I&D Blog

Following yesterday’s post on the the democracy deficit in the Middle East, I noted with interest Thomas Friedman’s op-ed where he brought up my point about the inverse correlation between the price of oil and democracy. Friedman writes: “I’ve long argued that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse correlation — which I call: ‘The First Law of Petro-Politics.’ As the price of oil goes up, the pace of freedom goes down. As the price of oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up.”

He also sites Larry Diamond’s excellent new book The Spirit of Democracy, which we liked very much and have added to our library of resources for studying democracy and democratization–along with others from Diamond, including Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation. According to Diamond, none of the 23 countries that rely on oil and gas for 60% or more of their exports are democracies–including Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Nigeria.

I’d like to see some empirical analysis of oil prices against democracy indicators–similar to what Mike Best has done with Internet penetration against Freedom House indicators. Another major question that remains unanswered is what happens when the price of oil goes back down. The price of oil has traditionally fluctuated in boom and bust cycles, similar to the business cycle. Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2003, when the price of oil was in the $30 to $35/barrel range, Iran’s reform movement was going strong, while today the price has recently reached near $120/barrel and the conservatives are firmly in control. Obviously, this may be no more than correlation, but it is indisputable that Iran is highly dependent on oil. A crash in the price of oil could lead to a major economic, and perhaps political, crisis.

However, experts now debate if the price of oil will ever come down, as demand is expected to continue to climb from the developing world including China and India, supply may not be able to keep up. If we believe Friedman’s law of petro-politics, that is not a good sign for democracy.

The logic in a New York Times article that discusses concerns by Kuwaitis before Parliamentary elections that they are falling behind their neighbors economically because of their (limited, but growing) democratic institutions seems a bit off. Blaming a democratic political system for economic problems (slow growth , high unemployment, etc.) is unfortunately quite common in new or transitioning democracies. Before any election in any part of the world, the economy is often a leading, if not the top issue on voters minds. The article raises interesting and still unsettled questions about causation versus correlation between healthy democracies and strong market economies. The two go together, but are not necessarily caused by one another. Seymour Martin Lipset was one of the first to argue that wealth was a precondition for democracy. Samuel Huntington observed that poverty was probably the principal obstacle to increased democratization. But, there is a mutually reinforcing effect of a strong middle class on democracy. Look at the world richest countries and you will also find the strongest democracies–except in the oil-rich Gulf states like Kuwait. Huntington and others have argued that this democratic deficit in the Middle East is because autocrats there have been able to give citizens state-financed public goods–schools, healthcare, etc., all with low or no taxes–in return for limited political freedom. In Kuwait,the question really should be why when oil is hovering around $120/barrel, how in the world is it managing it’s economy so poorly. That sounds like poor governance and inept management of the economy, not too much democracy. Kuwaitis are among the few in the region who actually have the ability to vote out those they think are managing the economy poorly and replace them with those they believe can do a better job. If it was more of a dictatorship, the opportunity to debate the issue at all would not even be possible. It is easy to understand frustration with poor economic performance, but a bit of a stretch to blame it on democracy.

Stacy Perlman, a senior at Northeastern University, interviewed me a few weeks back for a piece on the use of Google Maps for human rights activism. The result, “Mapping Genocide: Google Earth and Darfur,” is a wonderful narrative piece of journalism, plotting the emergence of Crisis in Darfur through Ushahidi. Stacy captures the crucial crux of this issue:

 While there is no way to monitor how many people have been influenced by the map to join an advocacy group, lobby congress or donate money, a case study report on the project noted that “more than 100,000 have visited the “What Can I Do?” page on the museum’s site to find out how they can help.” The page provides a variety of ways to take a stand including contacting the media to tell them there is a lack of coverage on the issue and communicating with decision-makers such as the U.S. government and the United Nations about the need for humanitarian assistance.

While crediting the Crisis in Darfur Map as a great awareness tool, Joshua Goldstein, a graduate research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School noted that the obvious pushback to a project like this is that “at the end of the day you’re not saving lives.” Although awareness about Darfur is critical, Goldstein makes the point that awareness that leads to activism is even more crucial.

