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Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 
Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus is a fortnightly series of articles on the role of art in public policymaking. This series invites WPI fellows and project leaders as well as external practitioners to contribute pieces on how artists have led policy change and how policymakers can use creative strategies.
WPI BOOKS
Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World
In Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Ian Bremmer illustrates a historic shift in the international system and the world economy—and an unprecedented moment of global uncertainty.
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Jodi Liss: Peruvian People Power
This past month, two resource-rich countries saw political protests turn deadly as the people tried to reign in the autocratic dictates of an incumbent government. One country was, of course, Iran—where every day it seems the government strangles a little more life out of the people’s protests.
With 24/7 news coverage of that disastrous election, you might be forgiven for not having heard about what happened in Peru, where for a change, the people won.
Beginning in 2008, Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, issued a series of executive decrees to open up 210,000 square miles of the Amazon region, including some land legally protected, to foreign oil, gas, logging, and agribusiness investment.
Garcia aimed to develop a multi-billion dollar industry to aid Peru’s growth (not in itself a bad thing) and saw the fertile and resource-rich Amazon as a golden opportunity, simply too good to waste. The president oversaw the signings of dozens of contracts with a wide variety of foreign officials and companies.
In retrospect, it's easy to see why Garcia underestimated the vociferousness of his opposition. The Amazonian region is home to only 330,000 indigenous people (roughly 1 percent of Peru’s population) arrayed in some 60 tribes. In general, these Amazonians live in remote areas, speak different dialects, are much poorer than the national average, and lack political or social cohesion.
But this time around, the indigenous people were organized and determined. They had spent years getting ready for Garcia's assault on their native land. Decades of negative experiences with oil extraction companies had forced them to come together, and to plan ahead. Past protests had not been taken seriously by Peruvian elites and legislative leaders, who merely ignored their claims or temporarily suspended action until the furor died down. Then, as always, they returned to business as usual. 
Zimba Eva-Maria Hanfstaengl: The UN's Bid for Financial Regulation
On June 26, in New York, the high-level United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development adopted unanimously an "outcome document" that opens a door—even if only a small one—to a possible UN role in the reform of global financial governance. The preparations for the UN conference, however, were not without severe difficulties.
The run-up to the conference highlighted sharp differences between Southern nations, which want to give the United Nations more say in tackling the financial crisis, and Western governments, who prefer to conduct their business within the Group of 20 (G-20) nations.
Until now, global financial and monetary issues have been the responsibility of the International Monetary Fund and the Group of 8 (G-8), relying on the expertise of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the Financial Stability Board, both of which include central banks and treasuries hailing largely from developed nations.
However, with the present financial crisis having originated in the North and posing untold negative consequences for the South, political pressure has ramped up on the developed world to include other voices in mitigating this disaster. Impacts of the crisis, such as slowing growth rates, rising unemployment, and declining budgets are beginning to affect developing countries. Developing countries, including the poorest countries, therefore claim that everybody should have a stake in financial regulation. It is in this context that the demand for this global conference on reform of the financial and monetary system emerged. 
Th Henry "Chip" Carey: In Honduras, No Easy Solutions
The ongoing crisis in Honduras, stemming from the June 28 coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, does not lend itself to many obvious solutions acceptable to both sides. A second-best solution may be all that the new mediator, former Nobel Peace Prize winner and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, might be able to achieve.
Thursday’s separate meetings of Arias with Zelaya and then the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, indicated possible common ground, but also no immediate solutions. Neither met his interlocutor, though the talks will continue.
Thus far, the United States has backed the Arias mediation, which has bought Washington time before it may have to cut its military assistance to Honduras, which U.S. law mandates once a democratic government has been removed extra-constitutionally. The history of U.S. military cooperation with the government and military of Honduras has remained extensive, since the 1980s, when Honduras hosted the U.S.-backed Contra rebels, who were attempting to undermine the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua.
Not surprisingly, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have persuaded Zelaya, after their Tuesday meeting in Washington, to negotiate, rather than rush right back to Honduras to attempt to take power. On Sunday, July 5, Zelaya had unsuccessfully attempted to land his airplane in the capital, Tegulcigalpa. The Honduran army, though, blocked the air strip, while also killing at least one protestor that had gathered in solidarity to receive Zelaya at the airport.
