Knowledge Should be Free: December 2020

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Gabriel, Iason. "Forum Response: The Logic of Effective Altruism". The Boston Review, 6 July 2017.

Effective altruism focuses solely on human life as a conception of the good and ignores other concerns such as social justice, liberty, or democracy. This means that their humanitarian efforts serve to reinforce inequalities among the world's poor, not supplying the very poorest with funds because reaching them along bad infrastructure in remote locations is not as cost-effective.

This focus on basic levels of income also justifies what would otherwise be considered immoral practices, like sweatshop labour. The exploitation of these workers may be better that their starvation, but that does not and should not justify the exploitation.
Effective altruists should take these concerns about justice seriously, not just limiting themselves to pure cost-effectiveness analyses, but also allowing members to take concepts of inequality or justice into account.

Effective altruism tends to ignore the structural causes of poverty, namely international economic institutions which prevent the world's poor from engaging with the global economy in a positive way. Enabling economic growth which benefits everyone is a more important goal that the effective altruists recognize.

Futter, Andrew. "Trident Replacement and UK Nuclear Deterrence: Requirements in an Uncertain Future." The RUSI Journal, Vol.160, No.5 (2015): 60-67.

The British government announced an intention to replace the current nuclear submarine fleet -- currently composed of four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered submarines loaded with Trident nuclear missile -- in 2006, sparking a debate on the future of the Trident program (60).

At the instance of the Liberal Democrats, in 2013 the British government opened an investigation into the possibility of using a nuclear deterrence system that was not based on Trident. Although the report raised the question of reducing the number of submarines to 3, it is likely that British deterrence will remain based on the Trident system (62).

The Trident system was developed to meet the needs of the Cold War and it is unlikely that the future security threats to the UK will resemble those posed in the 2010s or those posed during the Cold War. The primary risks are the development of superior anti-ballistic-missile technology, anti-submarine technology, and cyber warfare capacities that could all disrupt the operating capacity of the Trident system and thus compromise its value as a deterrent (60, 65).

The current Trident fleet was designed with the intent of deterring Soviet aggression by being able to deliver an unacceptable amount of damage to Russia, a goal called the 'Moscow criterion' (62).
The continuation of the Trident program is justified on the principle that a conventional nuclear deterrent will continue to be relevant to the security threat that may face the UK in the future, particularly from small nuclear states posing a threat to Britain's vital interests (62).
The development of anti-ballistic-missile technology poses a threat to the continued ability of the Trident system to act as a deterrent, as it may become increasingly possible for Trident missiles to be intercepted. This may also make it increasingly necessary to develop new ballistic missile technologies capable of defeating this deterrent (63).
Enemies could potentially detect, and thus damage or destroy, the Vanguard submarines or their missiles if new technology is developed. They are particularly vulnerable to cyberattack or similar computer tracking and digital espionage (63).
Changes in politics and public perceptions of nuclear weapons also call into account the reliability of British deterrence since it is increasingly doubtful that Britain would respond to an existential threat will a nuclear attack on a civilian area, especially since such a move would violate human rights law (64).

Britain acquired nuclear weapons in October 1952 and has since maintained a minimum arsenal needed to act as a deterrent. The WE 177 aerial nuclear bomb was retired from service in March 1998, leaving the Trident submarine-based nuclear missile system as UK's only nuclear arsenal (61).

The current Trident fleet was commissioned in 1980, entered service in the 1990s, and is expected to be replaced throughout the 2020s (61). Each submarine carries as many as eight ballistic missiles with a maximum total of 40 nuclear warheads (62).
The British nuclear stockpile is set at 180 nuclear warheads, with between 120 and 160 kept at operation level at any given time (62).

The basis of British nuclear strategy is minimal deterrence, as in keeping the smallest possible nuclear arsenal required to inflict unacceptable harm to a potential aggressor (61).

In order to maintain this deterrence, there is constantly one Vanguard submarine on active patrol at a state of partial readiness at all times. At current technological levels, these submarines are essentially undetectable and extremely unlikely to be disabled by a preemptive strike (62).

The UK possesses three main options to maintain deterrence: the continuation of the Trident program of nuclear deterrence, the development of an advanced conventional deterrence strategy in addition to Trident, and the abandonment of Trident in favor of conventional deterrence (64).

The continuation of the current Trident program would see the UK replace three or four of the submarines in the 2020s and likely have these missiles and submarines undergo several upgrades over the course of decades. This approach carries the risk that nuclear threat will not continue to act as an effective deterrence, that the deterrence capability of these systems is challenged by new technologies, and that shifting nuclear norms makes British retaliation less credible (64).
The development of an alternative conventional deterrence would see the UK continue Trident, albeit with reduced readiness and fewer patrols, alongside missile defense systems and precision-strike capabilities for conventional deterrence. This option would offer the largest range of deterrence to both conventional threats and newer nuclear threats from rogue states, but would be the most expensive to develop (65).
The development of an entirely conventional system of deterrence would see the UK nuclearly disarm and develop an array of missile defense system, air defenses, precision-strike capabilities, and an enlarged conventional military. This would necessitate the development of new conventional capabilities. The impact to British safety from nuclear attacks would be limited since the UK would still be covered by American nuclear guarantees (65).

Fumagalli, Matteo. "Alignments and Realignments in Central Asia: The Rationale and Implications of Uzbekistan's Rapprochement with Russia". International Political Science Review, vol.28, no.3 (2007): 253-271.

This article seeks to explain the political dynamics of Uzbekistan's political transition in 2005 of rapprochement with Russia and rejection of American influence. The author argues that the turnabout in foreign relations was motivated by domestic decision-making to secure regime stability, however with the primary threat being posed as a normative competition rather than threat of force (254).
After the breakup the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan failed to democratize as a period of brief reform from 1991 to 1992 allowing the creation of limited pluralism challenges from secular and Islamic opposition groups against the Soviet elites led to repression and the creation of a multiparty 'facade' (255).

The contemporary regime legitimizes its rule one the values of sovereignty, political stability, and economic reform. The principle of sovereignty in particular has led Uzbekistan to reject Russian political or cultural influence: distancing itself from CSTO and CIS institutions and de-russifying public life (255).

Uzbekistan's early foreign policy seems driven by autonomy from Russia while still maintaining mutually beneficial cooperation, such as joint-training or the resolution of the Tajik Civil War. This may have shifted into a more aggressive competition in 1994, when Uzbekistan-backed parties where excluded from Tajikistani peace talks and Uzbekistan began to view Russia as a regional competitor (256).
American-Uzbekistan relations greatly improved following the 9/11 attacks, as Uzbekistan had a track-record of fighting Islamic terrorism and was a vital transit and logistics base near the conflict in Afghanistan. For Uzbekistan this both provided material support and international legitimacy for the regime (256).
Tensions where present from the beginning of the relationship with America, as the countries had different objectives and visions. America viewed the deal as a strategic partnership and an opportunity to push for reforms, whereas Uzbekistan envisioned a broader scope of cooperation where America would work with the Central Asian states to quash Islamic opposition groups (256). Relations particularly began to sour in 2004, as US reform policies began to be viewed as a threat to regime security in the wake of 'coloured revolutions', leading up to the expulsion of the American presence following the Andijon Incident (257).
Many realist theories of alliance formation fail to explain Uzbekistani foreign policy. Bandwagoning does not explain why Uzbekistan only aligned itself with Russia in 2004, rather than immediately following independence. The best realist theories appears to be Waltz's balance of threat, in which Russia is now less threatening than the democracy-promotion of the US, but it fails to account for domestic politics or the lack of violence (258).

The author instead supports the use of Steven R. David's omni-balancing theory which rejects balance of threat theories as Western-centric and requiring a normative acceptance of the unitary state, whereas in third-world countries with weak governments the state's policy is not determined by the threats posed to the state, but the threats posed to the regime and the elites, both externally and domestically (259).
The statist assumption of the omni-balancing theory and its placement within the late Cold War context represent problems for the explanation of how non-state actors affect foreign policy and ignores constraints at the structural level limiting Uzbekistani foreign policy choices (260).

