"The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them."

-Tom DeLay, Constitutional scholar

Damn you, Chief Justice John Marshall!

(via Atrios)

Don't know if anyone is still reading this website, but I just wanted to flag this Scott McClellan moment for future use:

Q Have you been tracking these ethics allegations against Tom DeLay? Do you think he has some explaining to do, or as Congressman Shays says, should he step aside?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you've heard from the President, what he has said on the matter, that Majority Leader DeLay is someone the President considers a friend, and he is someone that he has worked closely with to get things done in Washington. And the President looks forward to continuing working closely with the Majority Leader to get things done on behalf of the American people. And that's what we will continue to do. We support the work that he is doing on behalf of the American people.

I'm sure this will come in handy later.

I realize I'm about nine years too late to this argument by now, but I finally got around to reading Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations during the course of my paper on him for my "Ideas in American Foreign Policy" course, which has been one of many things keeping me preoccupied lately. Anyone who's interested can find the final draft after the break — it's a little book-reportish at points, and my conclusion was a little muddled since I'm still not sure what I ultimately think of Huntington's arguments, but maybe some will find it interesting.   more »

About the death of Pope John Paul II, I have no personal thoughts to share, other than to extend sympathy to the millions around the world who are experiencing his death as a source of considerable sorrow. The wall-to-wall media coverage about the significance of John Paul II or the religious reactions of members of the Catholic faith are mostly over-the-top hagiography, good TV visuals, or simply remote to those of us who don't share that faith. Most of the non-religious commentary on the life of the Pope or the future of the Church has been just another excuse for the commentariat and puditocracy to trot out their favorite over-exercised hobby-horse.

Enlightenment of either the spiritual or intellectual variety has been equally rare in the blogosphere. I've come across two notable exceptions, that weren't simply stale rehashes of ancient debates seen through one predictable worldview or another. Taken together I found they implicitly challenge most of the narratives being imposed on the story of the Pope's death, and thereby challenge a number of assumptions, casually shared by many American and European commentators, about the political valence of religion in the culture of the "West" and in the rest of the world.

The first is a highly personal and entertaining tale by Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber on his family's excursion to see the Pope when he came to Ireland in 1979, and an extraordinary portion of the entire population of the country went to see him. Kieran follows with the unhappy story of what has happened to the Catholic Church in Ireland since the Pope's famous visit.

The Irish story contrasts sharply with Ed Kilgore's thoughtful assessment of John Paul II's significance for the Church in the Southern hemisphere, where the tensions perceived in the Northern hemisphere -- between the "liberal" and "conservative" Pope -- have certainly played out differently.

Yet nearly everything about the powerful and perhaps irreversible trajectory he set for the Church points South, to the Third World, and away from Europe and the United States. Many obituarists of this Pope have struggled to categorize him ideologically as "conservative" on faith and morals yet "liberal" or even "radical" on issues of globalization, poverty and war, even as they acknowledge the unity of his own thinking.

But these are Eurocentric ways of looking at his teachings, which may confuse and distress American Catholics and what's left of the faith in Europe, but make perfect sense to most Catholics in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

A deeply illiberal approach to issues involving sexuality and gender; a rejection of capitalism as a necessary counterpart to democracy; and an abiding hostility to U.S.-European political, military, economic and cultural hegemony: this is a consistent point of view with strong support in the global South, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Indeed, in many respects what John Paul II represented was a living link between the pre-modern traditions of European Catholicism and the post-modern realities of much of the rest of the world.
[...]
Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and irreligious, who are outdoing each other this week in viewing this pope's legacy through the lens of their own cultural and political obsessions. This pope's opposition to "American exceptionalism" invariably embraced opposition to the death penalty, to capitalist triumphalism, and to George W. Bush's unilateralist foreign policies, as well as to abortion or birth control or the removal of feeding tubes from the hopelessly dying.

