Completely opposing viewpoints have been expressed amongst the members of our University College group in discussion. Arguments have been shot down point for point. People have been informed that the very facts that they are basing their arguments on are completely incorrect. However, we have done all of this in a certain manner. The aspect of our World Politics course that has most strongly captured my attention is the civility of our discussions.
Our civility enables us to break new ground. We shoot down each-others arguments point for point, but we then proceed to build them back up from scratch. We take opposite views and, rather than squabble endlessly and to no mutual benefit, we collectively realize that the truth lays somewhere in the middle. I have taken courses in high school somewhat similar to this one in potential – there, as here, laid the potential for mutually beneficiary debate resulting in constructive changes of mind for all involved. However, it appears as though in this course the potential will be realized, whereas before I have seen that potential lost.
When we return to class, and so return to debate, I hope that this trend of civility continues, for incivility breeds resentment, and resentment breeds contempt, and any contempt felt among the members of our course would spill into our residential lives in a potentially ugly manner.

I passed a “Think Globally, Act Locally” bumper sticker today and it gave me something to think about in regards to our discussion on Friday

We had many different opinions on what defined world politics, or more simply, when does something become global?  When discussing voting, we are mostly in agreement that average people vote for their own personal, local interests.  The example of the Palestinians who voted extremists into power because of plumbing works to explain that logic.  As you can see, a decision that was made on a local level actually ends up having global effects. 

Someone mentioned that pig farms in relation to the US election in November were not going to have an impact even on how people vote, much less world politics.  However, scientists have found ways to turn unused pig and turkey parts into crude oil.  This technology makes pig farms extremely relevant to the serious global issue of oil dependency.  Voting on the basis of pig farms in the upcoming election will have a larger impact than just the farmers.  These seemingly little local issues are always so embedded into larger global issues that I do not think it is possible to separate which are which. 

I believe that everything is world politics.  If you think globally and act locally, you are also acting globally.  I found that more people tend to think locally and their actions actually have global impact.  I should now market my own, less catchy bumper stickers.  “Think what you want, your actions will impact the world anyway.”

World Politics - A Reflection

Amidst our discussion of the successes and failures of the Palestinian utility service, two questions were often asked: is it the responsibility of the government or private industry to provide for the people, and what makes something political on a global scale?

The latter question, as it can be answered more quickly, will be the initial focus of my discussion. Something can only be observed as world politics retrospectively. As stated in class, we can make predictions as to what will become a geopolitical issue. For instance, given the historical example of the 2006 Palestinian elections, something as small as basic utilities and bureaucratic salaries can change the face of the Middle Eastern peace process. However, if plumbing went out in Rhea County, Tennessee, things won't get any more violent, regardless of all the complaints. Yet to truly judge if something is a political issue, it mus be judged on a case-by-case basis rather than categorically declared to be one. Though there are some things that are always geopolitical topics, such as meetings of the G8 or the Shanghai Conference, other smaller topics (such as said utility issue) can't be universally declared to be of great significance to the state of the world.

The second issue of the day was the responsibility of governments to their constituencies. Ought the state, frequently bureaucratic and inefficient, provide basic services, or should private industries serve that purpose? There are arguments for and against each side of the issue.

Governments tend to be large, bumbling instruments that don't always do the job right. However, they are responsive to public demand due to the election system, even if posts in the utility industry are determined by appointment. Who gets which post tends to be dependent on who is elected to do the appointing, and as a result it is reflective of public opinion. I am going to take the stance that this is actually preferable in a free market system, given the nature of the modern utility industry.

I tend to be a utilitarian. I value things on whether they provide the Millian "greatest good for the greatest number with the maximization of rights." I will argue that the utility industry, and other basic services, constitute such a unique portion of the market that it is nearly impossible for others to join, creating a system of monopolistic competition detrimental to free market principles.

