Huntingdon College | Political Science | AWAC | Club | Club News | Courses | Maps | Terrorism Index | What's New?
PSC 302: Comparative Government | PSC 303: International Relations

• Dr. Stephen Burgess, Air War College, "Developments in Africa", [24 MB PPT]
• Political Cartoonist Doug Marlette, "Cartoons in a Politically Correct Age,"
• Prof. Christopher Carr, "Central Asia and the Caucasus",  [Bio & summary] [2005 notes] [Maps]
• Ms. Bernadette Lorenzo, US Peace Corps, on her work in Latin America,
• James Payne '99, "International trade agreements,"

Institute of Social Studies – Netherlands
Zimbabwe – suffering through 2000% inflation

- War on Terror (embassy bombings)
- Security Challenges
- HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria
- Conflict
- Resources - oil
- weak and failed states (Somailia)

o war in Mogadishu

- 54 UN states, 3 on Security Council
- 30 million African Americans
China is becoming a very big player in Africa – the 9 Chinese oil workers killed in Ethiopia

- continent – 3 times the size of US

- more than 700 million people and growing
- 1200 languages – nation building obstacle – many different languages within one country
- 54 states and 1000s of tribes

- North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa

o North Africa is part of Africa but is also part of the Arab World

- Africans have the most religious world view
- 45% Muslim, 45% Christian, 10% Animist (traditional religion)
- Syncretism – combination of various religions (traditional and modern)
- Religion in Sudan, Chad, Ivory Coast conflicts?

o War going on for about 50 years
o Religious conflict to some extent (Muslim north, Christian south)

- Extremist Islam in East and West Africa

o Missionaries have been coming to Africa for a number of years
o There are some extremists in some parts of Africa

- Sharia law in Northern Nigeria

o Women sentenced to be stoned to death for committing adultery (eventually appealed and turned over)
o traditional Islamic religious law- eye for eye & repressive to women

Muslim North Africa down Chad 1’2 Nigeria & an Eastern slither; Christian South Af.
Many countries divided b/w M N & C S

Independent for less than 50 yr.s – helps explain many growing pains
A1990 – committed themselves to democratization, anti-corruption (help from World Bank, heavy resence) This means that they’ve only ad about 30 yrs of contiguous progress
China and India are coming up against the west in a scramble for African Resources

- weak states
- poverty
- corruption
- HIV/AIDS
- Oil curse – countries have oil which leads to a president who takes the oil revenue for personal purposes
Right now 15% of US oil comes from Gulf of Guinea
The Niger Delta has had major oil instillations for the past 40 years
- lately there has been turmoil in the delta over oil instillations
Book “Tropical Gangsters” about leadership in Equatorial Guinea

- internal conflicts

o tribalism and ethnicity at the roots of conflict
o number of languages
o struggle for resources

- Genocide in Darfur and Rwanda

o US and UN didn’t want to get into another Somalia-ish situation
o UN peacekeeping force put on ground in Rwanda
o 94 – president of Rwanda’s plane shot down
o Extremists killed 100,000 Tutsi every week for 100 days
o Killed 10,000 Belgian peacekeepers, Belgium withdrew
o Some called it a civil war instead of genocide – so nothing was done
o The US and UN said never again would it happen
o Darfur occurred in 2004
o Extremists systematically killed 200,000 people
o In 2004 Secretary of State Powell and US congress called it Genocide
o The UN would not call it genocide – because there was no proof that the government of Sudan was trying to wipe out a specific group (terms of Genocide Convention)
o US ratified Genocide Convention in 1988
o China has been the big ally of Sudan on the Security Council, vetoing calls for action in Darfur
o 4 million people in Darfur have been displaced

- Somalia has not had a government since 1991
o A group took over for a short time
o Civil war broke out between Kenya and Somalia to try and put Somalia together again (Black Hawk Down)
- Democratic Reublic of the Congo
o Between 96 and 05 2000 people died
- Zimbabwe
o 2000% inflation
o President thought he would lose and said he would cease land from white farmers to give to African farmers – Zimbabwe stopped exporting in 2000
- Human Security
o Environment
o Drought
o Water shortages
o Disease
? Millions of people die every year from Malaria
- it seems that whenever a new political order is created a civil war follows.
- Africa has a 3% population growth rate
o African women on average have 10 children in their lifetime, 6 or 7 of which survive

