I have the op-ed below on the Globe and Mail website. It’s on why Canada might not be quite as quick to adopt UK-style coalition government as many have suggested. At the very least, we can’t simply compare our political parties based on seat percentages - the ideology matters, and at the moment does not align with British parties. Link is here.

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Five reasons David Cameron’s coalition government is not a harbinger for Canada

There has been considerable discussion about what British coalition government means for Canadian politics. Most points to it laying the procedural and ideological precedent for a future coalition government here. While the process may indeed now be more palpable to Canadians, there are at least five reasons why we are unlikely see a similar parliamentary outcome.

1. The New Democrats are not the Liberal Democrats, rather they are more like a relatively unsuccessful Labour Party, one still encumbered by a version of Labour’s Clause Four. When Tony Blair took over, he aggressively signalled his reform agenda by immediately repealing the clause in the party’s constitution that linked them to both the union movement and to a socialist agenda. A similar break has not, and is unlikely to, occur in the NDP. As long as New Democrats remain at their core an anti-liberal party, it is unlikely they will be able to merge with either the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party.

2. The Green Party is the closest thing we have to the Liberal Democrats. Like Nick Clegg’s Lib-Dems, Elizabeth May’s Greens pull policies from across the political spectrum and both are fiscally liberal and socially progressive. However, unless we see electoral reform (allowing the Greens a number of seats proportional to their popular vote), or the Green Party radically alters its electoral strategy (perhaps by ceasing to run candidates in every riding), then they remain highly unlikely to gain the number MPs necessary to hold the balance of power.

3. Stephen Harper is not David Cameron, and the CPC has little in common with the current iteration of the British Tories. Part of what made the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition possible was that Mr. Cameron ran on a quite radical conservative platform. Drawing heavily on the civic communitarian red toryism of Philip Blond, he assuaged Thatcherite economics for what he called “The Big Society.” While voters remained confused by what precisely this entailed, which was part of the reason he fell short of a majority, Mr. Cameron’s deviation from dogmatic free-market conservatism laid the groundwork for the possibility of negotiating with the Lib-Dems. Mr. Harper has of course done no such thing, and as long as the Reform Party wing wields control of the Conservative Party, such a fundamental ideological shift remains highly unlikely.

4. Perhaps the closest equivalent to the British coalition government would be if a liberal faction of the Liberal Party broke off and merged with a re-constituted Progressive Conservative party. This merger, likely to include many Greens, would form a strong fiscally and socially liberal alliance, and would allow for the Reform Party and the NDP to remain true to their ideological pedigrees – a fiscally and socially conservative party, and a socialist democratic party respectively. As long as both the LPC and the CPC still hold hopes (however delusional) of forming a majority government, the odds of such a reconfiguration are nil.

5. Possibly the main lesson of the British coalition is procedural. Brits have once again shown Canadians that they take parliamentary democracy seriously. There was no talk of coalitions with socialists and separatists, Gordon Brown stepped aside with dignity, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg authored an incredibly thorough agreement that has a legitimate chance of lasting, and the media overall treated the historic events with substance rather than gamesmanship. In short, they were adults.

While the possibility of coalitions governments should at least be part of the Canadian political discourse, unless we see significant electoral reform or a radical reconfiguration of the ideological spectrum and parties that inhabit it, then minorities remain the far more likely outcome.

UPDATE:

6. The Bloc. Despite the fact that the CPC once flirted with a coalition with the Bloc, the tenor of the ‘deal with the separatists’ rhetoric in the 2008 coalition talks makes it hard to imagine anyone entertaining even a voting agreement with them, let alone a coalition government. This of course makes a Liberal-NDP agreement even more unlikely. It is worth noting that only having three main parties made the UK coalition much more manageable, for both negotiators, and the public.

Commenting on the British election is a bit of a fool’s game, as the variables change hourly, but here are a few quick thoughts based on recent events:

1. Gordon Brown is out, and formal Lib-Lab talks have begun. This was obviously the only choice Brown had. And it stems from the really tough spot that Nick Clegg was initially in. He had to choose between siding with a winner who represented change, but getting no electoral reform, and siding with a loser and getting electoral reform. By forcing Brown out, he can at least argue that he got electoral reform and forced change on the Labour party. This is far from a certain outcome, but Brown’s departure makes it possible.

2. Rumours are that David Cameron has offered Clegg a referendum on alternative voting, but not on single transferable vote. AV is, of course, not proportional representation, but it would benefit the Lib Dems electorally, as they moved from approximately 170 second-place finishes to 240 in this election. I have not seen a calculation of their projected seat count under both systems, but I presume it would be higher using STV. It is, however, unclear whether the Lib Dem base would accept AV. And for reform advocates, is it really wise to have a referendum on a system that none of the parties want or find ideal? Clegg would be wise to pay heed to the B.C. and Ontario experiences with electoral reform referendums in which the proposed changes were voted down. One lesson is you need committed political buy-in to convince people to shift from the status quo. It is not clear whether that exists in the U.K., particularly with regard to AV.

The problem for Cameron of course, is that he simply cannot offer STV. As one Conservative minister reportedly said this morning, “I want to help David. And, to be frank, I want to be a minister even more. But I just can’t live with proportional representation. My seat would be torn up. I could lose my job. And the party would split. It’s a concession too far.” It is unclear whether Cameron can get caucus support for the house vote needed to hold a referendum on either reform, but certainly not STV.

3. It is important to remember that Cameron and Clegg are both more centrist than their respective parties. I’m sure this in part explains what happened this weekend. They may have hammered out the framework of a deal between the two of them, but when they took it to their caucuses on Sunday, the political realities pushed back. Clegg had no choice but to play the Labour card in order to explore the possibility of getting the STV referendum that his caucus and base see as paramount.

4. If a Lib-Lab coalition emerges under a new Labour leader (likely David Miliband or Alan Johnson), it will be the second time in a row that the U.K. will have an appointed Prime Minister. Cameron will have a field day with this, and I bet that Miliband in particular is wary of jumping in now.

5. Which brings up the reality that there are distinct advantages for both the Conservatives and Labour to not hold power at this moment. For Cameron, he could allow a disjointed Lib-Lab-Others coalition to emerge, force them to wear the devastating emergency budget that is inevitable, and then go for a majority in a year or so. For Labour, they could have a leadership race in the fall, allowing time for Miliband to prep the party and manifesto to go up against Cameron after one to two years of deep spending cuts, which, while inevitable, happen to fit nicely into an anti-Thatcherite Labour platform.

No doubt these thoughts will all be irrelevant by dinner. It’s certainly fun to watch though.

I have another piece on election debates in today’s National Post. This one goes a little further than the last, arguing that while the British debates were a sucess, that they happened at all was a matter of happenstance. The lesson to learn is if we want debates that put the public good ahead of the calculus of political parties then we need an independent debate process.

Oped is here, and below.

LEARNING FROM BRITAIN’S THREE GREAT DEBATES

After last night’s third and final debate, there is now no doubt that televised leaders’ debates have proven their value to the British electorate. Snappy, substantive and high-stakes, they have made for great television.

By elevating a third party, and shining light on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, they have provided a vital character analysis of the prospective leaders–a prolonged stress test that you simply don’t get in press conferences and media scrums. As the PM said in his closing remarks, “these debates are the answer to everyone who says that politics doesn’t matter.”

However, we should remember that the very holding of the debates was a matter of happenstance. The United Kingdom, like Canada, has left all aspects of debate planning to the will of the main political parties. As such, these first ever British debates occurred only because the incumbent leader, Brown, was looking for a political game-changer. Going into the election, Brown was down in the polls. He needed a way to restore the electorate’s rattled faith in politics following the MP spending scandal.

Once Brown endorsed the debates, 12 representatives (two from each of the parties and networks) spent four months negotiating, in private, all of the details — a process described by one participant as “mind-numbingly detailed.” Yet the results were a success.

Why leave the negotiation of future debates, including whether to have them at all, to the whim of the party and leader who is ahead in the polls at election time? After the success of the UK debates, Canadians must ask themselves the very same question.

Unlike the U.K., we have a history of election debates. However, they have been, almost without exception, predictable and dull. Our debates are stultifying because the negotiating process surrounding the planning occurs only once an election has been called, and because the party ahead in the polls wants, and gets, the safest (i. e., most boring) format, and generally nixes the holding of multiple debates.

How would we design an election debate process that put the interests of the electorate ahead of the parties’ preferences? One way to accomplish this would be the establishment of an independent election debate commission.

Having reviewed relevant international comparisons, we believe the guiding principles of such a commission must be independence and transparency. This means, first and foremost, that it must operate as an independent charitable civic institution, rather than either a part of Elections Canada or a new government bureaucracy. This would look much like the League of Women’s Voters, which independently ran the U.S. presidential debates until they were co-opted by the political parties.

Planning of the debates would occur between elections, with the commission transparently negotiating the rules using the goal of a substantive policy debate as the primary interest. Models would draw on international best practices, and would likely include a range of debates, held throughout the campaign, on various policy issues.

Money to fund the debates would be raised privately through charitable contributions, releasing the networks and their shareholders from a not inconsiderable financial burden.

We expect that there will be intense pressure for political parties to participate in debates organized by an independent entity for the public good, which enjoys widespread public support.

Such a model would also relieve the TV networks from the uncomfortable position of having to negotiate with the squabbling political parties they are supposed to be covering impartially, and which regulate them once they form government.

