivering and distributing aid to the population affected extremely hard and many people did not receive clean water and food for days after the quake. One of the reasons there seems to be more deaths from this earthquake than from others in the past year is that Port-au-Prince had an estimated population of 897,859 (2009 census), packed into 36.04 square kilometres. Hundreds of thousands of people who escaped dying in the earthquake are now displaced persons, waiting to see when and where they can start rebuilding their lives. This is especially pressing now as the region’s rainy season begins in May and there is no land available to relocate people to for temporary shelter. On March 27, 2010 it was reported that huge clean up projects were to start in areas that had rubble, with the US Defense Department clearing debris if residents moved it into the street. This project is not spread out across the entire city, but there are hopes that it soon will be. In the wake of this earthquake much still needs to be done before the country can even be rebuilt.
This is not the first time that Haiti has been devastated by a natural disaster. Most of the 20th century has been plagued by disaster after disaster, just as Haiti seems to get on its feet economically and politically. In 1935 an unnamed storm killed more than 2000 people. A massive 8.1 magnitude earthquake in the Dominican Republic in 1946 and the subsequent tsunami that followed killed 1,790 people. The country barely had time to recover before it was struck with Hurricane Hazel, which killed more than 100 people as well as wiped out 40% of coffee trees and 50% of the cacao crop, completely devastating the economy. This crisis was followed by the installation of ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier in 1957. In 1963 Hurricane Flora killed over 8000 people, which has gone down in history as one of the most deadly hurricanes on record. 1994 saw Hurricane Gordon kill over 1000 people, while 1998 had Hurricane George kill 400 people and wipe out 80% of the agricultural crops in the country. After Aristide was expelled from Haiti in early 2004 there was another storm, this time Tropical Storm Jeanne killed up to 2,500 in the aftermath and displaced thousands more. In the storm season of 2008 four separate hurricanes – Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike – hit Haiti within the span of 30 days, killing more than 800 people combined and destroying 60% of the country’s harvests. Much of the damage and resulting deaths from these events have been because of aggravating factors, such as deforestation resulting in landslides and flooding. It is surprising that in a country that has been hit by natural disasters so many times in the past century has little to no effective way of responding to natural disasters.
The aftermath of January 12th has been an outpouring of aid from all over the world. As of March 29, 2010 $2,413,670,856 US has been committed to helping rebuild Haiti while $1,244,478,163 US has been pledged but not committed. These numbers include all goods that have been donated along with cash contributions by governments, non-profit organizations, the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, and private companies. The American Red Cross has donated $10,001,999 in cash to the IFRC Emergency Appeal, as well as $39,591,491 in food aid. Of this aid more than $32m US was raised via text message, where people could text “Haiti” to a phone number and $10 US was added to their phone bill. The countries that contributed the most on a per capita basis are Canada, who contributed $3.90 US for each Canadian, followed by Sweden who contributed $2.50 US for each person, Norway who contributed $2.20 US per person, Denmark with $2.10 US per person, Luxembourg with $1.50 US per person, Finland with $1.40 US per person, Guyana with $1.30 US per person, and Spain with $1.00 US per person. The United States committed $778,193,754 US which means they contributed $0.50 per capita. As well, President Barack Obama asked the United States Congress on March 24th, 2010 for a further $2.8bn US in a letter to the Speaker of the House.
In the past two months much as been done to start the path towards making Haiti a functioning country again. However, this means working from below even ground zero – much has to be done to remove the remains of buildings and people before work can even begin to rebuild. While the direction of long term recovery has yet to be determined, it will be overseen by a commission made up of representatives from more than a dozen donor countries, the OAS, the Haitian government, NGOs, other international institutions and CARICOM (the 15 country bloc of Caribbean nations). Hopefully whatever form this commission takes will actually be effective for managing the rebuilding of the entire country. Ideas have been pouring in from all over the world as to where the recovery program should start, and without careful planning the project may take on more than it can handle. It also needs to make sure that the programs that it puts in place actually work, and are not used by local politicians to consolidate power over the population. Things that need work in the near future include water and sanitation systems, as well as creating adequate shelter, especially going into the rainy season, as more than 1.5m people are currently homeless and living in makeshift shelters and tents. The American Red Cross, which has committed more than $400m US, released its broad outline for spending on March 29, 2010. This includes spending between 35-40% on shelter, 20-25% on water and sanitation projects, and 15-20% on cash grants to help families rebuild their lives. As well, they are working on preparing Haiti for the coming rainy season by replacing dug latrines with elevated ones, digging drainage gullies to prevent flooding, and making sure that as many people as possible have shelter. Without this planning there could very well be another humanitarian crisis in Haiti as the storms hit. There is so much more that needs to be done before Haiti is anywhere near a functioning country again.
While there has been millions in donations to the recovery of Haiti and the disaster has started to fade from the minds of the Global North, there is still much to do and those who will be haunted by the nightmare of the earthquake. It is unmistakable that Haiti needs aid right now to rebuild their entire country. The tricky part now is figuring out when is the right time to stop providing aid, because unless the right moment is found Haiti will be left with not enough to continue forward properly or they will end up with too much and not be able to sustain the same levels when the aid finally is removed. The Global and Mail estimates that the cost to rebuild Haiti will be in excess of $14 billion (US). However, we do not just need to rebuild Haiti to what it was before, we need to do so properly so that when natural disasters strike (and they will inevitably strike Haiti again) the infrastructure is better able to hold together and we do not end up with tragedies of this magnitude. Allowing Haiti to institute some tariffs and barriers on trade will help them to develop domestic markets and economic sectors. This is especially essential in the agriculture industry for the fact that more than 60% of the population is involved in food production as well as because Haiti is not food secure (and was not even before the earthquake hit) and imports cheaper foodstuffs. This will increase the balance of trade in Haiti to something favourable to the country so that it will have the money to be able to improve the infrastructure. Building more factories that people can work in for subsistence wages will not help the population. In terms of post-secondary education, while the universities need to be rebuilt so does Haiti need to build more vocational schools to turn out skilled labourers who will be able to create new industries. Moving essential industries away from Port-au-Prince will help with the overcrowding in the city as well as help with the demand on resources in that area. Encouraging private firms to take on developmental projects rather than the government or foreign entities doing them will help create a culture of investment in the country. These things will be essential if the international community really wants to make Haiti into a country with a real chance of not only returning to its former self but surpassing it.
Whatever the intentions of those providing economic aid, the international community will succeed in crowding out any investment that could organically occurred in Haiti. The earthquake earlier this year completely levelled Haiti, but maybe that is what it takes to get the world’s attention. Before the earthquake Haiti’s economy looked liked it was going to start to from properly, with positive GDP increases from 2005-2009. Hopefully with proper rebuilding and better economic practices (which are not necessarily those recommended by the IMF or the World Bank) Haiti can seek to minimize loses in this year and next. Haiti has such a rich history of throwing off the chains of domination of other countries, but has been brought down by unfair reparations and non-recognition, and has never been able to recover. Just when Haiti seems to bring itself out of debt disaster strikes and it is sent spinning back into the cycle of debt and poverty. While there is a current need for aid to the country, the challenge is now figuring out when enough is enough and letting Haiti stand up and take charge of their future.

