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for over twenty years the Shorenstein Center has brought together the interconnected worlds of press, politics and public policy. The Center illuminates the intersection of these areas in both theory and practice through a variety of channels: teaching and research, conferences and public h

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assistants, skills-based digital research in a collegial and workshops and scholarships. intellectually stimulating inside environment. unlikely leaders

Introduction by Professor Roderick M. Kramer public programs. Weekly speaker series events USS Green: How the American Military with distinguished scholars Is Lighting a New Energy Frontier to and practitioners attract Combat Costs students, faculty and members by Carolyn McGourty of the community. Asking the Right Questions: An Experiment in Health Care Leadership in Haiti by Taylor Chapman goldsmith awards in research. Faculty vo political journalism. Leading Cities: An Interview with members and resident The Goldsmith Awards 2009–2010 10 lume Mayors Greg Nickels and Manny Diaz Fellows pursue research in a honor distinguished work by Jeb Breiding and Torren J. Blair wide range of areas. Recent in journalism. The program research investigates nonprofit includes a prize for investigative journalism, coverage of health care and social welfare reporting, two book prizes, a climate change and exit polls. career award and fellowships. media and technology governance www.shorensteincenter.org security challenges harvardkennedyschool review

volume 10, 2009–2010 an hks student publication THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL REVIEW (ISSN: 1535-0215) IS A STUDENT-RUN POLICY REVIEW PUBLISHED AT THE JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

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COVER DESIGN BY LEAH STERN AND TEAGUE HOPKINS 1 2 3 4 COVER PHOTOS COURTESY OF: 5 6 7 8 Flickr user The White House (1) Paige Austin (2, 6, 10) Teague Hopkins (3, 11, 12, 14, 21) 9 10 11 12 Matt Homer (4, 7, 9, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24) Daniel Masterson (5, 18) 13 14 15 16 Wendy Flick (8) Melinda Kuritzky (13) Leah Stern (15, 17) 17 18 19 20 section photos courtesy of: 21 22 23 24 Matt Homer (p. 3, 117) Teague Hopkins (p. 33, 81) Paige Austin (p. 53)

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Introduction by Professor Roderick M. Kramer public programs. Weekly speaker series events USS Green: How the American Military with distinguished scholars Is Lighting a New Energy Frontier to and practitioners attract Combat Costs students, faculty and members by Carolyn McGourty of the community. Asking the Right Questions: An Experiment in Health Care Leadership in Haiti by Taylor Chapman goldsmith awards in research. Faculty 2009–2010 10 volume political journalism. Leading Cities: An Interview with members and resident The Goldsmith Awards Mayors Greg Nickels and Manny Diaz Fellows pursue research in a honor distinguished work by Jeb Breiding and Torren J. Blair wide range of areas. Recent in journalism. The program research investigates nonprofit includes a prize for investigative journalism, coverage of health care and social welfare reporting, two book prizes, a climate change and exit polls. career award and fellowships. media and technology governance www.shorensteincenter.org security challenges

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harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 iii Harvard Kennedy school review

Editor-in-Chief Melinda Kuritzky Executive Managing Editor Executive Content Editor Matt Homer Anna York Director: Design and Layout Leah Stern Director: Finance and Development Director: Circulation and Publicity John Council Sarah Milby Senior Editors: International Policy Senior Editor: Domestic Policy David Bluestone and Hummy Song Evan Simpson Senior Editors: Feature Senior Editor: Variety Content Sam Downing and Carolyn McGourty Patrice Kunesh

At-Large Editors Ramtin Amin Kelsey Larsen Justin Barra Jesse Lava Dan Berwick Michelle Newell Torren Blair Leah Stern V-Khye Fan Michele Stillwell-Parvensky Alexandra Fielden Rebecca Strauss

Many thanks to our funders, including:

THE JOAN SHORENSTEIN CENTER FOR PRESS, POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

THE KENNEDY SCHOOL STUDENT GOVERNMENT

THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL EXECUTIVE EDUCATION PROGRAM

THE TAUBMAN CENTER FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

THE RAPPAPORT INSTITUTE FOR GREATER BOSTON

THE MALCOLM WIENER CENTER FOR SOCIAL POLICY

THE MOSSAVAR-RAHMANI CENTER FOR BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT iv harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 v Csontent

1 Editors’ Foreword

Health Care and Social Welfare

4 An American Dream: The Broken Iraqi Refugee Resettlement Program and How to Fix It by Daniel Masterson 8 Coverage Is Not Enough: Health Care Reform through the Lens of the Mississippi Delta by the Community Development Project 12 Mental Redemption: How Transitional Services Win the Fight Against Crime by Edith Coakley 16 Getting Welfare to Work When Times Get Tough by Katya Melkote 20 A Lingering Pest: Malaria in Africa by Elana Safran 25 It Pays to Provide Health Care: A Case for Including Undocumented Immigrants by Megha Garg

29 Book review: Health Care Reform for $11: A Review of Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Jeb Breiding

Media and Technology

34 Double Vision: Al Jazeera English at Odds with the American Media by Paige Austin 40 Cyberspace in Deep Water: Protecting the Arteries of the Internet by Michael Sechrist 45 Of Sunlight and Sausages by Julia Kamin

51 A Delicate Dance: How the Arts Can Improve U.S.- Cuban Relations by Jeanette Cajide vi contents

Unlikely Leaders

54 Introduction: Unlikely Leaders in Perspective by Roderick M. Kramer, Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Business School 56 USS Green: How the American Military Is Lighting a New Energy Frontier to Combat Costs by Carolyn McGourty 60 Going for Gold: How the London Olympics Will Set the Record for Sustainability by Ben Supple 64 The Empire Strikes Back: Social Media Uprisings and the Future of Cyber Activism by Ramtin Amin 67 Asking the Right Questions: An Experiment in Health Care Leadership in Haiti by Taylor Chapman 72 Leading Cities: An Interview with Mayors Greg Nickels and Manny Diaz by Jeb Breiding and Torren J. Blair 75 Ramping Up Rights for the Disabled in Russia by Maria Snegovaya

78 oP-ED: Why Women, Why Now? by Heather Milkiewicz

Governance

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 vii contents

99 Change They Don’t Believe In: The Political Presence of the Basij in the Islamic Republic of Iran by Azadeh Pourzand 104 A Lebanese Confession: Why Religious Politics Is Bad for Lebanon by Maurice Obeid 109 Unlikely Routes: Stronger Militaries through the Transformation of Military Education by Agus Yudhoyono and Malik Ahmad Jalal

115 Book Review: Beyond Charlie Wilson’s War: The Evolution of Jihad in South Asia—A Review of Partisans of Allah by Nadia Naviwala

security challenges

118 Truth Be Told? The Use of Truth Serum in Indian Law Enforcement by Mallika Kaur 124 Beyond Drugs, Dictators, and Development: A New Direction for U.S.-Latin American Relations by David Bluestone 129 Discord Down Under by Abhilash Mudaliar 134 Aid as a Weapon: Can Money Buy Victory in Afghanistan? by Michael Buonocore

138 conclUSION: Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti — A Photo Journal Essay of Public Service by Wendy L. Flick

viii editors’ foreword

Editors’ FOReWoRd

The tenth anniversary edition of the Harvard Kennedy School Review presents a collection of pieces that push policy debate forward. As a publication that is entirely student-run, our intention is to showcase fresh and engaging policy analyses and proposals by the world’s future leaders. From aid to alliances and human rights to tweets, we’ve compiled a set of thoughtful and well-researched policy articles that advance the debate on some of the most relevant issues facing policy makers throughout the world. Our feature section, “Unlikely Leaders,” highlights individuals and institutions exercising leadership in incredible circumstances. The article on health care leadership in Haiti shines a positive light on a successful pay-for-performance model in a nation now rubble-strewn and grief-stricken. We also focus on the military’s efforts and exceptionalism in “going green” and on one woman’s fight to access rights for the disabled in Russia. In each of these stories, we look to extrapolate beyond what these “unlikely leaders” have accomplished and explore how their successes can be applied elsewhere. Our section on “Health Care and Social Welfare” includes a broad assortment of policy ideas ranging from effective treatment of malaria in Africa to settlement of Iraqi refugees in the United States. Particularly timely is an investigation of how to make welfare work during a recession as well as a reflection on the rural poor who have been largely excluded from the domestic health care debate. In our “Media and Technology” articles, we examine Al Jazeera English and transparency in today’s media. And in the “Governance” and “Security Challenges” sections, we turn to national and international issues of effectiveness in politics and methods for dealing with crime and insecurity. Narcotesting in India, patronage in Latin America, and racism in Australia are just a few of the topics that make up these sections. Together, this part of the journal communicates both the promises of good government and the perils of security threats around the globe. We hope both current and future policy makers will be inspired by stories of leadership, see new ways to tackle tough public policy problems, and get a glimpse of what the next generation of policy makers is thinking about.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 1 editors’ foreword

We would like to acknowledge the support of the following individuals and organizations in helping us put together this year’s Harvard Kennedy School Review: John F. Kennedy School of Government Dean David Ellwood, Faculty Advisor Richard Parker, Publisher Martha Foley, Dan Okrent, Bill Mitchell, and Rod Kramer. For their financial support, we would like to thank: the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy; the Kennedy School Student Government; the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education Program; the Taubman Center for State and Local Government; the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston; the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy; and the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Melinda Kuritzky Matt Homer Anna York Editor-in-Chief Executive Managing Editor Executive Content Editor

Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2010

2 contents | health care and social welfare

HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL WELFARE

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 3 One summer morning when Ali was riding his bicycle in Philadelphia, he got lost. He soon found himself on a large road and couldn’t turn around. Then the large road fed onto the interstate highway. Ali was approaching the bridge to New Jersey when the police pulled him over. They started yelling at him. An American Dream: Terrified and disoriented, Ali couldn’t The Broken Iraqi Refugee understand the policemen’s questions Resettlement Program and and he was arrested. After a few hours, he was released with a court summons and How to Fix It driven home at 9 p.m. by Daniel Masterson For riding his bike on a U.S. interstate highway, Ali faced a fine or jail time. It Daniel Masterson is the founding executive took two months of court proceedings director of A Plate for All, a food-aid before his case was resolved and organization working in underserved dismissed. A simple misunderstanding communities of Iraqi refugees in Syria. He had translated into a deeply unsettling previously worked for the United Nations and frightening experience for a family of High Commission for Refugees in Syria and new Americans. is currently completing a Master in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School The refugee resettlement program in the of Government at Harvard University. United States is operative but in dire need of attention. Refugee advocacy groups are calling for an increase in the number of refugees that the United States accepts. “They are no longer in their These groups, however, do not fully homeland, but their homeland is appreciate the problems that insufficiently still in them.” funded programs create for refugees — Arabic proverb resettled in America. Policy makers have two approaches in addressing the present weaknesses of the resettlement program. The first is to Ali was kidnapped and tortured by a increase both the funding and (possibly) militia in Iraq. Armed men broke into his the number of refugees resettled to the house. His son, who was only one-year- United States. The second, in the case old at the time, still remembers the of no budget increase, is to reduce the incident. They hung Ali from the ceiling number of resettlements and thus ensure with his arms behind his back. Once Ali that targeted, comprehensive, and long- was released, he fled Iraq. The family lived term resettlement support programs can as refugees in Syria for two years before be implemented. being resettled to Philadelphia as part of the U.S. resettlement program.

4 health care and social welfare

Iraqi children crowd into the already overpopulated Syrian school system. (Bridgette Auger, 2008)

The Need for Resettlement context. Third, and least desirable, comes The majority of the public voices talking resettlement to what the UNHCR calls a about the problems facing Iraqi refugees third country—a country that provides are calling for a larger resettlement the refugee with legal and physical program. Large resettlement programs, protection. This option is only appropriate however, are not a viable policy solution. for a few uniquely vulnerable cases: Resettlement often moves refugees from a victims of severe trauma or violence, relatively familiar cultural context to a members of oppressed religious or ethnic foreign environment. Without adequate minorities, unaccompanied children, support for adjustment to their new special medical cases, stateless persons, home, Iraqi refugees may face far greater refugees associated with governmental or challenges when resettled in the United international organizations, and refugees States as compared to Syria or Jordan or at immediate risk of refoulement, which upon returning to Iraq after a number in refugee policy parlance means forced of years. return to a place where their lives or freedoms may be threatened. The UN Refugee Agency (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner The Iraqi refugee crisis began in February for Refugees—UNHCR) provides a 2006. The bombing of the Golden prioritization of policy responses to Mosque in Samara, one of Shiite Islam’s refugee crises. The first and best solution holiest sites, initiated a deadly exchange is for refugees to eventually return to their of sectarian violence. Dozens of Sunni home country. Once turmoil has calmed, mosques were attacked, the death toll the best prospects for refugees will come mounted, and millions of Iraqis fled their from widespread repatriation. Second, homes. Many traveled to Syria or Jordan, local integration in a nearby host country and others relocated within Iraq—the often provides refugees the opportunity to former are called refugees and the latter make a new home in a relatively familiar internally displaced persons (IDPs).

