tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/political-institutions-1326/articlesPolitical institutions – The Conversation2018-01-29T11:30:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908032018-01-29T11:30:21Z2018-01-29T11:30:21ZWhy it’s too soon for Davos billionaires to toast Trump’s ‘pro-business’ policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203670/original/file-20180128-100929-1dvdiu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Siemens chief Joe Kaeser flank Trump as they praise him for his tax cut.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The moguls of global business, who met recently in Davos for the World Economic Forum, may not like Donald Trump’s style. But, if a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/business/trump-davos-speech-response.html">series</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/business/davos-world-economic-forum-populism.html">reports</a> by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/politics/trump-davos-elites.html">The New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-wins-over-global-elites-at-davos-all-it-took-was-a-15-trillion-tax-cut/2018/01/25/3c688624-0201-11e8-8acf-ad2991367d9d_story.html7">other</a> <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/news/economy/ceos-love-us-trump-tax-cut-davos/index.html">outlets</a> are to be believed, Trump’s pro-business policies are making it easier for them to forgive his foibles. </p>
<p>Klaus Schwab, the head of the forum, put it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/business/trump-davos-speech-response.html?ribbon-ad-idx=7&rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article">this way</a> as he introduced President Trump before his Jan. 26 speech: “On behalf of the business leaders here in this room, let me particularly congratulate you for the historic tax reform [that is] fostering job creation while providing a tremendous boost to the world economy.”</p>
<p>Many attendees <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/business/trump-davos-speech-response.html">praised</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-trumps-every-country-for-itself-rhetoric-gets-wrong-about-davos-90792">Trump’s speech itself</a> – bolstered by the impression members of his administration gave at the forum – for pragmatism and a “very constructive mind-set.”</p>
<p>Such wonky gushing is shortsighted, however, and ignores the long-term risks of Trumpism for the economic prosperity of the U.S. and the world. Research into the politics of economic growth – one of my areas of expertise – explains why. </p>
<h2>Don’t pop the champagne corks yet</h2>
<p>Since becoming president, Trump has overseen significant <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2018/0105/Trump-s-deregulation-drive-is-epic-in-scale-and-scope.-And-yet">deregulation</a> in several industries, and his signature economic initiative is a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-tax-cuts-delivering-hardworking-americans-manufacturers/">major tax cut</a> focused on businesses. The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/05/politics/trump-dow-jones-interactive/index.html">strong performance</a> of the U.S. stock market suggests investors, at least, are quite smitten with his policies.</p>
<p>It is true that tax cuts and deregulation can provide a fiscal stimulus and, when done correctly, can even <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20180123-imf-global-growth-boost-trump-tax-cuts">spur growth</a> by encouraging investment. It is also true that many in the business community are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/business/trump-davos-follow-the-money.html">relieved</a> that Trump seems <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-brand-of-economic-populism-gets-a-makeover-in-first-100-days-76077">uninterested</a> in following through on his populist rhetoric.</p>
<p>But it is important to remember that the long-term business costs of Trump’s destabilizing influence are likely to be much greater than any short-term policy benefits. This is because businesses must operate within a social and political context, one that influences their success at every step.</p>
<p>Trump’s behavior since taking office – his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">willingness to ignore</a> the norms of civil discourse, his <a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/">possible links</a> to the authoritarian regime in Russia, his <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38069298">problematic business interests</a> and, especially, his contempt for the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/his-own-words-presidents-attacks-courts">judiciary</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-to-work-for-a-president-who-hates-the-civil-service/2018/01/26/34dbe95c-0204-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html">professional civil service</a> – has eroded global <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/17/578422668/heres-just-how-little-confidence-americans-have-in-political-institutions">confidence</a> in American institutions. </p>
<p>This is a serious problem for business. Research has confirmed <a href="http://whynationsfail.com/summary/">over</a> and <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/political-economy/institutions-institutional-change-and-economic-performance">over</a> the link between open and stable political institutions and economic growth. We now know that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2340943615000195">entrepreneurship</a>, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2342668">natural resource wealth</a> and even <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8494.html">the right economic policies</a> are not enough to bring prosperity, when people are unable to trust the integrity of a country’s political and legal system. Instability <a href="https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4553024/alesina_instabilitygrowth.pdf?s">deters investment</a>, both foreign and domestic, and raises fears that the benefits of hard work will not be rewarded.</p>
<h2>The China exception?</h2>
<p>At first glance, the phenomenal growth experienced by autocracies such as China and Singapore may seem to be exceptions to this rule. But a comparative view shows that stability is critical for growth even among authoritarian regimes. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00753.x/abstract">My own research</a> (co-authored with political scientist Daniel Kuthy) suggests that more institutionalized and stable dictatorships are more inclined to choose economic policies that promote growth. And <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Institutions-Dictatorship-Jennifer-Gandhi/dp/0521155711/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">research by Emory University’s Jennifer Gandhi</a> has made the link between authoritarian stability and growth even more directly.</p>
<p>Even so, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Globalizing-Innovation-Institutions-Investment-Economies-ebook/dp/B078X54VRC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517192617&sr=1-1&keywords=politics+fdi">stable</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nation-States-Multinational-Corporation-Political-Investment-ebook/dp/B003NUSAP6/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1517192929&sr=1-4">democracy</a>, with its transparency and its rule of law, is the best sort of government for business. Such countries as <a href="http://natoassociation.ca/exploring-the-effects-of-economic-instability-in-venezuela/">Venezuela</a> and <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/turkish-economy-struggling-political-volatility">Turkey</a> have experienced negative economic consequences after backsliding from democracy.</p>
<h2>Business and society</h2>
<p>Economic growth is also <a href="http://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/DP15.pdf">tightly linked</a> to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5105.html">social</a> cooperation and peace. </p>
<p>When there is a high level of antagonism in society, whether by class, race, ethnicity, gender, geography or something else, businesses must operate in a much more complicated environment. There is a greater threat of strikes, reduced public support for liberal markets, and more challenges in the workplace and in product marketing.</p>