HIV /AIDS
- 19 million have already died, 26 Million infected, 12 million orphaned
- AIDS kills a million Africans per year
- 5 million South Africans are HIV positive
- South and Western Africa is where it started
- Causes instability, economic decline
- Spreading worldwide, TB
- Infectious disease, threat to the world
- Testing is a big issue, a lot of reluctance to get tested for fear of backlash
- Culture problem - promiscuity and lack of condom use
- Small minority actually receive treatment

- African Union

o Founded in 1963 as the organization of African Unity
o Eventual goal – United States of Africa
o 2002 – AU modeled on European Union
o AU Peace and Security Council
o AU peacekeepers to be able to send to Darfur or to other areas of conflict
o African Standby force- backup for peacekeepers

- Economic Community on West African States

o Nigeria is major state
o Founded in 1975
o 15 members
o English, French, Portuguese-speaking states
o Most significant achievement – intervening and stopping civil wars
o Started as economic community and has become a security community
o Plan to have a common curency

- Southern African Development Community

o South Africa is Major country
o Founded in 1980
o 14 members
o English French and Portuguese

- East African Community

- Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

- South Africa
o Most prosperous country in Africa
o Free market democracy, secure
o 1st world infrastructure
o Engine of growth for Africa
o President Thabo Mbeki: peacemaker all over Africa
o Leader in AU, ASF, and NEAD
o SADC leader
o Partnership with US – AGOA (free trade), ACPTA (peacekeeping training)
o Problems in South Africa

? No clear to successor to Mbeki in 2009

• There is one guy but he got in trouble

? African National Congress dominance (party of Nelson Mandela)
? Rich whites/poor blacks. “lost generation.” (people who didn’t get educated in the 70’s and 80’s
? HIV/AIDS killing black middle class
? Zimbabwe – SADC and NEPAD peer review
? NEPAD, ASF, AU – slow development
? Ambivalence towards US

- Nigeria
o 140 million people – biggest by population
o Over 200 language groups
o President Obasanjo: close to US
o NEPAD, AU, ASF leader
o 12% of US important oil from Nigeria
o Expansion, competition – China is in Nigeria competing with US
o Peace enforcer – Liberia, Sierra Leone.
o US aid for governance, peacekeeping.
o Democracy, anticorruption
o Most ethically diverse country in Africa
o Challenges

? April 21, 2007 elections: Obasanjo replaced.
? Umaru Yar’Adua? Northerner next president
? Niger Delta oil operations disrupted by militia

- Ethiopia
o US ally: 1945-73
o 91-present US partner
o PM Meles ZEnawi
o Economic, political reforms
o US partner in “Long War”
o 07-07 intervention in Somalia
o Landlocked – relies on Djibouti for exportation
o Borders Sudan and Somalia which is problematic
o Challenges

? Boundary dispute with Eritrea
? May 2005 elections not free or fair
? Meles, ruling group represents 10% of the population
? One of poorest countries in the world

- Kenya

Can Africa Enforce the Peace?
 Nigeria not was willing as in the 90’s

“Long War” (GWOT)
- Bombings of embassies in Kenya, Tanzania, etc.

Africa Command
- the way in which the department of defense has treated Africa for the past 30-40 years
- treated as an extension of Europe
- The US works directly with Africa now instead of going through Europe
- CentCom – deals with Arab world and oil issues
- Pacific Command deals with western Africa
- Goal: create one command – fully operational by August 2008
o Partner with African organizations and agencies
o Prediction: will be like another SouthCom
- Where would Africa Command be located?
o About a dozen possibilities

Future
- next 50 years will be better than the last
- some are campaigning to cancel African debt
- slow build up of Aid will help

• Marlette, a native of NC and FL, was educated at Florida State University.
• He has won numerous national awards for his political cartoons and seen them published across the leading national newspapers and newsmagazines.
• His articles and columns have also appeared in leading magazines of opinion.
• His collected works have appeared in nineteen books and been adapted for a film and (Kudzu) a musical.
• He has appeared on television discussion programs and public radio.
• His first novel, The Bridge, has been recognized with awards in the southeast and beyond, and the film rights have been purchased.
• He has been a distinguished visiting professor of journalism schools in North Carolina and Oklahoma, and
• his second novel, Magic Time, was published in Fall 2006.

Marlette draws five cartoons a week, and showed examples in a lively, humanistic style of politicians' foibles, church related issues and responses to terrorism or disaster (the 9/11 attacks and the space shuttle's crash).

The weeping eagle cartoon in memory of the astronauts was so much in demand that printed copies were provided to newsstands.