If we want debates in Canada that can rival, in style and substance, their new U.K. counterparts, then we need a new model for their planning and execution. All it will take is a genuine citizens’ movement to reclaim Canada’s election debates so they serve the long-term public good as opposed to the short-term interests of our would-be leaders.

- Rudyard Griffiths and Taylor Owen are currently working on an initiative to reform the Canadian televised election debates

I have an oped in today’s National Post, (full unedited version below), which uses yesterday’s British election debate as a starting point for a critique of our own, deeply flawed, televised debates. This is the opening salvo in a what we hope will be a reform of our debate system. Much more on this to come in the next few weeks.

LET THE DEBATE BEGIN

Last night, the UK held its first ever televised election debate. Much like the British Question Time puts our equivalent to shame, so too did yesterday’s exchange.

The first of three debates between David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg — leaders, respectively, of Britain’s Conservatives, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats — was on domestic affairs. The second and third will be on the economy and international relations. Drilling down into a single topic allowed for a much more substantive debate than Canada’s one-off events.

The format agreed upon by the leaders encouraged, in the best British parliamentary traditions, aggressive questioning, substantive policy discussion, and very fast passed exchanges.

In contrast, Canadian election debates, despite being held since 1968, are seriously flawed in virtually all aspects - from planning, to format, to distribution, to ad hoc decisions as to who is included.

For starters, our federal debates are decisively not transparent. The debate details are negotiated between the representatives of five networks (under the rubric of the ominous sounding ‘Broadcasters Consortium’), and unelected representatives from each of the major federal parties. These closed-door negotiations encompasses all aspects of the debate, including whether to have a debate at all - in effect giving a veto to any one of the political parties (usually the one leading in the polls).

Second, this flawed negotiation process, unsurprisingly, creates a flawed debate format.

Robert Auer called the infamous 1960 US election debate between Kennedy and Nixon “a double public press conference for simultaneous interviewing.” This is of course the ideal outcome for a politician, and precisely what you get when they make the rules.

Why, for example, do we typically have only one traditional, press conference-style leaders debate (per official language), meant to cover all policy issues? The result is that no matter how the question is formed, a debater can revert to that issue’s talking points. Why not have a range of debates, each on a different issue — as in Britain this year?

But it is not only the parties which are to blame. The role of journalist as moderator also has to be considered. Jeff Greenfield argues that “the dominance of panels by journalists means that there are sharp limits to the degree of aggressiveness you can expect.”

Third, the sole medium used to disseminate the debates - television - is not in and of itself a sufficient way of stimulating public engagement.

If the desired goal of an election debate is public participation, it is retrograde to limit debates to a single live viewing on one medium. The distribution of debate content should be dramatically opened up by moving them online. In addition to allowing many more people to both watch and participate in the debates, this will also serve to democratize the commentary process, which research shows is often more influential than the debate itself.

Fourth, the considerable financial costs of holding the debates are born solely by the broadcasters and their shareholders. The 1997 debates cost $275,000 to produce, plus over $3,000,000 in lost advertising.

Because of this, there have, been elections where the political parties wanted more debates, but the broadcasters refused. If we consider debates to be an important part of the electoral system, it is strange that they are the only aspect not covered by electoral spending laws or by the public financing system.

Finally, language has been a thorny issues throughout the history of Canadian election debates. While the first debate in 1968 was simultaneously translated, we have since moved to having separate French and English debates. In 1993 and 1997 the unilingual Preston Manning argued for a return to simultaneous translation, but the networks argued that it slowed down the debate, made it longer, and less interesting to viewers.

The result is that the French version invariably becomes the “Quebec debate.” Despite network objections, there is absolutely no reason why debates cannot be simultaneously translated, allowing for policy issues to be spread over several debates. (If an aspiring Prime Minister chooses not to speak in both official languages, that’s their headache.)

Despite these flaws, election debates are worth reforming. Well executed, they serve to educate the electorate, provide a measure of accountability, are a critical public testing for candidates seeking our highest office, and in a singularly unique way, build public enthusiasm for elections.

But our election debate system needs wholesale reform.

This reform will not be driven by captive TV networks and self-interested political parties who together have concocted a string of debates that have demonstrably failed the very electorate they purport to inform.

Election debates are for the voters, not the politicians.

Perhaps after seeing the Brits outshine us in the sophistication of their public discourse, Canada will democratize our election debates and thereby elevate the tenor and substance of federal elections.

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Rudyard Griffiths and Taylor Owen are currently working on an initiative to organize a series of “critics” debates for the coming federal election.

So, many people have asked what I thought of the thinkers conference. I was hesitant to write anything, as I am far from objective (I was involved in planning early iterations of the conference, some aspects of which made it into the final event), but for what it’s worth, here are a couple of comments.

The use of new media, directly integrated into the conference was one of the best i have ever seen. A real accomplishment. Ignatieff was blown away that people were asking questions live to panelists from Nunavut and Labrador. And he was right to be. This is a huge accomplishment for the web team, who have fought to get the freedom, flexibility and independence they need to engage properly in the new media world. After this conference, they have earned the space they need. Congrats go to my friend Marc Gendron, who leads the team.

Some of the panels were very good. The pensions session in particular was serious and presented a real range of diverse options. For the most part the Davos style worked very well. The buzz in the room was quite positive. If the Liberal party emerges from the conference with a clear sense that the health care status quo will bankrupt the provinces, and that the demographic shift has massive economy-wide implications (both of which were repeated over and over), then this is a positive on the policy front.

On the more critical side, I would have three comments.

First, the speakers were dominated by usual suspects. While some were great (Fortin, Dodge, Fowler and Stein in particular), others felt tired, and as if the party was looking back rather than forward. This could have been an ideal place to give voice to a new generation of policy thinkers - those the Liberal party will need to help them develop a 21st century agenda.

Second, the speakers generally outlined problems, rather than solutions. In the opening scene setting session, this was useful. Fortin’s powerful demographic prognosis was the bitter pill necessary to frame a serious conference. The subsequent thematic panels, however, would have been more effective had each speaker been asked for an innovative policy idea. These ideas could have then focused the discussion and provided focal points for post conference planning. What’s more, asking each speaker for innovative, out of the box ideas, could have identified policies and ideological perspectives that should be brought into the mainstream discourse. This is precisely what Cameron is doing in the UK - who in one year, has brought Philip Blond’s big society ideas from radical niche policy to a central pillar of his manifesto. In so doing, he is re-aligning the British political spectrum - exactly, in my opinion, what Ignatieff needs to do.

Third, while many friends were there and it was a lot of fun, the audience was the wrong demographic. They were overwhelmingly Liberal partisans, mostly from 1990s governments, a vast majority older male. This is undoubtedly due to the significant entrance fee, and the fact the payment had to be made to the party. The result is there was a feeling of reunion, rather than rejuvenation. Had the audience been more diverse - ideologically, professionally and demographically - then the conference could have legitimately claimed to be a non-partisan event. As Andrew Potter wryly called out in his scathing column on the media’s treatment of the conference, the partisanship of the audience became overwhelmingly clear during Ignatieff’s closing speech. The speech to me got the tone of the event wrong. It’s campaign style, and the drumbeat standing ovations from the crowd, surely made the few non-partisans present uncomfortable.

In the end, when the conference planning was moved into the OLO, I think a conscious decision was made to play it safe. To not go for a “game-changer”, but rather an incremental step in the policy development process. With this goal in mind, the conference should be deemed a success. And as I said, the use of new media has established a new standard for Canadian policy conferences. In my opinion, however, by focusing on problems rather than solutions, by relying on usual suspect speakers, and by inviting a partisan audience, the conference limited its reach and its potential to transform the political narrative outside of the political bubble.

Last week I had the opportunity to moderate an e-conference on Afghanistan for the CIC as part of their GPS (Global Positioning Strategy) process.

There ended up being a lively and substantive conversation building on contributions from Mark Sedra, Major-General David Fraser, Sarah Jane Meharg, and Ben Rowswell. It is well worth checking out, here.

My introduction to the day’s questions, via video and text are below.

Introduction: Security and Reconstruction - Lessons from Afghanistan

Introduction to Security and Reconstruction: Lessons from Afghanistan from Canadian International Council on Vimeo.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the second Canada International Council e-Conference. On March 11, 2010, we will spend the day discussing the mission in Afghanistan, and what it means for the future of Canadian engagement in failed and fragile states.

I just wanted to make a few introductory comments to help frame the questions we will be addressing at the conference.

Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan is at an interesting turning point. While for 8 years we have played an active combat role in a NATO and UN peacebuilding mission, we have also restructured our bureaucratic and operational capacity in order to do so.

But, it is important to remember that our parliament mandated an end to combat operations in December 2011, 10 months from now.

Our government has confirmed our withdrawal, but they have given little indication as to what this will look like, whether a military presence will remain to carry out the development and training tasks they assert will continue, or whether the US and the UK will fill the void.

Lt. General Andrew Leslie, the head of the Canadian army, stated in the fall that they “currently do not have any plans, or even any line diagrams on a blank sheet of paper for post-2011.”
While this has all certainly changed, whatever discussion is taking place is clearly going on behind closed doors.

This e-Conference, if it does nothing else, will hopefully re-invigorate a discussion on what we have done, and how Canadian policy in Afghanistan can and will evolve given the current parliamentary guidelines.