Many conservatives accuse John Paul II's American flock of practicing a "Cafeteria Catholicism" of selective obedience to Rome. But the American Right, I would argue, is practicing "Cafeteria Conservatism"--an equally selective interpretation of this pope's teachings and legacy, which lead not Right or Left but South. [em. added]

To relate these observations to my most recent blog entry -- when those of us from developed liberal democracies embrace the prospect of promoting greater political freedoms and development across continents where genuine freedom is scarce and poverty is endemic, Kilgore's observations should remind us that that large portions of people in those worlds share the "mentality" of a Pope whose attitudes and core beliefs are often hard for us to integrate, reconcile or fully understand. That recognition should be reflected both in the actions we choose and in our expectations about the probable results of our actions.

Recently I've been feeling bombarded by a strange and perhaps unholy alliance of George Bush and Condi Rice, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac and Lula, Tony Blair, Jeffrey Sachs, Bono and assorted denizens of the op-ed pages. Although each speaker or author has a preferred emphasis and a few code words for his or her target audience, they share a remarkably consistent vocabulary and program. "Freedom" is extolled as humanity's universal goal, and we are reminded of the urgent need to promote human dignity and protect the rights of the vulnerable (especially women). The march of freedom is then -- to one degree or another depending on the political agenda of the speaker or author -- combined with exhortations to make hunger and disease a thing of the past. And all claim that we must seize a unique moment of opportunity to change the globe in the 21st century.

Development -- economic and social as well as political -- is back in the spotlight, and not only in the Middle East. Although the international community is still reverberating from the Iraq invasion and its aftermath and continues to grapple with "what is terrorism" and Iranian nukes, for the moment security issues are not crowding out the rest of the international agenda. Significant discussions have already begun and are scheduled in the coming months on specific UN programs and reforms and G-8 initiatives. And as Paul Wolfowitz indicated when the World Bank's Board approved his nomination last week, the annual meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions this year are going to have a hefty set of issues of their own.

In self defense, I've started to try to make sense of the various viewpoints and proposals -- where they overlap, where they conflict -- and the political positions being taken by major donor and developing countries as well as the broader development community. I've begun plowing through a whole host of background papers, assessments, reports and so forth. I've still got a long ways to go -- just locating the organizations and websites that have relevant documentation, to say nothing of inventorying all of Sachs' productions, is an undertaking in itself. From my initial forays into the piles of e-docs, however, I already have some common reactions and concerns.

These concerns coalesced for me when I came across an article in the CS Monitor on the surprisingly large advances being made in reducing the incidence of female circumcision in Senegal. The specific progress is itself noteworthy and encouraging. But more compelling for me personally, the brief description of how this program has been able to make major headway, dealing with what has been an intractable issue, reminded me of some of the lessons I've learned from experience about what development is.

The "secret" of informed choice -- changing mentalities in Senegal

Tostan is a human rights agency in Senegal that seems to have found a magic formula for eradicating the practice of female circumscion or female genetal mutilation (FGM). Their secret: encouraging people to choose within a context of extensive education and support on human rights, womens' health, and economic development.

Mike Crawley of the CS Monitor describes the scope of the problem and the changes being seen in Senegal:

Excision of all or part of the female sexual organs before puberty has long been considered a prerequisite for marriage among many of the pastoral cultures immediately south of the Sahara and in the Horn of Africa. Despite growing awareness of the health risks, which can affect childbirth, parents continue carrying out the practice because they fear their daughters won't otherwise be able to find a husband.
[...]
Back in 1997, 13 Senegalese villages publicly declared that they would no longer permit female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it's called by critics. In the eight years since, the number has grown to 1,527, representing 30 percent of Senegalese communities where FGM has been practiced. Dozens more villages are preparing to make similar declarations in the coming months.

Campaigners have tried for decades to bring an end to FGM. But their tactics of providing alternative employment to the circumcisers, introducing alternative rites of passage for girls, or demanding legislation to outlaw the practice have all failed to make a dent: an estimated 2 million girls in about 26 African countries are circumcised every year.

Tostan, by contrast, doesn't focus on FGM but rather on the broader place of women and children within the promotion of health and economic development of the community. according to Molly Melching, the Texas-born director of Tostan who has lived in Senegal for more than two decades.