During the Yeltsin era, Russian policy towards Central Asia was erratic and undisciplined as it was not planned during that phase of pro-West integration. This all changed when Vladimir Putin was elected in 1999, as Mr. Putin both increased Russia's presence in the 'near abroad' and introduced politics based around control of energy resources, where Russia has sought to continue domination of export routes in Central Asia and elsewhere (261).
Russia and Uzbekistan always had strong economic ties even following independence, with trade levels being high and Russia remaining the main destination for Uzbekistani migrant workers (261). Since the beginning of the Putin administration, this economic cooperation has been particularly focused on energy, with Russia being a major investor in all stages of gas production in Uzbekistan, as well as owning key infrastructural elements (262).
Uzbekistan's foreign policy is largely motivated by a rejection of any relationship of dependence with a single power, and in this light the signing of the Treaty of Allied Relations between Uzbekistan and Russia on November 14, 2005, would not be surprising even w/o a complimentary decline in American-Uzbekistani relations during this period (263).

This does not mean that Uzbekistani foreign policy decisions are not influenced by security concerns, as clearly the capability of certain powers to help Uzbekistan address security issues, especially those posed by Islamic opposition movements, affects contemporary political positioning (263).

The shift from support for the US to support for Russia was motivated by two primary factors. First, a perception by the Karimov administration that the US has not decreased the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan -- bringing into question the benefits of the partnership -- and secondly, the perception of American democracy promotion as a threat to the regime (263).
Russia and Uzbekistan have worked together to promote ideologies and foreign policies based on opposition to regime change or foreign interference in domestic affairs, under the slogans of stability and sovereignty respectively. In this way, Russia and Uzbekistan have emerged as the main conservative powers in Eurasia (264).

In there efforts to counter Western, and particularly American, influence in the region, Russia and Uzbekistan have drawn on support from another conservative power: China. Chinese foreign policy compliments Uzbekistani policy in many ways, while also allowing for the Karimov administration to play the two power off of one another (265).

Domestic politics in Uzbekistan reveal many continuities within international relations, primarily a continued dedication towards maintaining sovereignty and domestic stability. Structural factors also affected the realignment, as the perception of a new threat in the form of 'fundamentalist democracy' contributed to the timing of the change in alliance structures (266).

Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko and David Hulme. "International Norm Dynamics and the 'End of Poverty': Understanding the Millennium Development Goals". Global Governance, Vol.17, No.1 (2011): 17-36.

A significant evolution of policy in the post-Cold War era has been the consensus that eliminating poverty is the major goal of international development. This axiom is institutionalized in the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] (17).

Goals for international development in previous decades were not so clearly defined, nor did they mainly focus on poverty. Although poverty has been recognized as a major international issue since the 1950s, most development programs focused on infrastructure development and industrialization until the 1970s, liberalization throughout the 1980s, and other administrative reforms until the late 1990s (17).
Although individual aspects of poverty, like reduced access to education or poor health, had been addressed, these aspects had remained distinct until the 1990s, when events like the 1995 World Social Summit in Copenhagen actually recognized poverty as a multi-sectoral phenomenon (18-19).

The Millennium goals have a very distinct emphasis on poverty as the major subject of development and activities and focus on this to the exclusion of other aspects of development. The authors argue that the MDGs act as a vehicle for the 'supernorm', made up of smaller field-specific norms, that extreme poverty is inhuman and degrading (18).
The authors borrow the norm identification used by Drs. Finnemore and Sikkink to classify actors into norm emergence, cascade, and internationalization phases (19-20).

The norm entrepreneurs identified are Jim Grant, director of UNICEF, who organized a large conference to discuss the intersection of multiple forces on the conditions of child poverty, and Nafis Sadik, director of the UNFPA, who also pursued broader objectives contributing to population health. A number of other organizations, both international and private, as well as core Western powers, were also critical to the new norm of poverty-focused development (20-22).
The authors posit that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan deliberately made the new norm of poverty-focused development explicit and demonstrative through its proclamation in the MDGs. The formalization of the MDGs gave the norm legitimacy and helped hold states accountable to trigger a norm cascade (22-23).

The development of the MDGs was not generally driven by the personal motivation and moralism that typically motivates norm entrepreneurs in the model. Instead, the authors term these technocrats who created the MDGs as 'message entrepreneurs', who translate norms into effective campaigns because of organizational demands rather than altrusim (24-25).

At one level the cascade process for the MDGs was really simple, as they were given full formal support by all countries and the UNGA. On the other hand, the UN put a lot of work into actually translating opinions into action and solidifying the commitment of member states to the goals (25).

There were some objections to the MDGs: namely that NGOs said they were too limited and did not contain many of the more controversial reforms suggested by NGOs, and that developing countries complained that it was nothing new in development programs (26).

The MDGs were rapidly adopted and internalized by a multiplicity of actors, with its goals adopted by various development organizations and other agencies, NGOs, donors, and state agencies incorporating MDGs into the language of their reports (28).

A large part of the reason that the MDGs were an effective form of securing poverty eradication globally was because they focused on end goals rather than methods. Even between the UN, IMF, and World Bank, there are disputes over the methods of poverty eradication, meaning that the end-state focus of the document helped it succeed in multiple contexts (25).
Specialists, NGOs, and many liberal developed countries have complained that a number of omissions from the MDGs, foremost among them being the omission of goals for reproductive health services that had been blocked by conservative Catholic and Muslim countries. The goals also ignored growth of democracy, and sidelined some issues of gender equality, youth employment, and environmental standards (27-28).

The present configuration of the MDGs reflects a conflict between norm entrepreneurs and message entrepreneurs, as the first group tries to include more goals into the document, while the latter attempts to slim down the list so that goals can remain simple and concrete (29).
Many of these omissions are the result of politicking by message entrepreneurs who try to smooth over or ignore any of divides within the policy community. As a result, the divides over methods of poverty reduction are omitted, to avoid the debate over neoliberalism between the UNDP and IMF (29-31).

"Complex, multiple goal norms are best understood as supernorms— carefully structured sets of interrelated norms that pursue a grand prescriptive goal" (31).

Frost, Alexander. "The Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Russia’s Strategic Goals in Central Asia". China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol.7, No.3 (2009): 83-102.

For most of the 1990s, Russian attempts to manage security concerns in Central Asia focused on bilateral efforts, however, since 2001, the Russian government has adopted a more multilateral approach through the CSTO and SCO (83-84).
At the level of security interests, both organizations are effective at allowing Russia to coordinate and assist the Central Asian republics as they meet security threats from extremism and drug trafficking (84).

The CSTO educates Central Asian officers at Russian institutions, and carries out large-scale training exercises for both Central Asian armed forces and law enforcement bodies. Institutions created under the CSTO, such as the anti-terror center in Toshkent, the Kant Airbase in the Kyrgyz Republic, and the deployment of the 201st motorized rifle division in Kulyab, Tajikistan, also give Russia military infrastructure in the region (84).
The SCO provides similar services to maintain security infrastructure in Central Asia, providing training opportunities for security forces and law enforcement in member countries. It also facilitates intelligence sharing through the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure in Toshkent, and supplies some national guard forces with additional equipment for law enforcement activities (84).

The author defines Russian objectives in Central Asia as: "1. To position Moscow as a pole of power and influence in the region. 2. To maintain the pro-Moscow regimes of the region 3. To exclude or limit American and Chinese influence from the region" (85).
The CSTO is the most active tool used by Moscow to promote Russian influence in the region. Rather than acting a purely military alliance, the CSTO is designed to build cooperation between member states on matters of economic, political, and military security. It seeks to establish the same blend of military and political cooperation as existed in the USSR (85).

The CSTO structure not only boosts Russian military presence in the region, but fosters a dependence in Central Asian states. Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic in particular are reliant on Russia for supplying the vast majority of their military hardware. The significant troop deployment in these countries further entrenches Russian influence (86).
The joint staff and command structure pioneered under the CSTO also allows Russia to control military staff in the Central Asian republics. Where centralized staff structure do exist in the CSTO, like the collective rapid reaction force, they are dominated by Russian officers (86-87).

At a summit in June 2009, Russia proposed that the collective rapid reaction force be deployed based on bilateral consent between member states rather than regular voting procedure. With two bases already existing in the region, Uzbekistan was reticent to accept this proposition (87).
Since 2004, Russia has lobbied to replace the dysfunctional and crumbling system of air defense in the former USSR under direct control of the CSTO under an integrated command structure. If this is adopted, Russia will have control over air defense systems in all CSTO member states (87).