Will Turkey Ever Join the EU?

May 13th, 2011 • No Comments

Turkey has been flirting with European integration since it applied to be part of the European Economic Community in 1959. Despite applying to join the European Union in 1987 and not beginning its formal application process until 2005, Turkey is no where near close to being admitted to the EU for a variety of reasons. Many of these reasons have to do with how different Turkey is from the rest of the European Union, as it is a mix of European and Islamic cultures. As well, there is much political opposition to Turkey’s accession to the EU, again for a variety of reasons depending on where the opposition is coming from. The more that member countries protest the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union, the more that Turkey turns to the rest of the world to meet its needs and this is pulling Turkey away from Europe. Unless the EU shows Turkey that there is some part of the Union that is trying to help them and motivate them to continue their quest for membership, Turkey very well may never join the European Union.

Turkey’s culture is very different than the rest of the European Union. While there are significant Muslim populations in many countries in the EU, none are predominantly Islamic, as Turkey is. Often the EU is referred to as the ‘Christian Club’. The culture, the language and the social structures of Turkey are far more identifiable with the East than with the West. This is interesting, as Turkey is actually the most secular state in the vicinity of the European continent.
Although Turkey is a rich country in comparison with the Middle East, it is in fact rather poor compared to countries within the European Union. Turkey has a really low income per capita, and as such could bring down the general per capita income of the EU significantly because of the number of citizens.
Turkey also has had to address a number of human rights violations both within the military and in the constitution. There are many different things that are still sore points for Turkey with the rest of the EU, such as extending rights to minority groups within Turkey as well as the topic of the Armenian genocide, which Turkey still refuses to acknowledge.

Many different countries and politicians are opposed to allowing Turkey to join the EU. Many will cite the fact that Turkey will not recognize Cyprus, a current European Union member, as a country. This is because of the long standing dispute on Cyprus over government, which is currently made up of Greek Cypriots despite the large Turkish minority on the island that is economically isolated. They also bring up the fact that the military has a long tradition in Turkey of appropriating power after elections that did not go the way that the military thought they should or when the government has seemed to abandon their secularism and role in promoting Westernization.

What many politicians are afraid of is power in the European Union shifting if Turkey were to join. Because of the size of the country Turkey would have more seats in the European Parliament than most if not all others, and that would make them a heavyweight in negotiations. This would shift the power into Turkey’s hands and away from the rest of the European powers who currently wield it. Another way that they could exert influence would be in the mass immigration that would probably happen from Turkey to the rest of the EU if the borders were ever opened. They fear the immigration because it will bring Islamic traditions to their countries as well as destroy the heritage and culture that exist elsewhere in the EU.

Because its’ application to the EU is progressing so slowly, Turkey has slowed its reforms that need to be made to comply with European Union standards. Instead, Turkey seems to be pursuing its relations with countries in the Middle East, such as Iran and Syria, more that those with Europe. This may be due to the current government being pro-Islamic, even within the secular framework of the country’s constitution. In turning its attention towards the Middle East, Turkey seems to be reestablishing its roots in Islam, which bothers the ‘Christian Club’, especially in France, where President Sarkozy said that “Turkey has no place inside the European Union” . This sentiment has been echoed around Europe by many different governments and populations in surveys, but for every country that opposes Turkey’s accession to the EU there is a country that supports it.

Turkey is the love child of European and Islamic culture, and often both criticize Turkey for being more of one side than the other. The treatment of Turkey in its bid for European Union membership has been in some instances fair (as with the human rights violations) and unfair (in the discrimination against the Islamic population). The longer that the EU holds Turkey at bay the less Turkey is going to want to join the Union, although Turkey will never give up its bid to do so. Having Turkey as part of the Union would very beneficial to the EU, as it would bridge the gap between Christian Europe and the Islamic Middle East. It would also serve to help the European Union become more accepting of different cultures and religions, both from without and within individual member countries. Unless the politicians who hold the reins to the EU acknowledge their prejudice against Turkey and actively try to change, Turkey very well may never become part of the European Union.