In a free market with perfect competition, all competitors have complete freedom of movement in and out of the market. The price is set at the price line rather than the demand curve, and all is essentially "perfect". But this doesn't happen. Ever. In a modern economy, we tend to operate in a state of monopolistic competition. Markets are "open", meaning there are no legal barriers to entry as you would find in an actual monopoly. However, because the markets are thoroughly dominated by a few corporations (take Coke and Pepsi, for example), they tend to be hard to break into. The utility market has this issue, and one other. If everyone provided utilities, they would become unprofitable, meaning we would inevitably revert to a state of monopolistic competition. Demand is universal, but you don't need more than one provider for basic services. The ability of one toilet to flush or one strain of electricity isn't going to be much better than another. It may be more reliable, but reliability isn't privately exclusive.

The biggest issue with a private instance of monopolistic competition is the fact that, according to game theory, firms involved do not respond to public demand but to the actions of their neighbor. A government has no such restrictions, and fits the demands of their constituency.

Therefore, though government is locked into a position of a virtual utility monopoly, this is the way it should be. It is not a monopoly in the true sense of the word because of its responsivity to changes in the voting market. Therefore, it is more responsive to demand than a private firm is in this situation, making it more democratic and effective.

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Hopefully this is the last we have to say about toilets for the semester, but God only knows what will happen. I eagerly anticipate Tuesday's discussion.

Reflecting on an Empty Stomach

Quickly, I'll get this week's classes out of the way before going into what I really want to reflect on: food.

Friday's class discussion was...interesting. It definitely reminded me of debate discussions we would have on the back of the bus on the way home from debate tournaments, although perhaps a bit more focused and a little less tangential. Still, it was stimulating. And while I didn't contribute as much as the next person, it was interesting to hear everyone's prospective on what world politics is (because that's really what it all got down to, I guess. What world politics is or isn't). And after over an hour's worth of discussion, we still don't have a solidified answer. Which is fine, because there isn't an answer, at least in my opinion.

In regards to Wednesday's visit to the museum, I actually enjoyed it. Especially the parts dealing with the riots, which I knew a lot about beforehand, but seeing pictures of the riots and the Poor People's Campaign always makes it that much more poignant and real.

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Alright, now that I've gotten the class-oriented items out the way, what I really want to discuss: Food.

It is times like these when I almost regret not going San Francisco State. This weekend the Slow Food Nation conference is taking place throughout San Francisco. Slow Food is (directly from its website): "a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." Basically, it is a foundation that’s all about a speech I wrote for the NFL Nationals competition this year in Vegas (that’s speech and debate, not football.) At this conference, Michael Pollan and Eric Schloesser will be speaking, who, respectively, wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Fast Food Nation, some of my favorite journalistic works. The reason why I care so much about food is because I really believe that a lot of problems can be solved by changing how we view food. Look at it this way: The French have a diet that is above average in saturated fats (which does all sorts of nasty things to our health), but have significantly lower levels of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes than Americans….who happen to live in a culture revolving around diets obsessed with lowering these exact diseases. It’s really insane once you begin to look, on a world-wide basis, how different diets result in different states of health. Surprise, surprise, Americans, always health-conscious, have some of the worst diets in the world. Thanks to our large consumption of processed foods, refined grains, and the love of our lives, high fructose corn syrup, we are more likely to get cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and any number of other long-term illnesses than third-world countries. It’s crazy.

Eating smart, which doesn’t just mean eating healthy, but eating with a conscience (as in where it’s from, how it’s made, what it’s made with and who is benefited by its sale), can be taken as an individual stand against a number of problems, including global warming (eating from local farmers means less CO₂ emissions), fast-food markets (eating less-processed foods means less HFCS), farmers and subsidies (eating locally supports local trade), fair trade (eating ethically means from farmers to forks with no middleman), unhealthy eating (read: HFCS = BAD), natural resource erosion (use of pesticides, along with intense planting of crops like corn, erodes soil and harms plants/animals, making it unusable, meaning more land must be used for agriculture), use of fossil fuels (eating locally and eating organic means less fossil fuels used in transport and production) and a dozen others.

…Now I’m hungry. Take that as you will.

