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World Refugee Day was last week (June 20). Ideally I would have written this then, but I haven’t been as good on real-time commenting since Twitter fell apart. I still found it important to say something here, though.
I am not an expert on this issue. I wrote one article on religious repression and forced migration, but my co-author had the subject matter expertise. I’ve written a few letters in support of asylum seeker resettlement in Vermont, using my understanding of the Middle East and Afghanistan to justify asylum claims.
That being said, I’m getting to the point in my career where I want to actually do something, rather than study it. And I felt surprisingly emotional when viewing Timothy P. Schmalz’s “Angels Unaware” sculpture when I was in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The sculpture, unveiled in 2019, depicts individuals from refugee crises across history and is inspired by Hebrews 13:2, which calls for hospitality to strangers.
But again, I’m not an expert, and would rather listen to and amplify experts at this point, rather than coming up with own my own clever takes. So I wanted to draw attention to this new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, and an accompanying op-ed in the Boston Globe.
The report contains detailed information on refugees and internally displaced people around the world, highlighting the presence of often overlooked crises. It also points to the increasing severity of this crisis.
It is lighter on solutions, although one could argue bringing awareness to these crises is important enough on its own. But other reports from the group provide more concrete steps.
So I’d just encourage Duck readers to look through this report, if they haven’t already. And I’d argue that this is an issue that touches on just about every aspect of international relations: inter- and intra-state war, political repression, religious and ethnic tensions, climate change and resource limitations, international organization and aid (in) effectiveness, etc.
It’s something we will all need to address at some point.
I just returned from a two month fellowship at Edinburgh University, accompanied by my family. The trip included talks in Germany, Italy and England. These side-trips required a lot of packing, and generated a lot of souvenirs, specifically snow globes to mark each place we visited.
This led to a problem when going through airport security, however. Snow globes count as liquids, and have to be included in those annoying little plastic bags; as a result, we had to find tiny snow globes to avoid the wrath of security agents. Failure to do so runs the risk of your bag being pulled aside to be searched, which–especially if transferring through Heathrow–can be an agonizingly long process.
As I sat and waited for the security guard to decide if my Florence snow globe was a secret bomb, I thought about how path dependence and security theater had combined to create this ridiculous situation.
Many may not remember why we have to take all liquids and gels out of their bags. It has to do with a specific disrupted terrorist plot. In 2006, British law enforcement discovered a group of al-Qaeda operatives were planning to board several transatlantic flights with the components of a bomb hidden in drink bottles. They would assemble the bomb during the flight and detonate. They arrested those involved, and authorities put in place the restrictions on carry-on liquids.
Other airport annoyances are also tied to disrupted plots. In late 2001, an al-Qaeda operative attempted to detonate a bomb that had been hidden in his shoe but it failed to go off. Passengers subdued him. Authorities then required everyone boarding a plane to take off their shoes.
Do government agents really think terrorists would fill a snow globe with explosive liquid?
And of course TSA only exists because of a tragically successful plot. Before 9/11, private companies handled airport security. Many experts believed the attack demonstrated the need for a central government agency, so the Transportation Security Administration was established, moving to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.
We are stuck in a situation in which airline security is insufficient to prevent all threats, so authorities add another layer, which also proves insufficient, so they add another layer…
There are valid debates about some parts of airport security. Terrorists could always try the liquid plot again. Scanning machines may deter attempts to bring weapons onto planes. And terrorists could respond to any sort of loosened restriction by quickly targeting the vulnerability.
But there is little evidence current procedures are the result of constant threat assessment. Do government agencies really have evidence that terrorists continue to show interest in liquid plots? Hasn’t increased passenger and crew scrutiny decreased the likelihood of a successful shoe bombing (in fact, that’s how the shoe bombing was stopped)? Based on my time spent at DHS’s intelligence division, most security assessments are best guesses.
Too many people have internalized this as normal.
Additionally, there is little evidence that TSA is actually disrupting any plots. Tests of TSA’s airport screening effectiveness have found a 95% failure rate. Airline plots that were disrupted happened through surveillance or the quick action of bystanders.