Once Tostan commences its program of health, human rights education, and economic development in a village, it typically takes two to three years before citizens decide that they want to abandon FGM, says Ms. Melching. The public declarations the villages make, amid vibrant celebrations with music, dancing, and speeches from elders and prominent citizens, generally contain other statements about respect for women's rights and children's education.

The declarations are also coming from places where Tostan staff have never set foot. Enthusiastic villagers are taking it upon themselves to talk to neighboring villages, causing the movement to spread even more quickly.
[...]
As more villages publicly announce that they are abandoning the practice, Tostan says others begin realizing it may no longer be a marriage requirement, momentum builds, and the number of villages following suit snowballs.

Change is accelerating, and spreading beyond the original areas of Senegal to other countries in the region, as the pressures of social conformity shift. Gerry Mackie, a professor at Notre Dame, sees the process as eventually reaching a "tipping point," after which change becomes the new norm. He sees an analogy to foot-binding in China, where the practice was virtually eliminated within a generation.

Change doesn't come easily or automatically, however. These changes are not perceived universally as positive, especially at the beginning. They represent real threats to social structures, to idenity, to livelihoods, to the very ability to survive to the extent that girls depends on marriagability in a near-subsistence economy. The changes must confront and overcome very strong fears. A great deal of patient work is required. Even concrete positive experiences don't bring rapid acceptance. Mike Crawley explains that Tostan has become, in some sense, a victim of its own success as its reputation becomes more widespread.

Particularly in northern Senegal where resistance to ending the practice remains strong, some villages have protested and rioted to dissuade the organization from doing any sort of work.

Here in Ker Simbara there was similar - albeit less heated - initial refusal to listen to visiting women from nearby Malicounda Bambara, the village where the first anti-FGM declaration was made, says Imam Demba Diawara. But the public declarations soon made the issue of excision "the talk of the town," he says.

The debate that ensued was a big shift from the previously secretive approach to the practice, says Ramata Sow, who staffs the local clinic and nursery. "No one talked about the health troubles before - it's a difficult subject," she says.

Ker Simbara eventually declared in 1999 that its citizens would no longer practice female circumcision. Ms. Sow's family illustrates the transformation. She circumcised her eldest daughter, but her two youngest, Sadio, 13, and Nabou, 7, and her granddaughter Duma, 2, are not circumcised.

"I will never do it again," she declares. "Things have changed."

The United Nations Childrens' Fund (UNICEF) is looking to Tostan as a model.

"The Tostan approach is working because it's a holistic approach, and it works with communities," says Lalla Toure, UNICEF's regional adviser for women's health. "The starting point is not female genital mutilation; it's about rights, it's about health, it's about development. We think that's the best approach."

Development at the "retail" level -- local ownership

Reading about the Tostan approach brought into focus what was bothering me about so much of what I'd been hearing from the promoters of freedom, human rights, the end of poverty, and global development. The implicit mental model behind so many of these strategies, challenges, initiatives and campaigns is that the world of the developed liberal democracies holds the keys to success. That postive development would result if "we" just got rid of the tyrants, or pushed harder for reforms, or gave more money, or were more "efficient" at planning and coordinating so that the money gets to the "right" people, (etc., etc., etc., as a certain King of Siam would say to his development adviser).

I don't want to suggest that the various "calls to action" are in themselves inappropriate or harmful. I believe strongly that development assistance is essential -- that indeed many countries or societies need an external push or a helping hand to break out of a host of circumstances in which they find themselves locked -- not just due to their history, culture or policies of their own devising but external condtitions beyond their control such as the "givens" of geography or the neighborhood they live in. The high-profile political initiatives are clearly the only way to draw media attention to critical global issues, and they are undoubtedly needed to mobilize attention, resources and action.

But I do think we risk doing considerable mischief, as well as failing to meet the high expectations being set by the politicians, if our mental model stays fixed at the "grand initiatives" level and doesn't start at the bottom with the individuals we are trying to help. We must be able to separate the "wholesale" function -- the critical role that central leadership must play in bringing issues to the fore and, during the brief moment the world is paying attention, mobiliizng political will and resource commitments for the future -- from the "retail" function -- the medium and long-term, patient support of emergent transformative processes that can't be sequenced or planned and that require decentralized, responsive, adaptable, highly flexible forms of assistance.