We hope to address four questions.

First, how should a successful mission in Afghanistan be defined?

There is no better indication of the problem than that we are still asking this question. And yet, our goals remain ill defined, and a matching of our objectives post-2011 with the resources and tactics needed to meet them, is far from clear.

As our mission in Afghanistan as evolved from post-911 invasion and regime change, to counterinsurgency war, to long term development and nationbuilding, a central challenge has persisted – what exactly is our objective?

We are at once, and disparately, perusing strikingly varied targets – killing Taliban, building schools, dams and roads, delivering government services, promoting democracy, protecting women’s rights. What’s more, depending on which goals are prioritized, policies likewise shift. If we are fighting the insurgents at all costs, we care less about the number of women in schools. If we are building government capacity, we have a higher threshold for corruption.

When our military leaves, this equation becomes somewhat clearer (we are no longer doing counterinsurgency), but how do we continue to do development when we do not have the means to protect the civilians doing the work?

In the US, President Obama has accepted General McCrystal’s recommended troop surge and tactical shift towards far greater civilian protection. He recognized that in order to achieve their objectives, they needed more troops, not less. In so doing, they are modeling much of their engagement after the Canadian experience in Kandahar.

So, the question remains, is our objective still the same, or has the parliamentary mandated change in tactics also changed our objectives?

Second, should NATO continue to be the vehicle through which Canada makes contributions to international security missions?

The International Security Assistance Force was initially charged with securing Kabul from Taliban and al Qaeda. Since 2003, however, the UN Security Council has authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, with a sweeping mandate set by the Bonn agreement.

But as the Manley report emphasized, there are “harmful shortcomings in the NATO counterinsurgency campaign” caused by “inadequate coordination between military and civilian programs for security, stabilization, reconstruction and development.” The conclusion that “these and other deficiencies reflect serious failures of strategic direction” could hardly have been clearer.

So is NATO really the most appropriate coordinating body for such mission? And what do we do when our tactics and objectives do not align with other NATO partners? With Canada and the Netherlands pulling out troops, this really will be, for all intents and purposes, a US and UK mission. What does this say about the relevance of NATO as an international institution?

Third, what have we learned from Canada’s experience in dealing with deeply fractured societies?

An emerging consensus now accepts that state failure is the product of a complex relationship between political and economic factors. Successful peacebuilding requires solutions to the full range of problems facing a failed state.

Canada has responded to this challenge through innovation. We have turned to a new form of peacebuilding that is both more ambitious and more demanding.

Rather than treat defence, diplomacy, and development as separate but related components of our broader engagement, Canada now seeks to do all three at once.

This approach has been called 3D, the Whole of Government Approach, and Integrated Peacebuilding.
Adopting this approach has lasting implications for how we conduct ourselves in the world. A large part of the test facing Canada in Afghanistan centres on how well we can adapt to these new demands. Perhaps even more importantly, how will our experience with this new form of peacebuilding shape future missions in failed and fragile states?

Finally, what has Afghanistan taught us about the role of development in conflict?

Traditionally, the safe and effective delivery of humanitarian assistance in conflict by international NGOs has been contingent upon respect for certain key principles: neutrality, impartiality, humanity and independence.

These principles have regulated the behavior of humanitarians and have been crucial in creating and accessing the ‘humanitarian space’ necessary for delivering assistance in the first place.

Yet, despite these strong legal and ethical norms, humanitarian actors are no longer a monolithic group. They include those willing to operate in conflict zones, those willing to accept government funding and military support, those that will operate only with full independence, and those who will no longer engage in certain conflict zones are all.

But what will the humanitarian and development landscape look like, particularly in Kandahar, when they no longer even have the option of force protection? Will those that want to continue work use US military support? Will they rely more on private security? Will they accept great risk? And most importantly, how has the radical transformation of humanitarian space, resulting from the mission in Afghanistan, affected the roles of development and humanitarian assistance in future conflicts?

We very much look forward to discussing these critical questions with you on March 11.

If you have $200 burning a whole in your pocket, I have a chapter in what aside from the price, is a great new edited volume, put together by my friend (and at various times boss), Peter Burgess. It’s the first in a new Routledge series on New Security Studies, and has a couple of dozen definitional chapters on a host of broadened security concepts. I did the one on Human Security. Book abstract is below. Anyways, worth checking out, perhaps at the library…

The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies

This new Handbook gathers together state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research by a group of leading international scholars in the subdiscipline of Critical Security Studies.

In today’s globalised setting, the challenge of maintaining security is no longer limited to the traditional foreign-policy and military tools of the nation-state, and security and insecurity are no longer considered as dependent only upon geopolitics and military strength, but rather are also seen to depend upon social, economic, environmental, ethical models of analysis and tools of action. The contributors discuss and evaluate this fundamental shift in four key areas:

I. New security concepts
II. New security subjects
III. New security objects
IV. New security practices

Offering a comprehensive theoretical and empirical overview of this evolving field, this book will be essential reading for all students of critical security studies, human security, international/global security, political theory and IR in general.

I have an article in the latest International Affairs, written with Mary Martin from LSE, on the future of the concept of Human Security in the UN and EU. We argue that the EU flirtations with the concept as a potential unified foreign policy narrative may signal a second generation of human security policy. Abstract is below, full text here.

The Second Generation of Human Security: Lessons from the UN and EU Experience

This article examines the divergence of human security narratives between the UN and the EU. It argues that the UN’s use of the concept ran aground owing to a triple problematic of lack of clarity, confusion between previously distinct policy streams on human rights and human development and conceptual overstretch. After assessing the EU experience with the concept to date, the article argues that future use of human security will require greater focus on how it deepens ideas of individual security, rather than treating it as an agenda for broadening security. As well as a need to project clarity on the conceptual definition of human security, there is also a need to associate human security with greater clarity of intent. If successful, this would contribute to establishing second generation human security as a new policy paradigm.

This year i have the absolute pleasure of teaching Intro to Peace and Conflict Studies at the Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto.

While I am keenly aware of the history this course, and didn’t want to radically change the syllabus, developed by some great canadian academics over the past 15 years, I did want to add a bit of my influence. So, one of the things we have done this year is entered into a partnership with The Mark News.

Student were divided into three groups (Afghanistan, DRC and Iran) and have together build a truly remarkable resource page for each of the three conflicts. The intro text and video of the site are below, but I really encourage anyone interested in or working on any of these countries to take a look.

Many have argued that the future of news is curatorial - that online media allows for new forms of collaboration with new levels of added value. We hope that our site provides precisely this.

Trudeau Center: Canada and Three Contemporary Conflicts

Welcome to a pilot project between the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and The Mark News website. In September, students in Taylor Owen’s class embarked on a year-long trial in student research and online outreach. The goal was to dive deep into three contemporary conflicts partnering the students’ research skills with The Mark’s national reach. The project seeks to break down the silos between both research and policy and academics and journalism. For each conflict, we have provided summaries of the canonical works, leading analysis, Canadian history, and Canadian policy choices, as well as a regularly updated breaking news feed - all written by the students. Explore, learn, and enjoy!

The Mark Intro Video from The Mark News on Vimeo.

In October, Emily Paddon and I wrapped up our DFAIT project on integrated peacebuilding (or 3D/Whole of Govn’t) in Afghanistan, with a forum at the Liu Institute in Vancouver. The idea was to bring together some of Canada’s leading voices on Afghanistan, both in person and via video conference, to discuss our role in the country following the 2011 parliamentary mandated pull out date.

Opeds and video presentations from each of the participants are being hosted on an Afghanistan Topics page at The Mark News.

Participants included:
Chris Alexander (former Cnd Ambassador and Deputy Special Representatives of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan)
Ellisa Goldberg (former ROCK, Canada’s top civilian official in Kandahar)
Graham Fuller (former vice-chairman of the CIA National Intelligence Council and CIA Station Chief in Kabul)
Janice Stein (Director of the Munk Center for International Studies)
Graeme Smith (Globe and Mail)
Gordon Smith (Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to NATO)
Michael Petrou (Maclean’s Magazine)
Mark Sedra (Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation)
Robert Muggah (Research Director, The Small Arms Survey)
Lauryn Oates (Professional human rights advocate, women’s rights in Afghanistan)
Mirwais Nahzat (Sauvé Scholar examining Canada’s development policy towards Afghanistan)

Intro Remarks: Beyond 2011?
Emily Paddon and Taylor Owen

In Kabul, Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the debate over NATO’s role in Afghanistan is building. President Obama is not only considering the possibility of General McChrystal’s recommended troop surge and tactical shift towards far greater civilian protection, but more importantly, he is reconsidering the broader strategic objectives of the mission. Is the goal to protect America from a resurgent al-Qaeda, to build an Afghan state that can hold the Taliban at bay, or to reconfigure both Afghanistan and Pakistan? The answer will drive his decision in the coming weeks. As the president deliberates, the U.S. media and public are increasingly engaged.

In Canada, while there is a similar conversation occurring behind the closed doors of government – our mandarins must decide what we will do after the 2011 deadline set by parliament in March 2008 – there has been an astonishing silence in the public domain. What should Canada be doing in Afghanistan post-2011?

