Review of Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

Reading Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism by Greg Grandin is, according to Hugo Chavez, the way to answer the question “What is happening today in Latin America?”

Grandin’s primary subject is the political coalition in the United States from the New Deal of FDR to the New Right of Regan and their relation to the foreign policy apparatus and political and economic unrest then occurring in Central America. Covering the transition from “soft power” of the Good Neighbor Policy to the overt support of anti-communist military rulers in Latin American Grandin holds that Central America in the 1980s became “…the crucible that brought together missionary Christianity, free-market capitalism, and American hard power (155).” Though his focus is on this particular period of history, the whole work itself is framed as a contribution to the claim that the strategy described by him to mobilize popular American sentiment in the support of war was employed in the build-up to the Iraq War via those participating in the Project for a New American Century.

The Protestant Ethic, Liberation Theology and Communism

At a time when global supply chains were fully recovered from the second world war, Latin America found itself in a precarious position and a battle of ideas began to take shape. A post-World War II reality gap between Latin American’s expectations and their current conditions of relative deprivation was a powerful driver for revolutionary subjectivity – especially in as land increasingly became consolidated amongst fewer hands.

Predominantly an exporter from the extractive industries and non-value-added primary goods, Latin America simply was not producing the kind of advanced engineering and technologically breakthroughs leading to large increases in productivity and quality that were occurring in the US, Europe and Japan.

In the manufacturing sectors – the growth of the number of tariffs, subsidies, capital controls, labor legislation and social welfare provisions to protect domestic workers from the pressures of foreign capital multiplied and created a downward spiral of state-control of the economy and inhibited competitiveness and innovation. While these protections ensured for a time a buffer from the economic effects of these outside market development, it was a drag on the capacity for domestic capitalists to adapt. Communists and Liberation Theologists rested their laurels on such programs, ironically enough, were seen as red flags by those within the IMF. State-owned industries were correctly identified as being oriented along political rather than economic lines, meaning massive duplications of effort and inefficiencies. Even Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrinedescribes these as, basically, massive public jobs programs that for the present helped with employment but in the long term inhibited GDP growth. One example of this effects of such behavior is found in contemporary Venezuela, who has seen the number of oil workers employed by PDVSA rise at the same time that it’s production has fallen.

This collectivist approach to politics by the Hard Left and the Catholic Left was viewed by those involved with determining what to invest in as bad business. Liberation Theologists who, as a class, were totally ignorant of principles of capital management or the rules and pressures of the international marketplace denounced the North as Evil and frequently allied themselves with Communists. Theologians connected with the American Enterprise Institute and the Insitute on Religion and Democracy elaborated a number of explanations as to how Latin America’s inheritance of cultural factors such as indigenous values and legal codes that originated from the Spanish Crown’s 17^thcentury counterreformation made adoption to the new international dynamics a point of friction.

While Grandin’s subsequent quotation of a number of these commentators is clearly designed to make this Protestant line of thought to seem vile – having listened to numerous engineers and high-level business-people in Latin America, they all agree with such criticisms. Which brings me to a quick side note related to this point based on discussions that I’ve had since attending a Catholic University…

While many American free-market radicals frequently point to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as fundamental to the evolution of their thought, they ought to familiarize themselves with Christian depictions of free enterprise – such as Knut Hamsun’s The Growth of the Soil or Confucian depictions of free enterprise – such as Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. According to numerous Catholic’s that I’ve spoken with in Medellin, people that are wealthy are further from God. While there are certainly instances where this seems to me to be the case – primitive accumulation of capital by dispossession or narco-trafficking being two such examples – such a generalized cultural taboo inhibits the cultural changes required to get out of the poverty mindset and take greater accountability for one’s economic situation.

Adversary Culture, Media Politics and Public Relations Strategy

In chapter four, titled Bringing it All Back Home, Grandin recounts the media strategy of the Regan administration to influence the domestic press to ensure positive coverage of the ongoing U.S. military actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. With the memory of the domestic unrest that the Vietnam war had within American still fresh in the minds of many culture leaders, universities, churches, newspaper were at first adversarial to the notion of another “war against communism”.

Grandin describes this as a “psychological operation” which was being pushed on three fronts.

1) A centralized public-diplomacy that directly confronts the press through sophisticated techniques drawn from the intelligence community and the PR world

2) The loosening of restrictions regarding surveillance operations against political dissidents

3) The construction of a “countervailing grassroots support to counter what seemed a permanently entrenched anti-imperialist opposition, mobilizing militants and evangelicals on behalf of a hard-line foreign policy,”

While Grandin views this all as a maliciously designed means of duping the population, I think it’s more appropriate to view it as a creative solution to the problem of data governance and distribution in a society with numerous media and culture outlets.

Recognizing the myriad limits of journalistic investigation, the government became proactive in responding to and anticipating the claims of political activists connected to informational networks such as CISPES – whose narratives and political activities sought to degrade and otherwise demoralize the population such that they would actively oppose military conflict. Though the FBI wasn’t never able to prove a direct agency relationship between the organization and El Salvador or of any monetary aid – it’s clear that this sort of activity was a reaction to such intelligence operations rather than an effort at misinforming the public.

The Return of Latin America’s Left and Closing Thoughts

The Latin American New Left has used the World Social Forum as a means for spreading their ideology.

Towards the end of Empire’s Workshop Grandin briefly takes as his subject the Global Justice Movement and their claim that since the Capitalist Revolutionaries failed to bring Peace or Prosperity through their exchange of wealth and management that this means that they have no right to continue to try to influence or direct them anymore. Given the numerous breaches of contracts and agreements that were precursors to such loans and assistance programs – in the opening chapter of the book Grandin describes Brazilian farmers not following the directives given by their American management team, thus leading to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars – such claims are often connected to half told tales.

Indeed, Andres Oppenheimer sees the narratives typical of the New Latin American Left as part of the reason that Latin America has not been able to grow at the same rate as other developing countries. Rather than focusing on the domestic economy’s connection to capital flows, politicians seek take on the economic agency of those that they represent and – in a way – manage them. The problem with this, as it evident is that generations of wealth accumulated within a family unit can be undone in a few years – or indeed a few days – by a dissolute or corrupt member and new competitors can quickly emerge and take over the market of a leader that has stopped trying to maximize added value and innovation.

Empire’s Workshop is part of a series of published by Metropolitan Books called The American Empire Project, which features other authors praised by Hugo Chavez such as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. While the only other book that I’ve read in the series is Hegemony or Survival, if they are like at all akin to these two then thematically they have a number of the same problems in how they present their historical accounts.

Omission or minimalization of endogenous factors informing the conflicts under discussion.

When providing an overview of USAID and DEA policy in Bolivia in the late 1990s, for instance, – as if those populations didn’t actually want assistance in the prevention of their government from becoming a state dominated by the narcotics production and trafficking sector.

Another iteration of this is removing agency from those currently engaged in illegal behavior on prior events only tangentially related. Using an example outside of Grandin’s work – to show this theme – is the placing of full or partial blame for the rise of MS-13 at the feet of the United States government. The United States government does not condone or assist with their drug-trafficking, kidnapping, extortion or any other of these illegal activities.

Absolute cynicism on the part of the author towards foreign actors.

A typical trope of the counter- and alter- globalization movement that I’ve noticed is to frame all efforts at economic development as secret debt traps – a charge that has been recently leveled against China and those countries accepting aid it’s aid. A similar trend is evident in Grandin’s writings – all intentions on the part of foreigners involved in economic development – be it those in the IMF-technicians or U.S. diplomats – are depicted as malign and deceptive. Non-liberation theology priests are all propagandists, economic advisors are vultures setting up traps, government assistance to fight narco-trafficking is just a pretext for neo-colonial domination. Thus, though Grandin presents a number of related facts that do fit together, because of his ideological bent he presents a Manichean world. This probably why Hugo Chavez loved the book.

Avoidance of or selective analysis of international law and legal cases.

The international and domestic legal order by which nations operate provides a set of guidelines that form the framework within which allows for internal and international cooperation and development to occur.

All history writing will have elements of subjectivity within it based upon the author’s choices of evidence and mobilization of it – but even though I’m not a subject area specialist I’ve read enough of Latin American political science to know a warped narrative when I see one.

For example, whereas Grandin points to the FBI’s loosening of regulations on surveillance of domestic actors as evidence of the United States being an Evil Empire, he doesn’t at all engage with the fact that spy and espionage networks are real.

This is not to say that there is no cause for reflection on what occurred in the past, just that any sort of commentary should include the full legal context.

Authorial pretense of having all available data

While FOIA requests, reviews of the Congressional records and interviews with known participants certainly create a simulacrum of reality – there is always a gap.

Two major reasons for this are that the U.S. military has a commitment to protecting individuals, ongoing operations, tradecraft and national security.

Another is that those which identify with the FMLN, Bolivarian, Guevarist, Marxist, etc. movements are committed militants who abide by their own version of military doctrine – which includes deceiving those that aren’t on the inside.

I say this not to make the argument that authentic history can only be written and read by those that are a member of such organizations – but to highlight the need for unreliability to be a component of authorship. Sandinistas, for example, claimed that their activities were completely of their own, however later revelations showed they were assisted by the Cubans – who have their own geopolitical goals.

Operation InfeKtion: How Russia Perfected the Art of War + It’s Relation to Bolivarianism

Keywords:

Disinformation, Bolivarian Propaganda, Cold War Media Studies, PSUV, Communist Infiltration, Social Media and Democracy

Abstract:

This article reviews the historical practices used by the intelligence services of Russia described in the New York Times and then links this to examples of disinformation campaigns that are operated by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

On the Science of Disinformation with Russian and Venezuelan Case Studies

Operation InfeKtion is a 47-minute long documentary produced by the New York Times which uses archival footage and interviews. Hosted on YouTube, it presents examples of the information warfare military strategies used by the Soviet Union’s KGB in operations against the United States.

Interesting to note is that several months after the publication of this, Yahoo News published also published an article based on an unclassified FBI document about Conspiracy Theories which also deals with this issue.

Disinformation: The Dangers of Distorted Reality

Read any book published over the last several years in the digital marketing field – such as Growther Hacker Marketing, Content Inc., or Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator – and you’ll learn how economic pressures cause by changes caused by the growth of the internet that have lead to the decline professional and ethical standards in publishing and the general public’s increasing.

As disinformation campaigns seeks to mobilize the emotions of their audience by distorting reality for political ends, this means that it’s now easier than ever for false information to be inserted into public discourse.

Because the Constitution and the U.S. legal system so highly values freedom of expression, there is no singular Federal Law nor widely-adopted industry-standards for honesty or integrity in journalism and publishing, nor is there any enforcement organization in the United States outside of the courts.

This lack of accountability is why technology companies that host or link to news content have recently been targeted for regulation by the government.

Rule #1: Find the Cracks

Finding the crack isn’t merely about coming up with controversial content, it’s about finding an audience and tailoring their consumption in such a way that it (Rule #7) fits long term goals.

There’s a lot of ways to manipulate people into believing disinformation, and disinformation campaigns make knowing as much as possible about their target audience a key component of any good information warfare project.

Intersectional chart depicting social hierarchies able to be exploited by foreign-state sponsored propandandists.

Audiences that have witnessed or experienced trauma, that identify with groups whose identities relate in some way to a sense of collective trauma, or that are neurologically divergent are especially vulnerable to disinformation. Lack of subject area knowledge, deference to alternative-authority figures and interpersonal social pressures to conform makes youths particularly vulnerable to this sort of messaging as well.

Rule #2: The Big Lie

While once big lies – such as the claim that the United States invented AIDs to depopulate undesireable demographics – were the main focus of disinformation campaigns, in the contemporary attention economy a large number of smaller false claims. Here are some examples.

A young black child has a plastic bag put over his head following his arrest, leading to headlines that “many people are outraged“. However if you watch the actual video you’ll see that this was because he was repeatedly spitting on police officers, that he was at no risk of suffocating and, most importantly, the child seemed to be encouraged to engage in this behavior by the person filming it in order to create this “outgrageous” scene.

Another recent example which featured President Donald Trump is found in coverage of a joke he made (linked here to C-Span as the HuffPost’s version has edited out of their linked-to video the larger context of the comment ). Some media outlets – such as CNN – covered this as him implying that he was the Messiah, while others did not mention it at all. What’s clear from the full context of the speech act is that Trump is comparing himself to other politicians that would not be as firm with China in economic negotiations and making a joke – as recognized by Fox News.

Rule #3: A Kernel of Truth

It’s this small kernal of truth that makes the big lie possible. By relying on the audience to not fact check, it’s creates the conditions for misleading headlines and outrage.

An excellent example of this related to Venezuela’s media operations comes from MintPress News’ article New IDF Chief Rabbi Says Soldiers Can Rape Women in Wartime to Boost Morale.

The article is written by “Matt Agorist”, the pen name of the director of the Free Thought Project whose government name is unknown. Interesting to note is that others have seen fit to investigate him and when confronted with the fact that so much of the content associated with his writings and website are classified as misinformation and disinformation, he’s used the Alex Jones Defense – claiming he wants to “inspire conversation and a free flow of alternative views.”

Like the example of Donald Trump provided above, the article’s headline and content are vastly at odds with reality.

Reviewing the primary material from which the article is based on – it’s clear that the Chief Rabbi in question was answering a question which contrasts the norms described in certain Biblical passages to that which are now abided by by the IDF.

In other words, nothing in the headline is true – even though the article provides the evidence which shows that it isn’t true!

Rule #4: Conceal Your Hand

Disinformation does not always emerge from an official party outlet, such as Pravda, RT or TeleSUR English.

In fact, because of that direct connection to the government it can be far more effective for it to emerge from other sources.

Other outlets – in Venezuela’s case The Real News Network and Venezuela Analysis (both are operated by ex-Bolivarian Republic of Venezuelan Officials, and likely funded in part with their assistance as well), Orinocco Tribune, Ghion Journal, or a number of pan-Africanist “news services” – can equally serve that State’s interest.

This is accomplished by creating distance between the actors involved in a disinformation campaign. Furthermore it provides for a powerful “victim narrative” if their are any ramifications.

Being called out for poor reporting, bad fact-checking or unreported interests in coverage – as Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek and Anna Parampul have in relation to their coverage of the war in Syria – can be spun into a “vast conspiracy” to keep the truth from being told and whatever professional ramifications that come from this can lead one to becoming a cause celebre.