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 5 health care and social welfare | Daniel Masterson

Now, more than four years later, UNHCR 2009 alone. The needs, however, of those estimates that there are at least 1.9 refugees often go unmet. million Iraqi refugees and 2.6 million Iraqi refugees are being resettled with IDPs in total. UNHCR data estimates a level of financial assistance below the that as of 2009 only 25,000 refugees U.S. poverty line. The U.S government had repatriated—a meager 1.25 percent purchases plane tickets for refugees return rate. UNHCR’s official position is to travel to America. The cost of these that repatriation is still unsafe, and many tickets is considered a no-interest loan Iraqis feel the same. owed to the government. For a large family, this can easily result in $10,000 Resettlement in the United States or $20,000 of debt. Refugees are given an The process of resettlement to the United apartment or house with basic furniture States begins abroad, when refugees and household items, food staples, a register with UNHCR in the country hot meal, and a one-time payment of where they have sought refuge. UNHCR $450 from the federal government. They then refers vulnerable cases to the U.S. are provided eighty days of free health embassy for resettlement. Applicants go insurance and a thirty-to-ninety-day through a long process involving period of assistance with finding a job, paperwork, interviews, and waiting before scheduling medical appointments, and they receive final word on whether they enrolling in school. Some service agencies have been successful in their attempt at allow temporary extensions of assistance resettlement. For those accepted for based on conditions such as enrollment in resettlement, hopes are high for a a job-training program. new life. Iraqis are often shocked by the challenges Upwards of 30,000 Iraqi refugees have they face in America. Nadia Barclay been resettled in the United States since of the Nationalities Service Center in the war began—around 17,000 of those in Philadelphia explains that refugees encounter many challenges after settling

This is a one-room rented apartment in Damascus, Syria, where a family of Iraqi refugees live. All they own is a TV and the mattresses that UNHCR provides them. (Bridgette Auger, 2008)

6 An American Dream in the United States. Recent arrivals are the reform efforts of U.S. government usually “excited, happy, and hopeful,” agencies related to Iraqi refugees and but life quickly becomes difficult when IDPs. Based on the information presented government support runs out. The two above, these reforms should include: central challenges to smooth resettlement 1. Increasing the amount of are language and employment. Those who resettlement funding per refugee. don’t speak English well, or at all, have a This could mean much more funding hard time finding a job. While searching and more refugees per year, or it may for a job, refugees often do not have time mean decreasing the annual number to attend language classes. resettled while improving the quality The challenges of resettling in the of programming for those refugees. United States transcend socioeconomic Considering President Barack boundaries. Some Iraqi refugees are Obama’s proposed discretionary- widowed mothers with little work spending freeze starting in FY2011, experience. Others are well-educated, the latter option is more realistic. licensed professionals such as lawyers 2. Coordinating efforts with local and doctors. No matter their background, resettlement agencies to identify many find that even entry-level positions Iraqis who are most vulnerable to are elusive. Especially in the economic hardship in the United States and downturn, many Iraqis cannot find focusing additional recourses on work. According to the International their cases. Rescue Committee (IRC), until mid-2008 3. Increasing orientation and about 80 percent of refugees assisted by educational programs for Iraqis IRC found jobs within six months of before and after resettlement with the resettlement. Now it’s less than aim of increasing the probability that 50 percent. refugees integrate and succeed in America. Reforming the System 4. Regularizing the number of Iraqi The failure to provide sufficient resources resettlements per month per region. for the Iraqis already resettled in the This allows social service agencies to United States raises doubts about the adjust their staffing, programming, wisdom of further increasing the number and funding to a regular client flow. of resettlements per year. Without reform, Without sudden spikes and drops in the U.S. refugee resettlement program will clientele, service agencies will be only strain the social services system and more effective in achieving goals one make life in America more challenging through three. for the very people it is trying to assist. The Obama administration is currently With these reform measures, the U.S. working to improve the resettlement refugee resettlement program can pursue process. Samantha Power, Anna Lindh a mandate to help refugees lead a life of Professor of Practice of Global Leadership dignity in their new home. and Public Policy based at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is coordinating

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 7 When she feels strong enough to leave the house, she must rely on her daughter for transportation. Healthy, fresh foods are difficult to come by, and although there have been attempts to provide food vouchers to elderly residents for purchasing food at the farmer’s market, these efforts haven’t reached residents like Coverage Is Not Enough: Mary, who is in her early fifties. Mary Health Care Reform through represents many of the residents of the Lens of the Baptist Town—a low-income, African American neighborhood of roughly Mississippi Delta one-hundred households within the city by Alice Abrokwa, Amy Chan, and of Greenwood, Mississippi. Baptist Town Morna Ha for the Community residents like Mary struggle with long- term illnesses without the benefit of Development Project accessible and affordable health care.

T he Community Development Project is a Despite the fact that Mississippi and eight diverse group of graduate students that other Southern states are among the ten seeks to harness the academic and least healthy states in the country, the professional resources of Harvard University needs of residents like Mary have received and the Massachusetts Institute of little attention. From public town halls to Technology to facilitate civic engagement in the floors of Congress, the conversation economic development projects in on national health care reform has underserved communities. primarily centered on coverage and benefits for middle-class America, with little critical discussion of the unique Alice Abrokwa is a second-year Master in issues faced by underprivileged rural Public Policy candidate at the John F. communities like Baptist Town. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a first-year law student at The mission of the Community Harvard Law. Amy Chan is a first-year Master Development Project (CDP), a group in Public Policy candidate concentrating in of mostly Harvard University graduate social and urban policy. Morna Ha is a students, is to empower underserved second-year Master in Public Policy communities to drive community and candidate concentrating in democracy, economic development initiatives. CDP politics, and institutions. has actively sought to shed light on an area of the United States that is often A health care professional herself, Mary’si left out of national dialogues. CDP has own obesity and diabetes have prevented worked with Greenwood residents for her from making it to work on many days. the past two years to improve the quality of life within Baptist Town and the city i In order to protect the privacy of residents, of Greenwood. Through regular visits Mary is a fictional name and represents the to Greenwood and the provision of stories of several individuals in the Baptist consulting services from Cambridge, Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Massachusetts, CDP seeks to harness the Mississippi.

8 health care and social welfare

Visitors crossing the railroad tracks into the Baptist Town community in Greenwood, Mississippi, are greeted by the “Home of the Blues” sign. Baptist Town illuminates some of the challenges faced by rural, low-income communities. academic and professional resources of Poverty Harvard University in order to support Pervasive poverty in the face of high costs residents, community organizations, is the largest barrier to health care in the and government leaders in Greenwood Delta. U.S. Census data from 2000 points to work together toward the goal of to 28 percent of families in Greenwood economic development. living below the poverty level, compared to an average 9.2 percent nationally. In Through our work, CDP has identified the wider area of the Mississippi Delta, three primary challenges in Baptist nearly 20 percent of the residents sampled Town that must be addressed in order in the region-wide Delta Rural Poll were for national health care reforms to have unable to make a necessary doctor’s visit meaningful impact here and in many at least once in the previous year due to other rural, low-income communities. prohibitive costs. The problem of deep These are the challenges of poverty, poverty and high costs can be cyclical; geographic isolation, and education. without regular checkups, poor health impacts the ability of residents to support their incomes, leaving some less able to afford the doctor’s visits they need. Of fifty Baptist Town households interviewed in January 2009, nearly one out of every

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 9 health care and social welfare | Community Development Project

five reported to CDP that they were and advocate for their own health needs. disabled or otherwise unable to work due For Delta residents, however, information to health concerns. Some of the about routine and preventative health households we surveyed earn as little as care is not widely available. $7,000 a year and are unable to afford As in many small towns in the Delta, basic preventative health care, like more than one in three Greenwood shopping at the farmer’s market in residents twenty-five years and older downtown Greenwood instead of the did not have a high school diploma, less-expensive Save-A-Lot from which compared to less than one in five many Baptist Town residents buy nationally in the 2000 U.S. Census. their groceries. Access to health education can be elusive, especially since Mississippi had the lowest Geographic Isolation percentage of high school graduates of In addition, Baptist Town’s geographic any U.S. state in the 2000 U.S. Census. isolation is the difference for many residents between being able to access As the national debate over health care necessary medical care and growing ill continues, Baptist Town and other alone. The neighborhood is curtained off neighborhoods in rural communities from the rest of Greenwood by a set of deserve serious attention as examples railroad tracks and a body of water. Even of places where poverty, geographic for those able to finance their health care, isolation, and education are great barriers lack of transportation is a major barrier to that have contributed to their downward visiting doctors, specialized care centers, health trends. Resources must be pharmacies, and grocery stores. allocated to address these challenges. Specifically: Due to limited financial resources, only half of the Baptist Town residents • Federal funding for prevention and surveyed by CDP in January 2009 had wellness services should be immediate access to transportation. The prioritized for rural communities. lack of ready access to transportation for The city of Greenwood will be these residents is a particularly pressing receiving a federal Healthy problem for the immobile senior citizens Communities grant to fund who live in Baptist Town, some of whom community gardens that can increase live alone. When more than 44 percent access to healthy foods in the region, of those surveyed in the Delta Rural Poll but additional funding needs to be need to travel more than 30 miles each prioritized to Greenwood and other way to receive specialized health care, rural communities for programs and the lack of transportation may be an services that focus on prevention overwhelming barrier for low- strategies. income residents. • States that receive federal funding should expand school-based health Education care centers and mobile clinics to Access to quality education is not only address the transportation barrier correlated with better health and higher that rural residents face when seeking incomes, but is also crucial to equipping health care. School-based centers can residents with the ability to understand reach the youngest residents of the

10 Coverage Is Not Enough

Delta, and mobile health clinics can We cannot afford to overlook the statistics reach the adult population. There are that point to the rural South—and already some successful programs, particularly the Mississippi Delta—as a like the University of Mississippi region that is disproportionately under Medical Center School of Nursing’s resourced and burdened by chronic mobile clinic program, that could be illnesses and disabilities. Only by used as a model for other schools and prioritizing these communities can we teaching institutions to follow. begin to reverse some of the worst health • Both service delivery and trends in the country. comprehensive health education should be expanded through partnerships with nontraditional providers, including churches, local businesses, and other community institutions. These types of partnerships can fully integrate the medical expertise of traditional providers with the social network of community organizations. This is especially important for reaching youth who do not have access to school-based centers. There is already some collaboration taking place in Baptist Town. The local churches invited health experts to speak about healthy lifestyles to participants of their Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations. There is great potential to solidify these informal collaborations into effective, ongoing partnerships. Recently, five top medical professionals from Iran traveled to the Mississippi Delta to share lessons learned from a model credited with significantly reducing child mortality rates in rural Iran. The eagerness of citizens of a country almost nine-thousand miles away from Mississippi to help the region should be a wake-up call to policy makers in our own country. In allocating resources for national health care reform, policy makers must recognize the importance of prioritizing our nation’s most disadvantaged citizens.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 11 However, in prison you had a psychiatrist and couldn’t move on, so you let the doctor try different medications, willing yourself through the nausea, dry mouth, and nightmares. Now you are fifteen pounds heavier than before—the clothes in your bag don’t even Mental Redemption: fit—and the Risperidal makes you drowsy, so you sometimes need to sleep during How Transitional Services Win the day. But you know the medication the Fight Against Crime also means you don’t hear the voices. Sometimes you don’t feel like yourself— by Edith Coakley least of all today—but you have learned that you have an illness, something you E dith Coakley, a Master in Public can’t help, but something real. You can Administration candidate at the John F. get on, with your meds and someone to Kennedy School of Government at Harvard talk to from time to time, but, you think University, is a UK-trained lawyer with a as you wait for the bus, you know you will special interest in mental health and need extra help this time if you’re going to disability policy. She is a member of the make it in the world. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law’s Leadership 21 Initiative, a national group of Mental Illness and the U.S. young leaders in the field of mental health. Prison System Roughly 16 percent of the 2.4 million prisoners in the United States have a When the day arrives, the papers are mental illness serious enough to act as a signed, you are given your belongings, barrier to self sufficiency, according to a and the gate finally swings open. This day, report from the Bazelon Center for there is now relief from the daily drudgery Mental Health Law. According to a U.S. of prison life, from confinement, from Department of Justice study in 2006, at waiting. You sling your bag on your least another 30 percent of prisoners shoulder and take the first steps back into display symptoms sufficient to warrant the world. What you do next is not so some type of clinical mental health obvious. Do you find a phone (and whom diagnosis. And mental health problems do you call)? Where will you live? Do you really matter after the prison gate swings look for a supermarket? A bank? A place open; within eighteen months of release, to buy a car? no less than 64 percent of those with And there’s another problem. Your clinical diagnoses are re-arrested, more blister pack of Risperidal is in your jacket than double the re-arrest rate for pocket, and you take three milligrams prisoners at large. twice a day. You were first diagnosed Regardless of our attitude toward with schizophrenia long before you offenders, there is little question that the were convicted, but you went on and off incarcerated mentally ill population is medication as you moved around the cripplingly expensive for increasingly country, in and out of stable housing. cash-strapped local, state, and federal

12 health care and social welfare governments. It now costs somewhere dependency, physical or sexual abuse, in the neighborhood of $45,000 per year learning or other cognitive disabilities, to keep a person in prison in the United physical illness or disability, and States. According to the Department discrimination. While policy makers may of Justice study, the average cost of ask whether being mentally ill makes a psychiatric care for each prisoner is person more likely to offend, or whether $2,000, but it stands to reason that each incarceration makes a person mentally of those included in the 16 percent of ill (or, at least, more mentally ill than prisoners with serious mental health before), the causal arrow likely points problems costs much more. in both directions. Where then should

Mental health problems really matter after the prison gate swings open.