And technology has changed. When we flew out of the excellent Fiumicino airport near Rome, we were told not to remove liquids from our bags. They had a machine that could scan them as part of the regular process. I don’t know how accurate that machine was, but it can’t be worse than the regular machines. Surely others could develop and use similar machines if the goal truly was a safe airport. Why is airport security technology frozen in 2006?
The restrictions on snow globes illustrate all of this. Do government agents really think that a terrorist would unscrew a snow globe, carefully save all the floating snow-stuff, fill it up with an explosive liquid and then rebuild it? Do they really think they’ll reverse this process on the plane? Or was it easier to just add snow globes to a list than to rationally think it through?
At first I thought this was just bureaucratic politics. TSA’s behavior seems irrational if we assume its priority is stopping terrorism. If its priority is maximizing its influence, however, these policies make perfect sense. The more responsibilities TSA has , and the less anyone is able to question them, the better. TSA is a massive bureaucracy that will fight to keep its authority. And no politician wants to open themselves to charges of being “soft on terrorism.”
But the snow globe made me think this is really path dependence. As Pierson defined it, path dependence is a “dynamic [process] involving positive feedback.” That is, once a policy is in place it becomes very difficult to change course. The policy creates institutions, incentives and political rewards that ensure it continues. At some point, people forget the initial point of the policy and stop thinking about it when they implement it.
Likewise, Mahoney and Thelen discussed the ways institutions change over time. I’d argue that what we’re seeing with TSA is a case of “drift.” TSA has failed to adapt to the current threat environment. Powerful veto players- TSA itself, public opinion on terrorism–prevent outright changes to TSA, but the government’s failure to ensure TSA is effectively countering terrorism means it has drifted away from that initial purpose.
How do we get out of this process? Often people point to an exogenous shock, but we’ve had those–in the form of continued terrorist threats–and that has only led to expanded security theater. Mahoney and Thelen discuss change agents, but they argue they’re constrained by the same factors that led to the drift in the first place.
I worry that too many people have internalized this as normal. People get annoyed, but they are annoyed during the entire air travel experience: how is this any different? So there will be no push to change these policies, and we will continue to waste massive amounts of taxpayer money and travelers’ time without actually decreasing the threat from terrorism.
Happy traveling!
UPDATE: As a commenter helpfully pointed out, the person whose tweet I’m responding to was a political science Professor, not a historian. This kind of messes with the framing of this post but rather than stealth re-write it I’ll leave it as is and let you interpret my Freudian slip as you like
When I was in grad school, my Department’s grad student organization made shirts that read, “Political Science: Four sub-fields, no discipline.” Behind this joke is a common observation about political science, that it is defined by its focus rather than a formal set of methods or theories. Not everyone agrees with this characterization, and there have been some efforts to craft political science-specific tools. But generally political science is a field that draws on insights and tools from other areas to study politics. This is most pronounced in international relations. IR looks not just to other fields but also other sub-fields of political science to study the world.
Many present IR’s lack of discipline as a critique. They view IR scholars as a group of raiders, pillaging ideas and methods from other disciplines then returning to our barren homeland. Two recent Twitter kerfuffles, however, demonstrate that this aspect of IR is actually our greatest strength.
I don’t spend much time on Twitter anymore, but I still seem to discover the latest controversy. Two academic ones were related in their attacks on political science.
First, a historian responded angrily to a new article in the American Political Science Review by Anna Grzymala-Busse on European state formation. The historian suggested she used overly-simplistic methods to make a point that “real” experts on early modern Europe already knew (I’ve anonymized the tweet as I don’t like engaging in Twitter attacks).
This is a common complaint I’ve heard from historians studying international issues. IR and CP either take history’s insights and repackage them as our own, or don’t realize historians have already said this. Several academic institutions I’ve been a part of have included fierce and rather petty attacks by historians on political scientists.