The CSTO has promoted increased cultural and political cooperation between the member states, including a Russian suggestion that a youth sports competition be created in Issyk Kul (89). More importantly, it has organized the international reactions of member states around the Russian position, as occurred when the organization supported the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008 (89-90).

The contrast between the policies of the CSTO, largely driven by Russia, and those of the Central Asian republic is demonstrated by the contrast in reaction of the CSTO and SCO to the same situations. Although in the CSTO, all members were willing to support Russian action in Georgia, the same members were unwilling to do so in the SCO, which remained notably silent on the issue (90-91).

The split between the Russian and SCO positions on the Russo-Georgian War certainly weakened the Russian position in the body and in Central Asia, as China was able to demonstrate its dedication to the SCO Charter while Russia lost some of its credibility for stability (91).
"A CSTO information security service would ensure all members speak with one voice, presumably to support Russia in any future crisis. However, this too could well be undermined by the SCO where the Central Asian states could again feel free to speak out against Russian actions of which they disapprove" (91).

The coexistence of the CSTO and SCO has a negative effect on Russian aims of hegemony in Central Asia by providing an alternative format for another all services currently rendered by the CSTO without allowing Russia as much control of core institutions as it maintains in the CSTO (92).
Despite a declared intent in 2005 to intervene in 'anti-constitution' actions, the CSTO did not intervene to rescue the Akayev government in the Kyrgyz Republic during the Tulip Revolution. This demonstrates that Russia clearly only intends to use force if foreign agents become involved in a conflict (92-93).

Defining and identifying the level at which foreign agents are participating in a conflict, however, is difficult in the former USSR, and may not be based on fact. Russia accepted the Uzbekistani narrative that foreign agents were responsible for the Andijon Incident, and expressed a willingness to intervene (93).

Uzbekistan rejoined the CSTO in 2006 only a few months following the Andijon Incident, indicating that the Russian support may have made Uzbekistan feel more secure in a collective security arrangement (93).

The idea of CSTO peacekeeping forces for this purpose has been discussed for years and was adopted in 2007. Although they have not yet been created, these forces would be deployable upon request in any member state (94).

The SCO is an inherent conservative organization, and one of the few international organizations whose charter does not contain any mention of democracy. Instead, its values of stability, non-interference, and sovereignty make it opposed to change. It has previously been compared to the 'Holy Alliance' of Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1815 (95).

The restriction of non-interference imposed by the organization limits its power in any of the member states, but it does serve as a forum to provide significant moral support to authoritarian regimes in the region (96).

The support provided by the SCO for the current regimes of the Central Asian republics ultimately works in Russian interests the same way as CSTO support for the governments of its member states is in their favour. Both organizations buttress regimes that generally support Moscow (96).
Moscow has been able to successfully use the CSTO to replace the American military presence in Central Asia following any breakdowns in American relations for those states. After the Andijon Incident and the collapse of American-Uzbekistani relations, Russia was able to receive permission to use the Navoiy airbase in emergency scenarios, and the Kyrgyz government was considering evicting the US from Manas airbase and expanding CSTO presence there (96).

Russia has tried to start cooperation between the CSTO and NATO, with the eventual strategic goal of using the structure of NATO-CSTO cooperation to facilitate all interactions that would have previously been bilateral between Central Asian states and NATO (96-97).

Both CSTO and SCO have been effective forums for Russia to push an anti-American agenda during the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Although many individual member states have an interest, often financial, in maintaining a US presence for longer, Russia has able to pressure both bodies into issuing statements demanding a clear end-date for operations (97).

China has cooperated with Russia in orchestrating a number of anti-American statements at the SCO and organizing operations which general challenge American interests in Asia, but these reflect a relations of convenience between China and Russia; their long-term goals in the region differ greatly (98).

Following the SCO Peace Mission exercises in 2007, Russia realized the danger that large Chinese-led military exercises with the Central Asian republics posed to its interests. Following this, Russia has attempted to limit the number of troops involved in other SCO operations, reserving large-scale military exercises as a CSTO activity (99).

Russia has come up with a number of excuses to cover this new fear of greater Chinese military cooperation. It has argued during the 2009 exercises that deployment of too many troops would ruin the counter-terrorist focus of the exercises, also prohibiting heavy vehicles on the grounds that the site at Cherbakul was too small for them (99).
Russia has also attempted to hijack SCO military exercises, suggesting that the exercises be made into joint drills between the SCO and CSTO, thereby allowing the CSTO to retain its monopoly on military cooperation between Central Asian states. This offer was refused by the Chinese General Staff (99-100).

In addition to concerns over being entirely pushed out of a military role in Central Asia, the People's Liberation Army [PLA] is also concerned about being embarrassed by vastly superior Russian forces. The PLA has performed poorly at previous exercises, and being directly compared to Russian forces would diminish its regional standing (100).

In October 2007, Russia succeeded in convincing the Chinese to agree to a memorandum of cooperation between the SCO and CSTO, which, despite being vague, opens up the way for the CSTO to dominate military cooperation in the former USSR and means that any military dialogues now also feature Belarus and Armenia, two Russian allies (101).

"Though Russia must surely want the CSTO to remain the key Central Asian security apparatus Moscow cannot, in a time of post-Soviet weakness, oppose China’s new role in the region and so it might as well be a senior SCO member" (101).
The author recommends that the West recognize that security in Central Asia has been effectively dominated by Russia via the CSTO and that any inroads of the militarily weak SCO are now even more retarded following the memorandum with the CSTO. The West should therefore seek to cooperate with the CSTO on common issues of counter-terrorism and organized crime (102).

Western recognition of the CSTO as the primary organization for security and defense cooperation in Central Asia would also further tip the scales in favor of Russia, allaying its fears of growing weakness and making conflict over hegemony between Russia and China less likely (102).

Friedman, Thomas and Robert Kaplan. "Debate: States of Discord". Foreign Policy, 13 November 2009.

This article in Foreign Policy is a published epistolary debate between Drs. Thomas Friedman and Robert Kaplan, two influential scholars in debates about globalization.
Dr. Friedman defines 'globalization' as the integration of all systems with other systems, especially the increase in connections between markets, technology, and finance which make effects less dependent on distance.
Dr. Friedman asserts that the process of globalization is almost entirely driven by advances in technology. The greater ability of technology to cross barriers and distances means that, unless something tries to stop the process, globalization will occur because there is not anything preventing it from occurring.
Some figures have claimed that a major terror attack or a severe financial crisis precipitated by the interconnected systems created by globalization will cause governments to stop this connection, but technology cannot be reversed and neither can the systems of globalization.

Dr. Kaplan gives another metaphor for globalization, a system in which everything affects everything else. His historical reference point is the early Han Dynasty, when order holds within an interconnected system, but no actual power of governance exists outside of states.
The international system currently faces many threats of instability that the global order cannot cope with, including the possibility of nature disaster in a densely populated area, resource scarcity, and a youth bulge in poor, violent countries.

Dr. Friedman argues that the state is still essential in the process of globalization, particularly because different societies, populations and regions are affected by globalization in different ways. The positive or negative effects of globalization are mediated by national conditions, and simple conditions like literacy and rule of law will achieve positive effects.
Although technology allows for globalization to occur, the experiences of globalization and its effects are mediated by government institutions. Corruption hinders the effects of globalization, while good institutions make for good experiences from globalization.
Dr. Friedman emphasizes democracy and rule of law as the biggest factors in producing 'good' results from globalization. As case studies he provides East Asia and Egypt, which started with the same per capita GDP in 1953, but diverged because East Asia created good institutions for global affairs, whereas Egypt prioritized anti-imperialist conflict over development.

Although changes and reform produce good results in the long-term, the population movements and industrial development happen in the Third World will lead to revolution before it leads to democracy. The instability caused by changes in the system will be violent for 20 to 30 years before stable development arrives.
Some states face instability for other reasons, including the artificiality of the state construction. Dr. Kaplan looks at North Africa as an example, arguing that instability in Libya and Algeria stems from the artificiality of the state there, as opposed to 'authentic' states in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt.
The emerging super-state structure in Europe is another example of states heading towards different kinds of artificiality. Either the nation-state in Europe will weaken and no longer attract support or the EU will be so bureaucratic and despotic that it will be rejected amidst a nationalist backlash.