The government of Canada has skirted this issue in public with various opaque statements by the prime minister, the minister of Defence and other members of the Conservative cabinet. They have confirmed our withdrawal but have given hardly any indication as to what this will look like, whether a military presence will remain to carry out the development and training tasks they assert will continue or whether the U.S. will fill the void. Meanwhile Lt. General Andrew Leslie, the head of the Canadian army, has stated that they “currently do not have any plans, or even any line diagrams on a blank sheet of paper for post-2011.”

Motivated by the belief that decisions need to be taken long before 2011, that we can’t just up and pull out – that there are substantial strategic, ethical, and financial considerations – last week we convened a roundtable at the University of British Columbia in order to discuss these critical issues. We started with our own “blank sheet” and to fill it in, several seasoned Canadian experts who have lived and breathed Afghanistan over the last eight years, including Gordon Smith, Chris Alexander, and Graeme Smith. We posed a series of guiding questions that we hoped would incite debate. They were as follows:

1) Public support for the Afghan mission stands at 37 per cent in Canada and roughly half of Canadians are in support of a civilian mission post-2011. How are domestic politics likely to influence the shape of Canada’s involvement? And what influence should they have?

2) The Canadian government has committed itself to a set of tasks for the benefit of the Afghan people. At the same time, the fighting has killed 131 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat. The war has cost between $11-12 billion. What responsibilities and obligations have we incurred? To the Afghan people? To NATO and the UN? To Canadians?

3) The Government has been unclear as to whether a contingent of Canadian forces will remain to protect delivery of assistance, or whether the ensuing void post-withdrawal will be covered by our U.S. and NATO allies. Moreover, does the withdrawal of a “mere” 2800 Canadians, compared with the U.S. 80,000, really mean a “gap”? What would assistance look like without military support? Can we “do” development without the military? What are the implications of a withdrawal for NATO and U.S. relations?

4) What are the options for our involvement? What are the costs and benefits of different options? What are the standards of evaluation? What is desirable? What is doable? How do we avoid what Gen. Hillier recently called “pie in the sky” ideas about Afghanistan? How do we avoid such ideas and ensure success in whatever it is that we commit ourselves to post-2011.

It is a tall order, we know, but we hope that this web forum, based on last week’s roundtable meeting, will be, at the very least, the start of a much needed discussion on these important issues.

All of the Opeds and Videos from the Workshop are available here

Apologies for the total negligence of this site - has been an unbelievably hectic fall. A site re-design is in the works, and I’m going to start writing here regularly again as soon as the new digs are live.

In the interim, I’ve gotten into this twitter thing. Posts, following, etc, can be found here.

The oped below, written with Adrian Bradbury was in The Mark a few weeks ago:

Government’s Newspeak

It is a curious feeling to wake up one morning and have the focus of your career banished from your government’s vernacular. But this is what recently happened to both of us.

An internal DFAIT email was leaked this summer which outlined a series of shifts in the language of Canadian foreign policy. These changes were politically directed, coming from Foreign Affairs Minister Cannon’s office.

The terms “gender equality,” “child soldiers,” “international humanitarian law,” “good governance,” “human security,” “public diplomacy” and “The Responsibility to Protect” have been blacklisted from government parlance.

While already limited to an unprecedented degree on what they are allowed to say in public, Canada’s civil servants and diplomats are now banned from using certain words.

We, respectively, work on the concept of human security and on issues surrounding international humanitarian law and child soldiers in northern Uganda. These terms were once championed by Canada, are in wide use around the world, and represent a wide range of international norms and precedent. Make no mistake, these semantic changes represent fundamental shifts to Canadian foreign policy. Each of the banned or altered terms carry with it significant policy implications, most related to the international human rights agenda.

For example, when speaking of the war in the DRC, where upwards of 3 million people have been killed, and rape is widely used as a tool of war, the terms “impunity” and “justice” can no longer be used when calling for an end to, and punishment for, sexual violence.

The shift from the term International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to simply International Law, not only blurs two entirely different concepts, but abandons the legal mechanisms developed to protect the rights of civilians, women, and children, aid workers, and prisoners of war, rather than states, in armed conflict. IHL also underlies the International Criminal Court, which Canada was instrumental in founding. Are we abandoning the ICC as well?

Expunging the term “gender equality” and replacing it with the term “equality of men and women,” while on the surface semantic, marks a departure from language that Canada fought hard to be included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and which has since become part of the human rights language.

Finally, banning the terms Human Security and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) are perhaps the clearest indication that these linguistic shifts are politically motivated, as both were signature foreign policy initiatives of past Liberal governments. The concept of human security focuses international attention on issues that may not threaten states, but that do harm large numbers of individuals – such as landmines. The concept of the R2P argues that governments have the obligation to protect their citizens from mass atrocities and to not commit genocide. Radical ideas indeed.

It is of course entirely appropriate for the current government to define Canada’s foreign policy. However, particularly in a minority parliament, the discussion should be had openly and in the public.

Indeed, last month’s UN summit would have been the ideal place from the Prime Minister to announce his bold new agenda to the world.

Had he attended the summit, he would have heard unabashed reference to many of the ideas he had just banished. There, he could have rebuked UN member states for adopting the international principles Canada was so instrumental in developing.

He could have done so on the very day, at the very podium, where President Obama gave the most forceful defence of the UN by a U.S. president since Truman.

On the other hand, perhaps these changes are not anything to brag about.

Two years ago the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) hosted a panel (audio available here) with Steven Rattner, Jim Brady, Amanda Bennett, Jill Abramson, and Robert Kuttner (with Nicholas Lemann moderating). The purpose was to discuss an article the CJR had commissioned Robert Kuttner to write on the future of print media where he essentially argued that the then status quo of print-digital hybrids would ensure newspapers’ survival.

The CJR, interested in the perspective of bloggers, invited me to attend. Dave and I ended up collaborating and wrote Missing the Link: Why Old Media Doesn’t get the Internet.

Ultimately we ended up writing a much longer piece, one that was critical of Kuttner and the print-hybrid model. In addition to the CJR we got a couple of sniffs from some other print journals/magazines (Wired for example) but they eventually could not get it published.

Ironically, we were more concerned with getting published (in print or digitally) than simply releasing it on our blogs. Part of this had to do with the piece’s length, but, if we are really honest with ourselves, we got trapped in an institutional mindset and began thinking like priests, not entrepreneurs. Eventually we got busy with other exciting projects and forgot about it (except for this op-ed we wrote in the toronto star).

Two years later the piece could do with some updating but sadly it is just as salient, if not more so, today as it was then. So we are pulling it out of the C drive and sharing it. Better late than never.

Of course, we aren’t devoid of our desire for a better channel. If anyone out there (Slate? Huffington Post?) finds the piece interesting and knows a home for it - print or digital - we would be happy to update it. Mostly, we just want it read.

Here again is a link to the full version of Missing the Link: Why Old Media Still Doesn’t Get the Internet.

Two years ago Dave and I wrote a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review (which they opted not to publish) critical of Kuttner and the CJR’s faith in the print-hybrid model for media.

After having it sit on our hard drives all this time we are putting it up for download (back story on my next post). It is, sadly, more or less as relevant today as it was when we wrote it.

Here is a link to the full version of Missing the Link: Why Old Media Still Doesn’t Get the Internet.

And here’s one of our favourite passages:

Newspapers’ decline is a sign of democracy, not a symptom of its death

A recent Columbia Journalism School panel on the future of the newspaper industry ended with a solemn and bold pronouncement: “If print newspapers disappear, it will be a fundamental threat to our democracy.”

Such statements made many of New Media participants roll their eyes—and for good reason. Are newspapers really a precondition for democracy?

This type of irrational hyperbole discredits traditional media’s claim to rational objectivity. Newspapers are not a precondition for democracy—free speech is. This is why the constitution protects the latter and not the former. It is also what makes the internet important—it provides a powerful new medium through which free speech can be transmitted. As we argued earlier, the internet offers its own democratic way of filtering content, allowing what people think is important, relevant and interesting to be aggregated and heard. It may be messy and far from perfect, but then, so is democracy.

Newspapers, in contrast, are many things, but they are not democratic. They are hierarchical authoritarian structures designed to control and shape information. This is not to say they don’t provide a societal benefit—their content contributes to the public discourse. However, how is having a few major media outlets deciding “what is news” democratic, or even good for democracy? The newspaper model isn’t about expanding free speech; it is about limiting it to force readers to listen to what the editor prescribes. When is the last time you had an opinion piece or letter published in a newspaper? There are many more voices in America that deserve to be heard aside from Ivy League educated editors and journalists.

The “necessary for democracy” argument also assumes that readers are less civically engaged if they digest their news online. How absurd. Gen Y is likely far more knowledgeable about their world than Boomers were. The problem is that Boomers appeared more knowledgeable to one another because they all knew the same things. The limited array of media meant people were generally civically minded about the same things and evaluated one another based on how much of the same media they’d seen. The diversity available in today’s media—facilitated greatly by the internet—means it is hard to evaluate someone’s civic mindedness because they may be deeply knowledgeable and engaged in a set of issues you are completely unfamiliar with. Diversity of content and access to it, made possible by the internet, has strengthened our civic engagement.

Far from a prerequisite, traditional media is to democracy what commercial banks are to capitalism. Are banks necessary for capitalism? No. Have they sped up its growth and made it more effective? Definitely. But could some better model emerge that performs their functions more effectively? Absolutely. Much like claiming “you’ll never get by without me” rarely reignites a relationship, fear mongering and threatening your customers won’t bring readers back. This approach merely demonstrates how scared old media has become of its readers, their free speech, and the type of democracy they want to build.