Focusing where "the rubber meets the road" has led development agencies to perhaps the most important lesson learned over the past decade or so -- the importance of "local ownership" of programs or initiatives to liberalize or create new political, economic and social structures. By "local" I don't t simply mean the head of the local government ministry. "Local" means truly engaging people who are actually going to be active in or affected by the initiatives or policies or projects. Because ultimately that's where meaningful, sustainable change occurs.

The developed liberal democracies can encourage positive change through providing resources -- ideas, know-how, experience, money, and sometimes security -- and cheerleading, the importance of which should not be underestimated. The developed countries and the international community more broadly can signal displeasure by withholding resources, expressingly loud disapproval, or putting assorted pressures on uncooperative regimes.

The development mantra must, however, be "it's their country, their society." That is certainly an important lesson from Tostan in Senegal. Similarly, the current political process in Iraq is reminding us daily that only the Iraqis can, in the final analysis, solve their own problems. We can make their job harder or easier; we can expand or limit the choices they have available. But only they can decide which of a multitude of competing objectives are their top priorities, and how to manage, for good or ill, the inevitable tradeoffs. Top-down, externally imposed development -- whether political, economic or social -- rarely works as well as expected, is only the first step of a long process, and is replete with unintended (often negative, sometimes positive) consequences. The same is often true within countries that attempt to impose top-down change.

Development at the "retail" level -- changing complex systems versus delivering projects

In addition to the need for "local ownership," the Tostan story highlights another important insight about the development process. First and foremost, political, economic and social development are changes of "mentality" -- shifts in attitudes, expectations and incentives that affect behavior. [see ftnt] Some of the most valuable outside interventions don't implement change directly. Their most powerful impact emerges from the ways they encourage a gradual erosion of mental prisons and give individuals a sense that they have more choices and more control over their own lives. To steal a phrase from Amartya Sen, it's "development as freedom."

Mental prisons constrain both imagination and action. They are constructed from a host of fears, anxieties, rigidities, and limits -- from fear of a dictator or of another ethnic group, from social conventions, from simple ignorance of alternatives, or from a sense of powerlessness that a society never rewards initiative or that opportunity is the privilege of a few. Each time we try to encourage positive change, we need to understand the nature of and connection among the constraints on both imagination and action -- and take them into account when we try to help. We also need to see something as seemingly simple as the political, economic and social development of a village as a complex system that is always changing, and our development interventions need to be continually adjusted and adapted to respond to those changes. That basic principle -- "mentality" is the primary means by which ongoing change of complex systems occurs -- is at play whether we're dealing with demands for fair elections, freedom of the press, the status of women, expanding economic activity, reforming the judiciary, AIDS, or access to clean drinking water. And that is the case whether changes in mentality occur at a glacial pace or are accelerated in response to some sort of exogenous shock.

This indirect, gradual, complex, "mentality"-based nature of the development process presents some real dilemmas for furnishing development assistance at the retail level. Clearly, "project design" is a major challenge if what we are dealing with are processes that depend on the interconnected effects of the unpredictable shifting of attitudes and behavior, which may not really be felt until "tipping points" are reached. Management "metrics," predictive models and accountability mechanisms are hard to apply to processes that lack a clear sequential logic or fail to demonstrate, at least at a project level, a close "causality" connection between specific inputs and outputs. Attempts to produce projects that can demonstrate to financial contributors (or members of Congress) "what I got for my money" may actually serve only to waste that money. Insistence on eliminating overlap or competing approaches may be faux efficiencies. Project selection is frequently more an art than a science -- the closest analogy I've found is to venture capital, where success is often as much a matter of betting on the right horse as on choosing the best business plan, and the number of "losers" far exceeds the number of "superperforming winners". Replicability and scalability are also, like VC, often a major challenge.

Yet simply because the transformation of "mentality" is too hard to control, measure or predict, and just because "results" may be only indirect and come years after a project completion report is filed, doesn't mean we can ignore it. Without putting mentality, incentives and behavior at the center of our understanding of development -- whether political, economic or social -- we risk wasting resources or, worse, violating the cardinal principle of development assistance, "first, do no harm."