With elections scheduled for later this year, the simplest procedure might simply be to let the voters decide between the two presidential claimants. The problem here, though, is that the Honduran Supreme Court has already ruled that Zelaya is ineligible to compete under the existing, single term-limit system. Indeed, his desire to run again for office was exactly what spurred the apparent coup in the first place. Jonathan Power: Food Security That Works
At the summit meeting that opens in Italy on Wednesday, the leaders of the G8 are expected to announce a food security initiative—an effort to reverse “the tendency of decreasing official development aid to agriculture” and, instead, to increase investment in food production in the developing world.
According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Washington spends 20 times more on short-term food aid in Africa than it does on long-term agricultural programs to develop local food production. A similar bias exists in the policies of the European Union, which uses the guise of food aid to dump production surpluses in developing nations.
Nothing may come of the new promises, as nothing came of the big hoo-ha at the G8 summit four years ago when a massive increase in aid, especially to Africa, was agreed upon. But long-term investment in food production is just what poorer countries need.
Most of the world’s poor live in the rural backwaters of Africa, Asia, and Latin America; most are small farmers or landless farm workers. Despite the cries in 2007-08 when world food prices suddenly shot up to historic highs, there was actual benefit, albeit long term, for the global poor.
Last summer's price spike was a long-overdue correction in the terms of trade. For too long, the world's urban minority (whether they be shanty-town dwellers in Lagos or the inhabitants of middle-class suburb in Mumbai) has been subsidized by the cheap food produced by the poorest of the poor—those left behind in the remote reaches of the countryside. For the majority of the world's rural poor, there exist far too few schools, agricultural advisers, or health clinics; a lack of investment has not even fixed the rutted roads and battered trucks that bring their produce to market.
I was in the Nigerian countryside in 2007, as prices were beginning to skyrocket. The peasants I talked to, who were largely growing the local staple crop, cassava, were happy about the turn in events. It meant they could sell their produce at a substantially higher price than before. They planned to expand their seeding the following year, and have done so, though prices have now fallen. Fortunately for the farmers, the prices have not yet hit bottom. THE BIG QUESTION — July 7, 2009
THE BIG QUESTION is a new multimedia project on the World Policy Blog.
Jonathan Power: A True"Restart" at the U.S.-Russia Summit
The first summit between President Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev is only days away and, so far, there has only been perfunctory mention of this potentially momentous occasion in the media. The silence on this meeting is odd, if not irresponsible.
If played right, this could be the most important U.S.-Russia summit since Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, having torn down the Iron Curtain, decided that they had enough confidence in each other to introduce unilateral nuclear arms cuts, a valuable ancillary to the formal deal.
In the opinion of Georgi Arbatov, Gorbachev’s foreign affairs advisor (and before that Brezhnev’s),
the time is overdue for more unilateral cuts. He said to me, some two summers ago, that “we in Russia are not right in our approach. We have so many weapons we could decrease the numbers unilaterally and set an example. We could dismantle our rockets, take others off alert, and the Americans would be obliged to follow us.”
When I recently asked Igor Yurgens, one of Medvedev’s advisors, about what the “reset” button statement by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meant, he replied that “the tone is different.” He then added, somewhat amusingly, “We have a new generation—Obama and Medvedev. Since they are both Internet lovers, then the promise of change could be substantiated.”
Joking aside, Yurgens notes that “the line up on the U.S. side seems more broad minded than before.” Between Rose Gottemoeller, who spent four years in Moscow and is the head of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, and Gen. James Jones, a national security advisor to Obama who worked constructively on Iran, Yurgens said the Russians “see very good signs.”
“The United States and Russia have identical views on Afghanistan,” says Yurgens. “We are on the same page as the United States with [regard to] North Korea. We have some nuances in policy towards Iran, but I think they are surmountable. So, on those three issues (plus Pakistan, plus broader Middle East) there is more that unites us than divides us.”
At the July 7 summit, the new Obama administration must begin by giving a little. THE BIG QUESTION — July 2, 2009
THE BIG QUESTION is a new multimedia project on the World Policy Blog.
Charles Cogan: Iran — They're Gaming Us?
Artistically and architecturally, the city of Isfahan is one of the urban jewels of Iranian civilization. It is a symbol of the beauty that Iranians have been able to render through their country’s history. But is Iran really ready to sacrifice all this glory (not to mention the lives of its citizens) in an attempt to annihilate Israel?