<p>It is here that Trump’s statements and behavior, from his <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/146683/trump-fox-news-mainstreaming-white-nationalism">failure to condemn</a> white nationalists to his well established <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/">sexism</a>, can be so harmful. The highly <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/polarized-america">polarized</a> climate of today, quite apart from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/opinion/sunday/democracy-polarization.html">inherent problems</a> it creates, is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12070/abstract">bad</a> for business.</p>
<p>Moreover, social peace is <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/industrial-economics/inequality-and-industrial-change-global-view?format=PB&isbn=9780521009935#S3Y3gDuBLrcfG1hz.97">connected</a> to levels of economic inequality. This is where even the policies that many businesses support can have seriously <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains">negative repercussions</a> in the long term. Analysts agree that Trump’s tax cuts will have the effect of <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/11/03/trump-gop-tax-plan-cuts-2017/">concentrating wealth</a> even more fully in the hands of the few. For businesses, the short-term benefits of a tax concession should not outweigh the risks posed by increased inequality and polarization.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203709/original/file-20180129-100908-ntfxyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most of those who attend the meeting in Davos, including CEOs, have a more internationalist bent than Trump. From left to right, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Erna Solberg, prime minister of Norway, Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM, Chetna Sinha, president of the Mann Deshi Foundation, Fabiola Gianotti, director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, and Isabelle Kocher, CEO of ENGIE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Markus Schreiber</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trumpism abroad</h2>
<p>Most of the corporate CEOs who gathered in Davos <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-at-davos-can-america-first-lead-to-shared-prosperity-across-the-world-90792">have a distinctly international orientation</a>. President Trump’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/america-first-34020">America First</a>” policies are likely to harm their interests much more than those of domestic business leaders. </p>
<p>For international businesses to function, a network of global agreements and understandings is necessary. The countries of the world have built this network over decades, largely under the leadership of the United States. </p>
<p>If the primary architect of this system no longer supports it, there is a risk that new impediments to trade and capital flows will make economic interdependence <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-trade-policy-ignores-key-lesson-from-great-depression-87477">harder to sustain</a>. While supporters of globalization are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/us/politics/trump-trade-america-first-davos.html">moving forward</a> without the Trump administration, the world should not be sanguine about the future of the liberal economic order without active American support.</p>
<p>Just as seriously, an international conflict could have a severely <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2478.00042/full">detrimental</a> impact on <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shank/economic-consequences-of-_b_1294430.html">economic activity</a>. Loose talk from the Trump administration, to the extent that it <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/347783-poll-68-percent-think-trump-could-accidentally-get-us-in">increases the risk of war</a>, is a serious threat to business success.</p>
<p>For all of these reasons, the optimism that many seemed to be feeling at Davos is misplaced. Businesses operate within a social and political context, and when that context is destabilized, they cannot escape the consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Hankla does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The billionaires, business leaders and other elites who gathered in Davos praised the president’s policies, yet research on the politics of economic growth suggests it’s too soon to celebrate.Charles Hankla, Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599792016-08-05T05:30:55Z2016-08-05T05:30:55ZWhither anarchy: perspectives on anarchism and liberty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129333/original/image-20160705-19110-1jh0g40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anarchism's opposition to arbitrary power is often militant, but liberty is no simple thing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://thetransmetropolitanreview.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/the-transmetropolitan-review-4/">Transmetropolitan Review</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century. The essay is the first of four perspectives on the political relevance of anarchism and the prospects for liberty in the world today.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The following reflections on the subject of anarchism give a voice to the spirit of anarchy. By this I don’t mean what’s conventionally understood by the term: disturbance, disagreement and violent confusion triggered by the lack (<em>an</em>) of a ruler (<em>arkhos</em>). Rather, the perspectives published in this collection of essays brim with interest in the spirit of anarchism and its radical defence of unrestrained liberty, whose reality I first encountered on my hometown streets, with a wham and a whump.</p>
<p>At the high point of public opposition to the Vietnam War, during a rush-hour sit-down by several thousand fellow students, riot police were summoned to clear the traffic snarl we’d caused at the main CBD intersection of our city. The picture below captures something of the swelling mayhem, as helmeted constables, wielding batons, came in on horseback. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130789/original/image-20160717-2153-7bfpr1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, Adelaide (June 1971).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Keane</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To my astonishment, in the midst of tumult and turmoil, the anarchists in our ranks cool-headedly whipped out bags of marbles from deep inside their pockets. Unused to rollerskating, the horses grew unsteady; frightened, they began to rear up and draw back from the crowd. The anarchist tactics were simple, militant and effective. </p>
<p>I was impressed, and that’s perhaps why I soon graduated to The Anarchist Cookbook, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/anarchist-cookbook-author-william-powell-out-of-print">written by William Powell</a>. First published in 1971, and oozing so much liberty that governments around the world quickly banned it, the handbook included tips for manufacturing everything from telephone phreaking devices to home-made hash brownies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129159/original/image-20160704-19094-gr2a2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Un Chien Andalou</em>, an early favourite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47357563@N06/8249357618">Jennifer Mei/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My taste for black, and for surrealist films, soon followed. <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Chien_Andalou">Un Chien Andalou</a></em> was an early favourite: a 1928 short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí whose “dream logic” had no plot in any conventional sense. </p>
<p>Then came some serious reading: George Orwell’s <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/13594#.V3sv7JN95Bw">Homage to Catalonia</a> and Noam Chomsky’s <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/american-power-new-mandarins">American Power and the New Mandarins</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Quite generally, what grounds are there for supposing that those whose claim to power is based on knowledge and technique will be more benign in their exercise of power than those whose claim is based on wealth or aristocratic origin?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I paid attention to studies of the first self-organising affluent societies by the radical anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Pierre Clastres. Later, I sat at the feet of the priestly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/09/guardianobituaries.highereducation">Ivan Illich</a>; listened to flamboyant lectures by <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/">Herbert Marcuse</a> on feminism and repressive tolerance; and attended seminars on anarchism and ecology by <a href="http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/bio1.html">Murray Bookchin</a>. </p>