As some respondents to this tweet noted, however, this historian isn’t really being fair. The role of religion in state formation is hardly settled ground–I took an entire class on debates over the role of religion in nationalism in grad school. Also, isn’t it a good thing to test and confirm certain arguments using a different set of data and methods? And when pressed, he couldn’t point to what historical works the author overlooked.
Critiques of IR and political science take the place of addressing real issues within other areas of study
In a follow-up tweet, the historian also makes an ironic call for interdisciplinarity. Ironic because this is an interdisciplinary work! Grzymala-Busse combined insights from comparative politics and history to generate new knowledge; this is in line with her other work, which involves careful attention to historical detail. Those calling for interdisciplinary engagement should cheer this, unless “interdisciplinary” just means listening to historians…
The second Twitter incident involved a data scientist. A data science grad student tweeted a broadside against the replication crisis in psychology, followed by attacks on political science and the social sciences in general. Another data scientist responded by pointing out that social scientists don’t conduct our own statistical analysis and instead get “real statisticians” to do it.
Again, people took issue with this. Some noted the data science grad student hadn’t really characterized the replication crisis accurately. Others asked for specific examples (which weren’t forthcoming). I’d also point out that it is true data science does have a real impact on our lives, but it’s hardly a positive one; one data science course I took focused on things like getting around CAPTCHA tests and tricking spam filters. And in practice “interdisciplinary” for data science often means using Python to study political or social issues without engaging actual subject matter experts.
These are very different controversies, and I’m sure these two people wouldn’t agree on much if forced to have a conversation. But both involve the perennial attack on political science (and IR by extension): we don’t come up with our own insights or methods, we just steal the former and implement the latter badly.
I thought of this debate recently while visiting the excellent Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England. The popular view of the Norse raiders known as vikings is of pillaging hordes, and that was certainly the case initially. But as often happens, they settled down. And in the case of Jorvik, they created a thriving cosmopolitan society enabled through their wide-ranging travels.
Maybe I’m pushing this metaphor a bit here, but I think of IR as Jorvik.
Yes, we got our start by combining economic models and humanistic insights. Yes, our research tends to include references from disparate traditions. Yes, our data is messier than other fields or even sub-fields within political science.
These issues all became strengths, however.
Because of IR’s broad roots we have to be conversant in different disciplines. When engaging with people from other disciplines, I often get the sense they’ve never really read anything from my field; their critiques are often caricatures. By contrast, many IR scholars are well-read in other fields.
Additionally, we recognize the difficulty of drawing on and testing different disciplines. That’s why you can find IR and political science discussions about combining methodologies or triangulating among competing schools of historiography.
Finally, the challenge of dealing with incredibly messy data has created problems for IR but also led to fertile debates. For example, the problem of selection effects in conflict onset has led to a useful back-and-forth.
Interdisciplinary means each side listens to and learns from the other, not that one asserts superiority and territoriality
Beyond that, these critiques of political science and IR take the place of addressing real issues within other areas of study. In C.P. Cavafy’s poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians” (which I referenced above) the inhabitants of a classical city sit and wait for the barbarians to arrive instead of dealing with the problems in their civilization. We can sense this in some of the attacks I’m discussing.
Historians are rightly frustrated at the lack of support for and interest in the humanities from universities and the general public. They often, however, see political science as the problem, such as Grzymala-Busse making a splash by engaging in historical debates. I am also reminded of a seminar my grad school put on to help students prepare and turn their dissertations into books; we went around the room discussing our topics and one history student made a crack about how “relevant” mine would be in DC. Rather than finding ways to demonstrate the value of a humanistic and historical approach to contemporary issues, some historians seem to blame political science and IR for sucking up all the attention (and student interest).
Likewise, data scientists are rightly tired of inadequate statistical models and badly interpreted findings. But what many of them seem to miss is that this is not a problem of stupidity: it is over-confidence, something data science tends to exhibit. I also sense a bit of frustration that political scientists are still seen as the expert on…politics despite our lack of cutting edge programming skills. This could be solved by closer collaborations between data scientists and subject matter experts, something that is often lacking.