Some figures have raised concerns that globalization and the cultural exchanges therein will erase or denigrate some cultures through homogenization, or -- due to its massive cultural influence -- Americanization.
Dr. Friedman says that right now in the process of globalization is too early to predict whether cultures will be homogenized, but that the continuation of regional cultures in America brings hope that cultures can survive in conditions of similar media and government.

Cultural changes have been caused by the trend of urbanization within the globalization process, and Dr. Kaplan claims that the intensification of religious practices has been the primary change. In order to adjust to urban conditions, increasingly strict morality is needed to prevent crime and violence.

As a force globalization can increase or threaten democracy, depending on the strength of proponent for both ideologies. The spread of democratic liberties and free-market capitalism in China is the biggest change resulting from this aspect of globalization.

The international community has done a poor job defining democracy, focusing on the presence of democratic institutions and elections rather than freedoms or human rights, regardless of the institutions supporting them.
Democratic elections require some societal basis and level of education to achieve freedom and liberal results, which some countries have and some countries do not. Dr. Kaplan notes that Tunisia is a mostly open society than would do well under democracy, whereas an election in Egypt would only reproduce despotism.

Frey, Bruno and Alois Stutzer. "Happiness Prospers in Democracy". Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol.1, No.1 (2000): 79-102.

The authors draw on Dr. Robert Dahl in delineating three different stages of historical democracy: Athenian democracy based on citizen's assemble, the Representative democracy brought on by the French Revolution, and direct democracy through referenda (80).

The system of representative democracy has a number of potential issues, mainly rooted in the potential of representatives to exploit their position for rents, corruption, or the pursuit of self-interest during the period after they are elected. Direct democracy provides a potential solution to this issue (81).

Direct democracy, as measured by the number of referenda, has a number of economic effects. Communities with referenda spend less and tax less on average, spend more on education, and run much lower levels of debt (81-82).
The methodology of the study, based on data from 6,000 citizens of Switzerland, is detailed from page 82 to page 86.
The authors find that high rates of direct democracy through referenda, high rates of employment, and level of income are all positively associated with life satisfaction and happiness. Additionally, participation in the process of referenda was found in increase happiness even in those supporting the losing side of the issue (92).

Freeman, Richard and Eric Mangez. "For a (self-)critical comparison". Critical Policy Studies, Vol.7, No.2 (2013): 198-206.

In recent years, policy making has become a much more open field, with politicians and specialists consuming comparative political research and creating policy based on the examples of other states. This weakens the divisions necessary for comparative work, as countries are influencing and being influenced by one another (199).

In light of this increased involvement of government in comparison, some scholars have begun engaging in meta-comparison, recognizing the creation of categories for comparison as a performative act, and comparing how governments set up these comparisons (199-200).
Because politicians and policy-makers have begun using comparative work in their formulation of policies and creation of standards for the success of those policies, conducting comparisons now influences the changes that will occur in the society being studied (200).

The authors present a study, which is likely not generalizable, showing that collaboration between colleagues in the same field is much more common that between colleague studying the same country. Health professionals studying Italy are more likely to have connections with health professionals studying elsewhere than scholars looking at Italian politics (203).

Freeman, Gary. "Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic States". The International Migration Review, Vol.29, No.4 (1995): 881-902.

Developed liberal democracies fall into three main categories of immigration policy, with settler colonies like the USA, Canada, and the Antipodes supporting broad immigration, Western European countries with experiences of guest-worker programs after WWII having a historical aversion to immigration, and southern European countries developing policies under crisis conditions to adapt from exporting to receiving migrants (882).
Despite the freedom of information which characterizes liberal democracies, most citizens are ignorant on the vast majority of policy issues, including immigration. This is a rational choice from the individual perspective, since the costs of obtaining information about political issues far exceeds the benefits of that knowledge (883).

This ignorance regarding political issues is particularly true regarding immigration, despite its political salience, because governments fearful of being critiqued on their immigration policies make it intentionally difficult for citizens to obtain information on migration or its effects (883).

Governments are particularly loath to disseminate certain characteristics of immigration, again in order to appear opposed to immigration, like the fact that small numbers of temporary immigrants will likely blossom into larger permanent populations as families of immigrants move and settle (883).
Governments eager to adopt pro-immigration policies for economic reasons are also unlikely to fully explore the long-term implications of immigration, or allow that information to be disseminated. They tend to overemphasize the short-term economic benefits, and ignore long-term economic or social issues (883).

Discussions of immigration policy in liberal democracies are also fairly closed, with discussions of the source countries of migrants or any claims about links between immigrants and negative social trends being liable for exclusion from the general discussion due to accusations of illiberal racism (884).
The lack of information about immigration, and the cultural and political norms which police certain anti-immigration viewpoints, mean that public opinion about immigration is likely more favorable in liberal democracies than it would be if information about immigration were better disseminated (884).

In general, most contemporary liberal democracies do not view immigration as a politically contentious issue, instead major political parties choose to leave discussions of immigration off the agenda. The only open discussion on immigration tends to come from the far-right, which is rabidly anti-immigration (884).

This means that most governing parties in liberal democracies do not have set policy promises regarding immigration, and are therefore bound to interest groups and lobbies rather than the general public. Pro-immigrations lobbies are better able to organize, because the benefits of migrant labor are concentrated while its costs are defuse, meaning that business interests wanting new labor are normally able to set immigration policy (885).

The groups advocating for increased immigration are usually businesses which benefit from cheap, unskilled labor; businesses dependent on growth, like real estate or construction; and advocacy groups formed by immigrants already in the country (885).
Some costs of immigration are concentrated, with small segments of the population suffering disproportionately from increased job competition, depressed wages, and less access to limited housing and government services. This segment of the population is both economically and politically marginalized, however, meaning they cannot form affecting lobbying groups (885).

The general political norms in liberal democracies discourage populist campaigning and any hint of ethnic or racial division, again marginalizing any political figures who would organize public sentiment against immigration into an organized political movement to challenge pro-immigration interest groups (886).

Immigration policies in liberal democracies are, however, still subject to public approval, with levels of immigration expanding during periods of economic growth and declining during periods of economic depression and high unemployment (886).
Opposition to immigration within liberal democracies should grow in the medium-term, because opposition to immigration is not well organized during initial periods of immigration, when small numbers of migrants are present, and only forms as that population expands through the movement of more family members (886).
English-speaking settler societies, namely the USA, Canada, and the Antipodes, have the most open relationship with immigration and are among the only states to encourage large-scale permanent settlement of migrants. The foundation of the modern states upon immigration has institutionalized positive conceptions of immigration within these societies, leaving the public less likely to mobilize against immigration (887).

These societies feature a number of cultural and social norms preventing certain anti-immigration views from being articulated, dismissing these views as 'racist', and generally feature low levels of anti-immigration organization. On the contrary, business groups and labor unions support pro-immigration policies (888).

When candidates willing to break these norms of discussing immigration do emerge they tend to be politically successful, as in the Reform Party of Canada or a number of anti-immigration movements in Australia, but such movements are rare because of the widespread condemnation they engender from the political establishment and the news media (888).

Immigration politics in these settler states takes longer to respond to global and national trends than it does in other liberal democracies. While abnormally high intake rates or economic recession will led to crackdowns on immigration, the reaction takes longer to organize. This is also demonstrated by lack of public outrage at the poorly managed immigration systems in many countries, which often badly miss immigration goals (889).

European states with a history of labor immigration during or after WWII, usually through 'guest-worker' programs, are unusually skeptical of increased immigration, especially from non-European countries, informed by social problems stemming from the failed integration of earlier immigrant populations (890).

Following the WWII, public opinion on immigration was largely shaped by elites with an interest in increased immigration for post-war construction, and it took time for organized opposition to emerge. Opposition to immigration really only organized when it became apparent that the temporary populations of guest-workers were actually permanent and expanding (891).
Labor needs petered out around the mid-1970s, leading to a halt in immigration. This halt was never actually enforced, leading to increased conflict over immigration and the growth of anti-immigration opposition throughout the 1970s as an economic crisis made immigration more politically salient (892).