Peace & Stability Above All Else

One could say that the most important aspect of international relations is the reduction of global warming, as without our planet, we have nothing. It could also be argued that we must strive to reduce global hunger, as the most basic human need is food, and if we cannot provide food for each other, we will have utterly failed those who required our help. Or, it could be stated that we must spread democracy, as economic strength and social liberties tend to follow in the wake of democratic governance.
However, how are we to accomplish any of those goals if we do not have international stability? I say that the single most important aspect of international relations is the pursuit of peace, as without peace nothing else can possibly follow. If two nations war, they will not sign an accord dealing with how to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. If two nations war, they will more likely than not push innocent civilians to starvation. If two nations war, the crown of Democracy will likely be tarnished and perhaps even cast away into the chasm of that ever-so-ubiquitous “National Security”.
Therefore, if we are to seek the preservation of our planet, or the improvement of the myriad humanitarian crises constantly plaguing us, or the strengthening of the great ideals of Democracy, we must first look to settle our differences peacefully; stability and peace in our international engagements must be the ultimate goal in international relations.

Geography is the Key

Geography has historically determined the relations of people throughout the world.  Firstly, and most obviously, without places, people would not exist thus rendering relations between people impossible.  Acknowledging the fact that places and people both exist and have existed for quite some time, we can look back to see how and why history has occurred.   The geographical features, the resources, and the locations of the land determine most human history.  For example, the first civilizations cropped up in Mesopotamia because of its fertile land and its proximity to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  Mesopotamia, with its origins as the area where many people inhabited, became the birthplace of many advances in technology and language.  As a settled community, population increase required innovations in order to feed the masses and allow for people to inhabit land farther from the rivers.  There is insufficient rainfall to support the crops and sustain life, so irrigation techniques were created to manipulate water from the rivers further into the desert.  Thus, a geographical problem advanced humanity. 

Entering present-day Mesopotamia, also known as Iraq, we can see how geography shaped the current situation there as well.  As humans developed, resources expanded from water and fertile soil, to oil and other fossil fuels.  Iraq, being a nation with a considerable amount of oil, can be viewed as an economic jackpot for whoever has control of the state.  A third world country has serious potential when it has commodities that the first world needs.  In Iraq’s case, the potential was the potential to be invaded.  However, geography provided the United States with more problems with the invasion than expected.  For instance, extreme sectarian violence led by mostly Arab-Sunnis can be seen as a reaction to not only the invasion, but also to the fact that Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds all inhabit the same geographical region.  American officials are facing problems in reconstructing Iraq because of the three sects are in such close proximity.   Some politicians, like vice presidential candidate for the Democratic Party Joe Biden, suggest that the Iraq should be split into three separate nations. Unfortunately, the geography of the country, more specifically the area in which oil is found, makes such a plan seem like less of a solution and more of a problem.   

Geography is imbedded into a country’s identity.  Geography determines wants and needs of a nation, which drives the nation’s interactions with other nations.  Geography presents people of a nation with problems, and these problems and their solutions can unify and divide the people.  Geography is the explanation for the past and the future of world politics.  

Non-State Actors in World Politics

Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s richest man, owns 92% of all Mexican telecommunications services. Through this effective monopoly, Slim has grown to an estimated net worth of $60 billion (1). What I find significant about this fact isn’t that Slim passed Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as the wealthiest man in the world. Rather, it is the fact that Slim’s personal wealth makes him, personally, the 64th largest economy in the world, measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with purchasing power parity set in terms of the US Dollar (2). This fact is shocking in a modern economy, where oligarchs were supposed to be checked by the basic nature of the free market. We now live in a world where individuals, non-governmental organizations, criminal cartels, and political parties rival the power of states. Additionally, we live in a world that caters to states that are significantly less powerful than said groups. As a result, modern financial and diplomatic bodies are not equipped to handle these so-called “non-state actors,” a situation that handles several worrisome implications.

The greatest issue we see facing global institutions in dealing with non-state actors is the inability to check their power. Organizations such as the UN, even the very embodiment of the nation-state itself, though by no means perfect, often serve as a check on arbitrarily exercised state power. There is, however, no such check on the power of multinational corporations. By their very nature, these companies operate on a supranational scale. When one nation passes a minimum wage law, for instance, these companies will move to a state that has no such law. A state has no such option. As a result, the fluidity of movement of supranational organizations gives them the ability to operate in multiple locales at once and, more importantly, avoid legal action.