It’s almost like political science and IR have become the Other to our critics, alleviating the need for any deeper reflection. As Kavafy ended his poem: “those people were a kind of solution.”
So what should be done?
Well, I am just finishing a fellowship at Edinburgh University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), which was funded by the Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World. It includes fellows from across the humanities, as well as the social and natural sciences. Part of the fellowship is a “work in progress” talk, which I gave last week. The empirical subject was my new work using social network analysis to study international religious politics, but the broader theme was my ongoing effort to test concepts from the humanities using quantitative social science methods.
I was unsure about the reaction. I didn’t know if the crowd of humanities scholars would react hostilely to me as an interloper. Instead, it was an incredibly fruitful discussion. There were tough questions and critiques, but they were in the spirit of collaboration and community. They recognized that I valued their disciplines, and they did not see the fact that I drew on theirs and mixed it with others (i.e., my lack of discipline) as a problem.
In this context, interdisciplinary meant each side listened to and learned from the other, rather than one asserting superiority and territoriality. It’d be nice if that attitude spread outside IASH.
As a Turkey follower (I studied the country in grad school and wrote on it for my dissertation and first book) I’ve got thoughts on Turkey’s elections. But as someone not interested in hot takes, I’m going to wait until the election is over to provide some analysis.
Instead, I want to talk about Pope Francis’ “peace talks” between Russia and Ukraine. The Pope recently announced “secret” peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, although neither side seemed to be aware of this. His efforts have progressed, however, with Ukraine President Zelensky’s recent visit to Italy.
I should be a fan of this. I think Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was, and continues to be, a war crime: it needs to stop. I study religion and international relations, and thus should welcome an example of religion’s power in the world. But I’m concerned, not because I think he’ll fail but because I worry he’ll succeed.
My concerns have to do with the nature of the Pope’s current mission, and a past mission he conducted.
He is attempting to stay neutral in the conflict in order to find a middle ground between the combatants. Francis has been hesitant to call out Russia as the aggressor in the conflict while suggesting Russia was “provoked” into attacking Ukraine. He’s met with Putin supporters such as Viktor Orban of Hungary.
I can understand what the Pope is trying to do. Putin will never trust someone who condemns his actions, and–if the goal is peace rather than Russian surrender–this neutrality is the best way to achieve it.
But as I’ve argued before, peace at any cost isn’t really what Ukraine needs. Such a peace deal would likely give Russia some control over Ukraine, which is not acceptable. Ukraine needs a just peace that includes justice for the victims of Russian aggression, not just the end of fighting.
Most commentators believe Pope Francis’ peace efforts will fail…I worry they will succeed.
The Pope’s earlier peacebuilding in Syria demonstrates this concern. As I discuss in my forthcoming book with Cornell University Press, Francis opposed calls in 2013 for international military intervention in Syria in response to the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people. Some of this included explicit appeals to faith. Ultimately, Francis was successful in organizing a transnational coalition against intervention.
I was also opposed to military intervention in Syria. At the same time, I did not believe peace talks would cause Assad to start respecting human rights. And, unfortunately, Francis’ successful blocking of military intervention did not lead to a concerted effort to create a just peace for the Syrian people. Instead, it gave Assad the breathing room to crush his opponents. Some see this as a permanent stain on Francis’ legacy, and I worry his efforts in Ukraine will be as well.
Most commentary on the Pope’s Ukraine peace efforts seem to think they will fail. He is intervening in conflicts among Orthodox Christians, outside the Roman Catholic sphere of influence. Zelensky continues to receive support from Western leaders; he had a positive meeting with Italian Prime Minister Meloni, and both the UK and Germany have pledged military aid.
I think he may actually succeed.
In my forthcoming book I discuss why religious appeals affect power politics, by persuading leaders and resonating with domestic publics. I also discuss when they succeed or fail.
Pope Francis may not appreciate the immense power he wields.
The key variables are the credibility of the actor issuing the appeals and the material incentives facing their targets. A speaker credible on religious issues and targets amenable to their message leads to success. The absence of these conditions leads to failure.