Some interesting results on global attitudes towards press and Internet freedom from a poll by World Public Opinion in honor of Press Freedom Day–including who leads the pack. The good news is that majorities around the world support press freedom. However, two countries we have been following lately, Iran, as part of our study of the Iranian blogosphere, and Russia, have relatively low levels of support compared to others. The survey says the following about Iranian public opinion towards Internet and media freedom:

“While two thirds of Iranians favor press freedom, overall their support is among the weakest. Iranians are one of two publics asked that lean in favor of the government having the right to restrict access to information on the Internet and among the few nations that feel the government should have the right to prevent the press from publishing news and ideas that could be destabilizing. However, a large majority believes Iranians should have the right to read publications from all other countries.

–A majority of Iranians (65%) agrees that it is important for the press to have the freedom to publish news and ideas without government control.

–44% support the government having the right to prevent people from having access to some things on the Internet, while 32% believe people should have the right to read whatever is on the Internet.

–A plurality (45%) favors the argument that the government should have the right to restrict the press’ freedom to publish things it thinks could be destabilizing, while 31% prefer the argument that the press should have the right to publish news and ideas without government control.

–A very large majority (79%) believes people in Iran should have the right to read publications from all other countries.

–Iranians most commonly say that the press has “some” freedom in their country (45%), while just very few (17%) say that it has “a lot” of freedom. Most say that the press should have the same amount of freedom as it does now (43%), while fewer say it should have more (34%) or less freedom (9%).”

And for Russia, equally low support in regard to government regulation of speech if helps ensure stability. According to the survey results:

“Although a substantial majority of Russians agree it is important for the media to be free to publish news and ideas without government control, it is the second smallest majority. More significantly, Russians are one of the few publics (and the only non-Muslim one) divided on whether the government should have the right to control the media in the effort to preserve stability. They are among the publics with the lowest levels of support for the media gaining more freedom than it already has.

–64% of Russians feel it is either somewhat (41%) or very important (23%) for the media to be free to publish news and ideas without government control, while 57% believe they should have the right to read whatever is on the Internet.

–Given two positions, Russians are one of the few publics divided on whether the media should have the right to publish news and ideas without government control (45%) or whether the government should have the right to prevent the media from publishing things in order to preserve stability (44%).

–71% in Russia believe that they should have the right to read publications from all other countries, even those considered enemies.

–Asked how much freedom the media currently have in Russia, the most common view is it has “some” (44%), followed by “a lot” (25%). Only 39% believe the media should have more freedom, while 33% believe it should have the same amount and 17% believe it should have less.”

And which country has the highest level of support for Press Freedom? US? UK? Sweden? Nope.

It’s Mexico.

As the poll says, “Mexicans have the largest majorities saying freedom of the media is “very important” and that the media in their country should have greater freedom. Mexico has one of the largest majorities in support of media being free to publish news and ideas as opposed to allowing the government to impose restrictions to maintain stability.”

It would be interesting to learn why Mexican support for press freedom is so high.

After being detained for four months, Saudia Arabian blogger Fouad al-Farhan has been released. Al-Farhan was detained in December without official explanation, but he was arrested “after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group.” According to the Washington Post, Farhan said that he had been warned by an official from the Interior Ministry “that he would be detained for his online support of a group of [political critics]…arrested in February 2007.”

Despite the Saudi Government’s attempt to insulate its internal activities from foreign coverage (foreign journalists are rarely granted visas), Farhan’s arrest garnered a substantial amount of publicity at foreign media outlets, in addition to attention brought by the criticism of a plethora of bloggers (including 200 in Saudi Arabia).

While some argue that restraints on speech have diminished King Abdullah came to power in 2005, the 2007 report from Reporters Without Borders argues that “the Saudi regime maintains very tight control of all news.” Its ability to exert control is due both to its direct ownership of media outlets, but also by its willingness to shut down other media outlets that do not practice self-censorship sufficiently. This includes internally blocking both Fahran’s blog and the Free Fouad website set up by supporters.

And although coverage of Farhan’s arrest implies that he is one of the first online critics to be targeted through detention, his arrest could easily be seen as the (albeit slow) continuation of an established policy. In 2005 the Saudi Arabian Government made a wholesale attack on blogs by attempting to block access to blogger.com, but has shifted to targeting particular blogs since then.

Despite the chilling effect Farhan’s arrest will likely have, it may also be an acknowledgment of the potential of blogs to move political discourse. As Saudi Jeans blogger and Global Voices contributor Ahmed al-Omran points out,

“The arrest was scary and intimidating to bloggers but also empowering. It made bloggers know that their blogs are influential, and now they feel more of a responsibility and take their blogs more seriously.”