In addition to long-term psychiatric policy makers try and intervene? Should care within the prison system, short- they even look for a fix, or is it naïve to term stays in crisis settings and jails add expect any one approach to make an even more expensive layer of costs. a difference? King County, Washington, and Summit County, Ohio, each recently spent more There turns out to be good news and than $1 million in a single year on just bad news. The good news is that there twenty people who cycled between is a straightforward approach that can acute mental health units, detoxification significantly reduce the problem of facilities, and incarceration, according mentally ill in the prison system. The bad to a report from the Bazelon Center news is that it’s not happening in for Mental Health Law. A 2006 New most places. Yorker article “Million Dollar Murray” by Malcolm Gladwell discussed a variant Federal Benefits for Prisoners of the same phenomenon, in this case a A look at the good news first; when nonviolent homeless man who cost the prisons and jails pay attention to helping city of Reno, Nevada, a million dollars inmates get federal benefits, it turns out in emergency room care, detoxification that the inmates are less sick and less services, and jail stays. As one Reno likely to come back through their doors in police officer conceded in that article, “It handcuffs. A 2006 study of two counties cost us a million dollars to do nothing in Washington State found that inmates about Murray.” For both serious criminal with Medicaid coverage on release were offenders and nonviolent Murrays, the almost twice as likely to use mental health public pays dearly for this reactionary services as their counterparts without approach to mental health care Medicaid and were able to access services for offenders. faster. In King County, there were 16 percent fewer detentions in a year for What can be done? Digging beyond those with access to medical and the numbers, there is a bewildering, community mental health care on release yet familiar, range of associated factors: than for their counterparts lacking access. poverty, homelessness, drug and alcohol

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 13 health care and social welfare | Edith Coakley

Remarkably, federal law and policy do not need to change to improve access to federal benefits. Americans with serious disabilities—a group that includes most people with severe mental illnesses—are normally entitled to federal income benefits and to government-sponsored health insurance under Medicare (even

if under 65), Medicaid, or both. These “Pills.” by Flickr user newtype2011 are long-established and relatively uncontroversial in principle, despite the County jail in Washington State estimates anxiety-provoking burden on the federal that access to benefits for the veteran deficit. Importantly, federal law does not population alone produces annual savings normally require termination of benefits to the county of more than half a to incarcerated recipients, although million dollars. payments may be suspended during the period of incarceration. Challenging as A Failure of Leadership the paperwork might be, there is no legal The bad news is that only about a third of reason why a person should not leave the inmates nationally ever receive any prison gates with the full range of benefits discharge planning dealing with benefits, to which he or she is entitled. Nor is and the majority of prisoners leave the there any legal barrier to an incarcerated gates with no federal benefits in place, person applying for the first time and according to a report from the Bazelon establishing eligibility for benefits while Center for Mental Health Law. What is under lock and key. going wrong?

When prisons help inmates get federal benefits, the inmates are less sick and less likely to come back.

Best of all for states and counties, One possibility is bureaucratic barriers: promoting released prisoners’ access paperwork delays, procedural denials to benefits can substantially alleviate of applications, or applicants’ inability pressure on their budgets. The more to fill out the forms correctly. No doubt consumers are able to support themselves all of these obstacles exist, but they are using federal benefits, the fewer “Million surmountable with proper attention. One Dollar Murrays” there will be cycling Texas prison-based benefits case manager through locally funded facilities and recently reported a 92 percent approval programs (Medicaid, of course, is for clients’ applications for Social Security funded by both state and federal dollars, benefits in a single year, against a national but community mental health funded average of 40 percent. The process is just through Medicaid still represents far not difficult enough to explain the full more efficient spending than spending on scale of failure to provide benefits. jails and other short-term beds). The King

14 Mental Redemption

A second possibility is that prison benefits suggests that effective programs authorities have moral objections to likely worked because of the leaders’ inmates’ receipt of assistance with personalities, cultures that made access a benefits. In 2006, the Department priority, and maybe a touch of sheer luck.

Only about a third of inmates ever receive any discharge planning. of Justice reported, “Some staff and A Solution Ready to Implement professionals may resist assisting Of course, there are other potential inmates because they feel that offenders approaches to confronting the do not deserve this type of assistance.” intersection of mental illness and criminal While these attitudinal barriers are behavior. Jail diversion approaches— worrisome, they should not present an under which offenders are “diverted” insurmountable barrier for managers. from incarceration to treatment—are Successful programs in Philadelphia and crucial in reducing the incarceration rate, parts of Washington State, among other especially for juveniles with mental locations, have raised general knowledge illness. And more broadly, any approach of the federal law and have set new and that strengthens community mental clear expectations that staff members, led health is one that will indirectly tackle the by coworkers with extra training, deal incarceration problem because (returning with the necessary paperwork before for a moment to the tangled web of cause release. It simply becomes part of the job. and effect) lack of adequate care plays into almost every other risk The third possibility, while linked to factor imaginable. bureaucratic inefficiency and moral objection, deals with what Bob Behn, Policy makers tend to look for lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School new legislation, new funding, or of Government at Harvard University, new programs, but often the best calls the “tacit knowledge problem.” This organizations do none of these things. phenomenon explains the bad news They just take existing policies, pay about benefits and is worth unpacking. attention to the results they want, and Policy analysts tend to believe they can bring the workforce along. The good news read policy briefs and Web sites, find a in this case is that improving access to “product” that works (the “Stat” approach mental health benefits is a proven strategy from New York and Baltimore being ready for expansion. We don’t need to the classic example, and the one Behn start from scratch. But we need to do a uses in his argument), and replicate little more than just copy the operational it under different circumstances. But components of the handful of programs it doesn’t work, Behn says, because that seem to be getting it right. Improving the implementers lack the context of access to benefits is one strategy in a the knowledge held by the original broader culture of equity for people with group. Applying Behn’s conclusions mental health problems in America, and to the problem of prisoners’ access to it’s one we need to aim to achieve.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 15 labeled a “welfare mom,” government assistance in the form of food stamps and welfare payments was necessary in order to meet her rent, childcare, and food expenses. Laura’s story of struggle is typical of other low-income families across the United States, but she was prepared to take a Getting Welfare to Work risk that many are not able or willing When Times Get Tough to do. She knew that unless she gained more education, she would not be able to by Katya Melkote escape the cycle of dead-end employment in which she was caught. But when Laura Katya Melkote is a 2010 Master in Public investigated enrolling in classes at the Policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy local community college, she discovered School of Government at Harvard University her TANF benefits would be in jeopardy studying political and economic if she reduced the number of hours she development. Her areas of interest worked. Still determined to break out include education, welfare, and of the low-wage cycle, Laura made the workforce development. risky decision to quit her job and enroll in an associate degree program at a local community college. To pay for it, she Laura, whose name has been changed for gathered her small amount of savings and purposes of this article, is a current applied for government loans. Harvard University graduate student. But not long ago she was a single mother Many income support programs such living in Florida, struggling to support as TANF tend to provide disincentives herself and her young son by working as a for their participants to leave their cashier at a grocery store. She dropped low-wage employment and pursue out of high school before tenth grade and additional educational opportunities. gave birth to her son at the young age of This is due to strict rules regarding the eighteen. Having grappled with number of work hours recipients must homelessness, at one point she was forced maintain in order to receive benefits. to send her son to live with family while Yet because the recession that began in she searched for a job. Laura received her 2007 has particularly hurt low-skilled general equivalency diploma (GED) at age workers, providing them opportunities to sixteen, but with no further education acquire the skills, training, and education struggled to find employment that paid necessary for escaping the low-wage job enough to support her family and cycle has become more crucial. provided benefits such as health care. Her To accomplish this goal TANF must employment history was a cycle of provide its participants with greater low-wage, low-skill jobs combined with educational opportunities, finding a way monthly cash payments provided through to combine learning with its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families employment requirements. (TANF), the United States’ national welfare program. While she hated being

16 health care and social welfare

A Breakthrough in 1990s, Can The current recession, however, has TANF Now Become Even Better? revealed that TANF is not providing The TANF program was created in 1996 an adequate safety net. According to in response to widespread criticism of the the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children national unemployment rate doubled program, under which there were few from 5 percent to 10 percent between incentives for welfare recipients to search December 2007 and December 2009, for employment. TANF represented a with low-income families being hit dramatic shift in welfare policy by making particularly hard due to job losses in benefit receipt contingent upon low-skill, labor-intensive sectors such as participants meeting employment construction and manufacturing. The participation criteria. By making unemployment rate for Americans with employment a requirement, government less than a high school diploma was 15.3 officials hoped to encourage participants percent in December 2009, compared to work themselves from welfare to with just 5 percent for those with a college self-sufficiency. Additionally, TANF degree. Single mothers—who make up reforms changed welfare from being a a disproportionately large share of the federal entitlement program to one that is TANF population—faced a substantially administered at the state level through higher unemployment rate of 13 percent federal fixed block grants. This created in December 2009, compared with 5.8 greater flexibility and has allowed states to percent of married women.

The current recession has revealed that TANF is not providing an adequate safety net.

Despite this dramatic rise in provide families with services like unemployment for low-skilled workers transportation and child care subsidies in and single mothers, the Department of addition to direct cash payments. Health and Human Services observed Welfare caseloads initially decreased an increase of only 4.3 percent in TANF substantially, falling by more than 60 caseloads between September 2007 percent between 1997 and 2007 according and December 2009. By comparison, to the U.S. Department of Health and the number of food stamp recipients Human Services. This decline led many increased by 27 percent during the experts and government officials to same time period, according to the U.S. conclude that families were exiting TANF Department of Agriculture. It seems because they had found employment and almost certain that some TANF-eligible no longer required assistance. A strong families have not enrolled in the program economy in the late 1990s and early 2000s even though they are in great need of along with the expansion of other federal its services. Unfortunately, this is not poverty programs (such as the Earned surprising given that the Urban Institute, Income Tax Credit) were also likely to in a 2002 report, found that just 52 have contributed to declining percent of eligible families participate TANF caseloads. in TANF.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 17 health care and social welfare | Katya Melkote

“Classroom Chairs 2” by Flickr user James Sarmiento (old account)

W hy EdUCATION Must Be Included There is also evidence that those who While making TANF benefits contingent leave TANF and other welfare programs upon employment is a positive step in are not finding improved employment encouraging recipients to move toward opportunities. The Department of economic self-sufficiency, it is a difficult Health and Human Services provided requirement to meet when opportunities grants to fifteen states and localities to have significantly decreased due to an survey families that left welfare programs economic recession. Furthermore, the between 1997 and 1999. The survey found program’s single-minded focus on finding that the majority of those who left welfare employment, no matter how low the had a job, but not steady employment. wage, has made TANF families And an Urban Institute survey found that particularly vulnerable to job losses. in some cases, the majority of families Recipients generally find employment in that left welfare were still earning incomes low-skilled and minimum-wage jobs in below the federal poverty line.

States need to provide real opportunities rather than nudging participants into the nearest low-wage job.

which their incomes hover near the To encourage welfare recipients to federal poverty line. Due to the unstable become truly become self-sufficient, nature of these jobs, welfare recipients states should provide opportunities to commonly churn in and out of TANF build real human capital. One way to until they have reached their lifetime limit do this is by increasing the number of (five years in most states). educational hours participants can count

18 Getting Welfare to Work toward their work participation activities. late 2009. Denver, Colorado, has also This would enable recipients to take more created a program in which participants educational classes such as GED courses, can enroll in a four-month vocational vocational training, and English as a certificate program that includes paid second language classes. According to the internships and classroom instruction. Congressional Research Service, TANF Participants can even earn up to eighteen already allows some nonemployment college credits. The Department of Health activities—such as subsidized training and Human Services in 2007 found that in the private and public sector and 90 percent of the TANF participants in vocational training—to count toward this program were still able to meet their minimum work requirements. These work participation requirements and 76 vocational and transitional jobs can percent completed the program.

To encourage welfare recipients to become truly become self-sufficient, states should provide opportunities to build real human capital.