Once the uncertainty of conflicting narratives is cemented, there will always be come people that are gullibile enough to believe it.

Rule #5: The Useful Idiot

“Useful idiots” is a derogatory term for people perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders. During the research for my Master’s Thesis at NYU I read a lot about useful idiots. It’s interesting to note that often times it’s not until the collapse of a government, as happened with the Soviet Union, that the full extent of these networks becomes apparent.

One of my favorite TV series, The Americans, depicts a variety of useful idiots – from those that have been cultivated so as to engage in espionage, treason, sedition, incitement and other illegal activities. Useful idiots typically work in media, education, political activism, public relations. Opertion InfeKtion depicts scientists that publish and defend fake findings as well as political commentators that grossly misrepresent history.

Following the opening of the Soviet Archives extensive troves of evidence was found detailing how US Communists Aided the USSR. Amongst the many examples of the Soviet Union’s success in infilration was helping manage the publication of Rampage – a radical left journal. Given what some commentators have called the “rapid rise” of socialism it seems sensible to investigate the relation of the oil rich nation on our border identifying as socialist, no?

As part of my ongoing investigation into Venezuela’s Gramscian fantasy of exporting revolution to the United States, I’ve made this live-updated archive of PSUV-sponsored media, artists, intellectuals or political activists.

Rule #6: Deny Everything

As there is no centralized authority responible for judging questionable content and it’s origins, there are some simple ways to avoid accountability when questioned.

1. Deny existance of topic at hand.
2. Deflect to another topic.
3. Defend claims made as being part of performance art.
4. Defend claims made as being the product of a mental imbalance.
5. Refuse to respond to any and all professional and ethical related questions.

Because honesty and integrity in the public sphere falls open those with a sense of civic duty, private companies that wish to monetize their research or contests related to Fake News.

I’ve asked a lot of people at TeleSUR questions related to the Social Media and Democracy project – and almost all have refused to respond and blocked me. This link goes to an updated list of executives in charge of various aspects of operations that have done this.

Rule #7: The Long Game

As Operation InfeKtion illustrates, it sometimes takes years for the fruits of counterintelligence work to be born.

The Long Game also means orienting the development of information related towards those already engaged in intergenerational struggles.

People’s political orientations can become increasingly radicalized through encuentros, a tactic frequently used by individuals and organizations connected in some way to the PSUV. Because these interactions and economic, cultural, political or other types of exchanges are often not recorded for public consumption – and as they can quickly be deleted from servers if they are exposed – they make for the best type of recruitment for irregular warfare disinformation campaigns.

Operation InfeKtion is an excellent documentary, however it unfortunately does not cover Russia’s connection to Venezuela’s state media apparatus.

Technology Transfer: From Russia to Venezuela

Nicholas Maduro, President of the the PSUV, and Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB Agent

In an article on Foreign Policy, Ryan C. Berg and Andres Martinez-Fernandez write:

“Although a lack of transparency makes precise accounting nearly impossible, in recent years Venezuela’s government has purchased Russia’s state-of-the-art S-300 anti-aircraft missiles; imported hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition; and acquired 5,000 Igla-S MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems). And this is just what has been on public display in Venezuela’s military parades or outlined in leaked military contracts. There are no doubt many more small arms and equipment in the Venezuelan military’s possession.”

Given the above comments, italics added by me, we see an example of military technology transfer occuring. While irregular warfare isn’t mentioned therein, it’s been an interest of Hugo Chavez Frias and Nicolas Maduro Moros since the founding of TeleSUR.

One such personality that has perfectly illustrates my speculation as to Russian-Venezuelan information warfare technology transfer is Abby Martin – who stated at RT and then, like many other of their employees, transferred to TeleSUR. More about her in a minute.

Thus with Russian know how; the religious and political solidarity networks already developed by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the race-based outreach made possible by PSUV cultural ministers and militants – we can come to recognize Venezuela as an organizing and supporting force of a complex state intelligence appratus designed to cultivate, coordinate and control small political groups that have the capacity to converge for large, violent political events. This not only allows for the depleting of local, state, government and federal budgets and an unofficial political tax on private enterprises near those areas – it also allows for the fodder of disinformation narratives.

Foreign-Government Sponsored Disinformation + Legal Precedence

Gillars v. United States [182 F.2d 962 (D.C. Cir. 1950)] sealed the fate of Sally Gillars, aka Axis Sally, as a traitor. She hasn’t been the only one in American history. Foreign state-sponsored propagandist Robert Henry Best was also tried and convicted of Treason for his speech acts.

They were tried because the First United States Congress, in 1790, provided this statute:

“…if any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted, on confession in open court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, .” 1 Stat. 112 (1790).

Another words disinformation produced in coordination with a foreign government during wartime equals Treason.

By the by – should you wish to learn more about Axis Sally, a book titled Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany was been published about her – review here – and you can also read some of the Evidentiary Documents from the Legal Case by clicking on those respective terms.

Venezuela’s Media Workers: The Future Target of Law Enforcement?

This previous case history rasises some intersting questions given the current political relations between the United States and Venezuela.

While bullets were not now flying between armed military combatants – any honest review of the language, iconography and policies presided over by Nicholas Maduro’s reveals pronouncements which frequently express the sentiment that he and the whole country is under seige, meaning categorically that one is engaged in a protracted war. Also worth noting is that according to the words of TeleSUR’s founders and their executives their state media apparatus was explicitly founded for ideological combat. Does this and the fact thatVenezuela has long been considered an irregular threat to the United States – mean that those who are or have been contracted by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela could be tried for treason?

Given Nicolas Maduro’s role as executive director of TeleSUR and the thrust of their “news” coverage and related activities, it seems like this may be so.

Hands off Venezuela, one of the myriad political action cells that the PSUV sponsors internationally.

But then again, I’m not a lawyer.

Still – to me it does raise several interesting questions, such as:

How does the definition of treason change in periods of irregular warfare?

How do the principles underlying the foundations of prior judgements relate to the evidence at hand?

If Abby Martin is ever prosecuted and found guilty of Treason for the misinformation she has produced while employed by the Russian and Venezuelan Intelligence Services – what’s the best nickname that can be given her – #AnybodyAgainstAmericaAbby, #MultipolarMartin or, my personal favorite, #BocamierdaMartin?

Also, what of the platforms and accounts that spread and host such content?

In a situation such as Venezuela is now facing, I’ve emailed the Venezuela Affairs Office and shared some of my own research as well as my belief that they should seek to exproprirate TeleSUR’s accounts and websites.

Disinformation, Democracy, and Social Media

Fake News is really real and is really dangerous, especially so when there are intelligence

Its purveyors prey on traumas, ignorance, bias and aspirations in hopes that it will lead to political gain. While clearly distinct from terrorist violence, the overlapping goals between the two are readily appearant.

While professional organizations, private companies and state laws used to be sufficient to counteract the rapid spread of such social contagion – the capabilities created by new information and communication technologies over the past two decades has outstripped their capacities.

As the federal system of the United States differs vastly from that of the United States, we have yet to address the new capabilities wrought by technology in law. It’s likely that in the near future, there will complex work done to address this.

Review of “Venezuela in Light of Anti-American Parties and Affiliations in Latin America”

Abstract: This article offers an overview of the structure of those political parties and international organizations most relevant to the current goings-on in northern South America and the Caribbean. It highlights a network of revolutionary-left parties and concludes with a working hypothesis regarding the network’s conspiratorial prospects.

Keywords: 21st Century Socialism, Sao Paolo Forum, Transnational Criminal Organizations, Political Science

Party Affiliation in Latin America and Connection to Political Movements

Venezuela in Light of Anti-American Parties and Affiliations in Latin America was written by Lt. Col. Geoff Demarest, JD, PhD and published in Military Review Online in June of 2019.

The author argues that one needs to become familiar with the ideological signaling and collaborative habits of an armful of militant-left organizations in order to understand the Bolivarian Movement that has lead to the economic crisis and deterioration of democracy in Venezuela.

As a multi-national movement predicated on the idea that pan-Latin American revolution should be accimplished “by any means necessary,” Bolivarianism is defined by it’s soaring rhetoric and criminal behavior.

First Tier:

The Cuban Communist Party (PCC)
The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
The Brazilian Workers Party (PT)

Second Tier:

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN) in Nicaragua.
Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo or MAS) in Bolivia.
Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de Liberación Dominicana or PLD) in the Dominican Republic.

These organizations wield enhanced influence within the above described composite in that they control their respective country-level governments.

Associated Groups:

FARC-EP
ELN

Umbrella Organizations

The Forum of São Paulo (Foro de São Paulo or FSP)
The Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (Conferencia Permanente de Partidos Políticos de América Latina y el Caribe or COPPPAL).

The Sao Paolo Forum’s Origins

Lula da Silva’s Worker’s Party was the organizing force behind the first Sao Paolo conference. Foreshadowing the corruption that was to later shown via Operation Car Wash, the first conference later lead to corruption charges being brought against the organizers for misappropriation of public sector funds.

A number of the FSP associated parties run the offices of the chief executive of their respective countries. This includes Ecuador’s PAIS Alliance (Patria Altiva y Soberana Alianza), El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional or FMLN), Uruguay’s Broad Front (Frente Amplio or FA), and Mexico’s National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional or MORENA).

This does not mean that only one party per country is given credentials to attend.

While none of these following Colombian political parties have much electoral support, all are members of the Foro de Sao Paulo.

(1) Patriotic March (Marcha Patriótica)
(2) Progressive Movement (Movimiento Progresista)
(3) Green Alliance Party (Partido Alianza Verde)
(4) Colombian Communist Party (Partido
(5) Alternative Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo)
(6) Here for Socialism (Presentes por el Socialismo)
(7) Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica)
(8) Citizen Power Movement (Movimiento Poder Ciudadano)

Given that some of the above mentioned groups are designated terrorist organizations and that there is an increasing suspiscion as to the motivations and goals of the actors involved Sao Paolo Forum – other organizations act as front groups for their interests. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA) “advances PCC and PSUV positions on a complete range of international issues.”

The author closes his article with the statement that until these extraregional entites and their coercive associates are weakened, that democratization in Venezuela will be more difficult – an assessment made evident by the fact that the Cuban military now occupies a significant role in the functioning of the government of the PSUV.

While Venezuela in Light of Anti-American Parties and Affiliations in Latin America only takes Venezuela as it’s subject, it’s also worth mentioning in this review that the Forum’s influence is not limited to Latin America. Thus this ends the literature review. Below continues with an extension of the author’s thesis – which relates to my own movement of movements thesis.

The PSUV and the FARC-EP

One of the recurring tropes used by the PSUV and their political accomplices is that everyone that seeks to maintain a global political order based on laws is a Nazi.

As of other journalists and investigators have pointed out – the FARC and ELN have recieved arms, vehicles and special treatment from Nicholas Maduro. Nicholas Maduro even welcomed FARC leaders while at the Sao Paolo Forum to “set up base” in Venezuela.

Given the effectiveness that these organizations have had in helping leftist parties win office in Latin America – one would expect them to try to export the process. And indeed they have!

U.S. Social Forum: The North American Iteration of the Sao Paolo Forum

The United States Social Forum, like the New Horizons Conference in Iran, presents an opportunity for the assessment and recruitment of political activists by foreign intelligence services.

The United States Social Forum emerged from American political activists collaboratings with numerous radical political action groups. 15,000 people and numerous organizations attended the first convergence in 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia and there have been several other regional and national Forums since then.

This, however, is not the extent of influence that can be charted. Indeed, a number of American political activists connected to the United States Social Forum have travelled to the Sao Paulo Forum.

Americans at the Sao Paulo Forum

American organizations associated with the Sao Paolo Forum include political parties – such as the Communist Party USA and the Green Party, as well as movements such as Code Pink, Black Lives Matters, CISPES.

As is evident from the above flyer, there are several U.S. organizations whose political activities, rhetoric and goals align with that of the Anti-American Parties which normally attend the Forum.

Indeed Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors were present at the first United States Social Forum while Opal Tometti has recieved an award from her activism from Nicolas Maduro.

The United Socialist Party of America

Given all this I believe it’s worth reconceiving how Socialist Parties within the United States are viewed.

In Venezuela the PSUV brought sundry Socialist political activists together due to the charisma and policies of Hugo Chavez.

It seems reasonable to state that a similar political alignment, which I call the United Socialist Party of America, has also formed. But rather than love of a leaders, it’s around hatred manufactured against President Donald Trump.

Carlos Ron, the Counselor of Political Affairs at the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the larger, bald man two seats away from the 1st Annual People’s Congress of Resistance Convention.

This development isn’t some organic happenstance, but something that has been manufactured in large part by a variety of Venezuelan political officials – like Carlos Ron, pictured above. Carlos along with Jesus “Chucho” Garcia, Jorge Arreaza and other diplomats have frequently attended socialist events in the United States – be it at Party of Socialism and Liberation meetings or at events held at the People’s Forum in New York – an obvious nod to the Social Forum. What the extent of their influence has been – be it funding, access to goods and services, etc. – is something for another article.

Review of Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP

“Morality only consists in making the relationship between the smallest action and the greatest good…”

Antonio Gramsci
Cocaine
Published in Sotto la Mole, 1916-1920

***

Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia by James J. Brittain provides a comprehensive account of the conflict between the FARC and the Colombian government from the perspective of the now demobilized quasi Marxist-Leninst narco-insurgents. Based on five years of field research and extensive archival analysis of primary and secondary documents – the strength of the work is sapped by numerous inclusions of half-baked opinions and poorly informed analysis. Brittain, for instance, is fundamentally cynical about U.S. military aid to Colombia – as if the profound effects wrought by incredibly violent and ruthless transnational drug trafficking networks on society and governance in the Americas did not even exist!

An external example of such ideological prejudice can be seen in a review of the book was posted shortly after publication on Fight Back News – a Freedom Road Socialist Organization front masquerading as an authentic media organization. On their website, the book is described as such:

“For Colombia solidarity activists, Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia is a tool. In the battle of ideas against all of the U.S. ruling class justifications for continuing to give billions of dollars to the Uribe regime through Plan Colombia, or in opposition to the U.S. escalation in Colombia through its seven newly acquired military bases, this book is a weapon. For anyone doing anti-intervention organizing, whether around Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the Philippines or any place where the U.S. is oppressing the people of the world and where the people are resisting by any means necessary, this book provides a valuable case-study.”