<p>I met the author of <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/greer-germaine/female-eunuch.htm">The Female Eunuch</a> and several times, in clubs so small they felt like Turkish baths, heard The Clash rail against petty injustice, plutocrats, poverty and racism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sYbHRQ_sYGI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">What’s My Name? A cry against the dole and sentence-happy magistrates (London, July 1978).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I found myself influenced by <a href="http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/powerknowledge">Michel Foucault’s writings on power/knowledge</a> and <a href="http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/debord.html">Guy Debord’s</a> theory of mediated resistance; and I listened intently to lectures by <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/castoria/">Cornelius Castoriadis</a> in defence of the idea of the autonomous individual lucid in her desires, clear-headed about reality, and capable of responsibly holding herself accountable for what she does in the world.</p>
<h2>On Liberty</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130778/original/image-20160716-2141-19ixlib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">C.B. Macpherson (1911-1987).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ocufa.on.ca</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was my doctoral supervisor, <a href="http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/possessive-individualism.html">C.B. Macpherson</a>, who taught me to combine the subject of liberty with the principle of equality, and to do so by way of serious reflection on the past, present and future of democracy. Thanks to the quiet doyen of democratic theory, I became a part-time anarchist. </p>
<p>I still today sympathise with the anarchist disgust for heteronomy and its passion for liberty, with what Saul Newman, in the third of these articles, <a href="http://theconversation.com/whither-anarchy-ownness-as-a-form-of-freedom-60777">calls freedom as ownness</a>, or “the experience of self-affirmation and empowerment which ontologically precedes all acts of liberation”. </p>
<p>The formula probably underestimates what Freud taught us: that all individuals are shaped involuntarily by yearnings, unintelligible fragments, fabrications and omissions rooted in childhood. </p>
<p>Yet the great strength of the anarchist emphasis on “self-affirmation and empowerment” is the agenda it continues to set: to recognise the strangeness of our involuntary love of power, to strive to overcome our voluntary servitude, to rid ourselves of the urge “to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us” (<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WvvQfxvGfpYC&pg=PR13&dq=Anti-Oedipus+Preface+Michel+Foucault&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4uaaLvdvNAhWEtpQKHdW_AfQQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=Anti-Oedipus%20Preface%20Michel%20Foucault&f=false">Foucault</a>).</p>
<p>The stress placed by anarchism on these themes, and on the principle that arbitrary power relations are contingent, and hence alterable, still rings true. In recent times, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0038x9t">anarchist sensibility</a> has again come alive in many different global settings, from Greenpeace “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/11/how-to-change-the-world-greenpeace-power-mindbomb">mind bombs</a>”, the M-15 movement in Spain, Taiwans’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement">Sunflower uprising</a> to the punk band <a href="http://thebaffler.com/blog/punk-rock-and-protest-asim">G.L.O.S.S.</a> (“Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit”). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130777/original/image-20160716-2122-n8vl51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">M-15 public demonstration against austerity in the Plaza de la Corredera, Córdoba, Spain, June 9, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/72957193@N00/5852321762">Javi/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the cause of liberty, all this is well and good. Except that anarchism has no special monopoly on these concerns. In practice, conceptually and politically speaking, democracy handles things better, or so I came to think.</p>
<h2>Institutions</h2>
<p>The following essays by <a href="http://theconversation.com/whither-anarchy-freedom-as-non-domination-60776">Alex Prichard and Ruth Kinna</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/whither-anarchy-ownness-as-a-form-of-freedom-60777">Saul Newman</a> emphasise that the anarchist ideal of freedom rejects states, private property in market form, and the “hollow game” of democracy. Such institutions are deemed antithetical to freedom as non-domination. </p>
<p>Written constitutions, watchdog bodies, periodic elections, parliamentary representation, trial by jury, public service broadcasting, education, health and welfare protections: while all these (and other) institutions are motivated by the principle of equality, the anarchists in this series are inclined to dismiss them as mere instruments of disempowerment, as violators of the lives of individuals blessed ontologically with their own “ownness” (<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/max-stirner/#2">Max Stirner’s <em>Eigenheit</em></a>).</p>
<p>In his contribution to this dossier, <a href="http://theconversation.com/whither-anarchy-the-fantasy-of-natural-law-60778">Simon Tormey</a> notes how this conviction unwittingly aligns anarchists with the “freedom of choice” and “possessive individualism” (Macpherson) ideology of contemporary neo-liberalism; he rightly emphasises the political foolishness of jettisoning institutions that can function as levers of resistance to injustice and subordination. </p>
<p>My encounters with anarchists taught me something else: in group settings, anarchists demand informality (“structurelessness” as <a href="http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm">Jo Freeman called it</a>), yet the lack of institutional rules makes everyone vulnerable to manipulation and takeovers by cunning, well-organised factions.</p>
<p>Strategic objections to anarchist ideas of freedom as “non-domination” are compelling; but, arguably, they don’t burrow deeply enough into why anarchism has no love of institutions. Philosophically speaking, anarchism was born of a 19th-century age blind to the embodied linguistic horizons within which individuation takes place from the moment we are born. </p>
<p>Karl Marx had no developed theory of language, yet he spotted (in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundrisse"><em>Grundrisse</em></a>) that individuals “come into connection with one another only in determined ways”. </p>
<p>Rephrased, we could say, within any culture, that individuals resemble spiders entangled in laced webs of language that structure their time-space identities. What we think, who we are, how we represent ourselves to others and act on the world: all of this, and more, is framed by the linguistic horizons (Wittgenstein called them the language “scaffolding” (<em><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=bisiGaxtIlcC&pg=PT246&dq=%22part+of+the+framework+%5BGerust%5D%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWgeCP2tvNAhVLEpQKHZExDVkQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=Ger%C3%BCst&f=false">Gerüst</a></em>) of our everyday lives.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130780/original/image-20160716-2153-vul26o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The totally ‘free’ individual is a misleading fiction and impossible utopia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonasb/364609049/">Jonas Bengtsson/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It follows that notions of liberty vary according to the language games people play with others. Since individuals are chronically bound through language to the lives of others, the whole image of “free” individuals as “un-dominated by any other” is both a misleading fiction and impossible utopia. How “individuals” define and practise their “liberty” is shaped by their linguistic engagement with others.</p>
<p>And as these entanglements are infused with power relations, individuation is very much a political matter, a process defined by structured tensions and struggles over who gets what, when and how, and whether they should do so.</p>
<h2>Complex liberty</h2>
<p>The point is that institutions matter. Anarchists excel at criticising factual power, but their proposed counterfactual alternatives are typically weak.
