Final Post

What have I learned this semester that I did not know before? Well there is a very simple answer to that question – A LOT. Obviously there are a lot of specifics regarding international politics that I had never heard of before, or thought about in terms of the ways we used them. For example, the aspects that make a certain country fall into the category of either developed, developing, or communist, post-communist, and post-authoritarian. But overall, the biggest thing I am taking from this class is definitely the same thing that I quickly realized was a thing in the very beginning of the semester. INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, and politics just in general, ARE COMPLICATED. More complicated than most people are aware. From an ordinary civilian view it may seem like a decision made my politicians or the president was not the right one. And maybe in some cases this is true, but I think it is important to understand with every decision, no matter how beneficial it is for the country, there always seems to be some kind of cost that is paid.

Something I really liked about the class was researching one country the entire semester according to the different topics, as opposed to looking at a new country each time. Mexico is one of our neighboring countries, and even so I knew very little about it at the start of the semester. Through my research I have been able to learn a lot about Mexico’s history, the state of the country today, and their relations with the United States. I feel like this kind of information is important to know because we are so close. I also found it interesting how I was able to make connections between what I was researching about Mexico, to what I was learning and researching for my Immigration class. It is useful to know these kinds of things in regards to what is currently going on between the two countries, and today’s current events related to Mexico.

 

Event Two

The second event I attended this semester was the speaker who gave a take on “Islamophobia.” He is an American Muslim of Pakistani dissent. He and his family immigrated to the United States from Pakistan when he was very young. When he started preschool in California, he remembers it being difficult because he only knew about three English words. He told us a little bit about his own background, but spent most of his speech explaining some of the history of Muslims in the U.S. and dispelling popular myths associated with the Muslim religion.

Muslims have been in America since the 1500s Around 15-20 percent of slaves brought to the colonies through the African slave trade were Muslims. The first were taken from the west African country of Senegal. I thought this fact was particularly interesting because i am currently in the Slavery class, and we have gone a lot more in depth on the institution than I have ever been, and this was something that never came up when we talked about the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The speaker said that Islamophobia is the result of two main things: ignorance and the media. 60 percent of Americans say they don’t know a Muslim, and he says that he is sure that all of what these people know they get from the media, which is overwhelmingly negative. Stories of Muslims are painted by violence and fear, and have created harsh stereotypes that are believed to be true by large numbers of the American population. Currently, there are a record number of hate groups in the U.S. due to white supremacists and nativist anti-immigrant groups. It is also stereotypes like these that have been used by politicians and republican candidates in order to gain more support. Every time a candidate uses them they get more support and funding. Also, Ben Carson has said that Muslims intend to replace the constitution with Sharia Law, and that they are a foreign threat. This has become the mainstream perception, but it is not true. In fact, according to the speaker, the FBI has determined that right-wing anti-government terrorist attacks outnumber Islamic terrorist attacks.

Attending this talk helped me to understand more why people believe what they do about Muslims and the Islamic religion. At a time when we are being flooded with all these different ideas from both sides it can get confusing, and difficult to know what is true and what is false. Hearing this information, and the personal experience, from someone who is directly being affected by these common beliefs is helpful in easing the negative assumptions. I wish more people would be able to attend something similar. Maybe then more perspectives would be changed.

Event One

The first event I attended this semester was to watch the documentary “Please Vote For Me.” It was directed by Weijun Chen, and was released in 2007. The purpose for the creation of this film was to try to determine the answers to the question of whether or not humans are inherently democratic. The film documents an experiment that was done in China, where a school class of 8 year olds had to hold a democratic election for class monitor. The results of the election and the election process, and the ways in which the children and their parents acted were quite interesting.

There were three candidates who ran for class monitor, and each of them were allowed to choose two other classmates of theirs to help them with their campaigns. One of the campaign events that was held was a talent show. While one of the candidates was performing, one of the others and his assistants started yelling things like, “Out of tune!” and “She is terrible!” It was after this that a lot of the elements of a true democratic election could be seen; mostly the attempts of one candidate to trash talk and tear down the others. At one point one of the boys running for class monitor wanted to drop out of the election because of the things some of his classmates were saying about him. In retaliation to this he bought out an assistant of one of his opponents.