Last summer I went on a fascinating trip to the Kurdish Region of northern Iraq. I have been fairly derelict in writing about it. Not due to lack of things to say though, as the “other Iraq” (as Kurds so want it to be called), is a fascinating part of the world that will undoubtedly remain at the center of great political turmoil in the coming decade. I will try to write more about the trip over the holidays, but below is a short piece in the Walrus that my close friend Emily Paddon and I wrote about our truly wild last night in Erbil:

Rattle and Hum

ERBIL — It is the eighth day of our sponsored junket of “The Other Iraq” (a.k.a. Kurdistan), during which we have ridden the roller coasters at a new mountaintop theme park, been paraded through tony shopping malls, and met with the region’s political, media, and academic leaders. Dusk finds us in the Kurdish capital, exploring an 8,000-year-old citadel where Alexander the Great is said to have once clashed with the Persians, when our cellphone rings. “Would you like to come over for a European drinking party?” a familiar voice asks. It is Zakaria, the Kurdish rock star–cum–nation builder to whom we were introduced days ago. Our flight to Jordan departs at 3 a.m. from the modernized Erbil International Airport, but we can’t resist. “Bring your bags,” the voice commands.

No stranger to late-night escapes, Zakaria snuck out of his family home in a less prosperous Erbil at 4 a.m. fifteen or so years ago. Fleeing persecution under Saddam Hussein, the teenage piano prodigy made his way to Sweden, where he scraped by as a backup singer in local bands. Eventually, he started writing his own music, a blend of traditional Kurdish marching rhythms and pop genres that became anthemic to Kurds around the world.

He returned to the Kurdistan Region after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 with big plans to help rebuild his homeland. Many Iraqi Kurds, along with brothers in Turkey, Syria, and Iran, grew up dreaming of a sovereign state, but their nationalist ambitions have been somewhat tempered by Kurds’ rising fortune in post-Saddam Iraq. They now control much of Iraq’s oil (if you include the contested Kirkuk region) and are friendly toward the United States. Iraq’s president and foreign minister, both Kurds, ensure that Kurdish concerns are on the national agenda.

Zakaria, who arrived on the scene with plenty of investment capital, has been party to this progress. He swiftly rose to the upper echelons of the establishment, befriending the Barzanis, Kurdistan’s ruling family, and brought international visibility to the cause. It’s rumoured that when George W. Bush visited Iraq, he met with Zakaria, who has become the primary symbol of Kurdish nationalism. As one native explained, “Imagine if you were Irish, and Bono was the Pope.”

We are soon whisked off in a convoy of four white SUVs without licence plates to meet Zakaria at Naz City, a luxury complex he built with help from the Barzanis, on the edge of Erbil, to lure members of the wealthy and educated Kurdish diaspora back home. The development consists of seven high-rise apartment buildings, an underground garage with 1,100 parking spots, an outdoor gym, two tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a twenty-four-hour security system Zakaria claims to have designed himself.

A couple of guards usher our cars from the darkness of the countryside into the electrified compound through pastel peach–coloured gates. While Naz is said to be 80 percent full — housing seven ministers, 112 members of parliament, and fifty-six university professors — we don’t see a soul until we are greeted by Zakaria’s manager at the entrance to one of the high-rises.

He informs us that the evening’s festivities will take place in the building’s model penthouse. We are given a perfunctory buyer’s tour: master bedroom with mountain view, “children’s office,” and a cavernous living room with black pleather couches lining the walls. “Did you expect to see anything like this in Iraq?” he asks hopefully. It is a question we’ve been asked continually during our time in Kurdistan, and, once again, we affirm that we did not.

Zakaria is late. We sit silently on one of the couches and stare at the steaming Kurdish barbecue prepared by his mother. When the star finally arrives, he offers us drinks from a bar stocked with Black Label, Champagne, and Chablis, and calls for his humidor. Cocky but cool, he tells us he is going to build a “medical city” adjacent to Naz, and similar compounds in the Kurdish cities of Sulemania and Dohuk. He says he’s also financing large-scale construction projects in Baghdad. If the Kurds and Arabs are ever to get along, he explains, someone needs to start building bridges.

We lose track of him when he heads off to mingle to the tune of his last album with other guests who’ve been trickling in. There’s the head of security for Erbil, the president of the Kurdistan Student Union (a breeding ground for political fervour), and a high-ranking member of the Kurdish Democratic Party — not to mention the heavily armed, Peshmerga-trained bodyguards who have protected Zakaria night and day ever since Kurdish forces discovered a death list during a raid on an Islamic terrorist group; Zakaria was listed fourth.

Near midnight, the bodyguards gather and lock arms, circling the room in a traditional Kurdish dance. Zakaria, perched on the bar, Cohiba in mouth, bellows his own name. “Zakaria!” his men holler back. He raises his hands in triumph and cries out again. Unlike Zakaria, the guards haven’t been drinking, but they are nevertheless whipped into a frenzy, kicking higher and shouting louder. The call-and-response escalates until the din surely echoes through the compound.

As our departure time approaches, we are forced into the fray to make inquiries; we need a ride to the airport. But Zakaria wants his European drinking party to continue. He pulls a cellphone from the pocket of his Italian suit and spouts a stream of Kurdish before turning back to us. “Don’t look so worried,” he says with a sly smile. “I’m holding your plane.”

Yesterday, a friend at Prospect Magazine asked for a run down of what was happening in Canadian politics, and in particular, how Ignatieff, the magazine’s intellectual zeitgeist, was suddenly leader of the Liberal Party. Below is what they posted:

One Step Closer to an Obama-Ignatieff Continent

Somewhere, Samantha Power is smiling. Yesterday, while she was working on Obama’s State Department transition, her predecessor as the head of Harvard University’s Carr Centre for Human Rights (now run by adventurer-cum-Prospect-writer Rory Stewart), and fellow journalist-turned-academic, clinched the nomination for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Michael Ignatieff’s victory comes at a time of great turmoil in Canadian politics. Despite huge enthusiasm for Obama—over 70 per cent of Canadians supported him—the country oddly re-elected a prime minister, Stephen Harper, who in temperament, ideology and style is Obama’s antithesis. But Harper might have reason to take pause; having dismissed the coming recession during the election, he is now faced with holding together a minority government facing a crashing economy and a volatile political mess. And so enters Michael Ignatieff. But it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

Instead of a hoped-for delegated convention win next May, Ignatieff yesterday was acclaimed leader amidst a rather unlikely flurry of parliamentary drama. On November 27th, a mere six weeks after the election and to fierce criticism, finance minister Jim Flaherty released an unwise economic statement—one which played politics in lieu of addressing the country’s economic woes.

In particular, he announced plans to cancel public party financing. In so doing he created a unity of protest that the Canadian left itself rarely manages, driving the leftist NDP, the Separatist Bloc Quebecois and the centrist Liberals into each others’ arms. They formed a coalition, under the leadership of the lame duck Liberal party leader, Stephane Dion. Their plan was to bring down the government.

Having grossly underestimated the opposition reaction, Prime Minister Harper was forced to ask the Governor General (an unelected figure, appointed by Queen Elizabeth) for a short term reprieve in the form of an archaic “prorogation” of Parliament. With this granted, and faced with a budget vote and potential election in January, the Liberal party decided its leisurely six month leadership election might usefully be slightly sped up. Indeed, they broke into something of a sweat.

This was all good news for Iganiteff. The author and writer had the edge in every measure of support, from caucus to party brass to general membership. His two competitors—the much younger Dominique Leblanc and his old college roommate and ex premier on Ontario, Bob Rae—saw the writing on the wall, and gracefully stepped aside.

Which brings us back to Samantha Power. At around the same time she began working in Obama’s Senate office, Ignatieff was making his first moves into Canadian politics. Both seemed drawn to politics, after years of writing and talking about it. After a rousing and flirtatious speech to the 2005 liberal party convention, Ignatieff then returned formally to run in 2006, expecting to sit as an MP in Paul Martin’s government, and maybe get a chance at leadership. But the Liberals lost that election, and he was thrown into a leadership race far sooner than expected.

It was during this leadership race that I became personally involved, as part of a policy team of Canadians around the world. (I’m currently doing a PhD at Oxford). We mucked in policy discussions during the campaign, and were a part of something that was quite unique to Canadian politics—genuine excitement, at the prospect of a different kind of politics. That’ll teach us. Ignatieff lost on the last ballot.

After a troubled tenure as leader, and a disappointing loss to Harper this November, liberal leader Dion agreed to step down, and called a leadership race. Ignatieff was the immediate front-runner. Our team reformed, far bigger now. The race was meant to end at a delegated convention in May. But, then, events intervened.

Ignatieff can be the first transformational Canadian leader in a generation. He is an intellect, internationally respected and, perhaps most importantly, he has a sophisticated and articulate knowledge of, and belief in, liberalism. What’s more, he is emerging politically along-side a US administration with which he shares ties and ideological and policy sensibilities. Both his and Power’s long play from academia to politics seem to have proved successful.

When Ignatieff first ran for Canadian politics, his critics dismissed him as an arriviste outsider, prone to stumbles and missteps: Iggy the egghead. Better head back to your Harvard seminars and your London dinner parties, they said. At the time Michael was quoted as saying that he was “less naive than I appear.” So it would seem.