The “cult of the natural, the spontaneous, the individual” (<a href="http://www.ditext.com/woodcock/1.html">George Woodcock</a>) runs deep in their thinking. </p>
<p>Yes, in certain circumstances the “passion for destruction” (<a href="https://www.sfu.ca/history/publications/2006-leier.html">Bakunin</a>) can be creative. But loose talk of “unions of egoists” (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_egoists">Stirner</a>), “social communion” (<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wQ2PBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=Proudhon+%22social+communion%22&source=bl&ots=3Zt-Oo6lvl&sig=lXdQVGxhPSFcvC4xt7gyfQPrHyg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCgKyTwNvNAhWJKpQKHdLOAXIQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=Proudhon%20%22social%20communion%22&f=false">Proudhon</a>) and “camp rules” and “constitutionalism” (Ruth Kinna and Alex Prichard’s iteration) falls wide of the mark.</p>
<p>Loose talk of liberty neglects the fundamental point that the empowerment of individuals, their exercise of freedom understood as “non-domination”, requires their protection from bossing and bullying by others. That is the meaning of the old maxim that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. </p>
<p>More than a few ugly crimes have been committed in its name, which is why beautiful liberty requires restraint in order to be exercised well. Liberty is no simple thing. It is a political matter bound up with institutionalised struggles for equality among individuals, groups, networks and organisations.</p>
<p>The type of institutions matters. That’s the whole point of democracy: its power-monitoring, power-sharing institutions are designed to conjoin liberty with equality, in complex ways, in defence of citizens and their chosen representatives, in opposition to the disabling effects of arbitrary power.</p>
<p>Armed with the grammar of complex liberty tempered by complex equality, democrats warn of the dark side of anarchism, the dogmatic ism-conviction that in matters of liberty, language and institutions are trumped by the preference for simplicity over complexity.</p>
<p>There’s another sense in which the old anarchist ideology of the autonomous individual is today questionable: its neglect of the non-human. We’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-raises-risks-of-earth-without-democracy-and-without-us-38911">entered an age</a> of eco-destruction and eco-renewal marked by rising public awareness that we human beings ineluctably live as animals in complex biomes not of our choosing. The contributions below are silent about this trend. </p>
<p>Why? The part-time anarchist in me suspects that it’s because their particular anarchist vision of freedom as “ownness” and non-domination is anthropocentric. Their liberty is the all-too-human licence freely to <em>dominate nature</em>.</p>
<p>If that’s so, then the old subject of anarchy and liberty is confronted by new <em>democratic</em> questions: is it possible to include the non-human in definitions of freedom as the unchecked propensity of humans to act on their worlds? </p>
<p>How might the “ownness” enjoyed by free individuals be brought back to Earth? Can these free individuals hereon be regarded as humble “actants” (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory">Bruno Latour</a>)? Are people capable of living their lives in dignity, unhindered by arbitrary power, as equals, entangled in complex biomes they know are so much part of themselves that they must be their vigilant stewards?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/whither-anarchy">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Keane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liberty is a political matter bound up with institutionalised struggles for equality among individuals, groups, networks and organisations. This is where the cult of the free individual falls down.John Keane, Professor of Politics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481832015-09-30T04:43:37Z2015-09-30T04:43:37ZWhat drives corruption in Malawi and why it won’t disappear soon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96667/original/image-20150929-30970-1jtu5oe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malawian President Peter Mutharika has promised to fight the corruption that has seen donors withdraw their support for his impoverished nation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Eldson Chagara</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is now two years since Malawi was rocked by its biggest government corruption scandal in history. The systematic looting of public coffers by civil servants, private contractors and politicians saw them steal <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2014/02/malawi-s-cashgate-scandal">US$31 million</a> from government coffers. </p>
<p>It is estimated that about <a href="http://gppreview.com/2014/01/06/cashgate-shakes-malawi-and-donor-confidence/">35%</a> of government funds have been stolen over the past decade. The impoverished country’s national budget for 2013-14 was about US$1.3 billion (<a href="http://www.nyasatimes.com/2013/06/21/malawi-mps-approve-k630-5bn-national-budget-for-201314/">630.5 billion Kwachas</a>) at today’s exchange rate.</p>
<p>But has the country learnt anything from its biggest scandal that saw donors withdraw support?</p>
<p>The University of Malawi’s Blessings Chinsinga recently pointed out that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… efforts to root out corruption do not stick because the existing institutional milieu makes it almost impossible to introduce changes that can effectively stamp out corruption.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The observation is instructive in that the scandal spans two political administrations. Malawi was led by the late president <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=iIFwWH8aXFYC&pg=PA35&dq=President+Bingu+wa+Mutharika,+profile&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwA2oVChMI9viuy5ecyAIVAUwUCh0eLQze#v=onepage&q=President%20Bingu%20wa%20Mutharika%2C%20profile&f=false">Bingu wa Mutharika</a> in 2004 and the scandal unravelled on the watch of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-11-joyce-banda-sacks-cabinet-after-corruption-scandal">Joyce Banda</a> in 2013. </p>
<h2>Fertile ground for corruption</h2>
<p>A number of factors contribute to the current state of affairs.</p>
<p>There is no clear distinction between a party in power and government activities in Malawi, unlike in established democracies. In Malawi, the party in power is the de facto government.</p>
<p>In Malawi, a party in power calls itself <em>boma</em> (a government). Ordinary Malawians look at abuse of state resources by those in power as acceptable. It is almost impossible to tell a party in power from the government.</p>
<p>Even more serious is the fact that political parties in Malawi are not mandated to declare their <a href="https://eisa.org.za/wep/malparties3.htm">sources of funding</a>. This breeds corruption and fosters abuse of public resources. This is not unique to Malawi. But in countries like Botswana, hailed as one of the model democracies on the continent, they at least have a debate on <a href="http://en.starafrica.com/news/botswana-mps-adopt-political-party-funding-motion.html">political party funding</a>. Debates are also taking place in <a href="http://www.arabianjbmr.com/pdfs/NG_VOL_2_11/1.pdf">Nigeria</a> and <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/hsrc-review-march-2013/in-search-of-a-newparty-funding-model">South Africa</a>, respectively the continent’s largest and second-largest economies. </p>
<p>Another contributing factor is that after 21 years of multiparty democracy, governance in Malawi remains heavily centralised. Although the country has been independent since 1964, it only became a democracy in 1994.</p>
<p>Until then, it had been a one-party state decreed by its first post-colonial leader Kamuzu Banda, who banned political parties. He became president for life in 1971. Since 1994, the country has had local government representation for only six years – from 1999 to 2004 and from 2014 to now. </p>
<p>The central government has been reluctant to relinquish some of its powers. The president makes even the smallest of decisions and undertakes mundane tasks that should be reserved for line ministries. This encourages a system of patronage.</p>