Most situations in the real world, however, involve a mix of the two. Situations involve either a speaker with little credibility on religious issues but the ability to provide material incentives, or a credible speakers appealing to targets with disincentives to go along with their efforts. The theme of the book is that religious appeals have real impacts on power politics, but rarely in the manner intended by their wielders.
Pope Francis’ peacebuilding efforts are a rare exception. First, if anyone is credible on religious issues it’s Pope Francis. His ascension to the Throne of St. Peter was greeted by enthusiasm around the world, given the fact that he is from the Global South and has emphasized care for the poor and social justice. He has established (possibly problematic) religious ties with the UAE’s government. Even this proud Protestant, whose Lutheran ancestors had to flee the Palatinate because of the Thirty Years’ War, likes him. As seen in his work on Syria, he is able to mobilize transnational and inter-faith coalitions; he may do the same on Ukraine.
Additionally, everyone involved has material incentives to listen to him. Western backers of Ukraine are wary of being drawn into the war, and some worry about the drain on their military readiness from continued support. The war is not working out for Russia, and it’s not inconceivable Putin is looking for a face-saving out. Even Ukraine’s will may begin to wear down as this goes on.
Thus, even if Francis cannot bring Putin and Zelensky together, his efforts may spark a transnational social coalition that puts pressure on all involved states to end the war.
Again, if the goal was just peace–i.e. the absence of fighting–this would be good. But this sort of “peace” means Russia will not have to repair the country it devastated, while Ukraine will likely have to give up full control of its territory. Pope Francis’ efforts may succeed, but leave the people he’s trying to help worse off. This would not be a failure of his influence, but, ironically, an unfortunate success for religious appeals in power politics. Pope Francis may not appreciate the immense power he wields.
Twenty year recollections of the 2003 invasion of Iraq are popping up. Some are debating whether there were any positive outcomes from the war, others reflecting on what it meant for those who fought (on the US side) or suffered (on the Iraqi side). The Iraq war has played a big role in my career, but I wanted to talk about what it means for the liberal internationalist orientation to the world.
In the first lecture of my classes, I tell my students that the 9/11 attacks were my second week of college, and discuss what a big impact they had on my choice of career and research area. That’s true, but I really should talk about the Iraq war as well.
As the build up to the war began, my classmates and I at my isolated lefty college were shocked. How could anyone want to start a second war after just invading Afghanistan? How could anyone think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? How could anyone believe this was a good idea?
I soon realized it didn’t matter what I thought. Conservative friends and family members were swept up in post-9/11 patriotism/panic.
Some have argued that neoconservative adventures like the Iraq war are the end result of liberal internationalism, and it should be abandoned
And then, during spring break, the war began. I watched in shock as the United States unleashed its might on Iraq. I was torn. I wasn’t one of those lefties who defended Saddam Hussein (we had some at my college). I wanted him gone. But even at 20 I knew this wasn’t the way to do it.
I continued with my plan to work in the US intelligence community while also pursuing scholarly studies. I got an internship with a defense contractor, was assigned to an intelligence agency. A few years into my career, I got accepted to a PhD program, was offered a promotion at my firm, and was offered a permanent job with the government agency. I went the PhD route (whether or not that was the right choice is the topic for another post).
I said this post wasn’t going to me about me, and I meant it. I gave this background to explain how I became involved in the bigger debate about the Iraq war: whether it invalidated liberal internationalism. While I was working in DC I also became part of a foreign policy group, the Truman National Security Project, meant to revive muscular liberal internationalism within the Democratic Party. I left after a few years, but the debates we had there stuck with me.
Liberal internationalism is a specific orientation towards the world. Advocates believe there is an international order that can be mutually beneficial. States should resolve disputes peacefully and multilaterally, through the United Nations and other international organizations. Human rights should trump narrow security interests. And states’ foreign policy should focus on upholding this international order.