Dave and I have a piece in the Star today on Liberal renewal. It builds off of our larger article on How the Left is Killing Progressive Politics in the Literary Review. I suppose it would also be appropriate to put my biases on the table - as many who read this site would know, I do policy work for Michael Ignatieff, and will continue to do so during this leadership campaign.

How about real Liberal renewal?

In the weeks since one of its worst ever electoral performances, the conversation within the Liberal Party of Canada has rightly turned to renewal. To date, the establishment consensus suggests two options: shift right and recapture the ideological “centre,” or unite the left and merge the votes of the Greens, NDP and Liberals.

Neither choice, however, represents renewal. Both are simply electoral tactics focused on the next election. Neither necessitates a rethinking of first principles, nor encourages reflection on how liberalism, and its agenda, must evolve to create a 21st century vision that will speak to Canadians.

Consequentially, both approaches are likely to alienate a new generation of activists, thinkers and policy-makers whose new ideas and energy are essential to transcending the country’s staid political debates.

Take for example our friends and colleagues. Confronted with parties whose politics, policies and priorities are perceived as out of touch and ineffective, many have simply opted out of organized politics. But many are deeply engaged. They start or work at non-governmental organizations, volunteer internationally, create social enterprises or advocate outside of organized politics. Among our peers, the progressive spirit is strong, but progressive politics is not.

To progressives searching for a political home a united left offers few new opportunities.

While acknowledging the left was instrumental in creating many of the social programs Canadians have come to trust – many of today’s emerging progressives see a left that is often loath to reform or rethink them in the face of globalization, the telecommunication revolution, and a changing citizenry. In the last election voters faced an ideological paradox. The more left the advocates, the more entrenched they were against innovation and reform, even when such reforms would serve progressive values.

Seen this way, the NDP’s vision is in many ways a conservative one – a vision of Canada locked in the 1960s or worse, the 1930s. This conservatism of the left – even if found under one tent – will not inspire forward looking progressives, or Canadians in general.

Nor will moving to the centre attract new people or inspire new ideas.

Centrism requires there to something inherently good in the position between two ideological poles. Rather than compromise between the conservatism of the left and the right, many of our peers want pragmatic policies and ideas based on a governing philosophy rather than political gamesmanship.

Take how Barack Obama has mobilized a new generation of progressives. He inspires not because he compromises between the left and right, but because he offers pragmatic policy solutions, unrestricted by ideology. Obama’s watershed speeches – “Ebenezer Baptist Church,” “Yes We Can” and “A More Perfect Union” – are powerful because they transcend the ideological divides of the past 40 years.

How then could the Liberal party attract new people and ideas? The first step is to understand that we are on the cusp of a neo-progressive revolution.

While traditional progressives promoted their values to smooth the transition from agrarian to industrial capitalism and to spread the latter’s benefits, a neo-progressive Liberal party should seek to manage the shift from the industrial to the knowledge economy. In short, to develop a New Deal for the 21st century.

This would mean, like their progressive forbearers identifying new political axes around which a new governing coalition – drawn from both the left and right – could be built.

These emerging political axes include open versus closed systems, evidence-based policy versus ideology, meritocratic governance versus patronage, open and fair markets versus isolationism, and emergent networks versus hierarchies. It is these political distinctions, not the old left versus right, that increasingly resonate among those we talk to.

Such a shift will not be easy for the Liberal party. Transformative politics requires a painful process of introspection and a willingness to let go of past battles. The Liberal party, however, continues to treat “renewal” as a side process. For example, after Paul Martin’s 2006 defeat party insiders chose 30 issues they felt were critical, and then a select group wrote reports on each. Little technology was used, neither the membership nor the public was engaged, and almost none of the reports were released to the public.

The result: Few new people were attracted to the party, almost no rigorous debates were stimulated and Liberals were unable to articulate a new progressive agenda.

This recent history offers one critical lesson. If Liberals are serious about renewal, the process can’t just be about the tactics for winning the next election, but about making progressive politics relevant to the 21st century.

Before Obama’s 2004 convention speech, I remember reading a story about the black guy from Chicago who was going to run for the Senate. I can’t remember where, or even what the piece said, but I do clearly remember taking notice. He sounded different, and intriguing.

At his convention speech, he first sounded the themes that would resonate four years later. It appeared as if he was also wise. And an exceptional orator. After he won his Senate seat, I heard the story of how he approached Samantha Power, and how she took leave to join his Senate office. Seemed he was a good judge of character.

I then listened to his first book, and his second, both read by him. His voice was oddly soothing, his prose at times beautiful. He was a good writer. And had a vision. By this time it was clear he was going to run for president, and against a Clinton none-the-less. Audacious. What’s more, he was going to be the first serious post-boomer candidate. He was now going to speak to my generation – in their voice, to their issues, using their tools, in their language.

And he did. Not surprisingly, he captured the support of a new political generation. He did this not simply because he was a great orator, but because of what he said. It’s difficult to explain how refreshing it was to listen to his speech on race. To a generation that had grown up in the age of political spin, Clinton and Bush embodied it, the manner in which Obama responded to this moment of political turmoil was more telling than any. He treated the public as adults. He responded with intelligence and emotion, and in a way that quite literally overcame one of the deepest divides in American history – that of race.

This was more than mere words. It reflected his temperament. And it is this above all else that I find remarkable about him. He is calm and deliberative, thoughtful and humble. Traits rarely found in politics.

During his campaign, I began thinking about what this phenomena meant for Canada. Many of the political realities driving Obama’s rise are not analogous, and many of the calls for a Canadian Obama were as demagogic as they were ironic (given that most doing the calling had spent the better part of the past 8 years smugly mocking the US). But one thing is comparable - the fate of the left, and the arc of progressive politics over the past century.

The reality in both America and Canada, is that many aspects of the Left, and the politics which have come to embody it, simply do not resonate with my generation. Obama, more than anything else, was to me the first to give voice to a new emerging political spectrum. One not governed by left versus right, but by a different governing philosophy, free from the confines of ideology and identity politics. With Dave, I wrote an article on this, and we are working on a book.

So all of this makes my reaction to his win all the more odd. The night was emotional, certainly. The weight and responsibility, the fear even, that was clear in his acceptance speech - alone on that long stage - demonstrated the admirable and inspiring marks of his temperament. But the most striking moment for me was after the speech, when he was standing behind the glass wall, looking out at the crowd. He wore the burden that he would from that moment bare. As has been said of Lincoln, Obama perhaps more than anyone since, at that moment, truly knew the melancholy loneliness of the Presidency that awaited him. And like Lincoln, he will likely be a great president. If Lincoln’s challenge was to unite America, Obama’s will surely be to tackle global divisions. A burden if there ever was one.

What I didn’t feel on the night of the election, however, was overjoyed. In fact I was put off by much of the emotion on display. Much of it felt superficial. Like liberals who had righteously mocked Bush, for so long and with such vigor, staking claim to their superiority, much of the election night melodrama felt more in the service of solidifying an identity. But Obama is supposed to move us beyond identity politics. Similarly, those warning of the dangers of inflated expectations, never themselves really understood what people, beyond the fanatics, saw in him.

And so on the day after, I was deflated. Partly I suppose because I was not a part of it. I am not American. I do not believe that America can save the world. I do not believe in American exceptionalism, even if I believe Obama is himself exceptional, and I do. Partly also because it reflected on the relative smallness of the only politics in which I can honestly participate. I will never vote for a great American president. Nor do I think Canadian politics should aspire to Presidential greatness. Some of these are selfish, obviously, but politics always to a degree is. Some of it is a questioning of how to make a impact, and how not to get caught up in the ephemeral sweep of day to day politiquing.

With these thoughts in mind, I haven’t talked very much about the election in a couple of days. I have been reading a lot of commentary though. A couple pieces are of note.

First, I have been re-reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog posts from the past couple of weeks. In a way, this was the first election where blogs as a journalistic medium have been truly on display. And one of the ways in which they can be so powerful, is that they allow an honest author’s emotion to come through. Voice is able to literally sit on the surface of their writing. There is perhaps no other writer who better demonstrates this than Ta-Nehisi.

Amongst all the spin and the trite political commentary, his writing has been grounding. And re-reading his at times poetic posts, has reminded me what it is about politics that can, at times, be so thoroughly engaging. I would single out a post or two, but I don’t think that does him justice. His blog needs to read, as all good blogs should, like a flowing narrative. This is the very power of the medium.

If you want a wonderful few hours – start about a month ago, and read his posts and watch the videos. It will help differentiate your honest emotions about this election from the guilty superficial ones, the ones reinforcing your identity politics, the ones you convince yourself you should feel, rather than those you truly do.

Second, and I think I can stop on this, is a paragraph by Ezra Klein which I found particularly striking in its clarity. Ezra is a fierce partisan whom one would expect to be rejoicing in a historic win. Instead, he cautions:

My basic emotion is relief. The skill of an Obama administration has yet to be proven. The structure of our government will prove a more able opponent of change than John McCain. But for the first time in years, I have the basic sense that it’s going to be okay. Not great, necessarily. And certainly not perfect. But okay. The country will be led by decent, competent people who fret over the right things and employ the tools of the state for recognizable ends. They may not fully succeed. But then, maybe they will. At the least, they will try. And if they fail in their most ambitious goals, maybe they will simply make things somewhat better. After the constant anxiety and uncertainty of the last eight years, maybe that’s enough.