Major political parties reacted to this public backlash by developing a new consensus to alienate growing far-right parties, sharply decreasing immigration across Western Europe. This policy has also been institutionalized within the EU, meaning that Western European policy is shaping all European policy (893).

The anti-populist and anti-racist norms of political dialogue in the settler states were not as deeply entrenched in these European countries, and did not prevent anti-immigration groups and far-right parties from mobilizing and becoming politically successful (892).

Many European countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy, have only switched from source to destination countries from immigrants in the 1970s or 1980s. These states are institutionally and political unprepared for immigration, resulting in uncontrolled immigration through formal and informal sectors (893-894).

Even legal bases for immigration were largely non-existence in southern Europe, with Italy and Spain drafting their first laws in 1986, and Portugal and Greece creating their first immigration legislation after that. In the absence of capacity to enforce these laws, these states have focused on reducing illegal migration, often by retroactively legalizing illegal immigrants already in the country (894-895).

These tactics have largely been failures. Amnesties usually failed to convince illegal immigrants to register, and those that were apprehended were rarely deported due to undeveloped institutions. All countries still exist with significant populations of illegal immigrants working in the informal sector (895).

The immigration policy of these countries, and indeed the very creation of these policies, was driven by entry into the EU, which pressured these nations to adopt immigration policies in accordance with EU standards (895).
Public opinion in southern European countries, with the exception of Spain, is strongly opposed to immigration. Despite this opposition, governments are pressured by labor unions and business interests to sustain high levels of immigration. Government have usually balanced these interests by approving immigration while keeping the issues out of public discussion to minimize engagement with anti-immigration public opinion (895-896).

The arguments provided by Spanish politicians for the 'need' to import foreign labor through immigration sound very similar to those given by the French or West German governments in the 1950s, prompting concerns that southern European nations will have similar issues as 'guest worker' countries did in the 1970s (896).

Franz, Marty. "The phantom menace of ISIS in Northern Afghanistan". The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 8 September 2016.

Since the declaration of Afghanistan as the Khorasan province of ISIS by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, there have been conflicting accounts over the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan.

On July 25, 2016, U.S. Army Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications of the international coalition in Afghanistan, declared that ISIS presence was really limited to Nangarhar province, and did not touch the North.
Despite this, the author found in interviews that most people in Raghistan province, on the border with Tajikistan, believed that there was a strong ISIS presence in their district; going so far as to claim that "All Taliban are in reality Daesh". Others claimed that black flags and ISIS headbands had been sighted in the province.

Many other insurgent groups use black flags, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, meaning that sightings to not actually confirm ISIS presence in Raghistan.

When questioned further, regional and district governors where often unable to provide a reason as to why they believed that ISIS was operating in the province.

One governor claimed that the presence of beheadings demonstrated that ISIS, rather than the Taliban were in the province, whereas another respondent said that the local militia leader must be part of ISIS because he was Salafi instead of Hanafi. Neither of these statements is necessarily true.
Villagers commonly claimed that the 'ISIS fighters' in their area where still technically part of the Taliban and used their flag, but only because they do not want to be attacked. Considering how widespread this 'knowledge' of disloyalty is, that can hardly be the explanation.
This raises suspicions because claiming to be fighting ISIS, as opposed to the Taliban, means that the ISAF is more likely to respond, as ISIS is the larger international threat.

"There is no compelling evidence of a presence of the self-styled Caliphate in northern Afghanistan and, hence, also no immediate threat to Central Asia".

Franklin, Mark. "How the Decline of Class Voting Opened the Way to Radical Change in British Politics". British Journal of Political Science, Vol.14, No.4 (1984): 483-508.

In the decade between 1959 and 1970, the importance of socio-economic class -- generally considered to be the critical identifier in British politics -- as the deciding factor in British politics was drastically declined, losing between a quarter and half its predictive power in elections (483).

When class voting was at its height in 1964, two factors: class of parents, and occupation of respondent, were the most important indicators of political choice. The ability of these variables to explain voting choices was the primary decline in class-based voting (485).
While the Conservative and Labour parties are still dominant, this is because of a number of other advantages and not a result of class voting. The success of the Scottish National Party has demonstrated this fact in the 1984 elections (485-486, 507).

The data used for this study comes from nationwide surveys of the British population, excluding Northern Ireland, following each general election between 1964 and 1979. Six variables are recorded: parents' class, parents' party, respondent's education, and occupation, union membership and type of housing (486).

Unlike previous studies, this article records the results on this survey for non-voters as well as voters. The author believes that non-response is an important variable and should be studied (488).
The variables measured obviously related to one another, like parent's class affecting the education received by their children. This is explained on page 491 and 494.

The data demonstrates the strength of class voting in the 1964, as working-class characteristics, such as minimal education, rented housing, union membership, and working occupation, were all correlated with politics. Only 2% of people without these characteristics voted for Labour, and only 1% of those with all of them voted for Conservative (489-490).

The decline in correlation between these class characteristics was part of the large decline in class voting overall. The ability of major variables like parent's class to predict other class variables, like minimum education, declined by more than half from 1964 to the contemporary election (495).

Occupation and parent's class were the two core variables underpinning the system of class voting, with other class characteristics supporting the institution (496, 498).
Although the Labour and Conservative parties of 1984 have a number of serious policy differences, these divisions were much more muted 20 years ago. At the height of class voting, party stances on issues such as unions and housing were identical (496).
The decline of class voting comes at the same time as a decay in the stability of its underpinning variables. Whereas class was set a few decades ago, social class mobility is now common. Social class is now one of the most volatile social characteristics (499).

"Not only have social characteristics declined in their ability to structure party choice therefore, but such social constraints as remain are more readily altered during adult life" (501).

Of the variables linked to class voting as explored earlier, only the political preferences of parents still has a significant effect on voting patterns. This is true, however, for all political parties, not just Labour and the Conservative party (501).
While the effect of social class on individual voting patterns has been declining, contemporary studies have shown that average class divides in a region may be able to predict voting patterns within that area. Accordingly, a mostly middle-class area will have more Conservative voters, even among lower-class populations than a majority lower-class area (503).

The author contests this hypothesis, arguing that other factors beyond class are causing these new voting trends. Dr. Franklin particularly points towards rates of home ownership, which are an indicator on partisan policy issues coming to the fore in voting when class voting subsided (504).
When factors not directed associated with class are controlled for, the area voting affects of class are not replicated in individual voter choices, which are instead based on new policy factors like housing or education, which tend to be geographically clustered (504-505).

The contemporary correlation between class and political affiliation still holds in 1984, but it does not have any durability. Currently, the strong class voting patterns of previous generations are maintaining the balance through the power of inherited political loyalty, but this balance could change in the next election cycle as British politics approaches a period of unpredictability (507-508).

Fomerand, Jacques and Dennis Dijkzeul. "Coordinating Economic and Social Affairs", In The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, edited by Sam Daws and Thomas G. Weiss. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

"The UN ‘system’ is highly fragmented, rife with competition, and certainly not a harmonious cooperative whole in which the parts work towards a common purpose" (561).
The primary goal of UN institutions upon their creation at the San Francisco Conference of 1945 was to prevent war between states, with other specialized Bretton-Woods institutions expected to be responsible for economic and social development. The inclusion of these responsibilities in the remit of the UN was secondary and only meant to set standards (562).

This remit of activities has expanded rapidly to include both the UN Economic and Social council [ECOSOC], and a variety of executive organization under the UNGA, such as UNDP and UNCTAD (562).

These organizations under the UNGA, whose responsibilities would appear to fall more comfortably within the purview of ECOSOC, were created by third world countries out of frustration with ECOSOC and deliberately duplicate its duties. In effect, as ECOSOC weakened throughout the Cold War, its responsibilities were absorbed by specialized bodies underneath the UNGA (564-565).

Largely to deal with overlap of responsibilities, ECOSOC cooperates with a number of independent organizations through treaties, including the ILO, FAO, UNESCO, WIPO, IAEA, World Bank, and others (563).
There were significant arguments about the relationship between the UNGA and the Bretton-Woods institutions in the post-war period, but the USA won out in the argument and prevented the UNGA from exercising any direct control over economic development (564).