While the author’s clear biases mean that some of the arguments and analysis by Brittain is intellectually facile or, at times, absurd, it is in fact because of this that it is an important work for those seeking to understand the concepts and terms of how the FARC and those who sympathize with it think. Because the author uses Marxist philosophy to present the FARC as an innovative and “more democratic” alternative to globalization than neoliberalism rather than a narco-terrorist organization was, in fact, why I wanted to read it.

Neoliberalism and it’s Discontents: FARC’s Rise

Like other books I’ve read covering conflict in Colombia – such as The FARC: The Longest Insurgency by Gary Leech; The Para-State: An Ethnography of Colombia’s Death Squads by Alvo Civico; and Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia by Michael Taussig – this books starts with La Violencia as the founding moment for the FARC.

Birthed in the Tolima region, which is the department immediately to the south of where I now write this (Antioquia) a number of self-defense groups were formed in order to protect land that was seized from large-property owners or areas administered by the Colombian state. They became enclaves for those wishing to escape the violence elsewhere and farm. While not first conceived of as an “alternative” form of socio-economic development defining itself in contrast to globalization – coca production and illegal commodity extraction soon became their economic basis of what was, essentially, a colonial project.

By mid-1964 the PCC/guerrilla leader Manuel Marulanda Vélez (Tiro Fijo) had accumulated such a significant amount of dual-power that Operation Marquetalia was launched to retake occupied areas. 20,000 Colombian troops, as well as U.S. advisors and U.S. Iroquois attack helicopters.

While the operation as a whole was successful this lead to the spreading of the number of fronts of those connected to the FARC. This put the organization into more conflict with Colombia’s large-land owners, who were extorted, had their lands forcibly broken up and were kidnapped or killed for money or to send a message.

The South and West Blocks specifically became areas that were associated with coca production and provided the organization with funds to fight the intensifying violent backlash by the political and economic elites.

Given that the publisher of this book (PM Press) is committed to disseminating Anarchists and Marxist literature it’s not surprising that the author’s singular focus on the origin and activities of the FARC doesn’t give a broader contextualization of events.

As a result of this myopia that I mentioned in the introduction, there are a number of endorsements of the FARC political/historical line without a broader view of how events transpiring outside of Colombia affected the country.

Recounting the rapid rise of membership in the 1970’s, for instance, the author claims that rising inflation, declining capital for small agricultural operations and the dispossession of subsistence farmers leading are solely the U.S.’s fault. Brittain conflates the national Colombian economic elite with that of the US, as if the former were mere pawns/proxies of U.S. power, and gives no mention to the the global restructuring of supply chains and capital investment portfolios wrought by the rise Europe and Asia as well as other nations intensifying their agricultural export industries – all trends described in Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the 1970s.

Movement of Movements and the Composition of the FARC

No organization is ever an island unto itself, and the FARC is no exception. Brittain explicates how there are numerous Colombian organizations, such as the PPC and the MNBC, that assist and amplify the effects of their war of position as well as international organizations – be they transnational criminal enterprises involved in the distribution of cocaine and even Special Committees of the United Nations.

A term emerging from the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, war of position refers to the specific manner in which the FARC conceives of their historical mission. Their relationships to outside organizations are based on the intention to create a dual power system within Colombia they become an instrument of state power. Even though these organizations may not be fully committed guerrillas like the FARC, because they view socialism revolution as “a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria” their actions are conceived of as aligned with their goals.

Quoting several SouthCom and Colombian government reports Brittain states that in the early 1990s it was thought possible – given the FARC’s embeddedness within urban collectives in Bogota – for them to have taken over Bogota. Rather than pursuing this policy and thus, to use a Game of Thrones metaphor, ruling over a “city of ashes” they did not engage in direct confrontation in the urban center in order to reinforce their support-bases in the periphery, the coca-growing regions. It was believed that by the building of class consciousness (really their own particular vision of ideological orthodoxy) a social revolution could be achieved rather than a merely political one. This view, as the recent history of the peace accords shows, was incorrect. Because of Brittain’s sympathies, it’s worth pointing out another consideration less likely to be voiced by the FARC Secretariat – the problems created by actually administering a large and complex economy connected to multi-national corporations rather than merely interacting with coca-producing farmers, and small-scale illegal loggers and miners.

While such an admission would likely never leave the lips of someone whose committed their lives to guerilla combat, surely because of this the urban center, which inevitably complicates the Bolivarian-Marxian vision they’ve been acculturated into, doesn’t allow for simple solutions. Reading Marx, after all, doesn’t prepare one to appropriately understand modern national macro-economic policies.

FARC as Narco-Settler-Colonialism

Given that the campesinos that the FARC acts as a government for those that are involved in the narco-trafficking industry and that they are setting up their operations in a colonial manner – i.e. setting up operations in areas without infrastructure (roads, sewage, medical or educational facilities) – there’s an deep irony in the author’s frequent endorsement of the settlers claims that it is the lack of the farmers ability to obtain credit from banks or services from the government as a justifying cause for their operations.

Brittain presents the Colombian-government sponsored Juntas de Acción Comunal, for instance, as being started to helping to serve up national sovereignty to American capital rather than helping develop new business relationships for the export of legal agricultural goods and other commodities. This is, after all, what the FARC’s help facilitate – though of illicit materials.

Organized along military lines, the FARC uses military tactics to gain recruits and expands it’s operation not though a greater division of labor but by geographical expansion. More illicit farms mean more money and arms for their operation. Because of this it highly ironic – Orwellian Irony even – that Brittain describes this dual-power organization as the target of “fascist” attacks when the actual government seeks to halt their recruitment efforts on college campuses in Colombia – something that Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia describes. This Manichean worldview means government-sponsored informer networks are, to Brittain, quadi-totalitarian while the FARC’s are expression of “organic” identification with the organization – even after describing punishments for breaking the FARC’s laws.

FARC, Social Change & Kultural Marxism

The author, giving a first person account of the

“Upon visiting areas controlled by the FARC-EP I observed educational facilities in both public spaces and guerrilla camps that loosely resembled small makeshift schoolhouses. The encampment schools were plastered with pictures of Che Guevara and past comandantes of the FARC-EP, and were referred to as “cultural centers.” They were heavily used and resembled a jungle-like revolutionary museum; filled with pamphlets, books, music, and information related to Marxism, Colombia’s political economy, and Latin American society.”

Venezuela, TeleSUR & Kultural Marxism

Well not discussed within the book it’s interesting to note that Hugo Chavez, the former president of TeleSUR, has long cited the FARC-EP as a historical and ideological inspiration.

No surprise then that the entrance to TeleSUR’s offices in Quito, Ecuador is akin to the cultural centers described by the James J. Brittain – filled with the portrait art of Latin America’s many revolutionaries.

The relationship between Sergio Marin, the head of the propaganda office for the FARC, however, would certainly approve of their operations. They, like Nicolas Maduro Moros, use Gramsci as a framework to inform their model of social and political change.

Though describing a Colombian context, the connection to The Resistance in America (as conceived by those connected to the Left Forum) is obviously apparent.

Thus, despite the books many weaknesses, it is an important work for those trying to understand the perspective of the FARC and their allies in Venezuela, Ecuador and elsewhere.

Presentation on Colombia by James J Brittain

English Translation of “Local y Global: La gestión de las ciudades en la era de la información”

LOCAL AND GLOBAL:
THE MANAGEMENT OF CITIES IN THE ERA OF THE INFORMATION

from The Multicultural City

Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells

Our world is ethnically and culturally diverse and cities concentrate and express this diversity. Faced with the homogeneity affirmed and imposed by the State throughout history, most civil societies have historically constituted from a multiplicity of ethnicities and cultures that have generally resisted bureaucratic pressures towards normalization cultural and ethnic cleansing. Even in societies such as the Japanese or the Spanish, ethnically very homogeneous, regional cultural differences (or nationals, in the Spanish case), territorially marked traditions and forms of specific lives, are reflected in diverse behavior patterns and, sometimes, in intercultural tensions and conflicts (1). The management of these tensions, the construction of coexistence in respecting differences, are some of the most important challenges that all societies have had and now face. The concentrated expression of that cultural diversity, with it’s resulting tensions and the wealth of possibilities that diversity also contains preferably in cities, receptacle and melting pot of cultures, are combined via the construction of a common citizen project.

In the last years of the twentieth century, the globalization of the economy and acceleration of the urbanization process have increased the ethnic and cultural plurality of cities, through migration processes, national to international, that lead to the interpenetration of disparate populations and ways of life in the space of the main metropolitan areas of the world. The global is local, in a socially segmented and spatially segregated way, by human displacement caused by the destruction of old ways and the creation of new productive activity centers. The territorial differentiation of the two processes, that of creation and destruction, increases the uneven development between regions and between countries, and introduces a diversity growing in the urban social structure. In this article, we will analyze the process of formation of ethnic-cultural diversity in its new manifestations and the consequences of such diversity for the management of cities.

Globalization, migration and urbanization

The acceleration of the urbanization process in the world is largely due to the increase in rural-urban migrations, frequently due to the expulsion of labor from agriculture due to sectoral modernization, is also the consequence of the processes of industrialization and of growth of the informal economy in the metropolitan areas of the countries undergoing development (2). Although statistics vary by country, estimates offended for a number of developing countries indicate that, on average, while in 1960-70, the contribution of rural-urban emigration turban growth was 36.6%, in 1975-90, it increased to 40% of the new urban population. The contribution to metropolitan growth, in both cases, was even greater (3). In almost all countries, the incorporation into the cities of emigrants from rural areas significantly accentuates cultural diversity and, in ethnically diverse countries, such as the United States or Brazil, ethnic diversity.

Africa

Globalization has also caused significant population displacements between countries, although international migration presents a pattern complex that does not follow stereotyped visions of public opinion. So, almost half of the 80 million internationals around the world are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East (4). About 35 million migrants are in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 8% of their total population. These migratory movements in Africa are of two types: on the one hand, migrations of workers, aimed at the countries of greatest economic dynamism, particularly to South Africa, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Nigeria. On the other hand, large displacements of hunger refugees, the war and genocide, in the Sahel, in the horn of Africa, in Mozambique, in Rwanda and Burundi, among other areas: in 1987 alone they were estimated at 12.6 million people displaced by wars or catastrophes in Africa (5). In Asia, Malaysia is the country with the highest immigration, with almost one million foreign workers, generally from Indonesia. Japan counts also with close to a million foreigners and several thousand illegal workers whose number is increasing rapidly, although the most foreigners are Koreans living in Japan for several generations. Singapore has about 300,000 immigrants, which represents high proportion of its population, and Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, with Quotas below 100,000 each. However, to the extent that that the development of these countries be accentuated and the demographic pressure increase in China, India and Indonesia, an increase in migration is expected international, in addition to the increase in rural-urban migration throughout Asia. Thus, Japan in 1975 had an annual immigration of about 10,000 foreigners, while in 1990, that figure had increased to about 170,000 per year, mostly from Korea (6).

Latin America
Latin America, land of immigration during the twentieth century, has become a place of emigration. During the 1950-64 period the region as a whole had a net balance of migrations of + 1.8 million people, while in 1976-85, the balance was negative: – 1.6 million. The most significant changes were the drastic reduction of immigration in Argentina and the sharp increase of emigration in Mexico and Central America, particularly to the United States. Latin American immigration movements at the end of the century come generally from other Latin American countries. Thus, in Uruguay in 1991, of total of resident foreigners, 40% were from Argentina, 29% from Brazil and the11% of Chile. The highest proportion of foreign population occurs in Venezuela (7.2%), followed by Argentina (6.8%).

In more developed countries, in Western Europe and in the United States, there is a feeling among the population of an unprecedented arrival of immigrants in the last decade, of an authentic invasion in the terminology of some media outlets. However, the data shows a reality different, variable according to countries and historical moments (7).

Uneven development worldwide, economic and cultural globalization, and transport systems favor an intense transfer of populations. Then add the exoduses caused by wars and catastrophes, as well as, in Europe, the pressure of populations of the countries of the East that now enjoy freedom of traveling while suffering the impact of the economic crisis. But the immigration controls, strengthening borders between the countries of “them” and the rest of the world, the reduced creation of jobs in European leads to growing xenophobia in all societies. They represent obstacles formidable for population transfer that could result from trends alluded to. Let’s see, then, what is the real profile of recent migrations from the South and East to North and West.

U.S
In the United States, a society formed by successive waves of immigration, has effectively produced a significant increase in immigrants in absolute numbers since the immigration law reform in 1965, authorizing immigration by family reunification. But still, the current immigration levels are well behind the historical point reached between 1905 and 1914 (year when 1.2 million immigrants arrived in the United States). Moreover, in terms of proportion of the population, in 1914 those 1.2 million were equivalent to 1.5% of the population, while the total of 1992 immigrants represented only 0.3% of the population. Now what has changed substantially is the ethnic composition of immigration, which instead of coming from Europe and Canada, it now comes, for the most part, from Mexico, the Caribbean and other Latin American countries and Asia.

A similar phenomenon has taken place in the other two countries that are characterized, together with the United States, for having the highest proportion of foreign immigrants in its population, Canada and Australia. In Canada, in1992, more than 40% came from Asia, in particular from Hong Kong, and only a2.8% of the United Kingdom. Vancouver, the third largest Canadian city, has been transformed in the last decade by the arrival of 110,000 Chinese from Hong Kong, raising the proportion of Chinese population to 27% of residents of the city. Incidentally, such immigration has meant an influx of $4,000,000 per year in the local economy. As for Australia, in the 1990s, 21% of the population was born abroad and 40% have at least one parent was born abroad. Of the new immigrants arrived in Australia in1992, 51% came from Asia.