Last Friday I went to ROFLCon, the “rolling on the floor laughing” convention. It was a two-day event organized by an enterprising group of Harvard undergrads (and sponsored by the Berkman Center) to celebrate and explore internet memes and culture.

Why is this an appropriate topic for the Internet & Democracy blog, you might ask. Although the conference was ostensibly about funny Internet memes it was really about how Internet is fueling the growth of user-generated culture - cultural democracy, if you will. Internet fame, which Berkman fellow David Weinberger discussed in his keynote address, is a perfect example of this new cultural democracy, in which ordinary people, not resource-rich broadcasters, are now able to identify a new class of famous people, redefine the parameters of fame, and otherwise re-tool the way fame operates in our culture. What will the political implications of this new citizen power be?

David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous and Berkman fellow, gave the opening keynote address at ROFLCon on Internet fame. Fame began with the broadcast system, which operated one to many. Media companies broadcast information, which we received gladly and were glad to know.

Who could broadcast - and thus who could be famous - was all cast in turns of scarcity. Very few people could afford to be in either group. Because it was an economy of scarcity, it also fed very well into a culture greed. Greed and fame go together well because fame is grounded in scarcity.

Famous people form their own special class. They have own rules. You can shoot someone in the face and nothing will happen to you. Famous people are different from us. It is all about alienation. The nervousness of seeing a famous person is a reaction to your awareness they this person is somehow above you, an elite.

But if fame is a network effect (rather than a broadcast effect), then this dynamic changes. Blogging is all about removing the make up. It is the work of a fallible human being, and the forgiveness we give a blogger for making the occasional spelling error is a form of intimacy.

A lot of online productions look like they were made by human hands. Perfection is the enemy of credibility. We once used to believe what was perfect and now we believe the reverse. Nothing can actually be perfect, so if it seems perfect that just means that the flaws are hidden. Perfection alienates us from credibility.

Read the rest of this entry »

Speculations about what kind of sea change the Internet has enabled for campaigning and how that sea change will translate on election day for the US president have been ubiquitous (really, it’s difficult to avoid a media outlet that isn’t opining about how the Internet is helping the Obama campaign with grassroots organization and fundraising). But news sources are starting to take note that another consequence of the unprecedented success of online fundraising will be the complete irrelevance of public campaign financing.

Although both McCain and Obama both pledged to opt into the public financing system for the general election if the other party’s candidate did the same, The Wall Street Journal reports that “Obama is poised to run the first privately financed general-election presidential campaign since Watergate”. Obama had previously said that he would “aggressively pursue” a publicly funded campaign, but according to the article, Obama “has laid the groundwork, through seeking a Federal Election Commission ruling, to reject traditional taxpayer funding.”

Because Clinton’s private fundraising would also likely exceed the amount that the public financing scheme would provide her, there is good reason to believe that she will opt out as well.

Because of the restrictions that accepting public financing imposes on candidates, candidates that opt out of the system would be far more independent of state parties and their respective party’s National Committees and would not need to coordinate with them for “get-out-the-vote efforts”. Or, as one of the lawyers from Kerry’s presidential campaign explains, “It’s just easier. You don’t have to talk to anybody. You can just write the check.”

And taking the relationship between Obama and the Democratic National Committee as an example, the unprecedented fundraising of individual campaigns that the Internet seems to have enabled may mean an outright shift in dependence. With only $5 million on hand, the DNC has entered a joint fundraising agreement with the Obama campaign and is negotiating for an agreement with the Clinton Campaign.

Of course, Presidential candidates have been relying less on public financing since the 2000 election, when now President Bush opted out of the system for the Republican primary. For the 2008 election, Obama, Clinton, and McCain have all opted out of the system for the primaries.

Still, it will be interesting to see how the ability to be structurally independent from public financing will alter the dynamics between candidates and national parties, local parties, and state politicians.

According to a report by Al Jazeera English (see video here) Palestinian youth are using the Internet to run an informal phone bank to call voters in the US before every primary in order to convince them to vote for Barack Obama.

The organizer of the international phone-banking initiative, Ibrahim Abu Jayab, age 23, brings a group of 17 friends to a cybercafé in Gaza before every US primary to use Internet telephony to randomly call numbers in the state where the primary is being held and ask citizens to vote for Obama. Mr. Abu Jayab’s motivation for taking part in this action is that he believes that as president Senator Obama would have a positive impact on the Middle East peace process.