Because the UN system is not directly hierarchical, preventing the duplication of functions or operational conflict requires agencies to harmonize their policies, a task which decentralizes the responsibility to individual agencies (563).
A number of reformers throughout the organization's history have made the same criticisms of the UN, the most prominent being the Jackson Report, commissioned by the UNDP in 1969, which critiqued the utter inability of the UN to manage technical resources or compel its specialized agencies to take action (565).

The Secretary-General does not have central authority of the specialized agencies of the UN, limiting his power to those occasions when the special agencies and funds actually listen to his plan for cooperation (566).

ECOSOC, given powers under Articles 62 to 66, is meant to promote higher standards of living, full employment, and social and economic progress. It meant to both set the agenda for activities promoting economic and social development and coordinate development activities (567-568).

ECOSOC has some sort of coordinating role over all UN development activities, including those of specialized agencies, but this is generally considered to be non-hierarchical. Regardless, ECOSOC does not have the power to enforce any of its recommendations to other UN agencies (568).

Basic coordination is maintained through the Chief Executives Board for Coordination [CEB], which brings together the executives of the various UN bodies. The CEB now has 28 members including the UN Secretary-General and the executive officers of the FAO, ILO, all specialized agencies, and the Bretton-Woods institutions. Its decisions are informal and non-binding, serving as a forum for communication and voluntary coordination (569).
The the majority of its life, the UN had very little formal coordination with the Bretton-Woods institutions, with interaction limited to twice-yearly meetings of the three bodies. In the late 1990s, this finally began to improve, with ECOSOC now meeting directly with the IMF and World Bank (570-571).
In 1997, the UNGA initiated a series of reforms of the UN Secretariat to improve its ability to coordinate operations. A deputy Secretary-General was created to deal with workflow, and executive committees were created to coordinate operations in matters of peace and security, economic and social affairs, development operations, and humanitarian affairs (571).

The deputy secretary-general is a position without a clear mandate. While able to demonstrate UN resolve on issues, the deputy is pressured to both pursue development work primarily, and ignore that work in favor of assisting the Secretary-general with his administrative duties (576).
The Executive committees, especially that on economic and social affairs, were complete failures. They faced issues of large memberships with different goals and rarely produced any common opinions on relevant issues (576).

UN development programs plan their goals for in-country operations alongside all other UN agencies and national representatives to create a UN development assistance framework of common goals and priorities. These are then assessed through common country assessments (572).

Agencies still have trouble cooperating at the country-level and often manipulate bureaucratic circumstances to advance their agency's aims over other goals. Skill sharing and inter-agency communication is all minimal (577).

The imposition of the Millennium Development Goals have been the most successful attempts at policy convergence and coordination in the UN, since all countries have, in one form or another, worked with the UN to translate the same list of goals into policy (574-575).
Major forces pushing the UN towards greater functionality and coordination have been the growth of information technology and informal structures. Often agencies use multi-agency steering groups or task forces to pursuing projects cutting through multiple agency competences (579).

Flynn, Dennis and Arturo Giráldez. "Born Again: Globalization's Sixteenth Century Origins". Pacific Economic Review, Vol.13, No.3 (2008): 359-387.

There are two definitions of 'globalization' used by historians, leading to different dates for the beginning of the globalization process: one in the 1600s and one in the mid 1800s. They are presented here:

The O’Rourke–Williamson position uses an economic definition for globalization and marks the starting point of globalization when the markets for key commodities begin to converge globally, as measured by convergence in global prices. This process began around 1820, first in Europe and spreading lastly to China (360).

The authors argue that the narrow measurement of price indexes, or any other economic data, is insufficient to capture the wide–ranging changes experienced during globalization. Their measurements are important, but they measure a specific phenomenon of globalization, not its totality (361, 366, 368).
Drs. O'Rourke and Williamson imply in their argument that globalization is a process of free trade, with a transition away from continental autarkies towards globalized free trade and single commodity markets. This is widely untrue, as global trade was dominated by mercantalist and monopolist joint–stock companies, such as the East India company and the VOC (363).

Moreover, this experience was not universal. Although European states transition from mercantalism to free trade, most Indian Ocean countries and Imperial China had essentially free trade regimes, a system that actually moved towards mercantalism during the 1700s (364–365).

The Flynn–Giráldez position defines globalization as a historical period when all majorly populated landmasses began deep and permanent interaction, starting around the 1600s. This represented by ecological, environment, and economic impacts of the different landmasses on one another (360).

This definition is based on the idea that the globe can be divided into thirds: one third for the Pacific Ocean, one third of Afroeurasia and the Indian Ocean, and one third for the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean. Prior to 1500, these thirds were disconnected, so globalization began when permanent contact developed between the thirds (370).

The impact of contact between the Americas and Afroeurasia was both deep and permanent. From initial contact, diseases killed over half of the native American population, while American foodstuffs became permanent staples in Afroeurasia, especially in Africa, allowing for significant population expansions (370–371).
The colonization of the Americas and exploitation of Andean and Mexican silver mines finally gave Europeans something that they could trade for Chinese goods. Although contact had been previously established, China did not want European goods, so instead Europe fed its hunger for silver (373). This new Pacific trade had tremendous economic effects globally, and established a permanent connection between the Pacific and the Americas, as well as their European overlords (374).

Drs. O'Rourke and Williamson have claimed that this European and American exchange of silver for Asian goods demonstrates a trade imbalance with Europe acting as a net importer and Asia a net exporter. This is a false belief predicated on an understanding of silver as money rather than a good; during this period, silver was a good and therefore goods were exchanged for goods, not a universal modern concept of money. Labeling continents as imports or exports in total terms is thus incorrect (376–377).
The silver trade with China can be split into two rough periods. The first 'Mexican Silver Cycle' from the 1540s to the 1640s as American silver met Chinese demand for silver, often with Japan as an intermediary and alternative silver supplier. The second cycle lasted from 1700 to 1750, as the population boom caused by new American crops in China again increased demand for American silver (378).

Contrary to claims by Dr. Pomeranz that Asian countries did not have access to American calories in the same sense that European countries did, such as through consumption of Caribbean sugar, Asia did have access to these crops by the 1600s. The difference was that whereas African labour allowed increased population in Europe to work in industry, the cultivation of American crops in Asia allowed for population growth without freeing up urban populations for industry (380–381).

Fletcher, Joseph. "Ch'ing Inner Asia c. 1800", In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.10, Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911, Part 1, edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

There were three major changes that occurred in China in the 1700s: the establishment of a permanent European presence in the country, the doubling of China's territory, and the doubling the Han Chinese population (35).
The long-range effects of the expansion of Chinese rule in Inner Asia has been the expansion of Han Chinese culture and influence in those region, this, however, was not the intent of the Qing dynasty. In fact, the Qing actively resisted Han Chinese migration into Central Asia and became aware of the administrative benefits of Han colonization only at the end of the 19th Century (36).

Regular Han Chinese soldiers were not stationed in Inner Asia, which was instead garrisoned by Manchu, Uighur, Kazakh, or Mongol bannermen (37).

Qing Inner Asia consisted of four areas: Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Each area had a different administrative structure, often incorporating a significant number of elements from the indigenous administration and given significant autonomy (37).

Qing relations with its semi-colonial territories in Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang, as well as tributary states in the Himalayas, but beyond direct Chinese rule, were directed by a Court of Colonial Affairs in Beijing. Its knowledge of these tributary states beyond Tibet was, however, hazy at best (37-38).
Apparently failing to recognize the military might of the Russian Empire, the Qing continued to give northern Manchu tribes significant autonomy, eventually leading to a situation where they could be convinced to join the Russians, who continued expansion into Eastern Siberia (38).

The Qing Empire had some sort of an established relationship with Kazakh and Kyrgyz polities in the Altai mountains, as well as the Khanate of Qo'qon, who paid tribute and was paid a stipend and gifts of tea to keep peace on the western borders of Xinjiang (38).
"The Ch'ing superstructure rarely interfered in the affairs of ordinary men, but, by its presence, held indigenous hierarchies in their positions of power and preserved, even rigidified, local institutions [sic]" (105).
Qing possessions in Inner Asia did not generate significant imperial revenues, in fact they often operated at a net cost to the government in Beijing, but they provided the Qing Empire with secure and defensible borders that largely prevented the rise of any rival powers that could invade China. This ultimately proved insufficient to face off against Japanese, Russian, and British expansion, but it did safeguard China from conventional threats (106).