The economic recession provides an provide participants with the marketable opportunity to reform TANF and help skills, work experience, and training that those who have suffered most due to translate into sustainable employment the economy’s downturn. By focusing opportunities. Yet, participants cannot on assisting participants in building receive credit for programs that lead enduring skills while providing strong to a four-year baccalaureate degree or income support, more low-income an advanced degree, although they can families will have a chance to attain take classes that lead to certification in a self-sufficiency and be less vulnerable to specific field or an associate’s degree. future economic shocks. Given the range of activities TANF Although Laura was eventually able to counts toward employment requirements, transfer to a four-year university and is states need to find ways to provide now pursuing a graduate degree, most real educational and work-experience women in similar circumstances do not opportunities rather than nudging have access to savings or the ability to participants into the nearest low-wage take such a risk. As TANF is considered job. There are signs that some localities by Congress for reauthorization this year, have begun to recognize the need to legislators should craft a more creative provide subsidized training opportunities and dynamic program that makes stories to TANF recipients. For instance, Los like Laura’s more common. Angeles recently announced that it would use TANF stimulus dollars to fund a subsidized employment initiative meant to create 10,000 new jobs. The program was estimated to have already provided opportunities for 3,400 participants in

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 19 think malaria was a problem. But now I have children, and I have seen them suffer so much, which proves to me that malaria is a deadly disease. I think everyone wants a net but some cannot afford. When you get used to sleeping under a net, you feel bad sleeping without.” Compared to trying to sell someone A Lingering Pest: a stove or a pair of shoes, the task of Malaria in Africa distributing mosquito nets is different. Ultimately, the goal is not only to have by Elana Safran people at risk of malaria buying nets, but also to have the same people using them Elana Safran is a 2011 Master in Public on a daily—or nightly—basis. Policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Mosquito net usage is particularly University studying political and economic important in the prevention of malaria, development. She has worked in Ghana, a disease that infects 243 million and Bangladesh, and Israel, and her areas of kills 863,000 people a year, 85 percent of interest include rural development, health them children, according to the World care delivery, and evaluation. Health Organization’s most recent statistics. By eliminating a link in the chain of transmission—that is, preventing In Akotokyir, near Cape Coast on the mosquitoes from biting at night—nets coast of Ghana, children do not die are a powerful way to stop the transfer of from malaria just because they lack malaria between people. But what may access to treatment. They may die for seem like a simple technology is, in fact, other reasons. Perhaps a mother prefers one among many weapons in an evolving to give her child herbal treatments until arsenal of ways to treat a disease that goes the fever gets severe. Perhaps she goes to back centuries. a pharmacy to buy medicine instead of Given working interventions, the first getting her child diagnosed at the challenge is more often applying small- clinic. Maybe the family uses a mosquito scale lessons learned to a larger group. net for sleeping, but the child still gets TAMTAM—Together Against Malaria, bitten while outside and is too young to Tunapenda Afya na Maisha, which is have developed some baseline Swahili that translates to “We love health immunity. Or maybe the family is big and living”—is one organization that but lives in a room so small that the heat attempts to do just that, by combining is too much to use a mosquito net net distribution with operational research comfortably at night. on distribution methods. By working Paska, a thirty-year-old mother of closely with policy makers, TAMTAM two small children who met with the can ensure that its research focuses on the organization TAMTAM in central most practical and effective questions in Uganda last year, understands these the field. And in the changing landscape factors. She says of malaria, “I didn’t

20 health care and social welfare of a pressing disease, there is no shortage fight or that we don’t have proven ways to of questions. prevent and treat it. Multiple steps in the cycle of transmission also mean there are What Is Malaria and How Does many potential points of contact in larger it Spread? eradication or prevention efforts, and The malaria parasite is carried by female global initiatives during the past sixty anopheles mosquitoes, which transmit years have attempted to manage the the parasite to humans when they bite, disease through various methods. mostly at night. Treated bed nets—like The first target in malaria prevention insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) or was the mosquitoes themselves. long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs)— At the beginning of the twentieth act as both a physical and chemical century, swamp drainage was barrier to mosquitoes, protecting not only thought to be the answer to kill the the user, but also those within the flying pests, until it became expensive and radius of a mosquito as well. UNICEF destructive to the environment. cites that net usage can reduce child Soon after followed the spraying of mortality rates by up to 20 percent. mosquito breeding grounds with DDT Considering mosquito nets cost less than (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) in the seven dollars and can last for five years, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. DDT was later they are one of the most effective ways to found to be toxic for animals and plants, prevent malaria. but even if it had proven a safe method, Because the dissemination of malaria mosquitoes had already developed requires two parties—mosquitoes and resistance to it. humans—its spread is an ongoing At the same time, scientists began and constant process. The disease is developing antimalarial drugs. The persistently difficult to battle; time and chloroquine drug for prevention and again, new treatments are met with the treatment was introduced in the 1950s development of resistance. What the but resistant strains of the parasite World Health Organization (WHO) appeared shortly after. By the 1970s, recommends now—indoor residual though malaria had been eradicated spraying and LLINs for prevention and in Europe and North America, global artemisinin-based combination therapy incidence of the disease began to (ACT) for treatment—represents only the rise again. most recent variations in a long line of tools. And so, despite evolving coordinated efforts to reduce malaria, both Fighting Malaria: A History mosquitoes and the malaria parasite Despite malaria’s long history—texts from itself have also been evolving to become ancient Egypt, China, India, Greece, and resistant to these treatments. The need Rome reference it—the science of for global coordination remains key prevention and treatment has proven through all of these efforts because unable to outpace this tricky disease, as it partial control not only leads to rising constantly co-evolves with humans. To incidence of the disease, but also to say that the disease is a challenge, though, the spreading of various treatment- is not to say that malaria is impossible to resistant strains. Currently, a strain

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 21 health care and social welfare | Elana Safran

of malaria that is resistant to ACT— So while the global health community the WHO’s current recommended has seen some victories in the most treatment—has been discovered on recent fight against malaria, methodology the Thai-Cambodian border and varies from place to place. What reduces may be spreading. That urgency malaria in an island state like Sao Tome translates into many governments, and Principe may not work the same way nongovernmental organizations in Rwanda. The challenge for the global (NGOs), and international institutions health community, then, is this: With so implementing a lot of different policies many potential ways to treat malaria, how to fight malaria. In such a multifaceted should we begin to think about which is environment, communication is essential. right for any one family, community, or a Organizations that can translate what donor looking to give support? they have learned for a wider audience are very valuable. Using Research to Change Policy The way one understands an epidemic Most recently, the Roll Back Malaria determines how it is treated. Hidden in Partnership, launched in 1998 as a global decisions about how to treat malaria are coordinating body, pledged to halve the assumptions about the disease itself. Do number of cases and deaths caused by we focus more on treatment or malaria by 2010. The thirty-five countries prevention? Is it more effective to target (thirty in sub-Saharan Africa and five human behavior or mosquito behavior? in Asia) that have 98 percent of the total Should we prioritize spraying to kill global malaria-related deaths are its top mosquitoes if the spraying also has toxic

By working closely with policy makers, TAMTAM can ensure that its research focuses on the most practical and effective questions in the field.

priority. Since the start of the campaign, effects on plants and animals? Of course, five high-burden countries and areas have certain interventions have more bang for achieved that goal—Eritrea, Rwanda, the buck. Sao Tome and Principe, Zambia, and the Zanzibar area in Tanzania. The WHO Development economists are finally credits the decreases in the islands of doing what scientists in other fields have Sao Tome and Principe and Zanzibar to been doing for generations—using an three factors: indoor residual spraying to old technique to battle an even older kill mosquitoes, LLINs to prevent bites at disease. Running randomized control night, and ACT for treatment. Rwanda, trials (RCTs) on micro-level interventions in comparison, did not implement like mosquito net distribution help widespread spraying; a reduction in to measure clearly the impact of the malaria cases and deaths resulted from intervention. Because RCTs measure just increasing usage of mosquito nets impact so precisely, they lend themselves and proper treatment. easily to cost-benefit analyses, allowing

22 A Lingering Pest

research found that giving out nets for free did not impact usage; when women received free nets, they were not less likely to use them than if they had paid. In other words, distributing nets for free can increase take-up without decreasing usage. Anecdotal evidence persists in this debate though. Some NGOs firmly believe that distributing free nets does not increase usage because people sell the nets or use them incorrectly. Soft Power Health, a Uganda-based NGO that conducts malaria education and prevention programs, always sells its nets. As founder “An Orphan Recipient with his guardian and director Dr. Jessie Stone says in an grandmother just after receiving a net” by Flickr user schacon interview with National Public Radio, “What we’ve discovered is that if people have to pay a little something for their policy makers to base future decisions mosquito net, they are invested in that on real numbers from experiments in net. We’ve seen with nets that have been similar places and even compare different given away in some of the villages that programs. Used this way, the questions we work in, that those nets that have asked are important if they can be applied been given away free are not used and are to multiple contexts. Research becomes often just resold for money.” Under this both more interesting and more useful reasoning, it follows that when a family when it is externally valid and moved pays for a mosquito net, the family will beyond the comfortable home of an value it more and will thus use the net academic journal. correctly and with care. Field research can, for example, help Another RCT by economist Vivian to explain how slight differences in Hoffmann in 2008 attempted to get to health interventions can lead to very the root of this question by comparing different behavior outcomes. Distributing the effects of giving out nets for free to something for free versus charging a low giving people money. Built into the design price may have a huge impact on how of the experiment was an opportunity individuals use the item. One RCT by allowing those who received nets to sell economists Pascaline Dupas and Jessica the nets for cash and those who received Cohen in 2008 suggested that distributing cash to use it to buy nets. But the research nets for free, compared to charging a showed that very few nets were resold, small fee, increased demand for the so that individuals who received nets nets. These results are not completely initially were more likely to use a net surprising; when you reduce the price of than individuals who received money. something, demand is likely to increase. In particular, young children—the As for the question about usage—the real population most at risk of dying from goal in mosquito net distribution—their malaria—were more likely to sleep under

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 23 health care and social welfare | Elana Safran

a net when their family received a free net interactions with the disease. When these compared to money. individuals play a role in the research, it is easy to connect the same people to The results from the RCTs show that publicized results, so that fast action in families can pay nothing for a good, implementation is guaranteed. but still “value” it (or use it) as much as they would if they paid something small Last summer, TAMTAM did all of for it. It is an important lesson on how the above in Uganda. While giving to distribute good-for-you products, out two-thousand free bed nets, the especially because production of them organization also found that having a is not free. If an organization’s goal is community health worker join a person to increase mosquito net usage among in that individual’s house to install the at-risk populations, then the best option net increased usage of the net itself. As may be to provide nets for free, as Uganda develops its nationwide malaria opposed to charging a small price. action plan, this kind of research is highly relevant to determine the cost of

To say that the disease is a challenge, though, is not to say that malaria is impossible to fight or that we don’t have proven ways to prevent and treat it.

TAMTAM’s Role in the Future of bed nets and the allocation of human Malaria Policy resources needed to distribute them. The Based on the lessons learned from this short timeline on TAMTAM’s research new research, TAMTAM attempts to be a means that the results can be translated connector between the worlds of into action quickly. Since the research academia and implementation. questions are determined in part by TAMTAM’s two aims are to give out free the partner organizations doing the nets and to perform operational research distribution, the questions are guaranteed on distribution methods. Net distribution to be relevant and the conclusions useful. is often “crowded in” with other health When adding to a body of literature care goods or services, like prenatal visits that is already so large, it is important or enrolling in health insurance. to do so in a targeted way. When an Distributing nets this way has the added organization like TAMTAM acts fast to benefit of encouraging take-up of another find and answer the newest questions in service as well. In other words, if the the fight against malaria, we close the health care service isn’t enticing enough, gap between the changing disease and maybe a bed net will be. treatment methods. Momentum is key in Rather than coming from the ivory the most recent iteration of this centuries- tower of behavioral economics, research old fight. As new questions arise—as they questions about malaria prevention come inevitably do—the global community directly from the policy makers and needs to have the capacity to quickly health care workers who think about how get answers. to improve net distribution in their daily

24 health care and social welfare

exchanges, while the Senate bill bars their inclusion altogether. According to a recent analysis in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, the 45 million uninsured figure widely quoted by reform advocates includes everyone without insurance—American citizens, legal immigrants, and approximately It Pays to Provide 6 million undocumented immigrants. This figure therefore includes millions of Health Care: people that neither the House nor Senate A Case for Including proposals have any intention of covering. Undocumented Immigrants Currently, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for government insurance by Megha Garg programs. Even legal immigrants are not offered the same health rights as citizens, Megha Garg is a medical student and since they must wait five years before Master of Public Health candidate at the they are eligible for federal health care Harvard School of Public Health. She is a programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Zuckerman Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of But what would happen if the United Government at Harvard University. States did provide health insurance to undocumented immigrants? Would more people flock here to capture these When Representative Joe Wilson of South benefits? Judging by the history of Carolina shouted “You lie!” at U.S. free public education, which has been President Barack Obama’s September provided to undocumented immigrants 2009 address to a joint session of since a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court Congress, he challenged the president’s ruling, these indirect incentives seem assertion that undocumented immigrants to have little effect on immigration would be ineligible for health care rates. In recent history, large influxes of coverage offered by the government. At immigrants have not resulted from social least on this occasion, there is reason to benefits provided by the U.S. government. hope that President Obama was lying. Rather, immigration increases are far more impacted by changes in Undocumented immigrants have been immigration policy or by political conflict excluded from the reform debate, largely or natural disaster in the immigrants’ because introducing the immigration home countries. And the availability issue into the health care debate would of direct economic incentives—job further polarize Congress. Conservative prospects, higher wages, and the ability opponents of reform argue that people to send money back home—are more living in the United States illegally than enough to continue incentivizing have no right to health care benefits immigration to the United States financed by taxpayers. The latest House regardless of the status of of Representatives legislation only allows health insurance. undocumented immigrants to buy full-price insurance on government-run