<p>Lastly, government contracts, tenders and board memberships all go to sympathisers of the party in power and not necessarily to the best bidder or the most competent applicant. Government sympathisers or ruling party members get contracts regardless of their levels of competence.</p>
<p>This unfairly benefits the incumbents and weakens opposition parties. Businesspeople are afraid of funding opposition parties because they could lose state contracts and other business opportunities.</p>
<h2>Scale and depth of corruption exposed</h2>
<p>Malawians have always known that corruption is <a href="http://www.nyasatimes.com/2015/08/02/corruption-worsening-in-malawi-survey-funded-by-irish-aid/">rife</a> in the country. But the sheer size of the Cashgate scandal, both in terms of the amount and the wide number of people involved, has shown how deeply rooted the problem is.</p>
<p>The involvement of the country’s political class in the scandal is in stark contradiction to their penchant for standing on political campaign podiums promising to fight corruption with all their might.</p>
<p>Most of the people implicated in the Cashgate scandal were either members of the then-ruling <a href="http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1253195309&Country=Malawi&topic=Politics&subtopic=Forecast&subsubtopic=Election+watch&u=1&pid=1093513093&oid=1093513093&uid=1">People’s Party</a> or its sympathisers.</p>
<p>There is an unwritten rule in Malawi that successful businesspeople align themselves with the governing party in order to protect their property and gain more contracts. </p>
<p>An aunt of Oswald Lutepo, thus far the main Cashgate <a href="http://mwnation.com/lutepo-slapped-with-11yrs-ihl/">convict</a> and serving 11 years in jail, was heard in court lamenting that her nephew was advised that he did not need to join politics as he was already a successful businessman and multimillionaire. At the time of his arrest Lutepo was deputy director of recruitment in the People’s Party.</p>
<p>The aunt’s lament is instructive: people join politics in Malawi mainly to make money. In terms of this logic, the 37-year-old Lutepo was already a millionaire. He should have stayed out of it. </p>
<p>But he could not escape the lure of more riches that flow from being close to those in power. He knew the unwritten rule for success in Malawi only too well: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are unsuccessful, support the ruling party because this is where opportunities are. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Malawi is still learning to cope without support from donors and the jury is still out on whether it has learnt anything from its biggest scandal. A recent article in <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2015/09/03/malawi-wholl-remember-cashgate/">African Arguments</a> underlines the hopeless feeling that Cashgate has left among most Malawians:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Malawi’s self-enriching officials need to know they will be judged not just by an imperfect judicial system, but by generation upon future generation of their compatriots.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48183/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jimmy Kainja does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Malawi appears to have learnt nothing from the biggest state corruption scandal that rocked the country two years ago, leading to donors withdrawing their support. The same conditions still remain.Jimmy Kainja, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of MalawiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409842015-05-01T10:13:10Z2015-05-01T10:13:10ZThe message is clear: it’s time to put first-past-the-post out to pasture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79773/original/image-20150429-23391-s3bss1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C301%2C5760%2C3509&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's this or the knacker's yard, champs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/taylorherringpr/15474076920">TayloreHerring</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is no avoiding it – the UK’s electoral process is well past its sell-by date. In 2010 the first-past-the-post system failed to deliver a single-party majority government and it is very unlikely to deliver a stable coalition government in 2015.</p>
<p>The problems of the first-past-the-post system go beyond the fact that Labour and the Conservatives are unable to secure a majority of seats in the House of Commons.</p>
<p>The two main parties are also in trouble because they will not be able to rely on the support of small parties like the Liberal Democrats, UKIP or the Greens to form a stable coalition government. If current <a href="http://may2015.com/">polling projections</a> are correct, none of the different permutations of coalition government will be able to command a majority in the House of Commons after May 7.</p>
<p>First past the post disproportionately discriminates against small parties (except the SNP which actually benefits from the current electoral system). It means that neither the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens or UKIP will have sufficient MPs to prop-up a Conservative or Labour-led coalition in 2015. </p>
<p>This is problematic because, though minority governments can last a full term they are less stable and can lead to permanent legislative deadlock.</p>
<h2>Keeping up with the times</h2>
<p>This state of affairs is the result of changes to the British party system that have been taking place since the 1970s. Where two parties once dominated, smaller alternatives have been emerging. For this reason, it is highly unlikely that an electorally diverse country like Britain will revert to the two-party politics of the post-war period in the near future.</p>
<p>Until 2010, the electoral system hid the multi-party nature of British politics (smaller parties and independent candidates attracted 30% of voting intentions but gained very few seats). In 2015 it is no longer possible to hide those changes. The only way out of this deadlock is to reform the electoral system.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the leaders of the main parties do not have to go far to find viable options that fit the requirements of Westminster politics. Two options – Alternative Vote Plus (AVP) or the Additional Member System (AMS) – have the potential to break the current electoral deadlock, albeit in a rather incremental manner.</p>
<p>Both have the potential to deliver slightly more proportional results while keeping some elements of the Westminster model (namely, by maintaining the link between MPs and their constituencies) alive. </p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>The AVP is an electoral system proposed by Jenkins Commission in 1998. It was designed to meet the specific requirement of the Westminster system at the request of Tony Blair, but was never adopted.</p>
<p>The AVP system is mostly a majoritarian system with some elements of proportionality. Under this system, 75 to 85% of MPs would be elected by alternative vote (which means voters rank candidates in order of preference). The remaining 15 to 25% of MPs would be elected by a small <a href="http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/alternative-vote-plus">top-up regional list</a> to ensure that all parts of the UK are adequately represented.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79820/original/image-20150429-6263-q0n73z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">FPTP favours the top two.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/planetfish/4610310692/in/photolist-kUTE7a-82p3Ko-njp9bV-nAAHB8-nyQCTE-njoYk3-nAAv9x-njp2rA-nAArCV-nATB9h-njoSJV-kUVdtw-kUU2Wa-kUUX29-kUSete-kUULKC-kUUdrE-kUUhQ9-kUSDQt-kUVbtu-kUUQ5J-kUUtqN-kVDi6p-kVDSfi-kVDgZX-kVDdc6-kVDMTT-kVDuwv-kVDqdk-kVF1C9-kVF9uw-nD1JmN-nmx9wu-nDeswf-nCJNRP-nmK7yq-nmKiaN-nmwYBt-nmx9Tv-nmKu9G-nCEFoT-nATxuJ-nmx5UM-nAYHvN-nAYTS9-nmxt8z-nmwKQC-nD1HGm-nCNBSN-nCK5xD">Paul Morris</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This system has the advantage of keeping the possibility of single party governments alive and of maintaining the link between MPs and constituencies, but would also deliver more proportional results for the smaller parties.</p>