Europe
Western Europe presents a diversified picture in terms of migration movements. Using the percentage of population as an indicator foreign resident over the total population and observing its evolution between 1950 and 1990, we can verify, for example, that France and England had smaller proportion of the foreign population in 1990 than in 1982, while that Belgium and Spain had hardly varied (from 9.0 to 9.1%, and from 1.1 to 1.1%). Except the anomalous case of Luxembourg, the only European country whose foreign population exceeds 10% is Switzerland – also a special case because of the high degree of internationalization of its economy. And the average for the total of the European population is only 4.5% of foreigners. Increases significant during the eighties were mainly in Germany, Austria, Holland and Sweden, mainly due to the influence of Eastern European refugees. But also this influence seems to be much more limited from what Western European countries feared. So, for example, a European Commission report in 1991 estimated that 25 million citizens of Russia and the Soviet republics could emigrate to Western Europe before the year 2000. And yet, in the mid-1990s, it estimates that Russian emigration oscillates around 200,000 people per year, despite the horrific economic crisis that Russia is experiencing. The reason, for those they know the mechanisms of emigration, its simple: emigrants move through previously established contact networks. That’s why it’s the colonial metropolis that receives waves of immigrants from their former colonies (France and the Maghreb); or countries that deliberately recruited handoff cheap work in selected countries (Germany in Turkey and Yugoslavia) that continue to be the destination of emigrants from those countries. Instead, the Russians and ex-Soviets, having been banned from traveling for seven decades, lack support networks in emigration countries, with the exception of Jewish minority – which is precisely the one that emigrates. So, leaving family and country and launching into a hostile world without a support network is something that is only decided on a massive scale when a catastrophe forces it (famine, war, Nazism).

Now, if the data indicate that immigration in Western Europe does not reaches proportions as massive as those perceived in public opinion, why then that feeling? And why the social alarm? What really is happening is the increasing transformation of the ethnic composition of European societies, from imported immigrants during the period of high economic growth in the sixties. Indeed, the rates of fertility of foreigners are far higher than those of their European countries of residence (except, significantly, in Luxembourg and Switzerland, where the most foreigners are of European origin). For demographic reasons the fertility differential will continue to increase over time. This is the true source of social tension: the growing ethnic diversity of a Europe that has not yet assumed such diversity and is still talking about immigrants when, more and more, they are actually nationals of non-European ethnic origin. The population increase in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1990 was only 1% for whites, while it was 23% for ethnic minorities. Even so, whites are 51,847 million, while minorities only represent 2,614 million. But there exists a clear awareness of the inevitable process of setting up a society with important ethnic minorities, like the American model. Something similar happens in other European countries. Two thirds of foreigners from France and three quarters of those from Germany and Holland are of non-European origin. To this we must add, in the case of France, the growing proportion of population of non-European origin born in France that have the right to nationality upon reaching 18 years. It can also happen, as is the case in Germany, that the law denies the right to nationality to those born in the national territory of foreign parents, a situation in which hundreds of thousands of young Turks find themselves They never knew a land other than Germany. But the cost of such defense of notions of native nationality is the creation of a permanent caste of not-citizens, which can be used an infernal mechanism of social hostility. An additional factor is important in the perception of an ethnic diversity that goes far beyond the direct impact of immigration: the spatial concentration space of ethnic minorities in cities, particularly in large cities and in specific neighborhoods of large cities, where they reach constitute even the majority of the population. The spatial segregation of the city based on ethnic and cultural characteristics of the population, is not inheritance of a discriminatory past, but a feature of increasing importance, characteristic of our societies: the era of global information is also that of local segregation.

Ethnic diversity, social discrimination and urban segregation
In all societies, ethnic minorities suffer economic, institutional and cultural discrimination, which usually results in segregation in the city space. Income inequality and discriminatory practices in the housing market leads to the disproportionate concentration of ethnic minorities in certain urban areas within metropolitan areas. On the other hand, defensive reaction and cultural specificity reinforce the spatial segregation pattern, to the extent that each group ethnic tends to use its concentration in neighborhoods as a form of protection, mutual help and affirmation of its specificity. There is thus a double process of urban segregation: on the one hand, of ethnic minorities with respect to the group dominant ethnic; on the other hand, of the different ethnic minorities among them. Naturally, this spatial differentiation must be understood in terms statistical and symbolic, that is, as a disproportionate concentration of certain ethnic groups in certain spaces, rather than as residence exclusive to each group in each neighborhood. Even in borderline situations of urban racial segregation, as was the apartheid regime in South Africa, we can observe a strong socio-spatial differentiation, in terms of class, to from the moment the mandatory segregation is dismantled Institutionally imposed.

The best known and most studied urban ethnic segregation model is that of the American cities, which persists throughout the history of the United States and that has been reinforced in the last two decades, with the location of new immigrants in their corresponding segregated minority ethnic spaces, constituting true ethnic enclaves in the main areas metropolitan and thus denying in historical practice the famous myth of melting pot that is only applicable (and with limitations) to the populations of European origin (8). For example, in Los Angeles County, 70 of the 78 existing municipalities in 1970 had less than 10% of residents belonging to ethnic minorities. In contrast, in 1990 the 88 municipalities that by then made up the county had more than 10% ethnic minorities, but 42 municipalities had more than 50% ethnic minorities in their population (9).

Spatial concentration
The complete study by Massey and Denton (1993) on racial segregation urban in North American cities shows high levels of segregation between blacks and whites in all the big cities. Out of an index of absolute segregation of 100, the average is 68.3, which rises to an average of 80.1 for the northern metropolitan areas. The three main areas are they are also among the most segregated: New York, with an index of 82; Los Angeles, with 81.1; and Chicago with 87.8. Also the insulation index of blacks, which measures the interaction between blacks and other black groups (100 being the level of absolute isolation) reflects high values, with an average of 63.5, which rises to 66.1 in the northern areas and arrives to register in Chicago a 82.8 index.

The spatial concentration of disadvantaged ethnic minorities leads to creating true black holes of the urban social structure, which mutually reinforces poverty, deterioration of housing and services urban, low occupancy levels, lack of professional opportunities and criminality. In his study on segregation and crime in urban America, Massey (1995) concludes that the coincidence of high levels of poverty among blacks and high spatial segregation rates create ecological niches in that there are high rates of crime, violence and risk of being a victim of such crimes… Unless there is a movement towards desegregation, the cycle of violence will continue; however, the perpetuation of violence paradoxically it makes desegregation more difficult because it makes it beneficial for whites to have isolation from blacks. Specifically, by isolating blacks in segregated neighborhoods, the rest of society is isolated in relation to the crime and others social problems resulting from the high poverty rate among blacks. So in the 90s have declined, in general terms, crime rates in the North American main cities. Between 1980 and 1992, the proportion of number of American households that have suffered some form of crime has reduced by more than a third, but at the same time, the probability for Blacks of being victims of a crime have increased extraordinarily. Black teenagers are nine times more likely than boy’s targets of being killed: in 1960 they died violently 45 / 100,000, while that in 1990 the rate had gone to 140 / 100,000. In his study on the relationship between segregation of blacks and homicide of blacks in 125 cities, Peterson and Kirov found that spatial segregation between whites and blacks was the statistically most explanatory factor of the homicide rate of all the variables analyzed, much more important than poverty, education or age (10). Whoever is nearby is killed, and when a society, breaking with its liberal traditions and with its laws of racial integration, adopts the attitude cynical of locking up their impoverished racial minorities in more and more deteriorated ghettos, it exacerbates the violence in these areas. But from that moment the ethnic majority is doomed to live entrenched under the protection of the police and must allocate a large budget to police and prisons instead of education, as is the case in the state of California.

Racism and segregation:
While racism and urban segregation exist in all societies, not always are their profiles as marked nor their consequences as violent as those that occur in American cities. Likewise, Brazil is a multiracial society, in which blacks and mulattos occupy the lowest levels of the social scale (11). But, although ethnic minorities are also spatially segregated, both between the regions of the country and within the areas metropolitan, the dissimilarity index, which measures urban segregation, is far inferior to that of the North American metropolitan areas. Thus though economic inequality is influenced by ethnicity, institutional and social barriers and prejudices are much less entrenched than in U.S. Thus, two societies with an equally slave-like past evolved towards different patterns of spatial segregation and racial discrimination, based on cultural, institutional and economic factors that they favored the mixing of races and social integration in Brazil and made it difficult in the United States: a comparison that invites analysis of historical variation of a human nature that is not immutable.

Now, what seems to be established is the tendency to segregate ethnic minorities in all cities and in particular in the cities of the world more developed. Thus, as European societies receive new groups of immigrants and see their ethnic minorities grow from groups established in the last three decades, the segregation pattern is accentuated urban ethnicity. In the United Kingdom, although London only accounts for 4.7% of the population, it’d concentrated with 42% of the ethnic minorities population. These minorities, particularly concentrated in some districts, are characterized by a lower level of education, higher unemployment rate and an economic activity rate of only 58% compared to 80% of whites (12). At London’s Wands worth district, with about 260,000 inhabitants, about 150 different languages are spoken. To that ethnic-cultural diversity is joined by the doubtful privilege of being one of the English districts with the highest rate of social deficiencies. In Goteborg (Sweden), 16% of the population is of foreign origin and its residence is concentrated in the northeast of the city and on the island of Hisingen Zurich, which has seen its population of foreigners increase (especially Turks and Yugoslavs) from 18% in 1980 to 25% in 1990, 44% of this population is concentrated in the industrial areas of the urban periphery. In Holland, the foreigners are only 5% of the total population, but in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht said proportion ranges between 15% and 20%, while in the old neighborhoods of these cities it goes up to 50%. In Belgium the proportion of foreigners is 9%, but in the city of Anderlecht reaches 26% and in the neighborhood of La Rose, the most deteriorated, foreigners they represent 76% of its 2,300 inhabitants (13). In sum, European cities they are following, to a large extent, the urban segregation path of ethnic minorities characteristic of American metropolises, although the spatial form of urban segregation is more diverse in Europe. While the French banliues configure peripheral metropolitan ghettos, Central European and British people tend to concentrate minorities in the city center, in a space model similar to the North American, which can contribute to the decline of urban centers if the living conditions of ethnic minorities in Europe. Moreover, the importance of gangs and the flourishing of criminal activities is less accentuated in Europe than in North America. But if the tendencies of social exclusion continue to worsen, it seems reasonable to assume that situations similar will lead to similar consequences, except for the cultural and institutional differences. The multicultural city is a city enriched by its diversity, as Daniel Cohn Bandit pointed out in his introductory intervention to the Frankfurt Colloquium sponsored by the Council of Europe on multiculturalism in the city (14). But, as it also remained manifest in this colloquium, the segregated city is the city of rupture of social solidarity and, eventually, of the empire of urban violence.

Floating populations in cities:
The variable geometry of the new world economy and the intensification of migratory phenomenon, both rural-urban and international, have generated a new category of population, between rural, urban and metropolitan: population floating that moves with economic flows and according to the permissiveness of institutions, in search of their survival, with temporalities and spatial variables, depending on the countries and circumstances.

Although by its very nature the phenomenon is difficult to measure, more and more current extensive research provides data on its importance and on the consequences it has for the operation and management of cities (15). Perhaps the society in which the floating population reaches largest dimensions is China during the last decade. For a long time, the control of population movements regulated in 1958 in which each citizen Chinese was registered as a member of a hook (household) and classified on the base of said residence. Under said regulation a change of rural residence to urban was extremely difficult. The trips required prior permission and the rationing system forced one to present in stores or restaurants coupons assigned to the place of residence and work. Thus, the hook system was effective method of controlling space mobility and reducing rural-urban migration (16). However, with China’s economic liberalization during the eighties immobility became dysfunctional for the allocation of resources humans according to a dynamic partially governed by market laws. Furthermore, the privatization and modernization of agriculture increased productivity and then expelled tens of millions of peasants from the land who turned out to be surplus labor (17). Unable to meet the needs of this economically displaced rural population, the Chinese government chose to raise restrictions on population movements and / or apply them less strictly, according to the regions and the moments of the political situation. The result was the generation of massive rural-urban migrations in the last decade, especially towards the big cities and towards the industrial centers and South China exporters. But those cities and regions, despite their extraordinary economic dynamism (in fact, the centers with the highest rate of economic growth of the world in the last decade) could not absorb stable workers by the millions, nor provide them with urban housing and services, so many urban immigrants lived without a fixed residence or in the rural periphery of the metropolis, while many others adapted a pattern of seasonal migrations, coming and going between their villages of origin and metropolitan centers (18). So Guangzhou (Canton), a city of about six million inhabitants, accounted in 1992 a total of 1.34 million temporary residents to which 260,000 were added daily. In the whole of Guangdong province they were estimated at minus 6 million the number of temporary migrants. In Shanghai, at the end of the 80s, they had 1.83 million floating, while in 1993, after development from the industrial district of Pudding, it was estimated that one million more were floating. They had arrived in Shanghai in that year. The only reliable migration survey of the last decade, carried out in 1986, estimated that on that date 3.6% of the population of the 74 cities surveyed were temporary residents. Other National estimate, evaluates the number of floats in 1988, between 50 and 70 millions of people. What seems undoubted is that the phenomenon has increased Beijing Central Railway Station, built for 50,000 daily passengers, go through it currently between 170,000 and 250,000,according to the periods. The Beijing municipal government estimates that each increase of 100,000 daily visitors to the city consume 50,000 kilos of grain, 50,000 kilos of vegetables, 100,000 kilowatts of electricity, 24,000 liters of water and uses 730 public buses. This number of visitors causes 100,000 kilos of garbage and generates 2,300 kilos of sewage waste. The living conditions of this floating population are much lower than those of the permanent population (19) and are, at the same time, easy prey for crime and shelter for criminals, which increases prejudices against them among the population resident. Although smaller than in China, the phenomenon of a floating population is characteristic of most of the developing world and particularly from Asia (20). So in Bangkok, of the emigrants arrived in the city between 1975 and 1985, 25% had already lived in three different cities and 77% of the respondents did not plan to stay in Bangkok for more than a year, while that only 12% of migrants had registered regularly in their Bangkok residence, indicating an existence on horseback between its areas of origin and the different urban labor markets. In Java, the World Bank estimated that in 1984 25% of rural households had at least one member of the family working in an urban center for part of the year, which it was equivalent to 50% of the urban active population. Similar trends have been observed in the Philippines and Malaysia (21). The extent of the phenomenon, and its diffusion in other areas of the world, it makes the distinction between rural more and more inoperative and urban, to the extent that what is truly significant is the plot of relations that are established between the dynamism of the big cities and the population flows that are located at different times at different times and with different intensities, according to the rhythms of articulation between global and local economy.

