Categories
Uncategorized

This Week in ISN Insights…

It's week 24 on our editorial calendar, Photo: Leo Reynolds, flickr

Coming up this week in our truncated ISN Insights coverage (in light of Monday’s Swiss national holiday):

  • On Tuesday, Simon Saradzhyan of Harvard University’s Belfer Center comments on a historic opportunity for European missile defense in the making.
  • University of St Andrews Professor Gerard DeGroot takes a closer look on Wednesday at mainstreaming gender in UN peace operations.
  • On Thursday, Professor Plamen Pantev of Sofia University addresses the question: Where do the western Balkans stand after the arrest of Ratko Mladic?

And in case you missed any of last week’s articles, you can find them here on: the growing scourge of transnational organized crime; the overblown threat of nuclear weapons; understanding the process from radicalization to terrorism; and a preview of Turkey’s general elections.

Categories
Uncategorized

Shape the ISN’s Future

Access to information is no longer the main problem. Today’s challenge is managing the information that’s out there. For almost two decades, the ISN has been dedicated to promote information management and knowledge sharing in the area of international relations and security. We are striving to integrate original current affairs analysis with existing background publications and policy briefs. We offer you a wealth of free, high-quality information services, but we know that we don’t always present it in the best way possible. That’s where we need your help.

We are curious to hear which services you use, which regions and topics you’re interested in, which new services you’d like us to provide and how we can make our website more user-friendly. Please take a few minutes and give us your feedback on how we can improve. We highly appreciate your opinion.

 

Take me to the survey

Chile’s Ghosts

salvador allende with a background of flowers
The ex-President’s death remains a mystery, Photo: Oscar Ordenes/flickr

When it comes to natural disasters, Chile has a troubled past. As the plume of ash from volcanoes at Puehue and Cordón Caulle continues to blanket the skies and force people from their homes, rebuilding efforts following last year’s earthquake have only just begun. Fifty years ago Chile was also the site of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded – the gran terremoto, at Valdivia – and initial indications following this latest event suggest that the geological situation may get worse in the future.

But if its history of geological instability were not enough, Chile is also struggling with its political past. On 23 May, in compliance with a court order, the body of former President Salvador Allende was exhumed in order to begin a formal investigation into the disputed circumstances of his violent 1973 demise.

There are many versions of the events. The official story – and the one accepted by Allende’s family – is that the President shot himself (with an AK-47 given to him by none other than Fidel Castro) shortly before rebel forces stormed his office. Another version has it, instead, that he was gunned down in a defiant last stand; yet another, that he was executed by a subordinate after a botched suicide attempt. But the man ultimately responsible (if probably not personally) for Allende’s death is General Augusto Pinochet himself, whose successful coup d’etat then saw him installed first as the head of the governing junta and then as president.

Continue reading “Chile’s Ghosts”

Indexing Happiness

scatter plot GDP per capita / North Korean Happiness Index
Rich countries poor souls, according to the North Korean Happiness Index. Data source: shanghaiist/wordbank

It’s official: China is the happiest country on earth. North Korea comes a close second, while the American Empire (the U.S.) ranks at the bottom of the list. That’s according to a Happiness Index released by – surprise! – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. For anyone outside Kim Jong-il’s monopoly of information, the index is a surreal and somewhat comical attempt to legitimize the government’s performance. The idea of measuring happiness in general, however, is not quite as far-fetched.

Indices like GDP per capita continue to dominate national debates about social and economic progress, but critics of this practice are no longer ridiculed. Traditional gauges of prosperity are seriously flawed; they do not, for example, take into account environmental degradation or the exhaustion of natural resources. And that’s only part of the problem. The more important argument is that measures such as the GDP disregard most factors that make life worth living.

The Economist has recently launched a debate about whether or not new measures of economic and social progress are needed for 21st century economies. Proposing the motion, Emeritus Professor of Economics Richard Layard argued that quality of life, as people actually experience it, must be a key measure of progress and a central objective for any government. An overwhelming majority of the readers agreed.

Continue reading “Indexing Happiness”

Who Is the Prime Minister of Japan, Again?

Naoto Kan is still Prime Minister of Japan. Image: WEF/Wikimedia Commons

Naoto Kan passed a vote of no confidence last week after he had promised to step down soon. (Let’s keep aside the discussion of what he meant by “soon”.) His problem was not so much the opposition, who initiated the vote but only holds a minority of seats in the Lower House. Kan’s authority is challenged from within his own Democratic Party. Already the second prime minister since the party finally managed to take power in 2009, Kan is criticized for his handling of the triple catastrophe that hit Japan in March. (Again, let’s not argue whether the criticism is justified; after all, I want to make a more general argument.)

The Democratic Party holds a solid majority in the crucial Lower House and the next general elections are two years away. Then why is the ruling party so obsessed with changing its leadership? (A bad habit the DPJ seems to have inherited from its predecessor, the LDP.) One answer might be that Japanese politicians care much, probably too much, about opinion polls. Another possible answer is that there is a culture of demission: ministers are expected to step down in order to show responsibility for something that has happened or something they have done. While accountability is a necessary feature of a democratic political system, the threshold for demission seems far too low in Japan*.

Let’s have a look at one consequence of this culture of demission.

Continue reading “Who Is the Prime Minister of Japan, Again?”