<p>And because those smaller parties (including the three main parties in Scotland) would be able to win more seats, they could more readily form a two-party coalition government. Similarly, Labour and the Conservatives would be able to elect more MPs in Scotland – currently the first-past-the-post system exaggerates the popularity of the SNP.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/additional-member-system">AMS</a>, which is currently used in elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, delivers slightly more proportional results.</p>
<p>Like AVP, the AMS is based on voters casting votes for two types of MPs: one group elected by first-past-the-post and the other by a top-up regional list. </p>
<p>In elections for the Scottish Parliament – which, incidentally, have delivered coalition governments, a minority government and now single-party majority government – 73 of the 129 MSPs are elected by first-past-the-post voting and 56 by regional lists. In the elections to the House of Commons the percentage of MPs elected by regional lists can be calibrated to deliver the desired amount of proportionality to the electoral results.</p>
<h2>They can handle it</h2>
<p>In the past, these systems have been criticised for being too complicated. But Welsh and Scottish voters seem to have had no trouble in working around the two ballot papers.</p>
<p>They have also been attacked for creating two types of MPs. Again, this is a false criticism, as Westminster already produces two types of MPs: they are called frontbenchers and backbenchers.</p>
<p>The advantage of AMS or of AVP is that voters would no longer be sold the fiction that a member of government can also be an effective scrutiniser of legislation and a responsive constituency MP. </p>
<p>Sadly, neither Labour nor the Conservatives are contemplating electoral reform. Their manifestos are silent on this issue. But if in the past, both parties had good reasons to be cavalier about electoral reform, now it is actually in their interest to deliver it. It may be their only chance to lead a stable government, even if in coalition with other parties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
There is no avoiding it – the UK’s electoral process is well past its sell-by date. In 2010 the first-past-the-post system failed to deliver a single-party majority government and it is very unlikely to…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Politics, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272162014-07-02T20:36:01Z2014-07-02T20:36:01ZBurma emerges from a shadowy past, but real progress lies ahead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51733/original/kcrvx52j-1403241220.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is more freedom and more reasons to smile in Burma than in the past – but will this girl and others in her generation share the spoils of the nation's resources boom?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dietmar Temps</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our Tropical Future: A new report on the <a href="http://stateofthetropics.org/">State of the Tropics</a> has revealed rapid changes in human and environmental health in the Earth’s tropical regions. This is the final in a four-part series about the new report, based on the work of <a href="http://stateofthetropics.org/leadership-group-institutions">12 universities and research institutions worldwide</a>, which shows the challenges facing diverse nations such as Burma/Myanmar to manage those changes.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As a visitor to Burma 20 years ago, being followed by military intelligence officers, having your phone tapped and your room searched were all considered normal.</p>
<p>Today, the obvious military shadows have lifted: so much so that a friend of mine from a Burmese democratic party has commented that, after so many years, it felt strange not being followed from home by military intel.</p>
<p>Walking the bustling, traffic-filled streets of Burma’s biggest city Rangoon (also known as Yangon), you could mistake it for somewhere else, like Jakarta or Bangkok. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52809/original/trwmq7dm-1404257928.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi launching the State of the Tropics Report.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Ziembicki/markzphoto.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most visible sign of progress is opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi: no longer shut away, with people afraid to even go near her street or look at her house. Now she is free to travel the country and the world again, and sits as a member of parliament, including chairing the rule of law committee.</p>
<p>On the weekend, Suu Kyi launched the <a href="http://www.stateofthetropics.org/">State of the Tropics Report</a>, which showed that in Burma – like many other fast-growing tropical nations – life is getting better in many respects.</p>
<p>But could Suu Kyi be <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/06/30/burma-myanmar-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-president-Odds-lengthening.aspx?COLLCC=4241170749&">president after the 2015 general elections</a>, as the people desire? Not yet, say the military. </p>
<p>As Suu Kyi <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/keep-the-pressure-on-myanmar-says-aung-san-suu-kyi/story-fn59nm2j-1226971451724">warned over the weekend</a>, there is little more than a “veneer” of democracy in the country, and foreign visitors should not see her nation “through rose-tinted glasses”. So how much has changed in this culturally and resource-rich nation?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51734/original/8ytg5rzn-1403241269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Old Bagan, looking towards the Ayeyarwady River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/deepblue66/13267298953/in/photolist-7kxVzJ-7nCCQZ-648jXz-7fhE3w-6v4oms-7qfybm-7p6dnj-kuz6YG-mdoxhX-mdonKF-mzVRfK-kux9Cp-fr7bVS-ko4vcT-nx2Woq-e4YMHo-5hDUdT-7nDDix-mm8Drn-n8N8ER-ko4MHg-eiuzBe-nANE4M-nhJkk8-kfyeFF-fnfH3E-mXRZZz-992t8X-nu5vaS-kfzykJ-mm791T-8ZQFgr-n8Nape-mzVoWc-5rF4tA-dREzg1-e1K9zp-dUwp7E-njiND1-k9i4BQ-5rHd22-943x5w-egd1nu-kfyxrR-nfGxBh-mHZ5z6-7ktNcn-npeHrs-ncS1yj-kfyo6X">Dietmar Temps/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hit and miss progress</h2>
<p>Burma is now coming out of a cocoon after more than half a century of government-imposed isolation, and there has been some progress – but it is hit and miss. The political progress that is necessary for good governance is slow off the mark. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51731/original/st3bhxp8-1403240880.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rangoon street life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nhd-info/8615459971/in/photolist-e8ju6i-97rDAx-dRExaC-2fNAt-e2nHFq-iGofSG-7jxyKD-aAhUpG-iTcHpn-b71kGz-aAfbq4-eeeGLk-eSuqE-iTbojT-2ivYyj-npesUR-kuy3Q8-e1J3x7-e5rAXG-gTcsPD-s1kQW-67MY2j-fr77WL-fhsHik-2ivyus-dpn7DR-74Hb1-7SW8CU-e2SdBa-aAhT2u-5PK4gh-dM7yhW-9Y5V94-dM7vtj-nfFcP3-2iqdcB-fje56Q-8KNZ8S-dagoqg-dXEbnp-hNgxQf-mm7xfB-fhckkZ-dXxHMA-adEqaq-97rzLK-2iqdcV-eg7gka-aAfb9R-e8jx3p">Trond Viken/NHD/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Burma’s military government has attracted worldwide condemnation for its human rights violations of political actors as well as ethnic nationalities, who comprise more than 30% of the people.</p>
<p>For too long, the people of Burma have been condemned to living with extreme poverty, shockingly high infant and maternal mortality and poor health, endemic corruption, an education system in name only, a state without a proper legal system, and a bankrupt economy. </p>
<p>Since World War Two, there have been <a href="http://www.conflictmap.org/conflict/myanmar_rebels">constant civil wars</a> raging, while what was once Asia’s rice bowl became a dust bowl.</p>
<h2>A resources boom, but who benefits?</h2>
<p>Burma is also a nation blessed with abundant natural resources. And those resources are attracting many foreign investors, as shown on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2014/s4034645.htm">ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent</a> this week.</p>