Surely, Iranians know what would be coming at them in retaliation for such a rash attack, were it to take place. The recent turmoil following the disputed elections has somewhat changed the way we look at (and what we hope for) Iran, but realists must confront the reality that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will likely remain in office, and will almost certainly continue his bellicose attacks on Israel and the West. (Though with the credibility of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad having been somewhat damaged by the election campaign and its aftermath, we may see a temporary toning down of the rhetoric.)
Nonetheless, it is never too soon to begin reassessing the Iranian nuclear question.
Since the Iranian leadership would obviously prefer to avoid military annihilation, why are Ahmadinejad's Hitler-like rants tolerated by Khamenei? To curry favor with the Arab street, which is not, by nature, disposed to like Persians? To brandish the threat of a weapon of mass destruction attack in the region in order to intimidate the leaderships of moderate Arab states? Henry "Chip" Carey: A Constitutional Crisis in Honduras
If it succeeds, the universally condemned Honduran military coup could send a disastrous signal to Latin America and beyond that the long slog of democratization can be interrupted on a moment's impatience.
Deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s past performance leaves much to be desired, but so do the nation's institutions, which need democratic reform, not military mentorship. Honduras represents an archetypal "Tier-II" category of democracy. As a nation, it has underperformed in forming a broad democratic alliance, and often bent the rules to build the rule of law.
It needs time, patience, and nurturing—even when democratically elected leaders govern undemocratically.
The unpopular, populist President Zelaya built a narrow coalition, alienating the business community while attempting to overturn single-term limits on the executive office. Zelaya had damaged his democratic credentials by failing to respect judicial independence in disagreeing with the Supreme Court decision to strike down his planned plebiscite that sought to allow him to run for president again. The vote (which would have amended the constitution) was planned for this past Sunday—though it is not clear he intended it to be binding.
Things heated up even further when the chief of the army, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, refused to allow the army to provide logistical support for the referendum. Zelaya promptly fired him, and the Supreme Court jumped back into the fray, demanding he be reinstated. In the end, the military, legislative leaders, and the president failed to work out compromises, even with some mediation from the U.S. ambassador, to prevent the breakdown of democracy.
The new ruling authoritarian coalition claims to be using a constitutional solution to the crisis by protecting the new president, Roberto Micheletti, who was previously head of the legislature. Indeed, many Hondurans have argued that a coup did not actually occur, since the legislature and Supreme Court had declared Zelaya's referendum and various other acts to have been unconstitutional. In response, the court played its own constitutional card, by ordering the armed forces to reestablish a "democracy." Thus, Micheletti's constant public refrain: “democracia, democracia, democracia."
Barring the chorus of claims from both sides over what is "constitutional" and what is not, it is important to note that, most likely, this was a classic middle-class coup—a Brumarian moment of relief for the privileged, bolstered by constitutional distortions to correct constitutional distortions. Zelaya had won office on a conservative, law-and-order ticket but increasingly had adopted the populist tendencies of many of his fellow Latin American leaders, alienating broad swathes of the legislature and the business community.
Perhaps the new regime (if it remains in power) may actually keep its word and reconfigure itself democratically, as it claims. Occasionally, when democratic leaders govern undemocratically, a new authoritarian alliance can put things right. But, in practice, it is usually the exception to the rule and a pretext for other aims—all too often, it is might that makes right. Worse, coups signal that the military is to be the arbiter. But in Honduras, the “man on horseback,” as the military is depicted, often governs in nineteenth-century, caudillo ("strongman") fashion, making order by giving orders. 
Jonathan Power: Europe, The Great (Christian) Republic?
Since the European Union parliamentary elections some two weeks ago, Europeans have been putting themselves through a bout of navel gazing and introspection. People are asking what exactly is the purpose of the European Parliament when every country has its own legislatures, both national and local? Why did a record low number of voters turn out? Why did eastern Europeans—only recently liberated from the yolk of dictatorship which denied them the vote—cast fewer ballots than anyone else (with only a couple exceptions)? Why do the British talk as if membership to the European Union is a yoke around their necks?
More broadly, what is Europe?
Writing in 1751, Voltaire described Europe as “a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if it is divided into several confessions. They all have the same principals of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.”