Back to "wholesale"

The messy reality of the development process makes it difficult to communicate about development to the general public. I don't envy the "wholesalers" who have to imply that we have answers when the only thing we know for sure is that there are no easily duplicated recipes for success.

The "retail" issues are also hard to capture in stirring speeches that call the developed world to the glorious mission of making our inreasingly interconnected and interdependent globe a better place. And in a PowerPoint world, I won't hold George Bush or Kofi Annan to the details. I am encouraged that many recent speeches, even by US officials such as Condi Rice and Karen Hughes, are peppered with the code words that the development community uses when they talk about sustained, multifaceted engagement and complex systems, such as "partnership," "listening," "learning," "long-term," even "generations."

I'll just have to keep my "retail" principles in mind, with the switch on my hubris-detector in the "on" position, as I read the voluminous quantities of fine print.

---

Note: I've chosen "mentality" because that is in fact the short-hand term most frequently used by clients with whom I've worked in developing financial and legal systems in a number of countries. It is truly striking how reformers, regardless of country, share the frustration that the true impact of changes they are tryiing to implement today will not be realized until a new generation emerges which isn't trapped in old ways of thinking. As I am using "mentality," it is shorthand intended to capture most of the elements development economists consider when they use the terms "incentives" and "institutions."

In The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly's study of what development economists do and don't know about promoting growth, Easterly focuses on the importance of "incentives" to effective development, with which I wholeheartedly concur. I find, however, that "mentality" is more descriptive than "incentives" when going beyond the "growth conundrum" or the operations of specific economic institutions. When discussing development writ large, including political and social change, "mentality" more easily captures the importance of cultural worldviews and social and political expectations and conventions. The term "institutions" has become another important concept closely related to "incentives" in development economists' lingo, with the focus primarily on the creation or reform of formal political, legal and economic structures. Within the notion of "mentality," I am rather casually including "institutions" in their broader sense, including socially-shared "identity" factors such as religion, ethnicity and gender and informal social structures and conventions. That's not to suggest, however, that most aspects of social structures, attitudes and behavior that I'm including in "mentality" could not be expressed and analyzed in terms of incentives and instituitons. More on Easterly at a later date.

I've made it through another April Fools Day without too much personal damage, so to celebrate here's a rather charming April Fools tale I hadn't heard before, courtesy of Spiegel's online international service. Rather remarkable to think less than fifty years ago there was such a pre-Europeanized, pre-globalized world of early electronic media.

One of the most famous media spoofs of all time is the BBC "spaghetti harvest" documentary, which was broadcast on April 1 1957. The program showed Swiss women in traditional costume harvesting strands of spaghetti from trees. In pre-Jamie Oliver days many British people had only ever eaten spaghetti from tins and had no idea where it actually came from. The documentary, which was watched by 8 million viewers, fooled whole sections of the nation, partly due to the weightiness of presenter Richard Dimbleby's commentary. "He had enough gravitas to float an aircraft carrier," the program's producer David Wheeler told BBC Online. Wheeler and his team were heavily criticized at the time, but he says that he has no regrets. "I think it was a good idea for people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw on the television and that they ought to adopt a slightly critical attitude to it."

Probably an always-timely reminder.

So Paul Wolfowitz is going to be the new head of the World Bank, with a term of office, barring personal catastrophe, of at least the next five years. The post-JDW (James D Wolfensohn) era was always going to be interesting for the Bank, especially in light of the tensions, upheavals and resentments produced by the Iraq war. Now it's going to be even more challenging, with a leading architect of that war at the helm.

I would certainly not have selected Mr. Wolfowitz if I had the power of nomination. But it is done, he has now been unanimously approved by the Bank's Board, and pace Brad DeLong with whom I agree far more often than not, I think it is time to shift our attention from Wolfowitz the Pentagon official, or Wolfowitz the controversial choice to lead the Bank, to Wolfowitz the international civil servant.