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 25 health care and social welfare | Megha Garg

Agumentsr for Inclusion of But this population health argument Undocumented Immigrants has thus far similarly failed to persuade While there are strong arguments in favor Congress to include undocumented of including undocumented immigrants immigrants in health insurance reform. in health reform, the difficulty lies in Perhaps the most compelling argument finding the argument that resonates with to political leaders can be made on the lawmakers. Rather than accelerating basis of economic efficiency. Taxpayers immigration, providing coverage to the already pay for the care of undocumented millions of undocumented immigrants immigrants. Immigrants lacking coverage

Undocumented immigrants have been excluded from the reform debate, largely because introducing the immigration issue into the health care debate would further polarize Congress.

may result in a more effective and efficient use the emergency room (ER) for health care system—a win-win situation treatment, since the Emergency Medical for all involved. Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 For instance, the designation of health guarantees emergency medical treatment care as a human right seems to hold little for anyone, regardless of legal status appeal for Congress. If legislators believed or ability to pay. Acute care services that everyone had the right to coverage, of emergency rooms are among the there would already be universal health most expensive ways to pay for health insurance. Public health also offers care. In today’s system, chronic care for a convincing rationale for universal undocumented immigrants can translate coverage. Children of immigrants are into emergency room visits for dialysis less likely to get immunized, which or diuretics, treatments that are readily decreases group immunity against available in outpatient clinics at a fraction childhood infectious diseases. Decades of the cost. after the development of effective and The situation in public hospitals, accessible vaccines, outbreaks of diseases which provide the bulk of services to like measles and pertussis continue undocumented immigrants, clearly today in immigrant-rich communities. displays the broken interface between Additionally, lack of access to primary immigrants and the health care system. care can result in less frequent testing In the past six months, two large public for sexually transmitted diseases. Studies hospitals, Grady Hospital in Atlanta, show that HIV/AIDS rates are higher Georgia, and Jackson Memorial in communities with high numbers of Hospital in Miami, Florida, closed immigrants due to less frequent testing the doors of their outpatient dialysis from lack of coverage. These situations all clinics to nonpaying patients—mainly arise from a lack of primary care, which is undocumented immigrants—because most directly caused by lack of insurance. of an inability to cover the costs of their

26 It Pays to Provide Health Care care. Ironically, many of these patients medical costs average 14 percent to 20 are now forced to access dialysis in the percent less than insured citizens’ costs. emergency rooms of those same hospitals. The study also found that fully insured Although this is a far more expensive way recent immigrants—those who have to treat the same patients, the hospitals been in the United States for less than get federal dollars for care provided in the ten years, approximately half of whom

Including undocumented immigrants in the health care system may serve to lower both hospital costs and insurance premiums for all Americans.

ER, allowing those hospitals to preserve are estimated to be undocumented—use their own overextended charity funds for only one-sixth to one-half of the medical care provided in outpatient clinics. expenditures of U.S. citizens. Thus, immigrant insurance premiums may The current House and Senate health care contribute to lower health care costs for reform bills include increased funding the rest of the country. for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and community health centers. This reflects the “Hispanic paradox,” This, however, is not sufficient to address the epidemiological finding that first- the health care needs of undocumented generation Hispanic immigrants are immigrants. While primary care access unexpectedly healthier than the average is a necessary component of universal population, despite socioeconomic health care, it does not solve the problems indicators that would predict otherwise. caused by lack of insurance. Those The Hispanic paradox refers to both who have access to free primary care undocumented and legal immigrants, may still end up in the hospital with and the health profile of first-generation more severe health conditions, with immigrants is most similar to that of unpaid fees covered by charity funds or undocumented immigrants. The potential taxpayer monies. FQHCs don’t cover to add millions of young, healthy many expensive components of health immigrants to insurance risk pools can care, including specialist care, many result in lower premiums for everyone, by prescription medications, or diagnostic spreading the costs of insurance across a assessments such as CT scans and MRIs. larger number of healthy people. This is Furthermore, studies thus far show that a clear economic incentive for covering free clinics do not reduce overall health undocumented immigrants. It could lead care costs. to net cost savings for health care. Including undocumented immigrants The devastating earthquake in Haiti in the health care system may serve to may prompt the political establishment lower both hospital costs and insurance to grapple with health care coverage premiums for all Americans. A recent for undocumented immigrants. article in the American Journal of Public Undocumented Haitian immigrants who Health reported that insured immigrants’ were in the United States as of January 12

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 27 health care and social welfare | Megha Garg

are able to apply for temporary protected status so that they can stay and work in the country for eighteen months while Haiti recovers from the earthquake. It remains to be seen what, if any, status will be given to the Haitian orphans and refugees arriving here after the disaster. Temporary protected status will likely come with many benefits that are afforded to legal residents, including health care benefits, and it opens a political window for pro-immigrant groups to lobby for health care rights for all undocumented immigrants.

One Part of Larger Immigration Policy Health reform is a small piece in the larger context of U.S. immigration policy, which lacks a foundation to enforce specific health policies like individual mandates or tax penalties. Until the political environment becomes amenable to solving immigrant issues, the scope of health care reform for undocumented immigrants will remain limited. A moral imperative and quantified public health evidence justify inclusion of undocumented immigrants in health reform, yet Congress does not seem moved by these arguments. But the potential economic benefits of lowering hospital costs and insurance premiums for everyone may be the solution. Ignoring the issues of undocumented immigrants will not make them go away. In fact, including them in health reform may improve the health and costs for everyone in this country.

The author would like to thank Dr. Lee Sanders at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine for assistance in preparing this article.

28 book review

generations came and went without any progress until now. The U.S. health care system remains broken. Despite the fact that more people will be covered now, many still remain without health insurance. The National Academy of Sciences reports that the United States is the “only wealthy, Health Care Reform industrialized nation that does not ensure for $11: that all citizens have coverage.” A Review of Food Rules: An Those with health care coverage have little Eater’s Manual reason to be exuberant. The United States ranks last in the quality of health care by Michael Pollan among the nineteen countries analyzed (Penguin, 2009) in a 2008 report by the Commonwealth Reviewed by Jeb Breiding Fund. According to the report, the premium for an average family insurance policy costs $12,680, making it the most Jeb Breiding wrote for the Economist and significant consumer outlay after housing. has written articles for other important Costs continue to outpace wage growth, publications including the Financial Times so consumers have less to spend on other and the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a leading necessities. Premiums have increased Swiss newspaper. He is currently writing a 78 percent since 2001, according to the book on the economic and political history report, while wages and our ability to pay of Switzerland. He is a mid-career Master in for health care have hardly risen, only 2 Public Administration candidate at the John percent after inflation. F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard And there appears to be little that markets University. can do to solve this problem. Market economies are based on the freedom of choice and function well across a wide U.S. President Barack Obama spent a range of products and services. But good bit of 2009 struggling to pass health markets, so effective across so many care reform, sapping considerable sectors, have failed miserably when it political capital. While the historic bill is comes to health care. This is because now law, the U.S. has a long way to go suppliers of health care have considerable before it achieves truly comprehensive incentives for people to become and stay health care reform. sick. The more people who get sick and stay sick, the greater are the profits. There Reinhold Niebuhr, Obama’s favorite is no incentive for prevention, let alone theologian-philosopher, wrote that cure, but lots of reward for excessive decent health care is the monopoly of treatment. In addition, consumers are the very privileged or the very poor. It is often in a state of duress when they need a testimony of previous administrations’ health care and lack the knowledge and remarkable underachievement that risk tolerance to discern across the range Niebuhr wrote this in 1935 and two

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Berkeley and author of highly praised books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. For $11 and one hour’s worth of time, you can breeze through the paperback edition of Food Rules and get a good summary of the “dos and don’ts” of eating and, ultimately, health. This compares to a lofty $860 million that will be spent over the next ten years for the new law. Pollan argues that some 80 percent of our health care costs can be traced to poor eating and lifestyle habits and, therefore, can be prevented. It is our bad habits that lead to chronic diseases like diabetes, stroke, heart failure, and cancer. These four ailments, which are four of the top ten killers of Americans, are proven to be linked to diet, according to Food Rules. of options. These two factors coalesce Pollan draws his insights from Homo to create a sort of “moral blindness” sapiens who first roamed the savannahs within our health care system, and it is of Africa 200,000 years ago. This was the unrealistic to expect any relief unless the formative period for the development of model is set right. our organs, immunity system, hormones, The health care bill that just passed was and organs. Ironically, the surest way to two-thousand pages, longer than Leo good health, according to Pollan, is to Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace. During mimic dietary conditions of this time. a forum at the John F. Kennedy School Get lots of exercise and fresh air, eat raw of Government at Harvard University nuts, plants and fruits, and hunt the odd in November 2009, a brash undergrad wild fish or fowl. asked Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the The problem is that our eating habits, U.S. House of Representatives, whether Pollan argues, are at radical variance with she really had read the entire bill. Her our natural engineering tweaked over response that she read it all countless generations. was unconvincing. Today, 60 percent of Americans are I propose a simple and cost-effective overweight, and 20 percent are obese, remedy to this country’s health care Pollan claims. The average man is 17 troubles. Scrap the voluminous and pounds heavier and the average women cumbersome two thousand- page law and 19 pounds heavier than in 1970. And the replace it with a straightforward 139- trend is getting worse with projections page book called Food Rules by Michael that obesity will reach epidemic Pollan. Pollan is the Knight Professor proportion by 2025. Obesity is among of Journalism at the Graduate School of the most accurate leading indicators for Journalism at the University of California,

30 Food Rules

Pollan’s book contains sixty-four “matter of fact” rules designed to improve our dietary habits. Some of our favorites include: • Shop the peripheries of the super market and stay away from the middle. • Avoid pretentious food like “non fat” cream cheese, or imitation butter. Buy the real thing. • Buy products that go bad quickly. This is a reasonably good litmus test of whether the product is not hyped and indeed good for us. • If it came from a plant, eat it, but if it was made in a plant, don’t. • Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible – fresh not frozen vegetables, for example. • Eat slowly and when you are hungry, not when you are bored. And stop eating when you are 80 percent full as it takes 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you’ve had enough. • Eat with friends and family – not alone. Eat at a dining table, not a desk or in a car. • Grow a vegetable garden. a whole host of chronic diseases such as portions of food, humans (and animals) diabetes, kidney failure, heart attacks will eat up to 30 percent more than they and cancer. would otherwise. Smaller portions disguised on smaller plates are Evolution has, in some ways, betrayed Pollan’s remedy. us. Our appetites are remarkably elastic

I propose a simple and cost-effective remedy to the health care debacle. Scrap the voluminous and cumbersome law and replace it with a straightforward 139-page book called Food Rules by Michael Pollan. so we can store energy necessary to And avoid falling for the “supersizing” survive long periods of hunger. A sales techniques, like the recent genetic disposition towards obesity is, promotion from Taco Bell to try its new so far as survival is concerned, a heroic “full-sized” burrito – advertised as “the trait. But we live in a world of caloric size of your head.” abundance, rather than scarcity. So Evolution has also tilted our taste buds in what can be done? favor of sugar and fats because they offer Pollan feels that avoiding “eye candy” is the densest form of energy and, therefore, one of the key elements to maintaining taste much better. A normal portion good health. When presented with large of French fries has more than twice the

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 31 book review | Food Rules

number of calories as a baked potato. This may be fine for those wandering the savannahs in search for food, but it doesn’t bode well for those of us leading more sedentary lives. Collectively, the US spends $2 trillion for health care, accounting for 16 percent of our nation’s GDP. This is the highest share among the OECD countries and almost double the OECD average. If President Obama thinks health care costs are too high now, just wait until we need to pay for the millions of people who will increasingly be afflicted with diet related ailments. Michael Pollan feels that we can take matters in our own hands rather than entrusting our congressmen to take care of it for us and that the solution is far more simpler and significantly less expensive than what we’ve got now. He may have a point.