In a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn, and William Gladstone—the early advocates of European unity—could only dream, a united Europe has become a reality with half a billion members. Azubuike Ishiekwene: Echoes of 1979 in Iranian Protests
Thirty years after the Shah was overthrown in a revolution, Iran is embroiled in an upheaval that appears to be threatening the grip of the Ayatollah over the country. There are striking ironies between what happened in 1979 under the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and what is happening today under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the incumbent supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The way the Shah fell out with his Western allies, especially the United States, over arms build-up in the mid-1970s, has eerie parallels to the way the mullahs in Tehran have fallen out with Washington over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, among other issues. What has been dramatized today as the Iranian Revolution, Part II, is a delicate, almost inscrutable power game, fueled by suspicions and deep-seated mutual distrust on both sides.
It wasn’t always like that.
At the height of the love affair between Iran and the West in the 1950s up through the 1970s, the Shah could do no wrong. To fend off any possible communist incursions, the United States poured millions of dollars into Iran to shore up the Shah. The oil windfall of the late 1970s, brought on by the Arab-Israeli war, was also a blessing to Iran. The Shah took advantage of the profits to rebuild his country and a new middle class was born. The downside of the boom, of course, was that it created in the Shah a new taste for luxury and power beyond the pale. He went to extraordinary lengths to sustain his appetite. He created the SAVAK, a special (and much loathed) security and intelligence force, trained and backed by the United States, which helped him to rule with an iron fist and isolated him from the people.
Washington did not seem to mind, at least not in the early stages of the Shah’s neurosis.
A blog by Jeb Sharp on Iran-U.S. relations quoted Henry Precht, the young American intelligence officer who managed arms sales between the United States and Iran under the Shah, as saying, “They promised the Shah that he could buy whatever he wanted and no one would quibble with him. Everything up to but not including nuclear weapons. So, that was my marching orders, facilitate, don’t get in the way of this process.... Then came the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Oil prices rose dramatically. Suddenly, the Shah was flush with money. He bought massive quantities of the most high-tech weaponry money could buy. US officials were unsettled by the consequences of their bargain.”
Eventually, the Shah’s opulent lifestyle and tight hold on power through the security forces isolated the middle class, sidelined the communists and the mullahs, and narrowed the political space. Moreover, Pahlavi's new hunger for high-tech military weapons—some argue that he laid the foundation for Iran’s nuclear program—isolated him from his Western allies, especially from Washington. By the time he was overthrown in 1979, he was a sad, broken man; betrayed and completely on his own. 
David A. Andelman on opendemocracy.net
"The real roots of many major recent and current political events - the convulsions surrounding Iran's Islamic regime, the bloody troubles in neighbouring Iraq, the ethnic cleansing and mass murders i
THE INDEX — June 26, 2009
Think You Know Iran?
World Policy Journal's Ben Pauker gets on The Daily Show (see 3:45) and makes America look good in the process.
Everyone knows Bongo’s story is scarcely unique in the developing world. Yet what Omar Bongo did is almost beside the point—it’s what he didn’t do in 41 years that matters. Simply put, he didn’t bother to create a functioning country.
For years, we've heard the truism that developing countries needed Western aid to build successful economies. But has it worked? Despite billions in loans and gifts to developing nations, poverty is still rampant, especially in Africa.
Since the beginning of the Cold War, international aid was often a fig leaf for payoffs and bribes to dictators to keep them in one camp or another. Rarely did the money spent trickle down to the people who needed it most. Economists now debate whether the West should continue to lend or give aid money to developing countries in the hopes that it will eventually help matters, or whether it just abets corruption and makes things worse.
But dozens of countries haven’t truly needed aid.... 
The Obama administration is trying to figure out what to do with the 30,000 Haitians slated for removal from the United States. Plans to deport them are under review, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—and they should be, as Haiti is unprepared for an influx of arrivals.
Already the poorest, least-developed country in the hemisphere, Haiti was pummeled by four devastating storms last August and September. Several hundred people died, a million more were made homeless, and $1 billion was drained from the already feeble economy.
With only five months in office, the Obama administration already has plenty on its plate, so it’s no surprise the Haitian migration question is not yet resolved.
It is worth pointing out, however, that the action the administration has taken thus far invites the worst possible outcome. Haitians are being deported back home at a rate of more than 100 per month, at a time when the U.S.-funded program charged with helping them resettle is on hold.
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