In the cities of developed countries there is also an increase in floating population of a different type. So, Guido Marinetti, in an interesting study (22) has insisted on the importance of visitor populations that use the city and its services without residing in it. Not only coming from others localities of the metropolitan area, but of other regions and other countries. Tourists, business travelers and urban consumers form on a given day in the main European cities, (but also North American and South American) a considerable proportion of urban users who, however, do not appear in the statistics nor are they accounted for in the tax base and institutional of urban services that, however, they use intensively. There are three main problems caused by floating populations in urban management. In the first place, its existence provokes a pressure on the urban services greater than the city can assume, unless received special assistance from the higher levels of administration, in line with its real population and the effective use made of its infrastructure. In second, the lack of adequate statistical accounting of said population floating, as well as the irregularity of its movements, prevent a planning adequate urban services. Third, a distortion is created between people present in the city, and citizens capable of causing various problems and the city government. This is negative for the floaters, devoid of rights and, sometimes, outlawed, as for residents who they see broken the solidarity of the citizenship by the existence of differences of status legal and community belonging within the real population of the city. Thus the development of floating populations, directly related to the globalization of economic and communication flows, constitutes a new urban reality for which cities still have no answer.

Multiculturalism and urban social crisis:
In May 1991 there was a meeting in Frankfurt, under the auspices of the Council of Europe. Representatives of different European municipal governments converged to deal with the municipal policies for the multicultural integration of Europe. In the statement published at the end of that meeting (23) it was found that the European countries, as a result of decades of immigration and emigration, had twisted, multicultural societies. Also, to the extent that immigrants and the resulting ethnic minorities concentrated on large cities, immigration treatment policies and respect for multiculturalism constituted an essential component of the new municipal policies. They concluded by stating that only a genuinely democratic Europe was able to carry out a policy of multiculturalism that can make stability a factor in the world and can effectively combat economic imbalances between north and south, east and west, which lead to disorderly emigration (p.167). A similar finding can be made in American society and in relation to the world in general. And yet xenophobic reactions in all countries and the increase in racism and religious fanaticism around the world does not seem to augur an easy treatment of the new urban reality. Immigrants and ethnic minorities appear as scapegoats for economic crises and social uncertainties, according to an old, historically established reflex, regularly exploited by irresponsible political demagogues. Even so, the stubborn new reality of interdependent global economy, socio-economic imbalances and there production of ethnic minorities already residing in more developed countries they make multiculturalism and multiethnicity inevitable almost everywhere in the world. Even Japan, one of the most culturally homogeneous societies in the world, is experiencing a rapid increase in its foreign population, while the growth of the Yoba (casual workers without employment or fixed residence) and its temporary spatial location in ghettos urban, like Amagasaki in Osaka. There are those who think, including authors of this book, that multiculturalism and multiculturalism are sources of economic and cultural wealth for urban societies (24). But even who are alarmed by the disappearance of social homogeneity and social tensions that this causes must accept the new reality: our societies, in all latitudes, are and will be multicultural, and cities (and especially large cities) concentrate the highest level of diversity. Learn to live in that situation, know how to manage cultural exchange to starting from the ethnic difference and remedying the inequalities arising from the discrimination are essential dimensions of the new local policy in the conditions arising from the new global interdependence.

(1). Carlos Alonso Saldivar and Manuel Castells (1992) “Spain, End of the century”, Madrid: Editorial Alliance 1992.
(2). G. Papadimitriou and P. Martín (ends) (1991) “The Unsettled Relationship: Labor Migration and Economic Development “, Westport: Greenwood Press.
UNDIESA (United Nations Department for International Economic and Social
Affairs) (1991) “World Urbanization Prospects: Estimates and Projections or urban and rural populations and of urban agglomerations “, New York: United Nations.
John Kasarda and Allan Parnell (eds) (1993) “Third World Cities: Problems, Policies and Prospects “, London: Sage Publications.
(3). Findley, 1993. In Kasarda and Parnell, op. cit.
(4). Duncan Campbell “Foreign investment, labor immobility and the quality of employment “, International Labor Review, 2, 1994.
(5). Sharon Stanton Rusell and others “International Migration and Development in Subsaharan Africa “, World Bank Discussion Papers 101-102, Washington DC: World Bank, 1990.
(6) Peter Stalker (1994) “The work of strangers. A survey of international labormigration “, Geneva: International Labor Office.
(7). Peter Stalker, op. cit.
(8). Ed Blakely and William Goldsmith (1992) “Separate societies”, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
(9). Robert Bullard, Eugene Gribsby and Charles Lee (1994) “Residential apartheid: the American Legacy “, Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Afro-American Studies ..
(10) Ruth Peterson and Lauren Kirov (1993) “Racial Segregation and black urban
homicide “, in” Social Forces “, 71. (eleven). Neuma Aguiar “Rio de Janeiro plural: um guide for social policies by genro e raça “, Rio de Janeiro: IUPERJ, 1994.
(12). Trevor Jones (1993) “Britain’s Ethnic Minorities”, London: Policy Studies
Institute
(13). Council of Europe (1993) “Europe 1990-2000: Multiculturalism in the city, the integration of immigrants “Strasbourg, Studies and Texts, n 25, Council of
Europe, 1993.
(14.) Council of Europe, op. cit.
(15.) Sidney Goldstein (1993), in Kasarda and Parnell, op. cit. Linda Wong (1994) “China’s urban migranst-the public policy challenge”, in”Pacific Affairs”, v. 67. n3, autumn.
(16). Cute Wong, op. cit.
(17). Richard Kirkby (1985) “Urbanization in China”, London: Oxford University Press
(18). Lincoln Day and Ma Xia (eds,) “Migration and Urbanization in China”, Armonk, New York: ME Sharpe, 1994.
(19). Sidney Goldstein (1993), in Kasarda and Parnell, op. cit. (twenty). Lincoln Day and Ma Xia, op. cit. (twenty-one). Corner, 1994.
(22). Marinetti, G. “Metropoli. La nuova morfologia sociale della citt”. Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993.
(23) Council of Europe, op. cit.
(24). Aleksandra Alund and Carl-Ulrik Schierup (1991) “Paradoxes of multiculturalism “, Aldershot: Avebury.

Review of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century

One of the suggested texts for my Geopolitics of Innovation class at UPB was Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21^stCentury. I found it to be a very valuable book in simply describing how it is that the world economy has changed over the past 30 years as a result of digital communications hardware and software. These technologies along with a number of changes in legislation that facilitated increased the ability of US companies to invest and develop workforces in foreign have radically altered the way in which globalization has manifested itself. The flatness to which Friedman refers has, of course, nothing to do with the peculiar Flat Earth movement but with the lowering of barriers that previously prevented innovative collaborations occurring across borders. Friedman intersperses his own analysis with that of a number of subject area experts within the business, academic and governmental sphere to support his “brief history”.

The book uses two dates 11/9, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and 9/11, the date of the hijacked plane attacks on America that launched the War on Terror as bookends by which to frame the flattening of the world and, in the final chapter, as examples of potential directions that the new global economy can head. Either there will be increased openness, collaboration, innovation and free trade or there will be a closure of borders, ideas and exchange of goods, services and capital such that the pace of the economy slows and growth shrinks.

Friedman sees this responsibility to adapt to new conditions as being primarily borne by the individual and their family, with the government facilitating to a limited extent the development of new skill sets and abilities. While not blind that a number of people can get left behind in such situations, as a technological determinist and a student of history he states that there is little that can be done other than adapt – personally, culturally, and economically – to the “flattening of the world”.

The ten historic flatteners Friedman cites are as follows:

#1: 11/9/89, When the Walls Came Down and Windows Hit the Tornado
#2: 8/9/95, When Netscape Went Public
#3: Work Flow Software
#4: Open-Sourcing & Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities
#5: Outsourcing & Y2K
#6: Offshoring
#7: Supply-Chaining
#8: Insourcing
#9: In-forming
#10: The Steroids, Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual”

Each of the ten flatteners show how it was that information and communications technologies radically altered the business landscape in ways that goes far beyond railroads and electrification. While embracing technological determinism, Friedman shows through a number of examples that the sort of retail economic reforms needed to exploit these flatteners are insufficient as indicators unless connected to wider changes in social norms. I found the comparative analysis of different countries business environments and cultural norms to be especially informative. Put simply, societies must rapidly adapt to these new environments or they will rapidly see their GDPs start to slow, stop or decline. Because of this the capacity to learn – be it via market vigilance, improvement of customer relations and business processes, etc. – is the most important quality to be able to demonstrate in the workplace.

With the caveat that the book is not intended to be included within the general rubric of business strategy literature, Friedman also shares a number of the insights he’s gained from analyzing the flatting of competition. I won’t include them all, but Friedman’s analysis on the rules seeks to allay fears that all is lost for the average American worker.

“Rule #6: The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists-not to save money by firing more people.”

These rules and their analysis show how globalization – done ideally – leads to a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom. While citing a number of examples within business history that provides the rationales for these new rules to this effect, the book did leave me wanting for a more detailed analysis of the American economy. While increased economic exchanges between the BRIC countries and the US certainly have a number of positives, I think to better make this case as more comprehensive overview of globalizations impact is necessary. While certainly allowing higher-skilled workers and the companies that employ them to do more for their money – there are a number of social and economic ills connected the transition away from an economy with large portions of the work force in manufacturing to those engaged in the service economy that Friedman doesn’t cover.

One of the sections that I found rather interesting given my academic background and that I participated in several anti-globalization demonstrations – such as the FTAA protests in Miami– is a brief engagement with the writings of of Karl Marx. It’s happens via a professor interlocutor that praised his thought as reflective of the realities of capitalism. I cite these passage below at length in order to close the review with a reflection.

I bring this up as Friedman describes class conflict without calling it such and as it relates to the crux of the book’s unspoken argument – “globalization is good for everyone”. While certainly not as naïve as the political pronouncements made by Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man, there is a growing body of critical voices from the right on shareholder value being the goal of businesses as opposed to stakeholder value. Many contemporary political commentators have mentioned this, with some citing it as one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected. While I think that Friedman’s optimism is for the most part deserved, I also feel that the destabilizing effects of it make the work at certain points hallucinatory in its choices of coverage.

For example, Friedman cites the antiglobalization movement, which emerged in 1999 at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, to highlight this conflict. According to Friedman:

“From its origins, the movement that emerged in Seattle was a primarily Western-driven phenomenon, which was why you saw so few people of color in the crowds. It was driven by five disparate forces.

One was upper-middle-class American liberal guilt at the incredible wealth and power that America had amassed in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dot-com boom. At the peak of the stock market boom, lots of pampered American college kids, wearing their branded clothing, began to get interested in sweatshops as a way of expiating their guilt.

The second force driving it was a rear-guard push by the Old Left-socialists, anarchists, and Trotskyites-in alliance with protectionist trade unions.

The third force was a more amorphous group. It was made up of many people who gave passive support to the antiglobalization movement from many countries, because they saw in it some kind of protest against the speed at which the old world was disappearing and becoming flat.

The fourth force driving the movement, which was particularly strong in Europe and in the Islamic world, was anti-Americanism. The disparity between American economic and political power and everybody else’s had grown so wide after the fall of the Soviet Empire that America began to-or was perceived to-touch people’s lives around the planet, directly or indirectly, more than their own governments did.

Finally, the fifth force in this movement was a coalition of very serious, well-meaning, and constructive groups-from environmentalists to trade activists to NGOs concerned with governance-who became part of the populist antiglobalization movement in the 1990s in the hopes that they could catalyze a global discussion about how we globalize. I had a lot of respect and sympathy for this latter group. But in the end, they got drowned out by the whether-we-globalize crowd, which began to turn the movement more violent…”

While this aligns with my own readings and experience – a growing body of literature connects the business practices described in the book to the opioid epidemic, increased rates of depression, alcoholism and other nasty ills. Management of the economy and the workplace according to the new rules of globalization have certainly allowed corporations to extract more value and thereby be in a better position to compete globally, but with so many struggling to adapt and with the new social intelligence capacities created by information and communication technologies that there is a growing distrust and animosity to existent leadership such that populism is increasing – I think it’s worth examining not just “how we got here” but also “how can we make this work in a way that’s managed even better.”

Interview Data from “Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street”

Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street by Mark Bray is a first person account of the author’s experiences at the Zuccotti Park iteration Occupy Wall Street. In addition to description of events that he himself witnessed, he also includes selections from interviews he did with many of the people there.