Manchuria:

By the 1800s, Manchuria has becoming increasingly integrated into China proper, losing much of its distinctive Manchu character in the face of Han Chinese immigration. The Manchurian frontier provinces of Heillongjiang and Jilin were officially closed to Han immigration, but throughout the 19th Century, the Qing government frequently lacked the resources or political will to enforce these policies (39).

The Qing policies of preserving the nomadic and Manchu character of Jilin and Heilongjiang were based on hopes of preserving a loyalist area from which to draw bannermen, maintain imperial traditions, and where the Manchus could potentially flee, as well as maintaining the government monopoly on the ginseng root, furs, pears, and gold found in the region (39).

Each of these reasons to preserve the Manchu character of the frontier provinces had significantly weakened by 1800, either by a consolidation of the Qing government among the Han population, or by changing regional dynamics due to the rise of Russian power in the Far East (40).

Local authorities in the Manchurian frontier essentially gave up, beginning to tax Han migrants instead of stopping them. By the late 1800s, the overwhelming majority of the urban population in Manchuria was Han, and Chinese had largely replaced Manchu as the lingua franca South of the Amur River (40).
Manchuria was divided into three provinces, with the southernmost province of Mukden — modern-day Liaoning — both a civil and military administration, while the two northern provinces had solely military governments. The military governors had control over regional bannermen, as well as directorship over autonomous tribal polities (42).

Whereas most Manchu and Mongol inhabitants of Manchuria could be incorporated into the banner system, whereby they paid military service and received lands for upkeep, inhabitants North of the Amur River or those near the ocean were instead left autonomous and were connected to the Empire only through payment of tributes of furs and by receiving honors and titles from the Qing court (42-43).
Most bannermen were Manchurian Manchus or Mongols, but the military elite were almost exclusively Manchus from Beijing and had received a Chinese education. There were some unsuccessful attempts to revitalize Manchu-language high culture, but the language increasingly became a formality in government (44).

Most Chinese settlers in Manchuria were farmers, and they concentrated in the South, although urban centers began to develop by the 1800s and powerful merchants moved into the province during this period. Manchuria had sort of a frontier culture, with gambling common, laws lax, and sexual mores much looser that the rest of China (44-45).
There was a significant underclass in Manchuria of exiled criminals. Disgraced officials were sent to Manchuria, but so were convicted felons, who were enslaved to the banners in Manchuria, with more severe crimes being sent further North. The bannermen were often too poor to care for their slaves, however, leading to slaves buying their freedom and becoming outlaws and prospectors on the frontier (46-47).

This became a serious problem for the Qing government, which had to ban the manumission of slaves in 1810 and the exile of slaves to Manchuria in 1813. They later transferred slaves from bannermen to administrative officials, who were better equipped to control slaves (46).

By the 1800s, even the two outer provinces were becoming inescapably sinicized, with the lands of banners being purchased by Chinese immigrants and immigrant merchants becoming more and more powerful. Manchus and other nomadic peoples recognized the superiority of Chinese industrial and agricultural techniques and became integrated into the Chinese economic sphere, later adopting Han Chinese customs and tastes (47).

Mongolia:

By the turn of the 18th Century, nomadic power in Mongolia had been thoroughly broken and Mongols were a largely spent military force. There is evidence that the Mongol pastoralist economic was collapsing during this time, as Mongols increasingly turned to Siberian merchants for goods that they once produced themselves (48).

The Qing had administrative control over the entirety of Mongolia, both through direct civilian administration in Outer Mongolia, and effective control over Inner Mongolia through a decentralized military government. Most important was the adoption of the Qing legal system, which governed most administrative issues (49).
Mongol tribes were prevented from reunited into a challenge to Qing rule because they were divided into banners across traditional lines of allegiance, meaning that local administrators depended on the Qing for legitimacy, rather than traditional authority (51); they also depended on the Qing for their positions and pensions, which could be removed for disloyalty (52).
The Qing established themselves as the caretakers and controllers of the Mongol Buddhist faith, establishing the highest Lama in Mongolia with his own monastery in Beijing, and making all other orthodox monasteries subject to his authority. Only these registered groups had tax-exempt status, although even heretical monasteries were largely ignored, and they flourished under Qing rule (52).

Throughout the 1800s, monasteries grew and an astounding 30% to 65% of the male population may have been involved in monastic life by 1900. The monasteries reinvested their wealth into commercial activities and money-lending (53), and small urban centers began to grow up around them, populated by monks and Han merchants and artisans (54, 56).

Prior to the late Qing period, Mongolia had had very limited commercial contact with the outside world, and no domestic merchant class. With the urbanization occurring in the 1800s, however, commerce became regularized and Chinese merchants successfully penetrated Mongol markets with their consumer goods. There was broad societal inclusion, with peasants getting consumer goods like tobacco or tea, and nobles increasingly demanding the same luxury items as the Qing elites (56).

Monks and monasteries became huge consumers of Chinese luxury goods, especially as their tax revenues rose, fueling popular resentment, which blamed Han Chinese merchants for corrupting monastic life. Accordingly, warehouses were sporadically sacked and merchants beaten (56).
The Qing government considered Han merchants a serious threat to its military reserves in Mongolia, and tried to force them to be licensed by the government and restricted intermarriage. Neither of these laws were successfully implemented, and Han traders remained a major part of the economy. Eventually, the government came to depend on the funds from trading licenses, actively encouraging Han merchants (57).
The seasonal variations in the Mongol pastoral economy meant that Mongol consumption depended on credit from Han merchants, resulting in indebtedness when livestock died or because of high interest rates. Wealth increasingly became dominated by Han merchants and bankers, with indebted nobles eventually giving taxation rights directly to Han companies (57).

Mongolian society has divided into nobles and peasants, and the traditional organization of these nomadic groups into banners ruled by nobility continued under the Qing. The indigenous Mongol aristocracy was incorporated into the Qing hierarchy of titles, in return for which they paid a tribute to the Qing, primarily of livestock and animal products (49-50).

Mongol peasants had their grazing rights controlled by nobility and owed taxes and labor to that noble, who in turn tasked peasants with tasks for the Qing as part of his obligations. Taxes were usually made in livestock, replaced by silver in the 1800s, although extraordinary tributes were sometimes levied off specific luxury goods. They also performed menial tasks like manning postal stations and frontier posts for the Qing government (50).
In order to limit the power of the Mongol nobility, the Qing had capped the number of peasants who owed taxes to the noble, called bondsmen, with other peasants only owing taxes and labor to the Qing. The line between these groups, was, however, blurry, with Mongol nobles manipulating records so that the wealthiest herders became bondsmen (50).
There were also retainers for monasteries, a certain type of peasant who dedicated his revenue and labor towards supporting a shrine, monastery, or other religious institution. They were exempt from other taxation (51).

During the Qing Empire, growing numbers of citizens became retainers as nobles transferred their own bondsmen onto the monasteries out of respect. This led to massively decreased agricultural productivity, as well as weakening Mongol nobles, who now had a much smaller tax base (53).

Xinjiang:

The Qing administration in Xinjiang was entirely military under the command of a governor in Ili, who also technically exercised control over all civilian administrations and theoretically directed relations with Qo'qon, Toshkent, Buxoro, Gilgit, Badakhshan, Afghanistan, and Ladakh. In practice, the Qing government rarely interfered in local government (59).

There were a number of military administrators throughout the province, along with between 10,000 and 23,000 permanently stationed garrison troops including both Manchus, other Turkic nomads, and Han Chinese. The garrisons were permanent installations including the families and possessions of the soldiers (59).
The vast majority of the military garrison was based in the North in Dzungaria and the Ili Valley, and no permanent troops were stationed in the Altishahr of the Tarim Basin. Instead, military services here were tours of duty, and families were prohibited from settling. Other security was provided by native conscripts (60).