<p>But with greater openness to the rest of the world comes a new set of political, social and environmental challenges, including managing that foreign investment and sharing the spoils of increased development, which up until now have been tightly controlled by the military, some government members and cronies.</p>
<p>As the State of the Tropics Report warns, current rates of deforestation in <a href="http://stateofthetropics.org/wp-content/uploads/State-of-the-Tropics-Section-2_The-Ecosystem.pdf">Burma’s Ayeyarwady Delta mangrove forests</a> could see them lost entirely <a href="http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/mangroves-irrawaddy-delta-gone-decades.html">within decades</a>. </p>
<p>And that would have devastating human and environmental impacts: the mangroves currently provide fertile farmland and fisheries for an estimated 7.7 million people; are home to 30 species of endangered animals, including the Ayeyarwady dolphin; and provide crucial coastal protection against erosion and extreme weather events. </p>
<p>After the 2004 Asian tsunami, researchers concluded ]that dense mangrove and coastal forests greatly reduced wave damage in many areas and gave people a better chance of surviving, by trapping deadly debris and providing cushioned landing areas for those caught in surging water.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52810/original/pz6ssj4y-1404259571.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life along the Ayeyarwady River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Franc Pallarès López</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Some glimmers of hope</h2>
<p>In the late 1990s, I was once the only guest in <a href="http://www.hotelthestrand.com/">The Strand Hotel</a>, as famous as Singapore’s Raffles in its heyday. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52701/original/4m6bcnd5-1404183075.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Kipling Bar at the Strand Hotel in Rangoon, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/73542590@N00/10153442775/">Jeremy Weate/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My newspaper would arrive promptly each morning – but any articles that offended Burma’s draconian censors were clipped out before it was delivered. Even articles about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were chopped out, despite Burma becoming a member in 1997.</p>
<p>Such overt censorship, along with the deliberately intimidation of military spies following pro-democracy supporters, is now a thing of the past, even if less overt censorship survives that still sees people self-censor to avoid trouble.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the past taxi drivers were simply too afraid to take passengers near Aung San Suu Kyi’s house.</p>
<p>Once, in a fleeting period when Suu Kyi was supposedly free from house arrest and I sought to visit my friend of more than 15 years, a major guarding her home’s entrance demanded my name, asked for my passport and more. When I remarked “How strange, Major”, he replied, “Madam, I live in a strange country”.</p>
<p>For so long, Burma’s generals decided what happened in all sectors across government, meaning that those who knew least were dictating what had to happen to those who knew best. It was a command and control approach to government, policy, and law making. Good ideas were swallowed by bad government.</p>
<p>Fast forward to today, and there has been some changes for the better. There is a government, though a quasi-military one; there is a constitution, though decreed by the military and not designed by the people despite a referendum; and there is a parliamentary system, though 25% of seats at all levels are occupied by hand-picked serving military (Tatmadaw) officers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51736/original/g2xs9kzv-1403241840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The power of ideas</h2>
<p>International support can help. Some of the projects I’ve been involved with, such as the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/international/myanmar/people.shtml">Myanmar Constitutional Reform Project</a> and the International Party Development Committee, give me some hope, because I’ve seen firsthand the hunger for real change. Many Burmese parliamentarians are keen for faster reform and some have visited Australia. </p>
<p>Universities were closed in Burma for many years. Students were considered dangerous, simply because they had ideas. My first visit to Rangoon University in the late 1990s was to an institution abandoned, with the gates chained. </p>
<p>Last year, that same university proudly hosted US president Barack Obama. One professor joked that they wished Obama could visit every month, so that the Rolls-Royce level of maintenance at the university would continue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51730/original/mtx8n7bg-1403240586.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Traffic is becoming a headache for Rangoon’s five million residents, like so many other cities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leigh Griffiths/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given how much has changed in one generation, I am cautiously hopeful for Burma’s future. But we must also heed the warnings of Suu Kyi and others, in demanding that the rush to capitalise on the country’s wealth leads to real change for its people. </p>
<p>Launching the State of the Tropics Report on the weekend, <a href="http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/suu-kyi-launches-overwhelming-report-tropics.html?PageSpeed=noscript">Suu Kyi said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is so much that we can learn from this report, to make us better carers. To care for our environment, to care for one another, to care for those who are different from us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The political, social and environmental challenges facing Suu Kyi’s nation and the rest of the Tropics will not be quick or easy to resolve. But as <a href="https://twitter.com/OakeMedia/status/483140948763746305">she rightly declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we all decided not to proceed because of difficulty, the world would stop.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Further reading:<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-world-is-turning-tropical-before-our-eyes-26973">How the world is turning tropical before our eyes</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/earths-generation-next-will-be-wealthier-but-not-always-healthier-27187">Earth’s generation next will be wealthier, but not always healthier</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wild-creatures-of-the-tropics-are-being-lost-before-theyre-found-27188">Wild creatures of the tropics are being lost before they’re found</a><br></em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janelle Saffin is a long-time Burmese campaigner, and has previously lectured on constitutional law within Burma/Myanmar. She is the Chair of the Australian Labor Party's International Party Development Committee and a former chair of the Australia–Myanmar Parliamentary Group. She has visited Burma many times over the past 20 years and has been a member of the Burma Lawyers Council for many years. She co-founded the website Gateway to Burma and has helped hundreds of Burmese refugees relocate worldwide. From November 2007 until September 2013, Janelle represented the federal electorate of Page for the Australian Labor Party, and previously served as a Labor member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1995 to 2003. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party. She was an Honorary Adviser on Burma for the State of the Tropics Report.</span></em></p>Our Tropical Future: A new report on the State of the Tropics has revealed rapid changes in human and environmental health in the Earth’s tropical regions. This is the final in a four-part series about…Janelle Saffin, Honorary Adviser on Burma for the State of the Tropics, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/29962011-10-06T03:27:43Z2011-10-06T03:27:43ZHow can Australia’s politics be improved?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3172/original/aapone-20110707000330201703-question_time-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=96%2C263%2C2683%2C2471&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott are not doing Australian politics any favours.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a country in which politics is not a struggle among ambitious individuals for power, but the community’s way of resolving conflicts and advancing its common interests.</p>