Given the prevalence of pro-Israel sentiment in American public opinion and the generally negative media portrayal of Palestine, it is not clear whether receiving a phone call from a Palestinian youth would encourage or discourage and American voter to support Obama, but the perspective of international phone advocacy, facilitated by low-cost internet telephony tools like Skype, presents an intriguing (and little-explored) are of digital activism.

cross-posted: Zapboom.com

The BBC highlights how London’s mayoral candidates are using the Internet to reach potential supporters. Like the reports on this side of the Atlantic focusing on Obama and Clinton, the BBC report compares how each candidate is making use of social networks, video sharing websites, and blogs to garner support. But it also incorporates some skepticism regarding the notion that the “Internet is the great leveller for candidates with tiny marketing budgets.”

At least as between London’s mayoral candidates, it points out that although the clips on YouTube of the smaller party candidates get roughly as many views as the larger party candidates, the numbers of views is small. This is particularly true of clips that do not incorporate gaffs or embarrassing missteps. While Conservative candidate Boris Johnson’s election related clips have peaked at “7,385 hits”, the entry featuring him with the most views is “of the Tory MP indulging in an over-enthusiastic tackle at a charity football match”.

With perception of the importance of the Internet for electoral victory rising, candidates–as for example Labour’s Ken Livingstone who has hired Blue State Digital (the company used by the Obama Campaign)—will have to invest campaign funds into coordinating and updating online activity, creating graphics, applications, infiltrating online social networks, etc.

Although the article doesn’t mention it, at least with regards to the Obama-Hilary campaigns, a sizable part of the heavily viewed entries on YouTube feature footage from sponsored debates to which the 3rd party candidates are simply not invited. And that inability to participate in the dialogue in the brick and mortar world also seems likely to undermine the “leveling” effect of the Internet.

Another interesting points BBC report did mention was that Livingston “used a YouTube video to hit back at Conservative candidate Boris Johnson’s first party election broadcast - something that would not have been allowed on TV, with its strict rules on balance.” As the US presidential race moves into the period where the more stringent campaigning regulation comes into effect, it will be interesting to track how candidates will use the Internet to undermine the campaigning laws they supported as Senators.

Note: This post in the fourth and final post in a series on a panel, entitled “ICT and Public Diplomacy,” at the Edward R. Murrow 100th Anniversary Conference on public diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University. The first post covered the presentation of Berkman fellow Ethan Zuckerman. The second post covered the presentation of I&D research assistant Josh Goldstein. The third post covered a discussion of online dialogue between the “East” and “West” by Abeer Mohammad.

Eric Mullerbeck is the Senior Web Manager for UNICEF. He believe that the salient elements of the Internet and public diplomacy issue are how Internet speeds up the news cycle, facilitates the spread of video, and eliminates the intermediaries so that everyone can be a publisher.

He starts with an example from 2004, the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Because it occurred on December 26th, many Western tourists were involved in the disaster. In fact, more Swedish citizens were killed in that disaster than in any other in history, due purely to the number of Swedish tourists in the regions. For UNICEF, their web site allowed them to publish their own news, including video from the ground, and reports on how the funds donated were used. UNICEF has a news team dedicated to creating content for the site, which allowed the site to publish high-quality original content on the disaster.

The web site also allowed the public to engage directly in the relief effort. When people were looking for news, they were able to find the information they were looking for on the UNICEF site, which raised the profile of the organization. In addition, visitors to the site could donate to the cause on every page of the site. Following the disaster, there was a sevenfold increase in participation in the web site, both for information and to donate. (Mr. Mullerbeck unfortunately does not have a figure for how much money was raised online)

Mr. Mullerbeck’s second example is of the Belgian UNICEF affiliate, which created a public service announcement involving the Smurf children being killed as an anti-war message. It was captured by a non-Unicef person and posted on YouTube. Many people saw it online and found it upsetting and in bad taste. It was only because of the Internet that it was available outside of Belgium. As a result, UNICEF received critical letters asking why they had created a video which could traumatize children.

Mr. Mullerbeck says that UNICEF perhaps should have responded directly to the angry e-mails and responded to comments on blogs explaining why they felt the video was justified. UNICEF’s strategy was to respond by e-mail to all letters from concerned citizens, yet there was a fair amount of vetting up the chain which slowed down the response. His take-aways are the importance of rapid response in this media age using the Internet to engage on issues important to an organization.