Another tactic the child candidates used was bribery. One told some of the kids that he would make them vice president and head of the study committee in return for their vote. Some of the other forms of bribery bring the parents into the picture. The parent of another one of the children helped his son to bribe the students for votes with a free ride on the monorail, which was a big deal for the young students. The parents of the kids who were candidates were just as into the election as the kids, maybe even more so. When the one candidate wanted to drop out of the race his mother pushed him to continue on.

One specific part that stood out to me was when the girl made a list of all the faults she saw in the other candidates. Now, I don’t know if this is in any way related, or if it was just something her family though of on their own, but this reminded me of Mao Zedong’s past cultural revolution. During the revolution peoples’ faults in the eyes of the government were printed on large character posters and put in public areas, denouncing them as an opponent of the revolution. It seems to fit, but then again, we also like to point out all of the candidates flaws here in the United States as well.

In the end, I think that this film did demonstrate that humans are in fact, inherently democratic. The parents, who had probably never experienced democracy until that election, were able to come up with the same tactics used as real candidates in a true democratic election. Also, the children, who also had never experienced democracy until them, were act to act on these ideas and quickly picked up new strategies on their own to gain the support of their peers.

Polling Results

Here are the results. 

The main thing that can be concluded from the survey we administered is what college students, specifically college students in Nebraska, are thinking about when it comes to the 2016 presidential election. The largest group of respondents had some college credit, but no college degree. College students from Nebraska by far made up most of the respondents, which means that this survey is most representative of that particular population. Out of the 1608 total people who responded to the survey, 1208 of those were from Nebraska, and 699 of them were Nebraska college students. One of the other major conclusions that can be made from the results of the survey is that it is highly likely that college students are going to vote in the election. Whether they know a lot about what is actually going on in the world, or even in our own country, the survey says that chances are they will go vote. I think that this is important because the political participation in this country could probably be higher than it is now. There are probably some other outlying reasons for this, but regardless, the more people who participate the better because this can help the interests of more groups to be represented. Something else that shows in the data is that most Nebraska college students don’t want Trump to be our next president.

The main thing that cannot be concluded from the survey results has to do with the population that is being represented. Because the sample is most representative of Nebraska college students, the survey does not show what Nebraskans in general are thinking about when it comes to the election. Even more so, it is in no way an accurate representation of what Americans in general are thinking about with the election. I also feel as though some of the conclusions that are shown in the data are skewed or untrue. This is due to a couple different reasons. One reason could be due to the wording of certain questions. Depending on how a question is worded it can have an effect on a respondents answers. One question I think this may have happened with is the one that asked people to give their opinion on the following statement; which was “ISIS is the biggest threat to US national security in 2016.” ISIS is a threat, but the media tends to hype up the terrorist organization for good news. I do think that having “ISIS” in the actual question may have hurt its results. Another thing that could have made the results different from reality is that the online surveys and the in-person surveys were thrown together. I think that administering the surveys face-to-face had an effect on how people answered due to the social desirability effect, and it would have been interesting to see if there really was a significant difference. Also, I don’t know how others handled this, but when I was giving my in-person surveys a lot of people were asking me questions because they did not know what some things meant or what certain policies were. I tried not to give too much information because I found myself trying to explain things without trying to be too biased toward my own opinions, and it was difficult to do this. This shows how biases could have been introduced into the survey results.