Below is the List of OWS Organizers Interviewed

Aaron Black
Aaron Bornstein
Alexander Penley
Alexandre Carvalho
Amelia
Amelia Dunbar
Amin Husain
Amy
Andrew
Anthony!
Anthony Robledo
Ari Cowan
Ashley
Atiq Zabinski
Audrea Lim
Austin Guest
Axle
Bear Wisdom
Becky
Beka Economopoulos
Ben Reynoso
Beth Bogart
Betsy Catlin
Bill Dobbs
Bill Livsey
Bootz
Bre
Brendan Burke
Brett G.
Brittany Robinson
Camille Raneem
Cara
Cari Machet
Caroline Lewis
Cecily McMillan
Chris
Chris Longenecker
Christhian Diaz
Christine Crowther
Christopher Brown
CJ Holm
Colby Hopkins
Cory Thompson
Dana Balicki
Dave Haack
David Graeber
David Korn
Debra Thimmesch
Dennis Flores
Diego Ibañez
Doug Ferrari
Drew Hornbein
Dylan
Ed Mortimer
Edward Needham
Elizabeth Arce
Eric
Eric Carter
Ethan
Evan Wagner
Fanshen
Felix Riveria-Pitre
George Machado
Georgia
Goldi
Greg Horwitch
Guy Steward
Harrison ‘Tesoura’ Schultz,
Henry Harris (“Hambone”),
Ingrid Burrington
Isham Christie
Jack Boyle
Jackie Disalvo
Jake DeGroot
Jason Ahmadi
Jay
Jeff Smith
Jen Waller
Jerry Goralnick
Jez
Jillian Buckley
Jo Robin
Jonathan G.
Jonathan Smucker
José Martín (“Chepe”)
José Whelan
Josh Ehrenberg
Josh Lucy
Julien Harrison
Julieta Salgado
Justin Stone-Diaz
Justin Strekal
Justin Wedes
Justine Tunney
Kanene
Karanja Wa Gaçuça
Katie Davidson
Kira Annika
Kobi
Laura Durkay
Laura Gottesdiener
Lauren Digioia
Leina Bocar
Liesbeth Rapp
Linnea M. Palmer Paton
Lisa Fithian
Lorenzo Serna
Louis Jargow
Luke Richardson
Madeline Nelson
Malcolm Nokizaru
Malory Butler
Manissa Maharawal
Maria Porto “Sarge”
Mariano Muñoz-Elias
Marina Sitrin
Marisa Holmes
Mark Adams
Matt Presto
Max Berger
Megan Hayes
Michael Fix
Michael Levitin
Michael Premo
Mike Andrews
Moira Meltzer-Cohen
Moses
Nastaran Mohit
Negesti
Nelini Stamp
Nicholas “OWS Tea”
Nick Mirzoeff
Nicole Carty
Nina Mehta
Olivia
Pablo Benson
Pam Brown
Patricia González-Ramirez
Patrick Bruner
Pete Dutro
Priscilla Grim
Rami Shamir
Ravi Ahmad
Ray
Rebecca Manski
Richard Machado
Ronny Nuñez
Rose Bookbinder
Rowland Miller
S.
Sam Corbin
Sam Wood (“Captain”)
Sandra Nurse
Sara Zainab Bokhari
Sean McAlpin
Senia Barragan
Sergio Jimenez
Shane Gill
Shawn Carrié
Sofía Gallisa
Sonny Singh
Sparro Kennedy
Sparrow Ingersoll
Stacey Hessler
Stan
Stefan Fink
Stina Soderling
Sully Ross
Sumumba Sobukwe
Suzahn Ebrahimian
Tashy Endres
Terry
Tess Cohen
Thorin Caristo
Tim Fitzgerald
Timothy Eastman
Tom Hintze
Vanessa Zettler
Victoria Sobel
Will Gusakov
William Haywood Carey
William Jesse
William Scott
Winnie Wong
Winter
Yates McKee
Yoni Miller
Yotam Marom
Zak
Zak Soloman
Zoltán Glück
Zu Solanas

Notes on Implementing and Managing eGovernment: An International Text

I’ve been reading Richard Heek’s book Implementing and Managing eGovernment: An International Text as part of my doctoral thesis research and the book is, in a few words, foundational, seminal, required reading for anyone in the field of Innovation and Technology Management with a focus on eGovernment. I highly reccommend it.

Below are two organizational spreadsheets, followed by notes from the book.

Data Stakeholder Governance Considerations

Sample Item Costs for eGovernment Planning

Notes

There may be a focus on problem solving and innovation, and a focus on team-working and flexibility (Hafeez and Savani, 2003). The agencies may be characterized by what is known as a ‘task culture’.

This hybrid management model argues first for an analysis of current public sector realities; and second for an assessment of which management and e-government system designs will best fit this reality.

The sectors differ in many ways, including:

their espoused objectives (broader in the public sector);

their view of ‘customers’ (more holistic in the public sector);

their relation to ‘customers’ (mixed with roles as citizens and compliers in the public sector)

their accountabilities and perceived stakeholders (broader in the public sector)

their human and technological infra- structure (weaker in the public sector);

the politicization of their processes (greater in the public sector);

the scale and nature of competition (smaller and political in the public sector)

Where decentralized information systems, manual or computerized, are already in place, barriers to centralization may be severe. In order to centralize, changes may need to be made to the organization’s whole information systems architecture: new data fields and formats, new hardware and software, new processes by which to handle data, and new processes by which to make decisions and take actions.

Differences between the objectives and values (that is, the cultures) of particular groups in the public sector also cause a problem.

Centralized approaches require the commitment of four key resources – money, time, people, and skills – all in short supply in the public sector. For many public organizations, a centralized approach may not be possible because of financial constraints; because staff are too busy on other things; or because no-one has the confidence or capabilities to undertake the necessary planning and coordination tasks.

decentralized units develop different ways of working, different mindsets that create quite different views of the world between groups; different jargon used in communication; and different issues and people that are valued.

aspects of system use such as implementation, operation, troubleshooting and maintenance are also likely to occur more quickly under a decentralized regime.

Training, maintenance and administration costs also contribute. Large, centralized computing systems are estimated to cost something like one-third to one-half of this amount per user per year (CBR, 2001).

A decentralized approach may be most economic for public organizations, because it saves on overt input costs. A centralized approach may be most efficient, because it avoids waste and duplication. But a successful hybrid approach may be most effective because it can simultaneously provide:

the control necessary to share key resources (including data), to avoid duplication, and to achieve economies of scale; and
the freedom necessary to meet user needs, and to overcome blocks to IT usage and system development.

US State Department, for example, successful progress on e-government has come from retaining computing and data management architecture under control of a central IT office, while decentralizing systems develop- ment responsibilities

Division is compatible with – indeed, is defined as – simultaneous centralization and decentralization. It can be seen in the possible division of responsibilities described for systems development. It can also be seen in the division of responsibilities between client and server computers.

That which we can call a managerial or information systems centralization, reflects Nolan’s (1979) well-known ‘stages of growth’. It shows the gradual increase in managerial attempts to control the information systems (which would include e-government systems) within an organization. Nolan’s model has been criticized for a lack of predictive power and a generality that fails to match individual organizational experience. However, its core sense of increasing managerial engagement with IT does appear sound.

A decentralized approach will also help to spread IT awareness and skills, and even some understanding of the informational aspect of e-government, in a way that other approaches might not. For some public agencies, it is the lack of just such awareness, skills and under- standing that represents a key barrier to effective use of IT in government.

there are tensions between the somewhat theoretical notions of organizational rationality, and the more real forces of politics in government. Hence, rational logic may play only a minor role in determining which approach is used.

For example, the approach adopted will be shaped by the organization’s technology (e.g. whether the computing architecture is already centralized or decentralized); staffing and skills (e.g. what skills are avail- able); management systems and structures (e.g. whether the main organization has a centralized or decentralized structure) and other resources (e.g. the availability of finance).

Stakeholder values will also play a role, such as their perceptions, their awareness of the costs and benefits of particular approaches, and their historical experi- ences. For instance, the recent experiences of staff with e-government systems create either a satisfaction that is inertial, or a dis- satisfaction that demands change.

buuuut it is organizational politics and its roots in the self-interest of particular stakeholders that will help determine what management approach to e-government is selected

Four familiar political constituencies (see Figure 2.2) can be identified, whose conflict or compromise within organizations helps to determine which approach is chosen: senior managers, politicians, IT staff, and mainstream staff.

Broader political, pressures from the outside world – ranging from national political initiatives to dominant ideologies/philosophies – also play their part. Staff in public sector organizations are subject to continuous external pressures, that include (Barrett and Greene, 2001; Abramson and Morin, 2003):

Pressure to conform to the requirements of external bodies, such as central government bodies and funding agencies. An e-government unit run by central government may, for example, be pushing a department to adopt certain centralized ‘best practices’: see, for example, Box 2.6.
Pressure through (mis)perception of what other organizations are doing, which may be transmitted through informal contacts, management texts and training programs, or dealings with consultancy organizations.
Pressure from private sector IT vendors to purchase particular technologies and systems.

Chapter 3

eGovernment Strategy

Centralized e-government strategic planning is a six-step process that, overall, asks: ‘Where
are we now?’, ‘Where do we want to get to?’, and ‘How do we get there from here?’

a successful strategy can develop senior management understanding that e-government systems are information systems not just IT, and build consensus and commitment to a strategic vision for e-government. It permits a fundamental review of the organization’s use of informa- tion and technology, leading to a comprehensive understanding of information systems requirements.

It also provides a detailed plan of action on e-government for the organization.

Problems of Federal eGovernment Expenditure in the US

The 2003 US federal budget identified ‘six chronic problems that limit results from Federal IT spending:

Agencies have automated existing outdated processes, instead of fixing underlying management problems or simplifying agency procedures to take advantage of new e-business and e-government capabilities.
Agencies have made unnecessarily duplicative IT investments.
Inadequate program management – many major IT projects have not met cost,
schedule and performance goals.
Few agencies have had plans demonstrating the linkage between IT capabilities
and the business needs of the agency.
Agencies have built individual capabilities that are not interoperable with one
another. Few IT investments significantly improve mission performance.
Poor IT security – major gaps have existed in agency and Government-wide inforsmation and IT-related security.’

e 2003 Federal Enterprise Architecture: A ‘business-based framework for Government-wide improvement … constructed through a collection of interrelated ‘reference models’ designed to facilitate cross-agency analysis and the identification of duplicative investments, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration within and across federal agencies.’ (FEAPMO, 2003)

The Strategic Context for Federal Public Agency eGovernment Strategy in the US

The 2002 eGovernment Act

The 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act

The 2001 President’s Management Agenda

The 1998 Government Paperwork Elimination Act

The 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act

The 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act amendment:

The 1993 Government Performance Results Act:

Where are we now?

An answer would include details of the organization’s current structure and functions; key client groups; existing problems that need to be addressed; and important current and forth- coming factors – particularly policies and political priorities

Where do we want to get to?

An answer would include details of the organization’s objectives, and some vision of the future organization that will enable it to overcome current and forthcoming problems, and to achieve its objectives. Finally, it asks, ‘How do we get there?’ This would be achieved through a statement of management strategy about major changes to organizational structure and functions in order to reach its future vision.

two types of organizational function are derived from the organization’s wider business strategy and prioritized for further investigation:

Existing organizational functions that are to be retained in order to meet organizational objectives
New organizational functions that need to be introduced in order to meet organizational objectives.

This is the essence of ‘portfolio’ or ‘program’ management: using criteria to align projects with agency strategy.

Impact priorities, for example, might be:

highest savings/financial return on investment

highest public visibility/political return on investment

highest learning/demonstrator effect

strongest focus on existing organizational deficiencies

strongest support to key external client services (as opposed to internal administrative activities).

Implementation priorities, for example, might be:

lowest risk/highest feasibility

lowest cost to implement

fastest time for completion

eGovernment Systems Architecture needs three main components:

A data model showing the structure of unified, organization-wide data to which the e-government systems will have access; often illustrated using an entity-relationship diagram (this and the other diagrams mentioned here are described in greater detail in Chapter 8).
A process model showing the key activities of the organization that the e-government systems will either support or under- take; often illustrated using a process diagram.
A data/process model showing the organization-wide connection between business processes and data entities, and the organization-wide movement of data that e-government systems will enable; often illustrated using a data flow diagram.

Information engineering

This looks across the whole organization and focuses on two components:
business processes: the individual activities of the organization that help meet public sector objectives.

data classes: data entities of relevance to the organization that are made up from individual data elements (or attributes).

Data and process are principally connected, and therefore principally investigated, through the mechanism of decision making and action.

From this investigation, the entire organization is analyzed into two long lists of business processes and data entities. These are cross-checked through a process/data matrix that shows which processes create or use which data. The data entities and processes can then be grouped together into clusters of data and processes that represent required e-government systems within the organization.

Critical success factors
it starts by asking managers to specify the factors they consider to be critical for the successful performance of particular organizational functions

It is the intention that e-government strategy be shaped by organizational objectives and process/information requirements rather than by technology:

Determining eGovernment organizational architecture:

As part of the ITSPMO analysis, general strategic decisions may include:

making sure that it is the government rather than the company that steers e-government
stating the approach to management of organizational change, including a determination of the needs for cultural change
clearly allocating responsibilities for e-government systems development and management
identifying major competency gaps and approaches to closing them through human resource strategies
deciding how back-office procedures may be restructured to support e-government
locating the e-government/IT function within the wider organizational structure
demarcating which services (e.g. systems development, training and systems operation) are to be sourced in-house and outsourced
identifying procedures to be used when tendering for and selecting e-government systems products and services
specifying standard systems development methodologies and tools to be used
identifying financial approaches to be adopted, such as public–private partnerships.

Strategy Implementation

Disseminate and Plan eGovernment Actions

A typical business case for an e-government project might include a statement of project objectives; an estimation of benefits, risks and constraints; and an estimation of resource requirements covering finance, human resources (i.e. jobs and skills), technology, and timescales. Details of project deliverables (i.e. things the e-government projects should produce such as feasibility reports, specification documents, and both interim and final versions of the system) and timetables can be approved at this stage. So, too, can mechanisms for reporting back to the eGovernment Steering Group on progress.

for personnel training and development, for finance, for technology, etc. There may also be an additional dimension to the matrix – time – showing what is to occur and be paid for within particular financial years.

Many public organizations also find themselves in situations of constant and largely uncontrollable flux from factors such as changeover in ruling political parties; constant circulation of senior politicians and officials; emergence of new political initiatives and legislation that alter organizational activities, priorities and even structures; sudden imposition of cost- cutting measures; sudden external crises that demand a reaction; changes within the client groups the organizations serve; and changes in IT, IT standards and IT suppliers.

The Outcome of eGovernment Strategy

There are many ways for strategies to go wrong:

Lack of Strategy
Underused Strategy – The strategies give the impression of box-ticking – doing just enough to meet the demands of external policies and oversight agencies; and often doing that in a hurry – without true internal ownership of, or commitment to, the strategy.
When strategy has been hijacked
When strategy is ‘strategic concrete’

Focus on process, not content

The process of trying to create a strategy may be more valuable than the formal deliverables. Value is sought from the informal process deliverables such as: making sense of the past, learning from experience, encouraging dialogue and communication, and making choices

A hybrid approach to e-government planning will mean a balance between central and local. So, for instance, it could mean that e-government planning is seen as incremental, as participative, as limited in scope: guiding more than dictating. This approach is sometimes referred to as ‘pick- ing a course and steering it’: being adaptable to new constraints and new circumstances as they arise rather than imagining that the strategy is cast in ‘tablets of stone’.

Sub-Strategic eGovernment Planning

Given the many constraints to strategic plan- ning, it may be more feasible to plan at what might be termed the ‘sub-strategic’ level. This pares back what planning hopes to achieve until the intention matches what can be achieved in the organization.

Tactical-Plus eGovernment Planning

pushing the objectives of an individual e-government system ‘upstream’ to think how it contributes to the overall work of the organization;

assessing the opportunity costs of going ahead with this particular e-government system rather than others; and/or

assessing whether there should be com- patibilities between this and other exist- ing or planned systems.

Chapter 4 Managing Public Data

CARTA

Completeness

Accuracy
Relevance
Timeliness
Appropriate presentation

Prosumption – Where the consumers of public services themselves become producers of their own data often via web-based electronic forms.

What are the Positions to Consider when Managing?