Historically it had been tied to the US Democratic Party. This changed with the Bush Administration. A group of thinkers within the Republican party–growing out of the Reagan Administration’s aggressive anti-Soviet policies–sought to ensure US primacy while also defending democracy and human rights. They saw the response to 9/11 as a way to advance these goals, as signified in the 2002 National Security Strategy. Bush drew on similar language when justifying the Iraq War.
The Bush Administration’s use of liberal internationalist arguments to justify the Iraq War did trap some liberal internationalists. For example, the prominent liberal thinker Michael Ignatieff supported the Iraq War. This has given rise to the pejorative “liberal hawk” moniker-the claim that liberal internationalists are basically war-mongers. We’ve seen this deployed against Democratic figures like Hillary Clinton from both the left and the right.
As a result, some have argued that neoconservative adventures like the Iraq war are the end result of liberal internationalism, and it should be abandoned. To these policy thinkers, liberal internationalism is an “increasingly unsustainable grand strategy.” Others have gone further to question the validity or even the existence of a liberal international order, which liberal internationalism is meant to sustain.
But liberal internationalism is not dead.
First, Americans do not support an isolationist or restrained foreign policy. A 2019 report from the Center for American Progress found that US voters are “weary” of military interventions, but have not rejected American leadership in the world.
The irony is that many calling for restraint in US foreign policy for the sake of the world are as US-centric as liberal hawks.
Second, there is more to liberal internationalism than military interventions. This is what restrainers tend to suggest-that, since liberal internationalists tend to just be hawks a liberal internationalist grand strategy will lead to another Iraq war. And, to be fair, the liberal side isn’t helped when prominent members like Anne-Marie Slaughter praised Trump’s poorly-thought out air strikes on Syria. But there is a lot more to liberal internationalism- multilateralism, respect for human rights, upholding international institutions.
More importantly, those who assume the Iraq war damned liberal internationalism seem to ignore its relevance outside the United States. Many countries around the world look to the UN to reflect their views and advance their interests. This is why Trump’s decision to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council was concerning: other states take this, and other UN bodies, very seriously. The rest of the world–especially the Global South–has an interest in a robust UN, which only a liberal internationalist grand strategy can ensure.
Additionally, many countries depend on the liberal international order for support. The UN, while far from perfect, performs services no state can legitimately do on its own, such as supporting economic development, protecting cultural sites, and keeping the peace between combatants. Persistent security threat–like that of ISIS and other militant groups in the Sahel–require the international community’s assistance.
The irony, then, is that many calling for restraint in US foreign policy for the sake of the world are as US-centric as liberal hawks. They approach the relevance of liberal internationalism only in terms of whether America will invade another Middle Eastern country.
It gets a little tiresome when debate over US international action boils down to “but the Iraq war was bad.” Reducing the debate to pro/con military intervention makes it hard to effectively respond to crises, as arguably occurred in the Obama Administration’s response (or lack thereof) to the Syrian civil war. It also leads to poor analysis, such as when Middle East experts, viewing everything through the lens of another Iraq war, assumed that Saudi Arabia would pull America into a war with Iran.
But liberal internationalists are also at fault. They’re attached to US primacy, from Madeleine Albright’s invocation of America as the “indispensable nation” to Joe Biden’s foreign policy promise to “place America at the head of the table.” They seem obsessed with looking tough–which I suspect is behind the cheerleading of air strikes. They haven’t figured out a way to support human rights and a robust US international presence while also criticizing the Iraq War.
And that is the issue. Liberal internationalism is still viable, and much of the world depends on America’s continued support of this grand strategy. But US foreign policy debates revolve around that horrific and illegal invasion of March 20th, 2003, rather than the full set of policies we could adopt.
UPDATE: Edited to fix a typo
One year ago, Russia launched an illegal war on Ukraine, committing horrific war crimes against the people of Ukraine. Analyses and memorials abound, and I’m probably not the only person writing about this on the Duck today.
I wanted to address a specific aspect of this war, though: why Russia’s carefully cultivated ties with far-right forces in Western Europe and the United States failed to undermine Western opposition to the war.