<p>Voters are well-educated and follow public affairs seriously. Citizens consider one another’s opinions and are not rusted-on partisans. </p>
<p>Politicians assume a knowledgeable and intelligent public who can understand complexity. Politicians campaign honestly; they acknowledge drawbacks and objections, they don’t use arguments they know are unsound. </p>
<p>Political parties have many volunteer members and take them seriously. Party members listen to one another, ready to be influenced by argument. </p>
<p>In political life there is good will, personal rivalries and resentments are kept under control, people can change their mind without humiliation.</p>
<h2>Why isn’t Australia more like this?</h2>
<p>Obviously I’m <strong>not</strong> describing Australia, or in fact any country. But we need our country to strive for this kind of more adult, more reasonable, and more intelligent politics.</p>
<p>Australia faces a problematic future. Climate change may call for great adjustments. The “<a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/NAB-banking-economy-GFC-RBA-resources-pd20110517-GWTJN?opendocument&src=rss">Dutch disease</a>” may infect our economy. International relations will become more complex; loyalty to the US and to Israel won’t take Australia much further. </p>
<p>If we don’t have a better kind of politics, how can we even begin to tackle these problems? </p>
<h2>Dumbed-down electioneering</h2>
<p>Our politicians won’t do better unless our political institutions improve. One of the key weaknesses in our political system is that the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/house/">House</a> that decides government is based on single-member constituencies. There are, therefore, safe seats and marginal seats. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/footer/Glossary.htm#s">Safe seats</a> provide patronage that feeds party factionalism. <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/footer/Glossary.htm#m">Marginal seat</a> campaigns run by political professionals target a relatively small number of electors, many of whom do not seriously follow public affairs or politics.</p>
<p>Because campaigns target that audience, policies are simplified to slogans, difficult argument and explanation is avoided, politicians are careful not to say anything to occasion a smear campaign or a fear campaign, leaders seem not to stand for anything and won’t fight for anything.</p>
<h2>Reforming the electoral system</h2>
<p>So how do we help fix this fundamental flaw? </p>
<p>One possibility is the <a href="http://www.elections.act.gov.au/page/view/432/title/elections-act-factsheet-hare-clark">Hare-Clark-Robson system</a> in Tasmania and the ACT. In Hare-Clark there are no safe or marginal seats; every vote counts, campaigns have to address the whole electorate.</p>
<p>With <a href="http://www.elections.act.gov.au/page/view/423/title/elections-act-factsheet-ballot">Robson rotation</a> the votes of party supporters who have no preference among its candidates go to the candidates equally, and voters who follow politics and do have a preference decide which of the party’s candidates get elected. In effect, a “primary” is built into the election itself. </p>
<p>Non-performing politicians can be weeded out, promising newcomers can be voted in, and there is a steady selective pressure to improve candidate quality. Dissatisfied electors do not have to wipe out the government party to get rid of the politicians responsible for their dissatisfaction; they can transfer their vote from those politicians to others of the same party, if they wish.</p>
<p>In such a system the result will often be coalition or minority government. But this is not a bad thing, provided an early election can be called if government and assembly are deadlocked. (The recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/us-debt-crisis">US debt-ceiling crisis</a> illustrates the vital importance of that feature of the Parliamentary system.)</p>
<p>The Australian Senate could easily have optional preferential voting and Robson rotation, but the House of Representatives will continue to be elected in single-member constituencies. </p>
<p>Can that system be improved? </p>
<p>Robson rotation in printing Representatives ballot papers would allow each party to nominate <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect10/subs/Sub029.pdf">more than one candidate</a> even for safe single-member seats. </p>
<p>This would give the benefit of primaries without the drawbacks of the separate primaries of US politics. Even in safe seats there would be a role for party supporters, and election campaigns would be addressed to all electors, not just those without firm party allegiances. A seat might be safe for the party but not for the member. Factional support could not confer a “job for life”. </p>
<h2>Reforming our political parties</h2>
<p>Patronage corrodes our parties. Politicians’ staff should be drawn from the public service, or they should be selected by party committees using objective criteria, setting aside factional considerations. </p>
<p>“Show and tell” and similar schemes reinforce the patronage system. Recently in the election of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/abbott-deceived-reith-on-bid-for-liberal-presidency-20110626-1glt4.html">Liberal Party president</a>, we saw Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs-new/call-for-party-review-as-lib-vote-fails-to-heal-split/story-fn59niix-1226082405247">showing his ballot paper</a> for Alan Stockdale. </p>
<p>The Chartists demanded the secret ballot so that voters could choose the best candidate free from bribery and intimidation. In our parties, bribery and intimidation takes the form of faction-controlled access to or exclusion from jobs, such as safe seats or high positions on the Senate list. To reduce factionalism, ballots held within the parties should be genuinely secret. </p>
<p>Unless factionalism is reined in, people who don’t seek a job from politics will not join or remain active in political parties. Why belong to an organisation if your contributions and opinions count for nothing?</p>
<h2>Societal change</h2>
<p>Commercialism is undermining journalism. We could have a media levy, distributed in accordance with a performance assessment made by voters. </p>
<p>Educational institutions need strengthening. Universities should not become simply adjuncts to the economy, but should encourage study of science, philosophy, religion, history, foreign languages, literature and social science. All these are relevant to political judgment, indeed to better living.</p>
<p>Supplements to the basic parliamentary process may be useful. Former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke’s summits were a good idea. Tony Abbott’s proposal for <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/plebiscite/story-fn59niix-1226078489012">a plebiscite on the Carbon Tax</a> should have been agreed to (with a choice between the government’s plan and his). </p>
<p>“<a href="http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/docs/summary/">Deliberative polling</a>” should become a regular institution. MPs need to know that there are people listening to them attentively. There could be a kind of Parliamentary jury, a panel of citizens who listen to Parliamentary debate, meet with members of Parliament, and give a report to the public on Parliament’s performance.</p>
<p>We need our politicians to do better, and that needs improvement in our institutions and practices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/2996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Kilcullen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Imagine a country in which politics is not a struggle among ambitious individuals for power, but the community’s way of resolving conflicts and advancing its common interests. Voters are well-educated…John Kilcullen, Senior Research Fellow, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.