Situation A: Departmental Location

Situation B: Low-Level Independence

Situation C: High-Level Independence

Situation D: Outsourcing

Outsourcing

An equal, if not greater drive to outsourcing is to address human resource constraints by accessing staff, skills and ideas that are not available in-house. Other perceived benefits of outsourcing include the provision of a higher quality of service; greater certainty about costs; greater flexibility, especially of labor since it is easier to hire and fire external staff; access to advanced technology; and greater ability to focus management on the core deliverables of the public sector

Cons

a clash of work cultures and understanding between the public sector client and the private sector sub-contractor;

a loss of control over the service being provided, with the sub-contractor starting to dictate to a dependent client;

a loss of core e-government competencies to the sub-contractor, such as controls over security.

However, in practice, decision making about outsourcing in the public sector has only partly been driven by organizational rationality. It has also been driven by behavioral/political factors (Peled, 2000a). Managers are found to outsource e-government work because they:

have been naive in their assumptions about the benefits that will ensue
believe association with such an initiative will be good for their careers
wish to ‘clip the wings’ of the in-house IT unit
stand to gain financially thanks to the covert generosity of the sub-contractor

5.2 People

Competencies can be understood in relation to three domains:

Skills, Knowledge, Attitude

Attitude is changes by appeals to the the rational mind, the political mind, and the heart.

Greater use of case studies of e-government failure and/or best practice will likely be a move in the right direction (Parrado, 2002). Cases can persuade stake- holders, for instance, of the dangers of ignoring basic systems development prac- tice, or of the importance of understanding the organizational and human context of e-government systems.

A good hybrid manager will recognize that psychological factors play a role: autonomy, challenge, recognition and the opportunity for career advancement. Direct work content factors are also important, such as training opportunities, flexibility of work schedule and clarity of task specification.

On a shorter-term basis, responsibility for a personal development plan can be shifted to the employees, and used as part of the annual performance review.

Plans must be far more than just a critical path; they must include deliverables, resource requirements, and reporting arrangements. Over time, the number of elements that must be planned has grown, typically in response to perceived problems with past projects. What was once just a ‘project plan’ has now been broken down; for example into: a scope management plan, a resource plan, a risk management plan, a procurement plan, a quality plan, a communication plan, a security plan, a change management plan, and a cost management plan.

Which standards should be followed? ISO 9001:2000

Peer review – a hybrid rather than rational project technique – seems to have a better record, and has now been adopted by a number of governments as a best practice.

Behavioral Approaches to Project Management

the rational model fails to fully explain or predict what happens in the public sector. It also fails to fully guide real-world best practice, leading e-government practitioners to criticize PMMs for their inflexibility. Indeed, some who study the realities of projects see the rational approach as potentially guiding worst practice:

“IT projects die by their own hand. The more they are bound by lists, rules, checks, restrictions, regulations, and so on, the more they drive out the human spirit of creativity, of innovation, of dealing with ambiguity, and of fun. People brought up in technical environments may not see the horror of this kind of approach.”

To plug this gap, and ensure that a more behavioral approach and more behavioral expertise are introduced, some governments are mandating the involvement of senior non-IT officials. The Canadian government, for example, defines a formal requirement on e-government projects for two things (OECD, 2001). First, a project sponsor who is responsible for the business function, and who has solely behavioral-side competencies ( judgment, leadership, communication, organizational awareness). Second, a project leader who is a senior departmental official with, again, largely behavioral-side competencies and only cursory IT management skills at best. Similarly, the UK government’s analysis of e-government project failures concluded with the requirement for projects to have a ‘senior responsible officer’ (CITU, 2000). The officer would be drawn from the business not the IT side of the organization.

Primary Project Stakeholders

decision makers: those who make major project-related decisions, such as whether or not to proceed with the project

gatekeepers: those who control access to higher authorities

influencers: those who advise decision makers or whom decision makers take note of

end users: those who will directly use the output from the e-government system and/or from the business function it supports

champions: those who will support and muster resources for the project

Smart behavioral players work to break through the rationality barrier to get to the real objectives and values underneath.

by understanding that professional relationships have different bases and require different techniques from those adopted with social relationships
by establishing rapport with the other person: looking for common ground
developing on their areas of interest; even mirroring their speech and body language in order to ‘tune in’
by active listening that involves really concentrating and asking questions to get to the root of issues, beliefs, problems, needs, and so on
by tailoring communication to the needs of the recipient

Tailoring your Message

The sociable ones:	The idealistic ones:
Be clear and explicit, don’t just imply. Show me how people will benefit. Demonstrate immediate and practical results. Show me respect.	Engage with my personal values. Paint pictures and draw analogies that have meaning. Be passionate and engage my imagination. Show how it will contribute to the greater good of human kind.
The theoretical ones:	The down to earth ones:
Show how it fits into the bigger picture. Ensure the theoretical base is sound. Appeal to my intellect and imagination. Be a credible source of information.	Be organized and structured. Be practical and realistic. Work logically and systematically through your analysis. Offer proof and evidence.

1. Preparation: Getting as much information as possible not just in relation to the topic under discussion but also in relation to the objectives and values of other parties; being clear about one’s own ‘bottom line’.

2. Initial exchange: Drawing out other individuals and probing with questions to develop a better sense of their objectives and values; weighing up relative bargain- ing powers.

3. Negotiation: being assertive; using and observing body language; identifying issues that can easily be agreed and issues that are low-cost to one side but high benefit to the other; being creative about what can be traded; exploring

possible compromises.

4. Agreement: summarizing the discussion; avoiding/dealing with last minute conditions.

5. Implementation: setting out a clear schedule of tasks and responsibilities.

The acquisition of negotiating skills and the ability to apply the techniques just described is becoming increasingly integral to e-government project management

Components of Massachusetts model:

business problem and scope of work: the problem being addressed; the rationale for the e-government project; and the major tasks to be undertaken;
workplan and time schedule: a Gantt chart ‘not intended to be a project log of each and every small detail, but rather a comprehensive plan of tasks, team resources and timelines’
management approach and personnel: for both the steering committee and project implementation team;
acceptance criteria and deliverables: the key outputs from the project and criteria that will be used to judge whether or not that output is acceptable
task order budget
signatures: of all the key ‘business partners’.

Such structures as the above will allow

early identification of failures
mechanisms to disperse learning about both success and failure.

Why should there be so much politicking around e-government? In short, because two pre-conditions of politicking are met.

First, there are interdependent groups that have different objectives and values. This is clearly the case in public sector organizations. The ‘interdependent but different’ perspective applies to the formal functional divisions within public agencies.

Second, there are important but scarce resources involved.

e-Government brings together in large amounts both critical tangible resources – people, money and equipment – and critical intangible resources – information, power and kudos. They therefore form a key locus for organizational politics.

Techniques of Influence

Reason: ‘Relies on the presentation of data and information as the basis for a logical argument that supports a request.’ Reason is typically a first choice for influencing a boss or subordinate, and it often relates to a base of expert or information power.

Friendliness: ‘Depends on the influencee thinking well of the influencer.’ It is often used with co-workers, but may also be used with subordinates and supe- riors. It often relates to a base of personal power.

Coalition: ‘Mobilizing other people in the organization to support you, and thereby strengthening your request.’ It depends

Bargaining: Negotiation and exchanging benefits based upon the social norms of obligation and reciprocate. The resources that are traded are very varied but can include assistance, support and information. It often relates to a base of reward power. Assertiveness: Uses continuous reminders via an insistent and forceful manner. It is often used with subordinates and relates to a base of legitimate power.

Higher authority: ‘Uses the chain of command and outside sources of power to influence the target person.’ This can be the threat or promise of involving the influencee’s boss, or invoking that boss’ own priorities. It can also involve an appeal to higher ethical or cultural values within the organization. It may involve recourse to outside ‘experts’, such as consultants, or to the media. A variation, much found in e-government, is to blame the technology or the data, though this may fall under the heading of manipulation. Its strength relies particularly on affiliation power.

Sanctions: Influence through the promise of reward or threat of punishments. In its negative form, this may encompass all formal disciplinary procedures up to dis- missal. It may encompass informal actions: blame, bad-mouthing, bullying. It may also encompass the removal of rewards (e.g. transfer, demotion). Sanctions often relate to a base of legitimate or coercive power.

Manipulation: Influence by controlling the framing of discussions, or the claimed rules for discussion, or the information that is allowing into a negotiation. Part of this process will be the manipulation of the public discussions and public relations that set much of the agenda for government. This type of approach may also include undermining others involved.

Withdrawal: Influence through disengagement or non-compliance.

Time and again, middle managers in public sector organizations have good ideas for new or redesigned e-government systems. Yet they cannot get those ideas implemented. They blame their bosses, or the IT staff, or politicians, and so on. In many cases, though, they should blame themselves for failing to recognize their own need for better communication, negotiation and, above all, influencing skills.

Chapter 6

Emerging Management Issues for eGovernment

Great care must be taken that measures are valid (i.e. that they do measure what they seek to measure), relevant (i.e. that they measure something on which the employee’s actions have an effect) and valuable (i.e. that they measure what is organizationally important about the job). IT staff behavior will be skewed by performance measurement towards the measured components of the job and away from the non-measured. Only careful selection of indicators will ensure that this skewing is beneficial for the organization.

Performance management in the public sector

offer career development opportunities, or psychic pay: quasi-financial incentives such as paid time off or new equipment. In some surveys, public servants rate these above money as preferred rewards.
Use group incentives since individual rewards can demotivate other team members, whereas group rewards tend to encourage collaboration.
do not punish occasional mistakes, only chronic poor performance. Use progressive discipline but also use training and peer pressure.

Three main focal points for performance indicators can be applied to the IS/IT function:

Input- IT Measures

Output- Information Services

Outcome- Business Process

Measurement of Performance

In most cases the measurement procedure will be clear within the indicator definition. Three main assessment indicators:

Internal subjective: The measures are based on the judgment of internal clients, such as customer satisfaction rating scales.
Internal objective: The measures are based on objective quantification within the organization, such as the jobseeker placement measure.
External: The measures are based on quantification from outside the organization.
Price testing: Comparing the internal costs of a service with the estimated cost/price of external providers and benchmarking (which includes a broader set of performance measures)

Control of Performance

Provider management control: Managers within the IS/IT service provider are responsible for managerial rewards and remedial measures.

Client management control: Managers within the IS/IT service client are responsible for managerial rewards and remedial measures.

Client financial control: Managers within the IS/IT service client are responsible for financial rewards and remedial measures.

Arbitrary basis: The sum paid does not relate to service use but to some relatively arbitrary measure such as the size of the user department. The lack of linkage creates limited financial control on performance; arguably less than that available via a managed service level agreement.

Cost basis

Market basis

The central thrust is that agencies must be good at writing documents and at managing projects. It would thus be possible to score a ‘green’ without producing anything that had actually made life better for citizens and other agency clients.

The more the government charges for its data, the greater the barriers to access become. Yet the wider it allows access, the less it can earn from data sales.

Access Policies for Freedom of Information

The enactment of FOI legislation has required the development of in-house policies by public agencies within its purview. Typical issues to be dealt with include (DOI, 2002):

Terminology: Explicitly defining what is meant by terms such as records and requests; and classification of different types of data held by the agency.

Procedures: Clarifying how citizens/ businesses can obtain data direct without requests; how information requests are to be made; and the means by which those requests will be responded to.

Data management: Ensuring that the type of back-office, records and data manage- ment procedures described elsewhere in this chapter are followed so that data and records can be located in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

Performance measures: Setting out performance indicators (typically time taken) for the FOI response service.

Charges: Determining a reasonable level of charges to be levied for searches and copying; determining policy on any fee waivers; putting a billing and payment system in place.

Handling variations: Determining procedures in the case of various types of data/records such as those not held by the agency; those held by other public agencies; those deemed sensitive or covered by privacy legislation; those held by other non-public agencies.

Appeals: Setting in place an appeals procedure to appeal against problems with performance, charges or denial of access.

Responsibilities: Designating specific officers as responsible for FOI implementation, and for appeals.

Update: Putting in place a mechanism for review and update of FOI procedures (e.g. in response to new technology, case law, organizational changes, new orders, or FOI response performance and feedback).

Digital Divide

Because of those costs, there is an uneven profile of those who own and use IT: the rich not the poor; the graduate not the school leaver; the ethnic majority not the ethnic minority; the urban not the rural citizen; the young not the old; men not women.

Pouring resources into e-government can therefore benefit the haves rather than have nots, and increase polarization within society. There are already some signs of this, with evidence that local government electronic service delivery is of poorer quality in areas with lower levels of Internet access

Governments may set up initiatives focused on increasing access to IT that is government-or-community-owned IT. Such IT may be placed in a variety of locations:

public spaces, such as common areas within shopping malls;
semi-public spaces, such as libraries or sport facilities;
dedicated spaces, such as community telecentres housing a room-full of Internet- linked PCs.

The watch- word for government must therefore be ‘supplement’ not ‘supplant’. Provision of public sector data and other services electronically should be seen as an additional weapon in the armory that sits alongside traditional face-to-face and phone-based methods. It should not be seen as a way of replacing those more traditional methods.

Reviewing Sensitive Public Information

The following questions will assist security professionals in reviewing sensitive infor- mation that has been, or could be, made publicly accessible.

Has the information been cleared and authorized for public release?

What impact could the information have if it was inadvertently transferred to an
unintended audience?

Does the information provide details concerning enterprise security?

Does the information contain personnel information such as biographical data,
addresses, etc.?

How could someone intent on causing harm misuse the information?

What instructions should be given to legitimate custodians of sensitive information
with regard to disseminating the information to other parties such as contractors?

Could this information be dangerous if it were used in conjunction with other
publicly available information?

Could someone use the information to target personnel, facilities or operations?

Could the same or similar information be found elsewhere?

Does the information increase the attractiveness of a target? (OCIPEP, 2002)

Policies on Disability

the law sets a clear threshold that must be achieved. However, in practice, e-government managers often seem to be ‘satisficing’ the issue: doing just enough to cover their backs but still leaving a gap between policy and practice.

Difficulties

public managers face a difficult balancing act between the requirements of central legislation and the localized needs of the public agency. These may conflict where, for example, the agency has to make the best of an outdated physical environ- ment, or where lack of money means what is ergonomically-best cannot be afforded. This balancing act can appear in the gap between policy on paper and policy in prac- tice. eGovernment managers may develop an internal policy document that fully meets all legislative requirements, but may then not fully implement the document.