Hostile response came from "What Would Mohammed Drive?" (a rented truck with a large bomb) which provoked death threats orchestrated by CAIR, causing the cartoon to be withdrawn, though repeated widely across the media.

Marlette upheld the Danish newspaper for printing cartoons widely criticized in the islamic world, and the newspaper had previously quoted his experience.

In his early career, death threats usually came from the religious Right, but later from all sides, including liberals.

He concludes that people do believe in free speech, if only for themselves.

Western culture is now characterized by cowardice in issues of free speech

One cartoon was condemned for showing Israeli troops bursting in on Anne Frank's attic

He was raised Southern Baptist, and his cartoons skewered the disgraced televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and their successor, Jerry Falwell.  Although the editorial page editor upheld free speech, the general editor did have concerns about the loss of a major source on the televangelists -- in Falwell.

on the craft of drawing: Caricature exaggerates the features of celebrities

the second novel, Magic Time, is set in the civil rights period of the south -- and since we don't need another book on the politics, it focusses on people's lives.

Marlette, compared to the human scale subjects, finds ideology and propaganda boring.

On John Edwards as presidential candidate, he did not pay his dues to the state Democratic party, and on his leaving, lost the seat permanently to the Republicans.

The first novel caused an uproar in his home town

Although he has never been sued, he has been criticized aggressively.

Danish cartoonists were this generation's Anne Franks

Cartoons are nonviolent direct action, like the SNCC students

Best cartoons?  New Yorker, improved its variety and topicality under Tina Brown as editor.

Best cartoonists ever?  Mike Peters (very visual) and of the 1950s-1980s, David Low, David Levine and Herblock.

Boring cartoons?  New York Times.

"Christopher Carr joined the AWC in 1998. Previously he was Senior Researcher, Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues, University of Denver. From 1986-8, 1989-93 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science, US Air Force Academy. He has written articles on arms transfer policy and most recently contributed a chapter to Arms Control: Cooperative Security in a Changing Environment. His current research focuses on human insecurity in heavily weaponized communities, for which he has received support from the Institute for National Security Studies, US Air Force. Dr Carr holds a B.A. from the University of Lancaster, UK and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE). His areas of expertise include sub-state conflict, light weapons proliferation, civil conflict in Africa, 'Kalashnikov cultures', arms control, international organized crime." -- from AWC web page.

Summary:
The Causasus, between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, is a dangerous and unsettled region comprising the republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan plus disputed regions of southern Russia, South Osettia and areas controlled by mountain warlords.  There is oil soon to be exported from Baku to the west via British Petroleum, plus a new democratic interest in Georgia.  The two are in tension.  Russian troops still have bases in Georgia, and the new democracy is in tension with its neighbors.  The US faces therefore a policy tension between supporting democracy and securing steady supplies of oil from Azerbaijan.
 

but the area is a linchpin of East-West movement and could precipitate a crisis in future.

Although Caucasians see themselves as East Europeans, it is difficult to observe European culture in them.

Soviet meltdown occurred because of :

theory of arms race, with Reagan pushing them till they broke

Afghan war undercut the Russian regime

corruption more important in causing people to give up on the regime, but corrupt leaders remain in charge

ex-KGB leaders still in office especially Putin

Political science has difficulty in reading dictatorships, need to understand the psychology of a small, closed group

No single place in old Soviet system could stand independently -- difficulties since then

Kazakhs held nuclear weapons but soon gave them up

other troops were left indefinitely without pay of control, rapid decline, rise of corruption

economic relief: wives prostituted, drug abuse increasing

1Kg fetches $800 in Afghanistan but $100,000 in Europe.

Sturgeon polluted, though still makes caviar

oil and gas reserves considerable and important because of China's rapidly growing demand, which by 2025 may outstrip supply

Russia, although losing economic, military and political power, can still control flow of oil & gas there.

New Great Game based on pipelines, like C19th Russian /British empires game

Baku-Tblisi-Chekhu pipeline (BTC) will add natural gas to oil flow soon, valuable in West Europe where homes are heated with gas.

Armenia is best route, but for war with Azerbaijan

Armenian diaspora in the US is powerful

mountain people are often bloody minded and islotated, lawless, contentious

Mostly Armenians but held by Azerbaijan till Armenia won the local war

religion mostly nominally christian but pagan roots are deep in rural areas.

lack of identity among population and virtually at war with Turkey over alleged "genocide" in WW1.