32 contents | media and technology

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 33 than half of new viewers coming from the United States. Yet without distribution on U.S. cable, total U.S. viewership remained small. The conflict in Gaza increased the channel’s appeal, just as the Afghan and Iraq wars had for Al Jazeera Arabic and the Persian Gulf War for CNN. And in Double Vision: the months that followed, foreign policy Al Jazeera English at Odds experts like Robert Kaplan in an Atlantic with the American Media Monthly article called Al Jazeera English, with its sixty foreign bureaus, exactly by Paige Austin what the United States’ “internationally minded elite class really yearns for.” Paige Austin is a first-year Master in Public Policy student at the John F. Kennedy School So why has Al Jazeera English found it so of Government at Harvard University. Before difficult to gain a foothold in the United coming to Harvard, she worked for two years States? One reason is a perceived lack as an associate producer for Al Jazeera of audience; the network is not typical English in Doha, Qatar. American television fare, and cable operators doubt many Americans would embrace the change. During the two During the winter 2008-2009 war in the years I worked at Al Jazeera English, I Gaza Strip, more than a hundred was continually amazed by the channel’s members of the Samouni family spent inversion of conventional U.S. news days trapped in a single-story home, values—in particular, its willingness waiting without food or water for to convey suffering in the developing paramedics to reach them. By the time world, like that of the Samouni family, help arrived, dozens of family members in graphic detail. Far from conspiracy or had died, many slowly succumbing to manipulation, as critics charge, this use of wounds their relatives were helpless evocative imagery is the natural result of a to treat. dynamic process meant to translate news into what Bruce Shapiro, director of the International news crews were unable to Dart Center on Journalism and Trauma, enter Gaza during this twenty-two-day calls “the visual language of a war, but a few news agencies were already particular culture.” present when the conflict began. One such network was Al Jazeera English, the “It’s not about a rigid corporate agenda international news network founded in or a rigid imperialist agenda imposed 2006 as a cousin to its Arabic-language from above,” Shapiro explains in an counterpart. Al Jazeera’s reporting on interview with the author. “It’s about a the Samouni’s plight gripped the Arab much more complex dynamic between world, but in the United States it was sources, journalists, managers, and barely mentioned. Al Jazeera English’s image-makers.” online viewership shot up sixfold during Unpacking that dynamic is essential to this time frame, remarkably with more understanding the biases of American

34 media and technology news, as well as the difficulties channels State shootings or 1968 Vietnam’s My Lai like Al Jazeera English have attracting massacre with the power to shock viewers an audience in the United States. and galvanize public opinion against an Understanding this also gives reason old American foe. to hope that given a broader range of The Samouni family, by contrast, was media options, the media preferences of given no such chance. Their plight did not Americans—and popular sympathies— shock Americans; few Americans even might change as well. saw it. Preference for Sanitization, or U.S. Media Preferences Do Is it Hypocrisy? Viewers a Disservice It is well documented that when it comes The U.S. media’s tendency to selectively to war and tragedy abroad, the American portray violence impacts Americans’ media’s tendency is to sanitize violence, interpretation of world events. During the showing none of the outrage and carnage Lebanon War, The Guardian’s diplomatic evident in media accounts outside the editor Julian Borger marveled in a 2006 United States. During the invasion of article, “Britons and Americans are Iraq, Philip Kennicott in a 2003 article in watching two different wars.” The the Washington Post attributed this immense difference in public opinion of reluctance to a mixture of “taste, ethics, the war, he added, “must be attributable professional standards and responsibility to the very different realities on British to a complex web of constituents.” Yet the and American television screens.” outcome of this equation is not always Confronted with alternate media consistent. depictions of events, audiences apportion “They’re hypocrites,” Marwan Kraidy, their sympathy and blame differently. associate professor at the Annenberg When the dominant U.S. narrative School for Communication at the conflicts with how Arab and Muslim University of Pennsylvania, says of the audiences view events, Americans U.S. media in an interview with the can easily chalk up the divergence to author. “They’ll say ‘we are not going nefarious causes like anti-Americanism to show mutilated bodies.’ They all or the warlike nature of Islam. By this showed Ceauşescu’s body in Romania. rendering, Americans’ disagreement with Everyone showed the bodies of the two Arab, Muslim, or other audiences can sons of Saddam Hussein when they got seem intractable and the sense of injury killed. It’s an indirect way to say we are on their part irrational and implacable. more civilized but that is not the case.” The culling of images, he adds, “is used Yet this difference in opinion can selectively depending what the prevailing be explained largely by the fact that mood is.” Americans just aren’t watching the same gruesome, heartrending imagery as many The shooting of Iranian protestor Neda viewers elsewhere in the world. And Agha-Soltan is a more recent example. our understanding of major events and In its rush to show the video, CNN did tragedies differs profoundly as a result. not at first blur her face. The result was one of the most iconic images of the year, Differences in media depictions of recalling photos from the 1970 Kent violence cannot be explained by any

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 35 media and technology | Paige Austin

intrinsic difference in tastes among glued to their televisions and Peter audiences. A study comparing Arab Jennings’ live run on the air stretched to and Western newspapers has suggested seventeen hours, a shared sense of grief Western media was much more willing seemed to pervade U.S. media coverage. to display graphic images of victims of As would happen with Arab media in September 11 than of the Afghan war subsequent Middle Eastern wars, there two months later, while Arabic media was a strong feeling that these were our displayed the opposite trend. Shahira victims, our losses. As one Newsday Fahmy, the author of that study and editor explained, “It’s not time to associate professor at the University of be squeamish.” Arizona’s School of Journalism, says in Tragedies evoking emotion similar to an interview with the author that the September 11 happen in other parts of the difference was not in the sources of the world, but Americans do not always see imagery, which were largely the same, the galvanizing images of these events. I but in the choices of “gatekeepers”— remember editing footage from the Gaza the reporters and editors making the conflict in 2009 for Al Jazeera English. decisions about what material to use or, Sitting in an editing booth in Doha, I more cynically, whose suffering mattered watched images of children maimed more to the audience. by white phosphorous pass over the But these editorial decisions are far from screen—images so brutal they numbed routine or standardized. In her book me, causing me at times to turn away Packaging Terrorism, Susan Moeller and gasp involuntarily in horror. These documents how painfully American children’s wounds were real, but whether

Americans just aren’t watching the same gruesome, heartrending imagery as many viewers elsewhere in the world. And our understanding of major events and tragedies differs profoundly as a result.

editors and broadcasters struggled in they belonged on television was another choosing images of September 11. And question. The answer was neither easy as the hours went by, many organizations nor unanimous, and throughout the day changed their editorial stances. Three my supervisors frequently sent me back television networks that initially showed to the editing booth to adjust the balance men and women falling from the towers between vividness and “viewability.” later stopped. CNN first blurred the Because of Al Jazeera English’s access images, but later stopped broadcasting and outlook, the children in Gaza were them entirely. The editorial challenge of our victims. And if confronted with where to draw the line between honest these wrenching images, Americans and gratuitous depictions of pain and might come to feel the same way. “If they suffering was constant and agonizing. saw these graphic images, they would But as 81 percent of Americans remained definitely have more empathy,” says

36 Double Vision

Al Jazeera newsroom | “The nerve centre” by Flickr user Laika slips the lead

Fahmy, who has researched the impact Al Jazeera English’s Barrier of graphic imagery on viewers. “It would to Entry have a humanizing effect on all of us and The name Al Jazeera can make some that would create a less polarized public Americans uncomfortable, even if it is opinion or even better public diplomacy.” followed by the word “English.” The English-language channel is a distant A 2009 survey of Al Jazeera English cousin of its Arabic-language counterpart. viewers in six countries yielded such It was established ten years later and, findings. Viewers reported that the although supported by the same public channel’s viewpoint had a “conciliatory” funding in Qatar, has a very distinct effect, exposing them to alternative outlook and staffing. viewpoints. But this finding is hard to test in the United States because television Still, a handful of groups—like the is still the primary way Americans get Defenders Council of Vermont, founded their news, and Al Jazeera English is only to “educate the citizens of Vermont about available via satellite or Internet. And the nature, reality and threat of Islamic the reason is one that viewers might not Jihadism”—raised concerns when Al expect. Jazeera English was first available in Burlington, Vermont, and Toledo, Ohio. Kraidy, who discussed the channel’s launch on National Public Radio (NPR), recalls receiving hate mail afterward.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 37 media and technology | Paige Austin

Fortunately, the initial opposition seems CNN International reaches 4.3 million to have faded as more people have a viewers. Yet ratings for both channels are chance to actually tune in. abysmally low; BBC’s primetime rating in 2008 was barely a tenth of CNN’s Today, Al Jazeera English’s worldwide domestic channel. Kimeran Daley, Al viewership is estimated at 150 million Jazeera English’s head of distribution for viewers in more than one hundred the Americas, says these low ratings have countries. Both of Israel’s largest cable confirmed cable operators’ suspicions that operators carry it. In November 2009, Americans don’t care about international a regulatory board in Canada cleared news. “They just don’t see the numbers,” the channel to seek distribution after Daley says in an interview with the receiving some 2,600 letters from author, explaining cable citizens in favor and only forty letters operators’ rationale. opposed. And in mid-2009, it came on

Their plight did not shock Americans; few Americans even saw it.

the air in Washington, D.C., via MHZ, But Would Americans Watch Al an independent network dedicated to Jazeera English? international programming. Daley thinks cable operators are selling But the largest gatekeepers of U.S. cable short Americans’ appetite for news, and are not budging. Comcast, with 24 there is evidence she may be right. The million subscribers, and Time Warner, Pew Center has found that nearly with 13 million, control more than half two-thirds of Americans say they lose of the domestic cable market. Although interest in international news stories they have greater broadcast capacity because they lack the background than ever before due to the nationwide information to keep up. With better news switch to digital television, they are under available on television, these viewers pressure to devote that extra space to might change their tune. high-definition channels and high-speed Philip Seib, director of the University of Internet, not independent news channels Southern California’s Center on Public like Al Jazeera English. Diplomacy, points to the popularity of Given competition from the major international news in other mediums networks for a limited broadcast as proof. “I would make the argument spectrum, it is often difficult for that Al Jazeera English is to television independent channels to get space—and what The Economist is to print,” Seib not only Al Jazeera. Cable companies says in an interview with the author. insist that Americans just aren’t interested And Economist readers “are not a fringe in international news, and they point to audience now: their numbers in the U.S. existing options to prove it. More than are very substantial.” a decade after launching, BBC America Meanwhile, Americans’ growing reliance now reaches 65.3 million subscribers. on the Internet for news highlights a

38 Double Vision related trend; online consumers can broader exposure fosters greater empathy, circumvent traditional gatekeepers local media might well respond with its entirely to seek out news they think is own more humanizing and equitable important, without reference to what portrayal of conflict. As Shapiro from cable operators think will sell. Americans the Dart Center points out, it would not who get their news online are the fastest- be the first time American media has growing media demographic, and they chucked the rule book in the face are also more likely to be cynical about of tragedy. the quality of cable news. “I see it among After Hurricane Katrina, Shapiro says, my students, especially undergraduates,” “There was a sense [that] … the only Kraidy says. “The generation that no way for viewers to understand what was longer watches the networks, that is used happening here was with a more personal to YouTube as a main source of getting voice, a different set of images, pictures news video . . . they don’t trust news that that would be shocking by normal seems to be provincial.” American standards.” Whether alternative news sources online “And it’s true, it was shocking,” he adds. will continue to grow in popularity is “For a few minutes anyway.” another question. After all, Kraidy’s students may not represent the national norm. But the rise of online news—consistently shown to be more international than any other outlet—and enduring popularity of hard news sources like The Economist, NPR, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, or even The Daily Show should give pause to those who say Americans simply don’t care what is going on in the world.

Could Channels such as Al Jeezera English Change Policy Preferences? Whether greater access to international news in the United States would prompt changes in foreign policy is another question. Many scholars dispute that public opinion influences foreign policy at all. And the odds may seem long that the U.S. media will alter its long-standing hesitancy to realistically depict the horrors of war. But with greater access to alternative viewpoints, American viewers would at least do more to probe differences in coverage for themselves. And where

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 39 parade led by Central Park Police through the streets, while fireworks in Central Park and giant bonfires kept the city lit all through the night. Though the cable would fail shortly thereafter, additional attempts in later years were successful in linking North America and Europe. Cyberspace in Deep The world’s first cable message had traveled nearly two-thousand miles in Water: a tube the size of a garden hose across Protecting the Arteries of the seven coaxial copper strands wrapped Internet in gutta percha insulator on the ocean floor. Since then, cables have come a by Michael Sechrist long, long way; a representative from the cable company Hibernia Atlantic noted Michael Sechrist is an international and in a news program, entitled “150 Years global affairs concentrator in his second of Trans-Atlantic Cable,” that today “the year of the Master in Public Policy program whole Library of Congress can be sent in at the John F. Kennedy School of 63 milliseconds across the pond.” That Government at Harvard University. He is technological feat should have people also a U.S. Department of Homeland back dancing in the streets as they did Security fellow and previously worked at the 150 years ago. White House, State Department, and The speed of information transfer has Defense Department. increased so dramatically because cables today encase fiber-optic strands. The cables themselves are somewhere in In the summer of 1858, the world became between the size of the width of your a whole lot smaller. thumb and the width of your wrist. For the first time, a transoceanic They can stretch for thousands of miles. telegraph cable was laid with successful And, today, they typically lie unarmored results, connecting the United States and unprotected on the ocean floor. with Great Britain. Queen Victoria of the Their importance is unparalleled. In a United Kingdom swiftly transmitted an 2006 CNET News article, Jim Hayes, official message to U.S. President James president of the Fiber Optic Association, Buchanan. What had previously taken a California-based nonprofit, said, “99 two weeks to send by ship now took less percent of the world’s long-distance than a day. Common citizens thought communications travel through fiber it was nothing short of magic. Within links.” Surprisingly, satellites only carry hours of receiving Queen Victoria’s the remaining one percent; they are just message, joyous celebrations broke out too expensive, slow, and unreliable across major U.S. cities. In New York, the in comparison. sound of cannon fire and one-hundred In the United States, for instance, gun blasts awoke residents at 5:30 a.m. in approximately 95 percent of all a haze of jubilee. Over the course of the international Internet and phone traffic day, more than 100,000 people followed a