Even though this included non-college students and a few non-Nebraskans, and even though Trump never got a majority of the vote, one thing that surprised me when I initially saw the results was that Trump still had as many votes as he did. Back when we got the data I still had some hope in the people of our country, but as we get closer to the election that hope is quickly diminishing. The most interesting thing I came across in my own experience giving the surveys was the differences in the responses from people who were educated and people who were uneducated, both with college age and in the 45-64 years age range. Those who were educated, even with no background in political science, had a lot more knowledge of what is going on in the world, and knew what different elements in the survey meant, such as the Electoral College, and what it could mean for the U.S. if all the Mexicans were deported. This proved to be true for both age groups. Overall, this was probably the biggest thing I took from doing these surveys. I did not realize how big an impact a person’s level of education has on their political beliefs.

If I were to do the survey again the first thing that would change is I would choose a more specific population I want to represent. For example, if I wanted to really target college students from Nebraska I would only use college students from Nebraska in my sample population. Then I would randomly sample students attending multiple different universities and colleges in Nebraska. Even though this would still be more accurate than our other survey, there are still possible outlying factors that could make the data incorrect, such as where the respondents grew up. This could be important because people from super small towns tend to be more conservative than people who are from a larger city. The other major change I would make would be to administer all the surveys online. This would help in keeping respondents from fishing for the beliefs of the pollster, but it would hurt the survey because people would be giving answers to questions in which they don’t know what is being asked. Other than that, I would just try to be as careful as I could in figuring out how to word the questions, in hopes that they would not be the reason for respondents answering in certain ways.

Panel Presentations

The countries that were presented together tended to have more similarities than those of other groups. This was definitely true for my country, Mexico, and the other developing countries. The three main themes that I found to be plaguing the developing countries are poverty, inequality, and corruption. Like Mexico, there is corruption in the South African government, and high levels of inequality and unemployment among the country’s citizens. They also have a similar issue with kids dropping out of school early. I did not read too much on this in regards to Mexico, but from what I do remember the reasons for these kids dropping out is not the same, as South Africa tends to test their students in English instead of their native language. India too has high poverty and inequality, and wealth that is distributed unevenly. One of the other main similarities between Mexico and India is the implementation of neoliberal policies, such as privatization. India experienced some rapid growth, but it did not last long. Most of Mexico’s neoliberal policies were implemented with NAFTA, and although there have been some benefits, the agreement has not stimulated the economy as it was intended to do. In fact, it has made the rich even richer, and the poor even poorer.

Nigeria also has government corruption and a high level of poverty. One of the biggest similarities to Mexico I found was that farmers have moved to the cities and have no agricultural base to go back to. This is also happening in Mexico, but it is a little different. In Mexico, farmers are losing their jobs because under the free trade agreement with the United States, the U.S. can import agricultural goods without being heavily taxed, and the Mexican farmers are unable to compete with the heavily subsidized american farming industry. In Nigeria, the farmers who move to the cities are stuck selling oil under the resource curse. While oil is a main export of Mexico, the country is not overly reliant on it. Another problem these two countries share is an unequal distribution of wealth. In Nigeria the richest 20% of people own 40% of the entire country’s wealth. Mexico is similar, and is home to one of the world’s richest men, who owns 6% of Mexico’s GDP.

Based on what I learned, I think that it would be good for me to compare Mexico to another developing country for my final paper. The two that stick out to me the most would be comparing the movement of farmers from rural areas to cities in Mexico and Nigeria, or to look more into the kinds of neoliberal reforms that India has passed and how those have affected the country’s economy. The presentation given said that the growth that occurred did not go on for long, I think it would be interesting to compare that aspect of the country’s economy to how Mexico’s neoliberal reforms under NAFTA has hurt their economy and may be what is keeping them from becoming a fully developed country.

Political Economy

So apparently politics, both international and within countries, are a lot more important in relation to the economy than I thought. I knew they they were connected in some way, but I did not know how much they influence each other. There were a few things from the O’Neil chapter that surprised me on this topic. First of all, when compared with other countries around the world, the United States is on the lower end of how much money is collected through taxes. I thought this was surprising, and unfortunate, because it seems like the government is always taking our money.(Or maybe I think this because my parents are always complaining about it).  Even though I do not wish to pay any more taxes than I already do, it does kind of make me wonder what kind of new services, or improvements to existing services, the government could provide. But at the same time, if people become too reliant on the government it could turn into a bad thing. Like with Great Britain’s  welfare state that developed after the second world war. People were expecting too much out of the government, and it became too expensive. Another thing that surprised me is how close the gini index of the U.S. (45) and Mexico (48) are. After doing research this semester on Mexico I thought they would have more inequality, but I guess my own home country is not too far off.