300-400,000 slaughtered, and have large genocide memorial

confrontation between Armenia and Turkey since 1991

Armenians supported by

US and France diasporans, eg Kirk Kekorian, paved Armenian roads

by Iran with trade

by Russia

youth has left, no work, poor education system with many fees

has ethnic minorities

Ankhasia was resort with beaches and fruit and Russians were attached to it and successfully fought to retain it

South Ossetians wanted nationalism

in absence of rule of law, have criminal economy

DVD pirating, drug gangs, arms trafficking, prostitution

Russia confronting Georgia (supported by US as a new democracy w/Sakashvilli)

Russians see this as a sphere of influence, like US with Caribbean

moderate islamic, popular dictatorship, supports US war on terror

but Armenian lobby in US is strong

Baku is the most blighted town from 1880s oil rush, dumping ever since into Caspian sea.

"Dutch disease" oil money spent quickly, not invested

new apartments built badly, on earthquake fault.

ruled by a mad dictator who published own book, shut down rural medicine, built golden self statue, kills own people

US wants both democratization and aid in war on terror

Chinese economic growth impressive but could still fall off a cliff

wide gap between rich and poor, corruption, gangsters -- but cooperates with US, ships oil to BTC pipelines

potential ground for moderate islamic revolution under group TC, which provides welfare net (like Hamas)

Fear of US is a repeat of the 1979 theocratic revolution in Iran -- so even realists may argue against cooperation with dictators

Trade involving private parties

Business contracts

arbitration by international court or by arbiters

Sovereignty principle: nation states

Parties or Subjects are Nation States (not merely businesses) under principle of sovereignty

3 Sources:

Treaty constructed among 2 or more states for cooperation or to establish an obligation

Customary international law, the actions of states over time that form a pattern of norms, implying an obligation under opinio juris.

General fundamental principles (jus cogens) with no derogation allowed, traditional examples being slavery and genocide.  Backed by resolutions of international bodies.

Difference between public international law and domestic:

domestic is hierarchical and vertical (municipal > county > state > federal law  > US constitution)

Public international law is horizontal: sovereign state cannot be bound with obligation to which it has not agreed.

Enforcement

E.g. What could US do, should Mexico violate an agreement?

Soft power: worsening of International relations, diplomacy, loss of trust for future, public embarrassment.

Soft/hard power: reciprocity is jeopardized (e.g. water project at risk)

Umbrella concept: environmental, social or diplomatic treaty?

Retaliation among affected parties, e.g. environmental dumping evokes response of more environmental dumping

Enforceability: international bodies for enforcement, eiher ad hoc or standing

ad hoc tribunals set up, e.g., after alleged war crimes

e.g. ICTY (International court for Yugoslav crimes against humanity) -- or Rwanda equivalent.

No treaty involved in Yugoslav civil war, but customary international law arguably applies

If an individual commits a war crime, does he have a defense of acting under orders, etc

Standing bodies, e.g. trade among states, the subject being sovereign states

enforceability via standing organizations such as WTO, soft/hard power (judicial, if not actual military force)

WTO or other body oversees and implements adjudicated solutions

WTO is envied by parties in other types of disputes

e.g. US violated NAFTA (1993?) obligation to Mexico, obligation for zero % tariff on a particular good.  Old obligation of 10% limit under old WTO rule.  US applied 5% tariff, between the two.  Mexico then announced would not be held by NAFTA.  Retaliation on both sides, issue of which body decides among competing obligations; depends on fine print of treaties?

Treaty Formation

Interpretation (Vienna Convention)

Customary principles

Diplomatic principles

Interactions among treaties

Recent Mexico "sweeteners" case

• Paraguay, 1995
• Founded 1961 by President Kennedy, to send people overseas to teach and train in developing countries.
• General studies and business major.  Needed CPR and AIDS training for a health education assignment.
• Would have preferred to go to Philippines where she grew up.
• No age limit, one is serving at 79 years, but do need good health.
• Peace corps combines service and travel.
• Child survival: breast feeding, nutrition, etc.  Visited each house frequently, working in two languages (Spanish and local) and drinking mate' tea.  Working 1 or 2 hours per day and being part of community.
• Attended prayer meetings, and talked about breast feeding as a young single women, from a book -- humorous for the mothers.
• It takes a year to make progress, one day at a time.  Our culture makes us impatient compared to the locals.
• Just going to market on a packed bus is an early morning ordeal.
• Neighbors do have TV, a strange contrast.
• Application process is 6-9 months.
• Visiting recruits in Philippines, where one is scuba diving with Min of Environmental resources.

Top of Page