Last year, as Russia was about to launch its invasion of Ukraine, I was finishing a chapter on Russia in my new book. The book, forthcoming with Cornell University Press, explores how states use religious appeals as a tool in power politics (Religious Appeals in Power Politics is the working title).
As Goddard and Nexon discussed in an article on power politics—or the efforts to form or break apart international coalitions—states use more than just military and economic tools. They also turn to cultural and symbolic instruments of power. Appeals to religion—shared faith, shared religiosity—I argue, are one such instrument of power.
One chapter looks at Saudi appeals to Islam to form an anti-Egyptian alliance in the 1960s. Another explores US appeals to “moderate Islam” and religious engagement in the Global War on Terrorism. One includes brief discussions of several other cases, such as China’s Confucius Institutes, the Pope’s mobilization against military intervention in Syria, and the early 2000s border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.
The chapter that ended up being most relevant to current events, however, is the one on Russia.
Putin has expressed desire to control his “near abroad” connected to Russia as former Soviet states and ethnic Russian ties; this is often referred to as the Russky Mir, or Russian world. As part of this, he fostered ties with far-right groups in the West, presenting Russia as a like-minded power.
Some refers to these efforts as “civilizational,” “sharp power,” “soft power,” or “traditional values” (for my related complaint about the stretching of the term soft power, see my article in International Studies Perspectives).
I prefer to call them what they are: religious appeals (I have a whole other post planned about scholars and policy experts’ allergy to just calling religion religion). For example, in a December 2013 speech, Putin pushed back on Western criticism of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws, attacking the West for “treating good and evil equally;” he argued that Russia’s “traditional family values” were “the foundation of Russia’s greatness and a bulwark against ‘so-called tolerance.’”
These religious appeals seemed to have worked. US conservatives see Putin as a defender of “traditional Christian values.” Far-right forces in Europe see Putin as a defender of “true” Western values.
But this hoped-for transnational far-right coalition didn’t fracture the West and give Putin an easy victory in Ukraine. Western European states, which had struggled to unite on many issues, came together to oppose Putin’s victory. Many Orthodox figures criticized Putin.
So what happened?
Some could argue this shows that cultural and symbolic instruments of power (we need a better name for that) like religious appeals ultimately matter less than material concerns. Western Europe is militarily threatened by Russia’s aggression, so even right-leaning figures won’t support Putin.
This is partly true. As I argue in the book, religious appeals’ effects depend on the interaction between the credibility of their wielder and the material incentives facing the target. I based this on Busby’s work on moral movements in foreign policy.
It could also just be bad timing (for Putin). If Putin had invaded Ukraine while Trump was still the U.S. President (or if Trump had won in 2020) the outcome may have been much different. Trump and his allies have been much more antagonistic towards Ukraine, so the US-led aid to Ukraine may not have materialized.
But I’d argue (and expand on this in the book) that it has to do with the nature of religious appeals themselves.
Religion is a powerful force (it’s hard to find a good single article overview, but you could read my summary of research on religion and terrorism). This makes it a useful tool when it mobilizes domestic publics or persuades leaders to change their policies.
But this power also makes it unwieldy and unpredictable.
Religion increases the stakes of any interaction (just think of that old joke about never discussing religion and politics at dinner). Religious arguments are complex, and can easily be reinterpreted to suit conflicting interests or even turned back on their originator. And conventional statecraft tends to be based on secular language, so religious appeals are confusing and produce uncertainty.
In my book, I break slightly with Busby, and argue that the intermediate combinations of material incentives and credibility still matter.
Material incentives to cooperate combined with a lack of credibility on religious appeals (the situation during the US Global War on Terrorism), produce convenient coalitions that can easily fall apart or be redirected against the interests of the originator. Credibility on religious appeals combined with material disincentives to cooperate lead to a tense, unsettled situation in which the appeals roil international relations.
I’d suggest this is what happened with Putin’s religious appeals, and explains their limited effect on the Ukraine war.