The administration in Xinjiang was not self-supporting, with domestic tax revenue covering only around half of the 3 million taels of silver required for the annual upkeep of the armed forces. The remainder had to come from the Qing government's revenues in China proper (60-61).
The Qing instituted a similar system of administration in Dzungaria as existed in Mongolia, organizing the local population into hereditary banners and sponsoring the Yellow Buddhist Church as a method of increasing its societal legitimacy (62).

The area outside of the Dzungarian depression was ruled by Kazakhs in a tributary relationship to the Qing, but otherwise independent. They gave tribute to the Qing every three years, and in turn received the permission to winter in Qing territory and trade with the Qing government, supplying the army with horses (62-63).

Many Kazakh polities that were tributaries of the Qing also had positions of patronage in the Russian Empire, apparently seeing no contradiction between their dual obligations (63).
Contemporary accounts of the Kazakhs by Qing officials reveal that they had no idea what the fuck was going on over there; just, like, absolutely clueless (63-64).

The Qing also maintained a tributary relationship with the Kyrgyz of the Altai range, giving an annual tribute of horses, and receiving the right to winter and trade in Kashgar. The Qing government had essentially no control or knowledge of the Kyrgyz (64).

In an attempt to increase the productivity of northern Xinjiang, the government settled the Ili river valley with farmers from Altishahr, as well as military colonies of Han Chinese and Manchus. They also developed massive irrigation projects in an attempt to feed the garrisons (64-65).

Starting in the mid-1700s, the Qing government began to settle large numbers of Han Chinese and Hui Chinese migrants in Dzungaria. Although originally a combination of exiles and garrison farmers, by 1800, the farmers were mainly civilian immigrants from the rest of China and reached the hundreds of thousands by the turn of the 20th Century, the vast majority of which were Hui (65-66).
This influx of Chinese civilians created administrative issues for the military government of Xinjiang, and as a result almost all of the civilian communities in northern Xinjiang were administered by the Gansu province, who detached officials for that purpose (66).

The population of Altishahr has mixed, especially in the West, which had a large population of Central Asian traders (70). Only around 300,000 peopled lived South of the Altai Shan during the Qing conquest of 1759, almost all in Altishahr, a number which had doubled by the 19th Century (69).

Fruits and vegetables were the most common products, although the low population density and lack of available water meant that agriculture was unproductive compared to the rest of China. Farmers increasingly turned to cotton as a cash crop, as it was excepted by Qing tax collectors in lieu of coinage (72).
The Qing government classified the Altishahrchi as either nobles, religious officials, or commoners — although they generally took people at their word — of which only commoners paid taxes. Commoners had to pay 10% of their harvest to the Qing (73).

Native officials were non-hereditary and appointed by the Qing (78), and received grants of tax-exempt land and government stipends for their service. They adopted the queue and Qing customs as a show of status and sophistication (79).
Foreign subjects, of which there were many in the West, were also tax exempt (73). Soldiers manning the local garrisons and border posts on behalf of the Qing were also exempt from taxes (80).

The taxation, landholding, and administrative practices of the Qing were virtually indistinguishable from those prior to the Qing conquest, and they generally left local administrators in charge of all matters not dealing with the military or taxation to support the military (74-76).
The Qing government feared that incursions of Han Chinese traders into Altishahr, as was occurring in Mongolia and Manchuria, would provoke an uprising which would jeopardize the source of most military revenue in the province. Accordingly, they banned non-natives from immigrating to Altishahr and did not establish military colonies (76). They also segregated the Qing military and officials from the general population, creating separate walled garrison towns outside of Altishahri cities (76-77).

Trade with neighboring polities was common in Xinjiang, with most exported goods being grown from China proper and then transported to Xinjiang for commerce with outsiders. Han and Hui Chinese were favored in this process, only paying 3.5% compared to 5% for foreigner traders and 10% for native Turkistani merchants (81-82).

Han Chinese merchants were still excluded from Altishahr, meaning that trade often went through several intermediaries. these intra-Qing trades occurred in cities near the border between Altishahr and Dzungaria (82).
Native merchants in Altishahr were heavily discriminated against both culturally and officially. All sorts of taxes and regulations were imposed on trade with Central Asia, including bribes and the requirement to purchase licenses. This led to the stagnation of trade and hindered what might have been a commercial revolution (83).
The biggest beneficiaries of Qing trade policies were the inhabitants of the Farg'ona Valley under the Xan of Qo'qon, who gained a virtual monopoly on trade with Kashgar, the largest town in Altishahr. They exploited their relationship with the Qing government to receive exemptions from tariffs, making trade even more profitable (84-85).

"By 1814 the Ch'ing authority in Eastern Turkestan was solidly ensconced, but every overtaxed peasant and artisan, every disadvantaged merchant, every beg who regretted the revenues that he passed along to the Manchus believed in the ultimate illegitimacy and impermanence of the idolaters' dominion. [...] Sinkiang in the nineteenth century was to become the most rebellious territory in the Ch'ing empire [sic]" (90).

Tibet:

Tibet enjoyed a period of tremendous autonomy, largely due to its inaccessibility, and by 1800 the Tibet government had reformed its bellicose past and was firmly committed to self-isolation (90-91). The total population was under 6 million, and under 4 million might have been subjects of the government in Lhasa (91).

The landholding system was based on peasant smallholders growing grains. These peasants were then bound to local nobles, to whom they owed labor on the lands of the nobility (91).
Tibet had technical control over Baltistan, but in practice had lost any control over that area in the 1300s. The government in Lhasa still controled Amdo, Kham, Bhutan, Ladakh, and Sikkim (92).
The Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa had direct control over the taxation and administration of western Kham, Ü, and Tsang (95).

The Tibetan government in Kham, Bhutan, Sikkim, and Ladakh was heavily decentralized towards local rulers. In Bhutan, Ladakh, and Kham, lay rulers coexisted with a powerful network of monastic orders that all formally paid respects to the Dalai Lama. In Bhutan, the governor was a monk, although he was still nobility. All of these rulers held power on the basis of tax farming on behalf of the government in Lhasa (93).

Tibetan officials received no official income, instead they were expected to provide from the revenues of their hereditary estates, and allowed to keep all taxes in excess of the required amounts (97).

During the infancy of the Dalai Lama, power was exercised by regents and administrators, who manipulated circumstances so that they dominated politics throughout the 19th Century (95). The role of the Dalai Lama was made largely ceremonial and religious, with most reincarnations showing little interest in politics (96).

Originally, the power of the Dalai Lama was personal and mediated by a series of hereditary nobles across his territory. With the assistance of the Qing, however, by 1800 Tibetan administrators had gained the power to remove and appoint officials, although they were unsuccessful in forcing the government to allow non-nobility to hold office (96).
The Dalai Lama appointed around 6 governing officials for each province, balanced between laymen and clergy, who were responsible for hearing cases and collecting taxes. They were frequently incompetent, often serving as absentee governors from estates near Lhasa (96).
A small set of noble families with the largest estates increasingly began to dominate the upper echelons of government, with all but a few high-ranking officials coming from some families in Ü throughout the 1800s (98).

Although the powerful monastic orders were in theory open to all of Tibet, widespread discrimination along with requirements that monks be self-supporting for all expenses, including extravagant celebratory banquets, restricted the higher ranks of monasteries to the nobility (99-100).
Qing influence in Tibet was minimal, with the government represented by a handful of military officials and a small garrison of bannermen in Lhasa (100). The Qing emperor technically had discretion over the appointment of governors and distribution of titles, but this was never exercised (101).

"From the Ch'ing point of view, the Dalai Lama was a mighty ecclesiastic and a holy being, but nonetheless the emperor's protege. From the Tibetan point of view, the emperor was merely the Lama's secular patron [sic]" (101).
The Qing government did try to exercise power over the selection of the Dalai Lama, but faced backlash from the conservative nobility. The Qing demanded that the selection by carried out by lot using a gold urn given by the Qing Emperor, but the extent to which the Tibetans listened is debatable (101-102).

The limited Qing presence in Tibet was further eroded by corruption and poor quality of administration. The Qing government failed to provide consistent funding, leading to the garrison becoming indebted to local usurers, and failed to rotate out the garrison troops, leading to intermarriage with Tibetan women and families that soldiers could not afford to feed (102).

Knowledge Should be Free

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

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