40 media and technology travels through underseas cables. Most famine of the nineteenth century. Dr. government traffic, including diplomatic Haraldur Sigurdsson, professor of and military orders, is transmitted oceanography at the University of Rhode through these as well. Businesses use Island, said in a 2007 interview on them to transfer trillions of dollars National Public Radio that the Tambora every day. Private companies, many volcano caused the greatest “destruction of them not owned by U.S. firms, on earth, the greatest death toll of any operate all the cables. When companies eruption on the earth, the greatest climate and governments lose connectivity, impact on the earth.” they lose millions of dollars and the But why do we know about Krakatoa and confidence of the public. According to not Tambora? Three words—submarine a study conducted by Douglas Burnett telegraph cables. One week before and Robert Bannon in 2005, “service Krakatoa erupted, the telegraph went interruptions of these high-bandwidth operational, connecting Southeast Asia to underwater fiber-optics communications Europe. News of the disaster was wired systems can result in excess of $1.5 over the British-Australian submarine million revenue loss per hour.” telegraph line and reached newspaper And yet despite their critical role, effort readers as far as Boston, London, Paris, to protect these vital arteries of the and New York. At a speed impossible at Internet remains lacking. More needs to the time of Tambora, news of Krakatoa be done on both the public and private traveled halfway across the world within end to ensure these cables remain secure the same day to become the talk of and operational. The creation of an the town. international partnership between cable companies and national governments is When an Artery Is Cut the missing link. The partnership would More than 150 years after the celebration streamline permitting, encourage mesh of the first cable message in the streets of networking, and perform operational New York City, I traveled the same parade exercises to practice disaster recovery. route to meet with Doug Burnett, the International Cable Protection Defining History Committee’s (ICPC) legal adviser. The Underseas cables have defined how ICPC is a group of cable companies that history has been written. For example, meets in full once a year to discuss events mention the word Krakatoa, and people and trends affecting cable security. generally think of the famous volcanic Burnett is a strong proponent of cable eruption. Yet most are unaware that less security in the legal world and works than seventy years before the 1883 unremittingly to ensure the safety and Krakatoa eruption in Indonesia, the protection of our intercontinental links. largest ever recorded volcanic eruption In his office high atop 30 Rockefeller occurred in the same general vicinity. The Center, we had just sat down to speak 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora killed when his phone rang. He excused himself more than 100,000 Indonesians and and proceeded to speak on the phone for hundreds of thousands more in Western twenty minutes. The conversation started Europe and North America through lightheartedly but soon turned serious. climate change. It created the worst His client had called to discuss Typhoon

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 41 media and technology | Michael Sechrist

Morakot and how it had severed three BoodLssl o for Entire Countries underseas cables in Southeast Asia. It While thefts like the one attempted in was Taiwan again. The country had been Vietnam are rare, single cable breaks are struck in the same area in 2006 when more common. Every three days, a cable the Hengchun earthquake triggered an breaks somewhere around the world. The underseas landslide that severed multiple configuration of cable systems are cables. Just like that, years of engineering designed to handle these one-off and technical construction was disrupted individual breaks, and cable repair ships in a matter of minutes, potentially can typically restore connection within affecting millions of dollars in financial seven to ten days. But when many go transactions. But natural disasters aren’t down at once, it can yield serious the only thing that disrupts cable lines. complications (see Figure 1). These Anchors, fishing trawlers, and even clam large-scale outages are usually the result dredgers are historically notorious for of large-scale natural disasters. interfering with underseas arteries. While most people worry about tsunamis Cables aren’t always broken by accident following an earthquake, network either. In 2007, Vietnamese fisherman operators worry about something else— pulled up nearly 500 kilometers of underseas cables. When the sea bed operational cable with the hopes of selling moves, communications cables that lie on it on the black market. In fact, Vietnam the sea bed floor do too. And when they came within one cable line of losing more break or bend beyond a certain point, than 80 percent of its connectivity to Web sites fail to load and cell phones fail the outside world. The situation was so to connect. These multi-cable fractures serious that the prime minister needed are now occurring with greater frequency. to create a public awareness campaign to In the past decade, seven major incidents stop further cable cuts. involving cable breakage took place: Algeria in 2003; Pakistan in 2005; Taiwan

42 Cyberspace in Deep Water in 2006; Egypt in 2008; the Mediterranean The next way to protect cables is to take in 2008; West Africa in 2009; and Taiwan collective action as an international in 2009. In many of these cases, the cable community. The creation of a new breaks disrupted or stopped 50 percent international partnership will be essential. to 70 percent of international data An excellent example of this type of communications for at least one or more agreement is the response to cable cuts countries involved. During the cuts in the resulting from the Hengchun earthquake Mediterranean in 2008, at least fourteen near Taiwan in December 2006. The event countries lost a significant amount of spawned a private partnership known

The creation of an international partnership between cable companies and national governments is the missing link. connectivity. In the Maldives, the entire as the Pacific Partners Members (PPM) international connectivity was lost, while Committee No. 2. This little-known in India more than 80 percent of its partnership meets at least twice a year international service went down. to prepare for events that might affect cable connectivity in Asia. The member Protecting the Arteries companies have developed restoration Right now, there is no crisis management agreements with one another to avoid plan in place to protect these cables. single points of failure and large outages. Today, faults in communication cables in When Typhoon Morakot struck the same water are exacerbated by faults in area around Taiwan as the earthquake had communication on land. International three years earlier, the PPM partnership’s cable operators and government officials work paid off; companies quickly have a poor record of working together rerouted cable traffic over alternative during underseas cable crises. They have terrestrial and underseas lines. The result: an even worse record of communicating the Internet loaded slower for a majority before a crisis for mitigation or afterward of Asian users, but, unlike in 2006, for implementation of lessons learned and no major disruption of international best practices. connectivity ensued. The partnership Some countries have begun to rectify this among the fourteen cable operators record. In 2009, Australia became the first had worked. country to raise the issue of cable security in any international forum when it tabled Expanding the a paper at the Asia-Pacific Economic Partnership Concept Cooperation. Other organizations have The PPM partnership is a model that the started to follow suit, advocating for the United States needs to encourage others topic to be placed on the agenda of the to follow today. Now is the time to next G-20 summit. expand it and create the world’s first

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 43 media and technology | Michael Sechrist

international public-private partnership customers will remain vulnerable to for underseas cables. communication outages. And the governments and citizens that rely on This partnership should team private them will too. companies with the public sector in a significant way for the first time. Governments must be active partners Author’s Note in this endeavor since large-scale cable problems will inevitably fall to This research was performed under an government to fix. They also have the appointment to the U.S. Department of authority to regulate, permit, and educate Homeland Security (DHS) Scholarship public and private groups about the and Fellowship Program, administered importance of cables. The partnership by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and should emphasize mesh networking Education (ORISE) through an interagency to create redundant communication agreement between the U.S. channels and seek alternate traffic Department of Energy (DOE) and DHS. arrangements among partners in the ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated event of a major cable outage. Universities (ORAU) under DOE contract number DE-AC05-06OR23100. All opinions This new partnership should develop a expressed in this article are the author’s and set of industry best practices, statement of do not necessarily reflect the policies and principles, terms of references, reporting views of DHS, DOE, or ORAU/ORISE. structures, single points of contact, disaster recovery options, and high-level operational exercises. At this time, a list of best practices does not exist, nor is there even a single agreed definition of what a cable outage is. Furthermore, single points of contact should be identified within the U.S. government and all other governments where cables land in order to close the communication gap. Should a large cable failure occur, many companies do not have a designated person to inform within their respective governments. Moreover, cable operators do not regularly identify possible cable outage scenarios or develop up-to-date restoration plans. Instead of working on the fly in the event of a big cable break, disaster recovery plans should be developed beforehand to increase the likelihood of a successful crisis response. Without regular meetings and issue working groups, companies and

44 media and technology

cause by prompting Congress to pass lobbyist and earmark-exposing legislation in 2007. By the time a newly elected president kicked off his administration in 2009 signing a memorandum on “Transparency and Open Government,” there was little doubt the Age of Transparency had dawned. Of Sunlight and But while transparency advocates Sausages celebrate in the sun, another once- prominent political cliché receives less by Julia Kamin play: “laws are like sausages; it’s better not seeing them made.” That Otto von Julia Kamin is a serial social entrepreneur Bismarck attribution suggests that total and a mid-career Master in Public transparency may have a downside. Administration candidate at the John F. Rather than clean up the underbelly of Kennedy School of Government at Harvard democracy, transparency could just end University. Her latest venture was citizenJoe, up turning us all off—or leave us with a a multi-partisan nonprofit that—among messier sausage. other things—aimed to make the lawmaking process more transparent for the Too Much Transparency? “average Joe.” Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law professor and itinerant public intellectual, pointed out one such potential downside last year. Few phrases are more familiar in good In a 9 October 2009 article in the New governance circles than U.S. Supreme Republic, Lessig stepped out as the first Court Justice Louis Brandeis’s 1913 high-profile critic to no-holds-barred declaration that “sunlight is the said to be transparency, shaking up a movement the best of disinfectants.” The saying has that was certain of its moral mission. become the unofficial clarion call of Lessig, long known as a friend of open today’s growing transparency movement, information, took aim at campaign a collection of clean-government funding transparency and made the advocates from all political camps who simple point that information on its own share a unified mission: to capitalize on is no cure-all. Only a savvy understanding the data-processing, crowd-sourcing, and of the raw data can separate out the good scandal-exposing strength of the Internet guys from the bad guys. to clean up Congress and bring government closer to the people. To illustrate, let’s say you are writing an article about transparency and, in That movement has seen its star rise over visiting OpenSecrets.org, note that recent years. The Web made the dream your local representative, in this case, of peering into every campaign coffer, Mike Capuano from Massachusetts, committee hearing, and government file- received a campaign contribution from cabinet a real possibility and has fueled a Triumvirate Environmental, a waste surge in funding for transparency interest disposal company. Your curiosity piqued, groups. A series of scandals helped the you then visit OpenCongress.org to

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 45 media and technology | Julia Kamin

of open source tech gurus and other government watchdogs will figure out how to crunch the information in the wisest ways. All the same, Lessig’s cautionary note rightly reminds policy makers of the potential limitations and risks of transparency.

Transparency Harming the Legislative Process? Yet, for all of Lessig’s warnings about C-SPAN camera transparency in campaign finance, he “GOE II 5-26-07 012” by Flickr user dalelanham gives another target of transparency—the lawmaking process—a free pass. He is not discover that Capuano sponsored a bill alone. Most Americans would probably to limit the liability of waste transport agree that monitoring legislators’ debates services. These facts could lead to and deal making is essential to holding different conclusions. Perhaps the two representatives accountable. Promoters of events are unrelated. Or maybe Capuano deliberative democracy tell us that has a commitment to promoting waste publicity nudges lawmakers to consider disposal, and Triumvirate Environmental multiple viewpoints and articulate the has a natural (and legal) inclination reasons for their policies. If you imagine to support a candidate with aligned the average American as a sensible interests. Or perhaps, more nefariously, centrist, transparency should mean more Capuano and Triumvirate Environmental

But while transparency advocates celebrate in the sun, another political cliché receives less play: “laws are like sausages; it’s better not seeing them made.”

had a quid pro quo understanding to sensible centrist legislation. As President benefit one other at the expense of the Obama hoped in his 2010 State of the public interest. Only if you dig for a Union Address, opening the workings of deeper, more nuanced understanding Congress can help repair the “deficit of of the relationship between Capuano trust” between government and its and Triumvirate can a fair reformer people. Democracy and transparent truly cry corruption—or not. Without lawmaking just make sense together. smart analysis, some politicians may get unnecessarily sullied while the true But putting congressional activities on scoundrels get away. public display was far from common sense to our founders. Though the House To be fair, transparency advocates have of Representatives opened its floor to never claimed that access to information the people and press in 1789 (with the alone will clean up Capitol Hill. Once Senate following in 1795), most of the data is available, they say, the forces