The most obvious instance of such an encounter is the current conflict between the United States and takfiri terrorist groups. In 2003, the US Treasury Department attempted to freeze the assets of the al-Aqsa Foundation, a US-based charity group suspected of ties to Hamas. Though the assets were eventually frozen, the United States only had control over those assets held in the US itself. Without action on the part of other Western European governments, the al-Aqsa Foundation would still be a highly capable financier (3). Though countered in this one case, the inability of the United States to freeze the assets of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps overseas, particularly in Russian banks, clearly displays the necessity for global cooperation if states are to deal with non-state actors.

Though corporations and individuals are globalizing, states are still caught in the Cold War mentality that states themselves are the greatest threat to global stability. As the United States has learned from the tech support exodus to India and the textile manufacturing industry’s flight to China, the global economy is no longer confined into blocs. Rather, it is thoroughly integrated across state boundaries. States still find themselves at a loss when companies, individuals, and parties can operate outside of state bodies, breaking laws of the nations from which they originate. Until states themselves find a means of checking non-state actors, such issues will continue to plague judicial systems and economies alike.

1) Winter, Brian. ""How Slim Got Huge." Foreign Policy Nov.-Dec. 2007.
2) "GDP > PPP (most recent) by country." Chart. NationMaster. 2005. 27 Aug. 2008 .
3) TREASURY DESIGNATES AL-AQSA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION AS FINANCIER OF TERROR. United States. Department of the Treasury. Office of Public Affairs. .

What in the World are We Talking About?

#1: What is the most important issue in world politics?

Instead of saying the Israel/Palestine conflict is the most important world politics issue, or Darfur, or Islamic fundamentalism, or U.S. foreign policy, I propose something a bit more abstract: “World politics” is the most important issue in world politics. Which sounds circular, but the quotes are there to establish a… definable difference. When I refer to “world politics” as being the most important issue, I mean what, exactly, is world politics? The immediate reaction to the term is the relationships between nations’ governments, which is all well and good, but leaves out all the relationships that don’t happen within a government, but could be directly or indirectly affected by governments, or perhaps not at all. Who’s to say that the hottest trends in fashion this season aren’t a facet of world politics? Or the content of movies, world tours of musicians, frozen dinners in the grocery store, basketball games watched halfway across the world, which, on the outer surface, aren’t directly related to governments, but still aren’t a statement of world politics? Essentially, the question isn’t even what is world politics – the question is, what do we exclude? Everything, and where everything goes, can be a part of world politics. Each person indirectly contributes to global politics. If I’m able to go to an Italian restaurant where the food is cooked by a Mexican, served by a waitress from Bulgaria, eaten off of plates made in China, bussed by someone from El Salvador while wearing clothes made in Egypt, then I consider myself a contributor to world politics.

That last sentence now brings us to the actual point. The rest was just an introduction to this: the most important issue in world politics is globalization. Which brings up the question of what is globalization? Despite the debate going on with that term, I agree with the definition that “globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) In more laymen’s terms, everyone can be connected to everyone and everything thanks to the advent of new technology, government policies, trade and travel. This brings up a slew of questions about security, policy, poverty, and national identity. With the world at everyone’s fingertips, everyone’s backyard has gotten a lot bigger – and a lot smaller.

…This all brings us back to that central question (really, this entire thing is a circle…a globe): what is world politics? If the world is getting “flatter”, according to Thomas Friedman, and smaller, virtually, at least (according to global warming, it’s getting wetter and hotter), then where is the world in world politics? A global society is being created, where, supposedly, cultural distinctiveness is being diminished. It is my opinion that, if the world is becoming one instead of many, world politics is taking on a whole new spectrum. The connections and relationships within this developing spectrum are the new world politics. No one, especially me, can accurately define what these new world politics consist of, or where they will lead.


And that’s exactly the reason why world politics is the most important issue in world politics.

Introduction

We chose to name our blog (Propanololitics) a portmanteu of "Propranolol", an anti-anxiety medication and blood-pressure medication, and "Politics", a topic of discourse that often induces anxiety and high blood pressure in those who find themselves involved in it.

We chose to name it this way out of a vain belief that we are funny.