And if I really think about it, coming out of my bizarre post election mood, that is how I also feel. That things will be good. That the right combination of intentions, skill and temperament are now in place, and that we can begin to have an honest discussion about how to address some real challenges. We can do so out of the confines of rigid ideology and all the bluster that come with it. We can start seeing America for what it really is, rather than the caricature that has emerged. And we can do so recognizing that the world is now very different than the place in which many became stuck in their worldviews, in their certainties, in their divisions. Above all, I suppose, this is a relief.

A close friend, Erin Baines, has a truly amazing article in last weekend’s Globe. I have been hearing details of this story for a year or so now, and have been enthralled. You will not hear a better case, or read a better story, that so dramatically displays the challenges, hypocrisies and frustrations of international justice.

Through her work in Northern Uganda, Erin learned that Domic Ongwen, one of five leaders in Joseph Kony’s rebel movement indicted by the ICC for war crimes, had actually been abducted as a child soldier. This means that he is, as Erin and Stephanie Nolan describe, “the first person to be charged with the same war crimes that were committed against him.” Read the whole remarkable piece - if this lead doesn’t grab you, you have no soul:

GULU, Uganda — From the time he was a tiny child, his parents coached him: Use a fake name. Say you are from the west. Lie about your family.

If ever the rebels get you, they told him, make sure they don’t know where your family is – or none of us will ever be safe again.

The rebels did get him, when he was 10 years old. And when they snatched him, walking home from school on a red dirt Ugandan road, green grass high above his head on either side, he did as he had been told: He lied and said his name was Dominic Ongwen.

And so it is by that name that he now stands indicted for seven counts of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The rest is here.

On the somewhat more academic front, I have a few new articles out.

On Afghanistan, Patrick Travers and I have an article in the International Journal called Between Metaphor and Strategy: Canada’s Integrated Approach to Peacebuilding. It looks at some of the pretty challenging shifts that are underway in the Canadian mission, and what they might mean for the evolving practice of peacebuilding more broadly. It is the first paper in what will be a larger project over the next year.

On human security, I have a response to a piece by David Chandler in Security Dialogue called The Critique That Doesn’t Bite: A Response to David Chandler’s ‘Human Security: The Dog That Didn’t Bark.’ Chandler is a critical scholar who aggressively challenges two recent books on human security. I gently nudge back.

Still on human security, a book chapter, The Uncertain Future of Human Security in the UN, is a preliminary look at the history and future of the UN’s use of the concept, and another, Measuring Human Security: Methodological Challenges and the Importance of Geographically Referenced Determinants, summarizes some previous work on measuring human security and discusses the utility of a GIS based methodology.

Finally, Aldo Benini and I have a second piece on modeling local violence in Cambodia, A Semi-Parametric Spatial Regression Approach to Post-War Human Security: Cambodia, 2002–2004, in which we use the large sub-national database that I have compiled while doing research there over the years. It is the first time we have been able to work in indicators using the bombing data, which I hope to do more of.

Several months ago the Literary Review of Canada put a request for articles about the rise of Obama and what it means for politics in general and in Canada specifically. Mine and Dave’s proposal was lucky to be chosen, and is the lead essay in this month’s edition of the LRC.

The essay explores how the Left has been killing progressive politics. Those on the right have always been clear about their disdain for progressivism and their desire to rollback its success and dismantle its institutions. On the left however, a equally strong conservatism has emerged. Fearful that any debate, or worse reform, will threaten successes of the past century many progressives have become anti-change. It is a more subtle conservatism, but it has helped create a political environment within the left and centre left defined by silence and stagnation.

But change is afoot. A new generation are challenging old assumptions and exploring ways of adapting the progressive agenda to the 21st century. It is these same people – the neo-progressives – that helped Obama to the top of the democratic party. This new generation of progressives can, and will, similarly reshape Canadian politics.

The full article is available here.

Just a quick note to mention brag that I called Obama-Biden online FIVE MONTHS ago, and to those that have to put up with me in person, in the FALL of 2007.

Needless to say, I’m excited about the pick. Of course, Biden is as good as it gets on foreign policy. As Arbinder pointed out this morning, world leaders call him for advice. But more than this, the fact that Obama has chosen a fun, very smart, no-bullshit running mate confirms his character. No more Edwards’ or Liebermans. Two direct, real, honest candidates who have both bucked the traps of superficiality that riddle partisan politics. Bring it on.

UPDATE:

Ok, I can’t resist. As a taste of what we have to look forward to, a little Rudy-bashing, care of the new VP candidate:

“Rudy Giuliani… I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There’s nothing else!”.

Followed up by:

Giles Coren’s letter to the Times’ copy editors, sent to and published in the Guardian:

Chaps,

I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don’t know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i’m assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it’s only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn’t here - if he had been I’m guessing it wouldn’t have happened.

I don’t really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn’t going to happen anymore, so I’m really hoping it wasn’t you that fucked up my review on saturday.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh.”

It appeared as: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh.”

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking “I’ll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best”.

Well, you fucking don’t.

This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.

1) ‘Nosh’, as I’m sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German ‘naschen’. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, ‘nosh’, means simply ‘food’. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the ‘a’. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, ‘nosh’ means “a session of eating” - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of ’scoff’. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn’t mean? I don’t know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it’s easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as “sexually-charged”. I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word ‘gaily’ as a gentle nudge. And “looking for a nosh” has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. “looking for nosh” does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you’ve fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don’t you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed ‘a’ so that the stress that should have fallen on “nosh” is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you’re winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear that it is wrong? It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you’ve been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think “hey ho, it’s tomorrow’s fish and chips” - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that’s how it is.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i’ve got a review to write this morning and i really don’t feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i’m going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I’ve been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before - i have never asked it of anyone i have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.

And, just out of interest, I’d like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles

h/t David Akin

Dave and I have the following piece in this week’s Embassy. It is in part based on research I have done on the US bombing of Cambodia with Ben Kiernan, an overview of which can be read in this Walrus article.

Embassy, May 7th, 2008
Afghanistan Another Iraq? Try Another Cambodia

Of the many complexities to emerge from our mission in Afghanistan, one is particularly troublesome. Almost one-third of the Taliban recently interviewed by a Canadian newspaper claimed that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years, and many described themselves as fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops.

This should come as no surprise. Last year, the UN reported that over 1,500 civilian were killed in Afghanistan. In the first half 2007, this casualty rate had increased by 50 per cent. The NGO community and NATO remain at odds over who is accountable for a majority of these deaths.

What is indisputable, however, is that air sorties have increased dramatically. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sorties doubled from 6,495 in 2004 to 12,775 in 2007. More critically, aircraft today are 30 times more likely to drop their payloads than in 2004.

Civilian deaths are a moral tragedy. Equally importantly, however, they represent a critical strategic blunder. It has long been known that civilian casualties benefit insurgencies, who recruit fighters with emotional pleas. While an airstrike in a village may kill a senior Taliban, even a single civilian casualty can turn the community against the coalition for a generation.

This presents military commanders with an immensely challenging dilemma: Accept greater casualties in a media environment where any and all are scrutinized, or use counterproductive tactics that will weaken the enemy in the moment, but strengthen him over the long term.

While the choice is almost impossibly difficult, it is not new. Surprisingly, the case of U.S. air strikes in Cambodia offers a chilling parallel.

Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped over 2.7 million tonnes of munitions on Cambodia, making it potentially the most bombed country in history.

While the scale is shocking, the strategic costs were devastating. Over the course of the bombing period, the Khmer Rouge insurgency grew from an impotent force of 5,000 rural fighters to an army of over 200,000, capable of defeating a U.S.-backed government.

Recent research has shown a direct connection between casualties caused by the bombings and the rise of the insurgency.

Because Lon Nol, Cambodia’s president at the time, supported the U.S. air war, the bombing of Cambodian villages and the significant civilian casualties it caused provided ideal recruitment rhetoric for the insurgent Khmer Rouge.

As civilian casualties grew, the Khmer Rouge shifted their rhetoric from that of a Maoist agrarian revolution to anti-imperialist populism.

This change in strategy achieved stunning results. As one survivor explained:

“Every time after there had been bombing, they would take the people to see the craters…. Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told…. It was because of their dissatisfaction with the bombing that they kept on co-operating with the Khmer Rouge, joining up with the Khmer Rouge, sending their children off to go with them.”

Compare this to what one Taliban fighter explained to a Globe and Mail researcher: “The non-Muslims are unjust and have killed our people and children by bombing them, and that’s why I started jihad against them. They have killed hundreds of our people, and that’s why I want to fight against them.”

The coalition risks repeating the same mistakes, and like the Khmer Rouge 30 years ago, the Taliban are capitalizing on its misguided tactics.

Amazingly, in Cambodia, American administration knew of the strategic costs of the bombing. The CIA’s Directorate of Operations reported during the war that the Khmer Rouge were “using damage caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda.” Yet blinded by grandeurs of military might, the sorties continued.

The Khmer Rouge forced the U.S. out of Phnom Penh, took over the country, and the rest is a tragic history.

We know our tactics in Afghanistan have a similar effect. Civilian casualties drive a generation into the hands of an insurgency we are there to oppose.