Something else discussed in the chapter was regulation of trade. I think that the government should have some control over trade, especially international trade, but not complete control. I just learned in my World Civ class about how after WW2 the Soviet Union opposed international trade. A policy only allowing for domestic trade was not good for the country because without any imports they had to make everything themselves, and they did not always have the rights skills or materials to do so. But even with this, there are also some advantages to a controlled economy, such as keeping the industry, jobs, and wealth in the country. If I was forced to choose between an economy with government  control over the economy and an economy not controlled by the government, I would probably choose no interference. It seems to be that either way you go there are disadvantages. They are both unfair in their own ways, and if its going to be unfair no matter what, then at this point I think people should be able to compete with others for greater success. If humanity cared more about themselves and wealth, then maybe people could compete and find success without taking advantage of the whole system. But that will never happen.

UPDATE:

When looking at the numbers on a chart it is easy not to recognize the true, and extreme, differences in wealth among the world’s countries. The thing we did with the streamers in class on Monday really helping in realizing this. Given the politics that is involved, it is no doubt a difficult task to determine how rich countries should address problems of the developing world. There are obvious advantages for a rich and a poor country to have relations, but there are also a number of ways in which the interests of each will clash. Even when attempting to help a poor country grow their economy, or making it seem like they are, how these actions are carried out over time are determined according how much the rich country’s interests are being met. I think that no matter the intentions, good or bad, the rich will ultimately always choose to act in their own interest, and use others to do so. This goes back in history and is still true today.

During the time of colonization, industrialized countries wanted to make it seem like they had intentions of helping the countries they came to rule over, but they only exploited them for human labor and resources to benefit themselves. Another thing I learned in my World Civ class that has to do with this is that officials would go to these colonized nations to establish some sort of treaty. But instead of actually doing what the leaders agreed upon, they would write the treaty with policies that only benefited them. The leaders of these colonized areas would sign the treaties because they were written in a language they did not understand. They were unknowingly agreeing to be exploited. Richer countries acting in terms of their own benefits can be seen today with the implementation of NAFTA. Under this agreement, the U.S. has been able to take advantage of cheap labor and the export of agricultural goods to Mexico. While it has produced jobs and other benefits for the country, the advantages seems to be outweighed by the consequences.

Mexico’s Involvement in WW2

Mexico was definitely active and involved in World War 2. (I did not know this). The country sent an air force team, called the FAM, that supported the liberation of the Philippines from the air.  In 1942, a U-boat sank a Mexican oil tanker. Mexico filed a protest against Germany, who responded by sinking another tanker. In response to this, the president declared war on the axis power. At one point in 1943, President Roosevelt traveled to the country to convince the president to participate in the offensive as well. He agreed, but had to get permissions from the senate, which meant receiving the support of the citizens as well. How he went about gaining there support, is quite interesting. The FAM was given orders to stage an airshow, which became a success.

Mexico’s involvement in the war even goes back further than this. After the Pearl Harbor attack, they were one of the first to give support and aid. They also cut off all their diplomatic ties with countries who were a part of the axis powers.

Something else I found interesting in my search was that got some personal rewards from their decision to enter the war. American factories were being built in Mexico to help with the demand for wartime needs. The US started buying oil from the country, and the mining industry was built up. The US also provided weapons and training.