Those of us who believe the World Bank has an important role to play in both making the world a better place and in US foreign policy need to think about what we should be doing to help the institution succeed. And as distasteful as that may be for some, in the coming months that may mean rising to the defense of the Bank and its President against a host of narrow political agendas that wish to pull the Bank off into one meaningless or ineffectual direction or another.

As I've noted before, the Bush Administration could have saddled the Bank with a much worse burden. By background and temperament Paul Wolfowitz appears superior to any of the minor luminaries whose names were in common circulation prior to his nomination. Wolfowitz shares with much of the Bank's staff many of the ambitions and aspirations for the constructive roles the institution can play in development. Under the old principle that "where you stand depends on where you sit," it's likely that a number of the biases he will inevitably bring with him from the Pentagon will begin to disolve earlier rather than later. He has made no indication to date that he has any intention of Meltzerizing the Bank -- he is openly equating his "success" with the Bank's "success," not with dismantling the institution or redirecting it from its overarching goals.

In fact, the common criticism directed at JDW -- lack of focus -- may be equally difficult for Wolfowitz to avoid. Based on initial signals of an enthusiasm for linking economic and political development -- as well as the general discomfort the Bush Administration evinces with social development-oriented activities of many UN agencies -- the risk to the Bank instead may be that it becomes the preferred agency for a hodgepodge of US political priorities and pet-projects.

A US-dominated political agenda would threaten the Bank in a number of ways far more serious than the relatively simple problem of dissipating staff and budget resources. It goes to the heart of the credibility crisis that Wolfowitz' appointment presents for the Bank. As I explained several weeks ago when the nomination was announced:

[O]ne of [JDW's] major achievements was to reduce the level of suspicion about the Bank's agenda(s) with at least a portion of the NGO-civil society world. At a very high cost, I might add, and as [Sebastian] Mallaby also notes, many of these groups will never be satisfied, so there's a legitimate debate about whether [JDW] should have invested so much in the effort.

But the Wolfowitz appointment takes what progress there has been and basically tosses it in the garbage can. And that's the case regardless of any personal views or concrete actions of Wolfowitz himself in the new job. The symbolism -- that the US owns the Bank and can do with it what it will -- is how it's going to be read across the globe.

The irony is that one of the few really strong consensus items in recent years has been the importance of the locals "owning" their own development strategies and projects, and the broader need for the developing countries to feel they've an ownership stake in the multilateral institutions. Again, I think the "local ownership" theme has sometimes gotten a bit out of hand with some of the "comprehensive development strategy" stuff that was JDW's crowning glory. But there's an important bit of wisdom there, and it represented an essential corrective for a Washington-centered institution that had in many ways lost its way. Seems, however, that the message hasn't penetrated the Oval Office.

The first two years in the job for Wolfowitz, at a minimum, will be one of proving himself and reproving the Bank. Very trying times.

The staff face the challenge of credibility with individual client countries on specific projects. This will exacerbate the always-present tensions, sub-texts and hidden agendas (suspected or real) regarding which projects are selected, how they are designed, how they are approved. But beyond the difficulties for the staff, the credibility question presents a major problem for the Bank as a whole. As I noted earlier:

There's already enough opposition to the mythical Washington Consensus, and this will add enormous fuel to the anti-globalization fires as well. The super anti-globalizers will see this as one great big present from Santa, and the staff know it.

Wolfowitz could personally be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the Bank is going to get saddled with a lot of his baggage. There will definitely be a "proving period" for him to get it right, or not. And that's assuming the US doesn't come into more intense conflict with anybody else, e.g. Iran, and have that blowback on him and the Bank.

Those trying times for the Bank and its staff will be brought into sharp focus by the debates to come over the next six months regarding Tony Blair's July push for a major G-7 Africa-centered anti-poverty agenda and a reassessment in September, in the context of the broader UN reforms, of progress on the Millennium Development Goals. Wolfowitz' background and White House connections will not make it easy for him to navigate the inevitable highly-politicized pulls on the Bank that will come from every direction. If he looks to be making a hash of things, then I'll criticize. But for the sake of the countries the Bank is designed to help, and the broader health of the international system, I wish him all the best.