Initially Canada deployed without Leopard tanks and CF-18s with the goal of prioritizing personal engagement and precision over brute military might. Today, however, our allies’ tactics—and increasingly our own—do not adequately reflect strategic costs incurred by civilian causalities. In addition, Canada has not allied itself with other NATO members—particularly the British—to reign in the coalition’s counterproductive use of aerial bombings.

Cambodia offers a powerful example of aerial warfare run amok. What is Canada doing to ensure we don’t relive the failures of the past?

…or maybe it’s just a flesh wound…

Bill Clinton in Pennsylvania yesterday.

“I think there is a big reason there’s an age difference in a lot of these polls. Because once you’ve reached a certain age, you won’t sit there and listen to somebody tell you there’s really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there’s not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade.”

I just finished listening to an abridged version of Clinton’s autobiography (I just couldn’t commit to the full thing). There are two things that are glaringly clear. First, it’s all the evil “far right’s” fault. Everything. It is never Clinton’s fault. Second, and more relevant here, is that in 1992, Clinton was running a VERY similar campaign to Obama. Had Hillary been in the race, there is no doubt that he would be have mocked her as the establishment candidate. He would have been right, and he would have won. He would have done so using words, which he was at one point pretty good at. And he would have argued that a new generation was ready to have a turn in Washington. Sound familiar?

One more point. Is it really a smart idea to start attacking a whole new generation getting engaged in politics? Like Obama or not, bringing in millions of new voters is an undeniably positive result of his candidacy. Telling them they are naive, waving your wise ex-presidential finger at them, is just demeaning. Way to be inspiring. No you can’t. No you can’t.

Patrick Travers and I have an oped, here, and below, in the Star today on the recent NATO summit in Bucharest.

2011 is a date, not a goal
Reinforcements are welcome but do not address Manley’s sweeping critique
Apr 05, 2008
Patrick Travers
Taylor Owen

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters in Bucharest that the French troop commitment to Afghanistan represents a “significant and historic re-engagement.” The truth is somewhat less dramatic, particularly when measured against the Manley panel’s comprehensive and wide-ranging recommendations.

Certainly, the injection of additional resources is good news. It frees American forces to offer more assistance and provides a badly needed show of unity within NATO. But these relatively minor additional resources must be seen in context.

Although allied support will shore up flagging Canadian capacity, the overall mission remains under-resourced. The contributions pledged in Bucharest do not meet the 10,000 troops demanded by ISAF commander Gen. Daniel McNeill before the summit. Even counting the Afghan National Army, there are still fewer forces available than the minimum levels experts identify as necessary for successful peacebuilding operations.

More importantly, the government’s success in Bucharest was largely due to a careful reframing of the Manley report. While the panel did emphasize the need for additional troops and helicopter support, it also went much further.

The critiques were sweeping: too many civilian casualties, incoherent counter-narcotics policies, widespread corruption in Afghan institutions, insufficient diplomatic effort, failure to communicate the mission to Canadians, poor interdepartmental co-ordination, and a lack of civilian participation and oversight. Our strategy, as well as our capacity, is flawed.

The report emphasized this point explicitly when it identified “harmful shortcomings in the NATO/ISAF counter-insurgency campaign” caused by “inadequate co-ordination between military and civilian programs for security, stabilization, reconstruction and development.” The conclusion that “these and other deficiencies reflect serious failures of strategic direction” could hardly be clearer.

Luckily, the panel provided a blueprint. Its recommendations were rooted in the principles of “3D” or “whole-of-government” peacebuilding. Three successive governments have claimed that they are implementing this new approach to rebuilding failed states, but reality has yet to match the rhetoric. In particular, four challenges still need to be addressed.

First, co-ordinated and comprehensive policy-making demands exceptional clarity. Diplomats, humanitarians and defence experts may view the same issues in strikingly different terms. If we are asking them to work together, as we are, we must provide them with clear goals. For Canada in Afghanistan, this has been lacking from the start and the decision to extend the current mission does little to solve the problem.

Second, much of the Canadian debate about our role in Afghanistan has omitted the international context. We are a modest contributor in a 35-member coalition. Success or failure in Afghanistan depends crucially on the actions of our allies. In this sense, it is hard to see the benefit of an arbitrary extension to 2011. If the international effort to stabilize Afghanistan lasts longer, as it almost certainly will, then we need to be clear about what both Canada and ISAF expects to accomplish in next three years. Our commitment has to be viewed in the context of the larger strategy.

Third, peacebuilding demands balance. According to the Manley panel, “for best effect, all three components of the strategy – military, diplomatic and development – need to reinforce each other.”

Not only has this not happened, but the degree of integration has also been difficult to determine from outside observation. The government has consistently failed to provide the verifiable information, clear benchmarks, and concrete timelines to necessary to judge Canada’s mission accurately.

Fourth, strategy begins in Ottawa. Harper has taken steps to improve co-ordination between the departments contributing to the mission, but old habits remain. The Manley report underscored that new and more creative solutions are needed for this bureaucratic deadlock.

Other countries, such as the U.K., may provide an example. They have explored alternate means of encouraging departments to work together when managing complex peacebuilding missions. This may be a rare instance of bureaucratic turf battles mattering deeply both for Canadians and for the success of the mission.

Neither the political compromise that extended our involvement in Afghanistan nor recent developments in Bucharest address these challenges. If we are to avoid finding ourselves in the same position in 2011, a more comprehensive re-engagement is needed.

The Manley panel should have sparked a full and informed public discussion of these issues. Instead, the opportunity was largely lost in political manoeuvring. It is past time we had that debate. Otherwise, we are condemning Canada’s mission to reliving its past.

Patrick Travers is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. Taylor Owen is a Trudeau Scholar at the University of Oxford and an Action Canada Fellow.

I haven’t read through all the commentary on Obama’s race speech yet, but I did watch it, and believe that above all else, the style he exhibited goes to the core of his candidacy. He speaks about issues, controversial issues, with a political voice that hasn’t been heard before. He transcends old ideological, ethnic, religious and historical divides. This voice is not just new to the US, but internationally. This is why so many people in Canada and Europe, for example, are watching him in a way they don’t even look at their own leaders. I can’t express the number of times I have been asked in Canada who will be “our Obama”. Same in the UK.

It is also worth mentioning that the voice evident in the speech clearly shows the unique positionally that he is able to hold. Ferraro was right - Obama could not have given this speech if he were white. Nor could he if he were a boomer - white or black, or female. Neither of the Clinton’s could have given this speech. This, however, does not in any way diminish the force of him giving it. As Andrew has said, it simply adds context to the historical moment/opportunity that surrounds his candidacy.

In any case, despite his religious exuberance and US patriotism, I basically agree with Andrew’s post on the speech, some of which is below:

I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history…

I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy - not this man, his candidacy - and what he can bring us to achieve - is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man’s faults and pain as well as his promise…

Bill Clinton once said that everything bad in America can be rectified by what is good in America. He was right - and Obama takes that to a new level. And does it with the deepest darkest wound in this country’s history.

Some quick answers to Adesnik’s questions regarding my post of last week on Obama’s way forward:

1. Why shouldn’t they go to the candidate who emerges with the largest popular vote?

I agree, I don’t think there is clear reason, other than the fact that the nominee is chosen by delegates, rather than a straight popular ballot. I suppose that means something. Bush would probably think so. I also believe that even if you count Michigan and Florida, which is looking increasingly unlikely to happen, Obama is ahead in the pop. vote.

2. From day one, Obama’s message has been that he is a bringer of change who can unite the entire country, not just the Democratic Party. Thus, would an emphasis on the math actually do more to hurt his campaign than to help?

Well, a couple of things. First, I don’t see how these are necessarily mutually exclusive. Second, I think the message of the campaign can be transmitted in many ways. Obama himself would obviously not be on the stump mixing math with hope, delegates with change. His surrogates could certainly do fair amount to get that point across though.

3. Is it “absolutely ridiculous” for her to argue that she is better vetted?

OK, this might be a bit strong. First, though, her claim assumed that the “vast right-wing conspiracy” is done “vetting” her. That the current silence is due to the right being out of ammo, as opposed to her primary opponent trying to run a relatively clean campaign. Second, what is certainly “absolutely ridiculous” is her claim that she is fully vetted, but then to call any reference to the issues for which she was critiqued off limits, or worse still, Starr-ian. She can’t have it both ways.

4. What I want to know is, is one set of arguments intrinsically more persuasive to Democratic superdelegates? Or is only way forward to forget about which argument is better and just see who polls better against McCain?

In the end, I am not sure if it will ever come down to solely who is better positioned against McCain. If Obama is ahead in delegates, popular vote, and states won going into the convention, then it is hard to see Hillary to becoming the nominee. If they split any of these, or, I suppose, if Hillary has some real momentum coming out of the final few states, then the super delegates will decide based on the McCain factor. This, despite Clinton’s experience messaging, I think actually favors Obama. He polls better against McCain, puts more swing states into play, and Hillary is far more vulnerable on her Iraq vote than she implies.

Plus, what could be better for Oxblog than an Obama-McCain general? Surely that has to factor into our analysis?

PS - In a thorough post on the same topic, Jonathan Chait argues that while there may be nothing illegitimate about a super delegate decided outcome, with the math strongly against her, Clinton’s only path to the nomination will not be a pretty affair.