Chapter 7

Success in e-government comes from intelligent selection of individual techniques, from
‘hybrid thinking’, and from action on design–reality gaps rather than from slavish adherence to one particular methodology.

Background understanding of a proposed e-government project comes from asking five
questions: Who is involved? What is the problem? Why is the project happening? What
constraints exist? What will change in the near future?

eGovernment projects can be assessed in relation to their feasibility, priority, opportunity costs, and impact.

Four Core Stages:

1. analysis of what is currently happening, and of whether and why a new e-government system is needed
2. design of the new e-government system’s components
3. construction of the new e-government system

4. implementation of the new e-government system

Successfully planned e-government systems will therefore be those that require a manageable degree of change.

In order to assess this ‘degree of change’, the core of the systems development method described here will therefore consist of three activities:

mapping out the realities of the current situation
designing a proposal for the new situation
assessing the difference between the two, and reacting to that difference

Systems Development Life Cycle

1. Project assessment: Identifying possible e-government projects; outlining basic project parameters; and assessing whether or not to proceed with the project.

2. Analysis of current reality: Description and analysis of the seven ITPOSMO dimensions as they exist within the current situation of the organization.

3. Design of the proposed new situation: Setting objectives for the proposed new e-government system, and then describing in general terms how the seven ITPOSMO dimensions should be different for the new system to meet these objectives. Different options for the new system may be evaluated at this point.

4. System construction: Acquiring any new technology; undertaking detailed design of the new system; then building it, testing it and documenting it.

5. Implementation and beyond: Training users to use the new system; converting data to new formats; introducing the new system; monitoring and evaluating its performance and context; then undertaking any necessary system maintenance.

SSADM: Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology,

No method is perfect but there are dangers for the public sector in adopting some of the harder methods. The public sector has had a tendency to choose such methods which then prove too old, inflexible, top-down, detailed, jargonized and time-consuming (Korac-Boisvert and Kouzmin, 1995). While these might have been appropriate to the routine clerical automations of the 1960s, they work poorly in politicized situations of change and uncertainty.

Review of A World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology

“Under Crushing Opposition, Love Requires Revolutionary Action”
Father Camilo Torres

Having recently read Padre Guatalupe’s autobiography, my interest was piqued in learning more about the particulars of liberation theology. This curiosity was amplified as I am now attending a Catholic University with a Bolivarian mission in Medellin – the location of conference of bishops in 1968 that would result in the drafting of a number of significant statements that would justify numerous Catholic initiative of a liberationist theme throughout Latin America. As such, I was happy to learn of the recent publication of A World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology by Lillian Calles Barger. This book, along with conversations with my fellow students and a group of seminarians that I’ve befriended, have greatly helped me to comprehend the Catholic culture in which I now live.

Barger divides her book into four sections: Origins elaborates the social, political and economic factors which lead to the conditions within ecumenical circles that caused people to elaborate novel interpretations of Christian religious doctrines. Reconstructions provides an intellectual history of the philosophical currents that fed into the new method of Biblical exegesis. Elaborations provides deeper analysis of the particularities of the various liberation theology strands and provides a historical accounting of the interactions between those propounding such doctrines and the communities from which they emerged. Reverberations illustrates that while Liberation Theology as an intellectual current within the Christianity may have seen its adherents decline in numbers, nevertheless a variety of the novel perspectives that it sought to disseminate about how to interpret the world have been adopted within various religious and social justice movements. Liberation Theology, it can be rightly said, still speaks to a social, political and environmental concerns that have emerged as a result of various changed that have profoundly impacted the human world.

For those writing within this strain, the true theological task is “orthopraxis” which is “an encounter with the world, rather than tradition or revelation…” Instead of engaging just with a text disconnected from the concerns of the here and now, promising only salvation in the afterlife, Liberation Theology is concerned with bringing the divine order to earth. In Barges’ words: “Fundamentally, the idea of liberation was of a communal process rather than based on the individual, for only in solidarity with others was freedom possible. Awakening the political potential of solidarity among oppressed people called for the advocacy of the committed placing themselves at the nexus of prophetic denunciation and revolutionary change.” Biblical and sociological analysis identified the oppressed with the campesinos of Latin America – fighting the inheritors of colonial titles; with the African-American’s in the United States – fighting the descendants of slave-holders; with women across the world – still under the yoke of a sexist, misogynistic patriarchy.

James Cone’s influence is still profound within the African-American church.

The variances in how the church is viewed; what the goal of liberation is; and how to get there; how this changes given different world-historical shifts and more by different social groups – blacks, whites, Latins, men and women – is masterfully handled by Barger. By delving into the biographical details about the authors of those in this new cannon, historicizing and then unpacking the arguments in their writing one can almost feel as if a part of the intellectual debates that were motivating their religious/academic work. Barger provides a veritable lexicon for concepts that evolve due to new technological and social changes and how despite the fact that Protestants in North America and the Catholics in South America came from very distinct intellectual and historical backgrounds, they still came to similar conclusions about what it means to be a True Christian in a sinful world.

This is especially well done in the chapter entitled Vitalism of Religion. Here Barger depicts how a number of Enlightenment related arguments were related to religion, and later how the prophetic writings of Marx were adapted to a modern understanding of the bible.Towards this end a virtual pantheon of social theorists are described – from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ludwig Fuererbach, G.W.F. Hegel, Jose Mariategui, Georges Sorel, W.E.B. Du Bois, William James, and more – and their evidence within various key Liberation Theology texts are describe. Starting with their respective views related to religion, she shows how they are pieced together to form a unique Christian Socialist identity. More than just this, Barges shows their impact in the brief blossoming of a number of schools and political movements. From this and analysis in subsequent sections we see how “Marxist thought provided Latin American liberationists with a significant framework for analyzing inequality and responding to the charges against religion. The goal of social justice based on a structural understanding of society, rather than individual choice, appeared congruent with the prophetic tradition and served as an opening for Marxist-Christian dialogue throughout the twentieth century” (108).

Barges intellectual history also tells the often tragic stories of those that sought to operationalize this conception of Christian solidarity. In the section entitled A Salvic Social Order, chapter we learn the story of Richard Shaull – a missionary like Padre Guadalupe that came to help and then became so disillusioned with the church that he started advocating revolution. Him, like Padre Guadalupe and others such as the now sainted Oscar Romero, often met tragic ends due to the incredibly politically polarized atmosphere of the Cold War. During this time addressing the sins of empire and the sufferings of people was seen as subversive, giving shelter to the enemy of Soviet Power. With the Social Gospel viewed as an ideology aligned with the interests of a predatory foreign power, it’s little wonder that those with a more personalistic view of salvation – the traditional religious establishment – were wary of those that sought to “recover Eden” through a scientific socio-economic practice wedded with a theology of collective, social liberation. The point of division for those who sought to create Utopia versus those that were conservative and sought to maintain relations as is was their understanding of what the implications and duties connected to humanity Original Sin.

Sergio Torres’ writing presented a dialogue between Christianity and Marxism.

As Barger brings the book to a close she shows how that while there were clergy-members in the field involved with pastoral work with a Liberation Theologist orientation, a main failing of the movement was its inability to produce and thus enact specific policy applications. The 1970 conference in Detroit that included black, Latin American and women leaders is depicted in almost tragic proportion. After highlighting how this became a moment for qualitatively altering the level of collaboration and cooperation that this transnational group of religious community organizers, activists and intellectuals – they are shown instead engage in what was, essentially, and intellectual pissing contest. Rather than building a collective platform by which their struggles could synergize their efforts for liberation, they instead devolved to arguing over who faced institutional repression worse and broke.

For all of its political aspirations, the Liberation Theology movement never formed the same sort of sustainable political institutions that those within the Christian Democratic tradition were able to. This is so because of the numerous inherent limits within Liberation Theology as an eclectic philosophy.

Pope John Paul II scolding Nicaraguan liberation theologist Ernesto Cardenal.

The thinkers associated with it may have been able to inspire debate, but nothing much stuck beyond that – proposing no singular national or international program for change that could be acted up with effectiveness, founding no institution and establishing no school. Thus while Liberation Theologians never attained the key features of a recognized movement, the sensibility related to the core tenants it put forward as necessary to positively change the world continues to inspire multiple social movements and political initiatives throughout the world.

Review of Democratic Process and Digital Platforms: An Engineering Perspective

Democratic Process and Digital Platforms: An Engineering Perspective by Danilo Pianini and Andrea Omicini is a book chapter published in The Future of Digital Democracy by Springer in 2019.

Over the last decade, many 4th Industrial Revolution tools and platforms have emerged which contributed to the expanded capabilities adoption of digital democracy. Many countries, in fact, are now creating government ministries in charge of determining how they can be adopted. Because of various social and political pressures as well as the incredibly complex and multi-disciplinary nature of research and development related to digital democracy platforms, several fundamental concerns still remain unanswered. In this book chapter Danilo Pianini and Andrea Omicini focus on those issues that are more traditionally conceived of as relating to the engineering process.

In the analysis phase of the classic software engineering process, one or more artifacts are produced that represent a formal model of the domain.

Looking at two e-democracy platforms adopted by electoral parties, the authors show that this imperative step is missing, along with other phases of engineering process development. Their chapter relates evidence about the current status of digital democracy using several case studies – in platforms such as Rousseau and Liquid Feedback, and then reviews the primary software engineering issues that future tool and platform developers should consider when determining how to improve existent digital democracy software.

Definitions

Citing Joseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the authors defer to his classic definition of democracy as the “institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” While silent on accountability of rulers, how political proposals are defined, who can vote, how votes are tallied and contextualized (i.e. via their relationship to legal institutions such as the Electoral College), etc. the concern of democracy is clearly on legitimizing power.

Given the numerous ways that citizen-stakeholders can now include software in such processes and the increased diffusion of technology – the authors state that a new form of democracy, digital democracy, is increasingly influencing the techno-political landscape and forcing the evolution of our understanding of the possible within politics.

While there are numerous varieties of functional differentiation which exists between digital democracy platforms, the authors identify four fundamental phases common to each:

Preparation of the proposal.
Expression of users opinions.
Summarization of the opinions into a decision.
Enactment of the decision.

Pirate Party’s Liquid Feedback and the Dictatorship of the Active Ones

Several non-traditional parties, going by the name of the Pirate Party, have emerged in Europe over the past several years. The administrative and managerial elements within these political parties adopted Liquid Feedback as a means of facilitating policy formulation.

One of the problems with this particular platform, however, was the lack of limitations that were placed on discursive participation that subsequently gave rise to the phrase “Dictatorship of the Active Ones.” The model of democracy implicit within the platform sought to maximize expressive capacity via what was, essentially, a complex message board. A problem with this format, however, meant that users who produced large quantities of input and commentary could potentially down out users that were shared less, but of higher quality. It’s likely that because of this issue which caused the platform to be abandoned.

Reverse-Engineering Italy’s Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau deemed that the ideal form of government was that which was administered by the General Will. Fitting, then, that one of the digital democracy platforms, adopted in Italy by Movimiento 5 Stelle (5 Star Movement), would be named after him.

Unlike Liquid Feedback there is significantly more capacity for the administrators of the platform to control proposal submission and debate on it. The above diagram shows a reverse-engineered description how it is that the platform worked.

A few democratic issues the authors note the Rousseau platform has are:

Lack of enacting mechanisms for the user proposals
Opaque user proposal selection process
Chaotic proposal organization
Lack of comment moderation on law proposal
Unclear impact of comments on law proposals

What is to be done?: Determine How Best to Operationalize Democratic Processes

After the author’s have assessed Liquid Feedback and Rousseau, they point to two major issues in their deployment. First, the evident lack of appropriate software engineering processes applied to development of the platforms and, secondly, the lack of research on modern democratic processes that would allow for the porting of a model of democracy.

On the first point the authors claim that were the designers of these egovernment platforms to have approached the project from a holistic perspective rather than that which sought merely to digitize a few democratic processes then they would have used a waterfall software engineering process. Composed of a sequence of phases that lead from the idea to the implementation, the waterfall software engineering phase takes this order:

– definition of the requirements
– analysis
– architectural design
– detailed design
– verification
– implementation
– maintenance

On the second point the authors claim that this model was avoided due to the difficulty of defining the requirements to adequately operationalize democratic processes. In their own words, they state that:

“Part of the problem depends on to the orthogonality of the matter: in fact, it requires understanding and expertise over an extremely diverse number of subjects, spanning from humanities to applied sciences through social and natural sciences—including, but not limited to, sociology, psychology, law, mathematics, engineering, and computer science. It is then unlikely for small teams to possess and master such a wide expertise, and – along with the typical lack of interdisciplinary cross collaborations – this makes defining/refining knowledge on democratic processes, and their formalisation as well, a difficult issue indeed.” (92)

As digital democracy platforms, in effect, create their own democracy process rather than match what already exists in law – to produce a platform at a whole of government level rather than that which allows for idea solicitation and feedback from parties requires extensive research and development.

Concluding Thoughts

To say that digital democracy is the future and that it will have revolutionary impacts on governance and accountability is an understatement. However to achieve this requires further investment in the creation of a model of democracy that is widely agreed upon in order to develop the functional requirements of the platform.

To work the other way around, the authors contend, is neither a scientific, engineering-minded approach to the matter a hand nor one that allows for optimal operationalization of democracy via digital technology. Give the novelty of much of this research – what is needed is “a strongly-multidisciplinary effort: [as] currently, many issues remain open, and many key questions are still unanswered.” (93).

Though the authors of this article focus solely on the Waterfall process, I think that it’s worth mentioning in an aside that was there to be actual government investment into the project rather than just the parties running for the positions within it, it would be possible to use an Agile model for the development of an egovernment platform. In this case, the sequencing of phases in an Agile model would look like this (Managing Software Process Evolution):

Given current levels of political polarization and typically low level of technical knowledge of elected politicians it is likely that this would be a very difficult process. It is, nevertheless, within the realm of possibility.

Citations

Managing Software Process Evolution: Traditional, Agile and Beyond – How to Handle Process Change edited by Marco Kuhrmann, Jürgen Münch, Ita Richardson, Andreas Rausch, He Zhang

Keywords: Digital democracy · Software engineering · Democratic model