First, they still had some effect. As I discussed above, Putin did gain some political benefits from his appeals. And there are lower-level benefits he’s still enjoying. The recent arrest of a German government agent spying for Russia seems to be tied to his right-wing views. It’s likely Putin’s appeals generated sympathy and made it easier to recruit him.
Moreover, Putin’s appeals may have led some to sympathize with Russia, but they increased mistrust of Russia among many others. U.S. Democrats previously supported engagement with Russia, but they have grown increasingly hawkish on such efforts. Moreover, some of the opposition to Putin has drawn on appeals to Western values, suggesting part of the reaction has to do with Putin’s religious appeals.
Putin’s failure to break apart Western opposition to the war on Ukraine prevented the easy victory he hoped for. This failure arguably occurred due to the issues arising from religious appeals in power politics. I’d even argue that if Putin had stuck to conventional geopolitical discussions, Western mistrust would have been more minimal (he may have lost domestic support, but that’s another post).
We shouldn’t relax yet, however.
If it is true that the German spy is tied to right-wing parties, and if he was radicalized through Putin’s religious appeals, this is cause for concern. Even if Putin’s religious appeals never form a durable pro-Russian coalition, they will continue to disrupt and roil Western politics.
Like many, I woke up in shock at the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria. The earthquake, centered in Gaziantep, has killed 3,000 as of Monday afternoon devastated southeast Turkey and northern Syria. In addition to Gaziantep, other affected Turkish cities were Sanliurfa and Diyarbakir [Note-these aren’t the proper spellings as I can’t figure out how to insert Turkish characters].
Any destruction and death on this scale is a tragedy, but the earthquake followed a string of other problems for the region. Turkey’s southeast was long marginalized, and the site of an insurgency by its Kurdish population. This seemed like it may change when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002; the AKP invested in the southeast’s economy and made overtures to the Kurds.
It seemed particularly unfair that this region should suffer further.
When I first visited Gaziantep (also known as Antep), in 2009, it was booming. Expanded relations between Turkey and Syria led to a rise in Syrian tourism, from which Antep–on the border–benefited. New construction projects dotted the city and the local officials and civic groups I met with were full of pride and optimism. Nearby Sanliurfa (or Urfa), was quieter but still vibrant, attracting tourists to its many holy sites.
This did not last, however. As the Arab Spring spiraled into civi war in Syria, this region of Turkey absorbed many of the refugees fleeing the conflict. The resulting social and economic strain reversed some of this progress. Meanwhile, the AKP’s Erdogan slid further and further into authoritarianism, while the Kurdish conflict broke out again. And the bordering region of Syria–centered on the city of Aleppo–was devastated by the civil war.
So it seemed particularly unfair that this region should suffer further. Given Erdogan’s administrative and economic struggles, and the Syrian government’s lack of concern for its citizens, I’m skeptical that they will rebuild this area.
When I read the news this morning I thought I should say something. I try to avoid Facebook, and have increasingly avoided Twitter since Musk’s takeover, so the usual post on those sites wasn’t going to happen. I have this platform, but it felt lame to write a blog post that just says “how horrible.”
Is it a problem to write about how horrible a disaster is if I have nothing helpful to contribute?
I tried to think of some analytical spin on this. But it didn’t feel right. Should we really take a tragedy and use it to highlight our research? It would be one thing if I studied post-disaster reconstruction, but nothing I work on would really contribute to the response to this disaster.
At the same time, “thoughts and prayers” has come under fire, at least in the United States. This tends to be how conservatives respond to mass shootings, instead of taking action to prevent them. Does that extend to international relations? Is it a problem to write about how horrible a disaster is if I have nothing helpful to contribute?
Maybe.
I’d say definitely if I used this post to talk about how this disaster affected me (i.e. “I hope that kebab place I liked survived). And anytime a Westerner writes about the tragedy and promise of the Middle East it comes off a bit Orientalist. But maybe there is a way to just express solidarity, and maybe that’s better than trying to force an analysis onto a tragedy.
At the least, here is a useful article listing the organizations currently on the ground in Turkey and Syria.
FreshRSS 