History Net                                       About Education

Violence by Non-State Actors

Violence by non-state actors usually comes in the forms of civil wars, rebellions, and terrorism, and there are various different causes that result in this violence. A group may feel like they are being treated unfairly, or may want something that has been taken from them or they feel they are being deprived of. For example, this could be along the lines of territory or certain rights. Violence between two non-states could be the result of differences they feel they are being threatened by. In some cases political violence is even, in a way, promoted by other states, such as through proxy wars. Terrorists use violence to try to reach the goals motivated by their interests. The idea of terrorism has caught my attention more strongly in the past couple of weeks. According to the FLS book, in order to understand the acts of violence committed, is understanding that terrorist organizations are weak in a couple of key ways. First, they are weak in relation to who they are targeting, and second, they are weak in relation to the sweeping demands that they make. Just realizing that terrorists are terrorist because they are weak and can’t fight a usual battle has changed my perspective on the issue.This adds on to the article we read about terrorism and the media for me. I have always been under the assumption that the terrorist organizations, mainly ISIS, have all this power which allows them to go out and commit all the acts of violence. But in reality they have so little power that they have to resort to violence to provoke states and coerce them into making some kind of change. They are using this tactic in an effort to achieve  success in attaining their own interests.

One of the theories as to how we can make countries less violent has to do with democratization. It has been argued that democratic states are less likely to become violent. Usually, democratic countries are richer, which means that they have more to lose should they become involved in a war or other violent conflict. This argument makes sense to me in some ways, but to it may not be for the fact a state is democratic. Even a stable non-democratic regime can exist without extreme violence. So instead of a lack of violence being attributed to democracy, it seems to me it is more closely linked with a country ‘s ability to deal with it.

UPDATE – “Black Earth” by Timothy Snyder

This reading was interesting because it gave a lot of insight into the mindset and thought processes behind Hitler and his ideas. It is easy to look back on history and have absolutely no idea how such a horrible atrocity as the holocaust could have possibly occurred. How could any person think that way in regards to other human beings? How could that many people have bought into his ideas and supported his actions? How could anyone have even been inhumane enough to carry out these vicious acts of violence and murder? The holocaust was an awfully tragic event and it is easy to judge the actors who participated, from the powerful leaders all the way down to the common supporters. But I think an important thing to realize is that the world today is a lot different from how it was at this time, especially in regards to the way people thought. In the reading the author even says that human activities were understood as a biological science. Hitler was able to gain a lot of support in a time after the first world war; a war in which Germany was solely blamed for causing. Maybe this played into the support for his ideas that the Jews were to blame for disrupting nature and introducing the struggle for humanity.

In terms of my perspective changing, it didn’t so much after reading this book as I have already previously read a part of Mein Kampf. The part I read was when he was describing why Jews are bad for the Aryan race in terms of interbreeding. He was basically saying that if a person who is powerful and another person who is not (a Jew) reproduce, the offspring will be have a level of power that is in between the two. If this happens then there would be no way for the human race to progress toward being more powerful, which was seen as essential to the fight for survival. Before reading this I had never had an explanation as to how the holocaust could have happened. Even though it was a horrible event that took place (and no, I do not support it), when looking at the mindset and thought process it is easier to understand how it was possible.

 

“The Fog of War” and “Bush’s War”

For me, these two movies showed how complicated these types of situations involving political violence are. There are no easy solutions to any of it because they all come with some kind of consequence. In Bush’s War they had to to decide if Iraq was going to be the next major area of attack, and they had to try to have discussions on it. It was evident how difficult this can be when there are differing opinions. They described it almost in a way that there was a simultaneous war within the administration as well as the one going on in the Middle East. McNamara describes the phrase “Fog of War.” His explanation is that war is so complex, it is beyound human minds to comprehend all of the variables.

I really liked the Fog of War video. I think that McNamara provided some really good lessons on how to deal with war, and the actions carried in the war. (Random Note: I did not know about the fire bombinb that happened in Japan before the atomic bombs were dropped). One of the lessons he gave was that in order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. This is hard to think about being someone who want to solve everything peacefully. But he is right, the fact of the matter is that it is not always possible. It may work for very small scale personal problems, but not for always in a real war. He then goes on to say that when the time do engage in this evil comes you have to be able to recognize it, and in doing so you need to minimize the evil. I feel like at times it would be very easy to go overboard with the evil. For example, when the Bush administration was trying to figure out how to respond to the 9/11 terrorist attacks there were split on ideas. They could have all made a quick decision to go in and wipe out Iraq and caused more desstruction than necessary, because they posed a direct threat to their home, and their familes, and this time it was personal. This kind of ties into one of his other lessons, which was that we need to be prepared to reexamine our reasoning for our actions. We should only carry out these actions if they are just, and if our allies are not convinced then we may need to reasses and understand the consequences on both sides of what we did. I think this is important becasue being the largest military power it is easy for the country to carry out these violent actions, but it is not always the right thing to do, and I think this is something the ordinary person needs to realize.

Overall this week, I did learn some important things. A part of me really believes that if people tried hard enough, we could all, for the most part, get along and be civilized with each other. But I have to say that I think I do agree with McNamara when he says that human nature cannot be changed, and therefore it will be impossible to eliminate all war and conflicts. Although it sucks to think about, it seems to be the truth. Another important thing I learned (not really related to the movies), was with the article we read in class about terrorist attacks in the media. I never thought about the media as a way to give power to terrorist groups, and the more I look at it, the easier it is to realize that the media spends a lot of time talking about these events. The article said that the media tends to portry these groups as more powerful than they really are by covering them so widely and extensively. I will admit that I am one who believed they had that much power. But now I am not so sure … and I hope that is the truth.

 

Human Rights and Political Violence

I think that one of the most important topics regarding human rights is trying to improve their protection, and I think that an important way to try to go about this throughout the world is through Transitional Justice. The book devotes a little section to this particular topic, but this was actually the title of my freshman archway class, so I learned quite a bit about it. When it comes to determining what to do in order to help a country recover from some kind of violence or mass atrocity, it is important to realize that no two countries or conflicts are exactly the same. That means that while a strategy like Transitional Justice may work for a certain country, has been known to work in the past, it may not be as effective for other countries in trying to overcome their own conflicts. But, for the countries that have or could use it, I think Transitional Justice is an important tool.

Like the book said, Transitional Justice is a way for victims and abusers to confront the atrocity and abuses that took place without being legally punished. This can help people come to terms with things they witnessed or things that happened to them, and then eventually help them to move past it. One way this has been done is through the establishment of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, which allow abuses to be reaveled so they can be confronted. Those who oppose Transitional Justice argue that it is unfair for those responsibile for the crimes to be given anmestry, and that they should be prosecuted by the law. This may be true, but legal trials take a long time and would drag things out, possibly making it more difficult to move past the conflict. Another aspect not mentioned in the book, but one I researched was the possibility of education as a mechanism of Transitional Justice. My research focused on post-genocide Rwanda. In the years following the genecide a number of measures took effect, such as solidarity education camps, a memorial, and the Peace Education Program. All of these things helped to bring knowledge to the people about what happened in their country, and also provided a way to help prevent it from happening again in the future by educating the youth on history and unity.

UPDATE

Another important idea we discussed in class was what exactly should be defined as international human rights. There are already some rights that have been determined to be so in the International Declaration of Human Rights, but it can get tricky. This is because even though this list of rights has been established countries are supposed to follow them, not all of them do. For example, I remember from my Chinese history class last semester that there is an artist from China who uses both his art and the media to speak out against the government and try to inspire other people to do so as well. The Chinese government does not like opposition. At one point he was arrested and nobody knew where he was. He was held for 81 days without any charges being filed against him. They later claimed he had been arrested for economic crimes.

I think that even though there are major flaws in the system of enforcement of the declaration, it is still important. This is because it officially recognizes that international human rights are something that do exist. Even though all of the rights are not protected all of the time, I think that if there was nothing established more countries would be taking advantage of their people, there would be more political violence, and the world as a whole would be in more chaos than it is today.