46 Of Sunlight and Sausages business of Congress—the debates, deals, Americans increasingly feel they can’t and votes in congressional committees— trust Congress and that their voices happened in private rooms. The first are unheard. peep into committee hearings arrived Transparency is certainly not the only with the Legislative Reorganization Act explanation for America’s drift toward in 1946. Full exposure didn’t come until hyper-partisanship and distrust in the 1970s, though, when a series of acts government, but it could be one. Ronald and rules opened up almost all committee Brownstein, political director of the meetings, required the publication of National Journal, has many theories why committee votes, and ushered debates Democrats and Republicans have inched into America’s living rooms via C-SPAN. away from a culture of compromise and With the curtain to Congress opened camaraderie in the 1950s toward the in the 1970s, the advent of the Internet state of trench warfare that exists today. in the 1990s brought congressional One is C-SPAN, which, as Brownstein proceedings into high definition. As said in The Second Civil War, changed the Library of Congress and other the audience of floor debates “from the agencies placed official records online, members of the body itself to the public at independent tech wizards and nonprofits large. And that changed the nature of the gave citizens the tools to disentangle debate, from detailed arguments meant the raw data by tracking and comparing to persuade other legislators to sharper representatives’ votes, scanning and thrusts meant to move the public.” splicing floor speeches, and cross- Newsweek International editor Fareed referencing campaign contributions with Zakaria agrees that openness may have bill sponsorships. Even elected officials a negative impact on parliamentary jumped on the transparency bandwagon, process. In addition to C-SPAN’s camera making their presence known online, effect, Zakaria argues that the publicizing updating, e-mailing, and eventually of committee and amendment votes has tweeting their every move. left legislators less room for honest debate There are reasons to suspect this trend or compromise. Real dialogue relies on toward transparency has weakened— participants being able to change their not strengthened—American political minds. But with every vote counted along culture. By all accounts, policy debates on a bill’s path, flip-flop-averse lawmakers Capitol Hill have only become more shrill have a stronger incentive to dig in their

There are reasons to suspect this trend toward transparency has weakened—not strengthened— American political culture. and split along partisan lines over the past heels than to change their minds in four decades. And while constituents have response to new arguments gained ever more access and exposure or information. to their elected officials, Gallup and University of Michigan polls show that

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 47 media and technology | Julia Kamin

And it’s not only the public that is Two centuries later, that distance monitoring lawmakers’ performances. between the elected body and the people While transparency is aimed at has closed. We the people may not be empowering Joe Citizen, it’s usually sitting in the halls of Congress voting Lobbyist Lou—with more at stake—who’s on legislation, but our legislators know paying the most attention. The result, we are virtually breathing down their

While transparency is aimed at empowering Joe Citizen, it’s usually Lobbyist Lou—with more at stake—who’s paying the most attention.

according to Zakaria in The Future necks. The flexibility to “best discern the of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at true interest of their country” has been Home and Abroad, is that transparency squeezed out by the need to heed voters has made Congress more “open and and campaign donors. In balancing responsive . . . to money, lobbyists, and legislative autonomy and public oversight, special interests.” we have chosen the latter to the detriment of the former. Brownstein’s and Zakaria’s insights should not be all that surprising. They are an Or, Are Citizens Not echo (acknowledged by Zakaria) of James Involved Enough? Madison’s famous warning that pure Of course, any discussion of giving democracy is susceptible to the passions legislators more autonomy whiffs of of the majority and the forces of faction. elitism. The problem, it could be argued, A republic, on the other hand, has an isn’t that citizens are too involved, but that in-built defense. As James Madison they’re not involved enough. If only the wrote in the Federalist Papers, its elected barriers to participation came down, Joe body of representatives can “refine and Citizen would get a leg up over Lobbyist enlarge the public views, by passing them Lou. John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss- through the medium of a chosen body of Morse, two political science professors at citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the true interest of their country, and wondered whether people would be more whose patriotism and love of justice will politically engaged if there were fewer be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary barriers to engagement. They decided to or partial considerations.” Of course, pose this question to average Americans, Madison recognized that legislators could and the answer they found, published in also “by corruption, or by other means, their book Stealth Democracy, is that first obtain the suffrages, and then betray “people do not want to have to meet the interests, of the people.” But on the under Rousseau’s oak tree to resolve whole, Madison and his contemporaries political issues.” Instead, they want “a bargained that representatives would be stealth democratic arrangement in which better guarantors of the common good decisions are made by neutral decision than the people themselves. makers who do not require sustained

48 Of Sunlight and Sausages input from the people in order and a more engaged citizenry, to function.” transparency may be responsible for greater factionalism and a This desire for “stealth democracy” has disenchanted populace. two roots, according to the authors. First, citizens generally lack interest in policy This is not to say that advances toward details (except for one or two issues open government should be rolled they particularly care about). Second, back. Transparency is too thoroughly Americans tend to believe that they all entrenched into our political reality and share similar concerns and values and democratic ethos to be wished away. And therefore that elected officials should be despite its drawbacks, transparency may able to smooth over minor differences hold more benefits than its alternative. and find sensible solutions without too We may, however, want to take a cue from much fuss. Lessig and consider transparency’s risks

Taking a second look at transparency should lead us to seek other methods of engaging citizens and rebuilding faith in government.

But Hibbing and Theiss-Morse have one and limits when it comes to lawmaking. more twist in their research. If there is That may mean keeping some doors anything Americans dislike more than closed and giving legislators space to being involved in policy discussions, it openly discuss differences and craft is political corruption. Next in line is the bipartisan compromises. sight of political disagreement, which Taking a second look at transparency Americans don’t view as a sign of robust should lead us to seek other methods of democracy but rather as petty politicking, engaging citizens and rebuilding faith grandstanding, and lack of leadership. in government. Citizens’ assemblies and The bottom line is that Americans participatory budgeting are two examples would like to let Congress take care of of efforts that successfully involve citizens the business of governing, but citizens’ in the policy-making process while distrust compels them to keep an eye on instilling greater faith in government. politicians. The more they get a glimpse As we better understand how we think of the sausage factory, the more their and operate as citizens, we will likely distrust grows. Distrust and disgust find more. And as we all come to better combine in a regrettable feedback loop. appreciate the sausage-making process, we might even end up with a Whither Transparency? better kielbasa. Madison, Hibbing, and Theiss-Morse seem to deliver a devastating two-punch blow to open government. For all its promises to inspire sounder governance

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 49 The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston strives to improve the governance of Greater Boston by strengthening connections between the region’s scholars, students, and civic leaders. A university- wide entity housed at the Kennedy School of Government, the Institute pursues this mission by:

Encouraging Public Service The Institute encourages graduate and professional students to spend at least part of their professional careers in state or local government in Greater Boston. Producing New Ideas The Institute encourages faculty and students to conduct high quality, policy-relevant research into issues of importance for Greater Boston. Stimulating Informed Discussion The Institute sponsors public events where scholars, policymakers, and civic leaders discuss key issues and produces publications that summarize new scholarly research in timely and accessible ways.

More information about the Rappaport Institute is available at www.rappaportinstitute.org. You may also reach us by phone at 617-495-5091 or by email at [email protected].

50 A Delicate Dance

people cultural exchanges. This kind of engagement with Cuba is especially important because the Iron Curtain does not permit meaningful telecommunication exchanges with Cubans. The late Milton C. Cummings Jr., an advocate for government funding of A Delicate Dance: the arts, defined cultural diplomacy as How the Arts Can Improve “the exchange of ideas, information, U.S.-Cuban Relations art, and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to by Jeanette Cajide foster mutual understanding” in a 2003 paper, “Cultural Diplomacy and the Jeanette Cajide is a Master in Public United States Government: A Survey.” It Administration candidate at the John F. is a discourse or an exchange that yields Kennedy School of Government at Harvard compassion and an appreciation for University. She has a Master of Business another’s view of the world. The London- Administration in finance and based political think tank Demos offers entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School of this perspective, “cultural exchange Management at Northwestern University. gives us the chance to appreciate points Cajide is focusing her studies on diplomacy of commonality and, where there are and conflict resolution. differences, to understand the motivations and humanity that underlie them.” The arts stimulate creativity and compel Art is a universal language. A dancer people to consider a new perspective—the from Cuba can understand a dancer from humanity of the “other”—without threat New York City without ever speaking a or direct confrontation. And because word. A musical note sounds the same in art requires ingenuity and initiative, it New York City as it does in Russia. From intrinsically challenges the status quo. dancing to music to painting, the arts unite people even in times of conflict. Cultural exchanges between the United After nearly fifty years of isolation, States and the former Soviet Union cultural exchanges between the United accelerated the end of the Cold War. States and Cuba continue to be a missed Oleg Kalugin, a former Soviet cultural opportunity to close the divide. The exchange student with the United States, United States has poured $20 million a shared this perspective in an interview year into pro-democracy programs in with Yale Richmond published in Cultural Cuba, with little political movement to Exchange & The Cold War: Raising The show for it. In addition to these programs, Iron Curtain: “Exchanges were a Trojan the United States can promote Horse in the Soviet Union. They played cooperation, end isolation, and improve a tremendous role in the erosion of the cross-cultural communications with Cuba Soviet system. They opened up a closed by increasing the frequency of people-to- society. They greatly influenced younger people who saw the world with more “Ballet Shoes” by Flickr User Megyarsh open eyes, and they kept infecting more

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 51 A Delicate Dance | Jeanette Cajide

and more people over the years.” This freedom should occur more regularly. testimony is a perfect example of how One way to accomplish this is through cultural diplomacy can disseminate a formal bilateral exchange with Cuba, the same values set by pro-democracy established by the U.S. Department of programs between countries. State and U.S. Department of Treasury’s

The arts stimulate creativity and compel people to consider a new perspective without threat.

Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). As a young woman growing up in the The two countries could establish baseline United States, I personally experienced terms such as length of stay and visa the powerful impact of cultural exchange. processing time. Currently, it takes several I was invited to train and perform with months to process a visa, which can lead La Joven Guardia, the National Ballet to artists and students canceling planned of Cuba’s apprentice company, during exchanges. In addition, the United States its tour in Mexico. I listened to the should expand and increase licensing dancers’ stories and came to appreciate approval for cultural interactions. In their struggles. In the end, I made 2009, the OFAC authorized the New lifelong friends. The palpable political York Philharmonic to travel to Cuba, yet undercurrent could not overshadow our it rejected licenses for several patrons common humanity. to accompany the group. The patrons’ Years later when I traveled to Cuba to financial support covered the entire cost see where my mother had trained as a of the trip for the Philharmonic. This ballerina, I realized the impact that my bureaucratic constraint not only dashed interactions with Cuban ballerinas had on a creative fund-raising opportunity, but my appreciation for Cuban culture. I was also spoiled an opportunity to promote invited to a beautiful ballet performance appreciation for art and culture. in the Gran Teatro and received a private Cultural diplomacy can achieve greater tour of the new National Ballet of Cuba cross-cultural understanding of Cuba School. Most importantly, I visited “L y here in the United States. Intelligence 19,” the renowned ballet school where my communities and media observations mother trained. Cultural diplomacy and about Cuba cannot possibly capture a common appreciation of art connected this island nation’s culture and me to a Cuba that had proved elusive values. As we are learning in Iraq and in the United States for so long. My Afghanistan, the United States needs lifelong friendship with the Cuban ballet new and creative approaches to “winning community was more powerful than any hearts and minds.” And it can gain political division between our countries. the trust and respect of Cubans with a People-to-people cultural exchanges that ballet performance, a painting, or the open the door for meaningful interaction harmonious sounds of an orchestra between hostile nations and can promote because art transcends the boundaries American values such as democracy and of politics.

52 contents | unlikely leaders

UNLIKELY LEADERS

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 53 leader,” and especially as it is beautifully exemplified in the series of outstanding profiles compiled for this issue of the Kennedy School Review. Yet, analytically, the category is not quite as straightforward as it might seem. First, and perhaps surprisingly, Unlikely Leaders in one might argue that many of the great leaders we routinely celebrate—and Perspective many of whom I discuss at some length in my course on the “genius and folly” of by Roderick M. Kramer leadership—were, at some point in their development, widely viewed as the most R oderick M. Kramer, visiting professor of unlikely of leaders. One can reach almost public policy at the John F. Kennedy School anywhere into the historical urn and pull of Government at Harvard University, is the out a name as proof. Each of the brothers William R. Kimball Professor of Kennedy—John, Robert, and Ted—were Organizational Behavior at the Stanford dismissed many times throughout their Business School. Kramer is the author or lives as lacking the essential qualities coauthor of more than one-hundred for effective political leadership. In fact, scholarly articles and essays. JFK’s close friend and fellow Senator George Smathers once observed in an oral history of the Kennedy years that When invited by the editors of the what was truly extraordinary about Jack Harvard Kennedy School Review to write Kennedy was the way he had somehow a brief preface to their profiles of “unlikely personally transformed himself from a leaders,” I immediately accepted. The rather non-serious, somewhat awkward, topic seemed too provocative to let go. I almost shy scholarly individual into an was also curious, frankly, to see who they effective, tough, disciplined, pragmatic, had identified as unlikely leaders and engaging leader. Similarly, Margaret and why. Thatcher and Winston Churchill in the The category “unlikely leader” is, from a United Kingdom were underestimated journalistic perspective, both dramatic time and again throughout their early and compelling. It seems, moreover, to years, as was Ronald Reagan in America. nicely level the playing field, implying that And who could ever have imagined almost any one of us might become such that Katharine Graham, who went on a leader, if only the right circumstances to lead the Washington Post with such arrange themselves fortuitously on our distinction and courage, would have behalf. Construed more broadly, the matured from the most unlikely of leaders label also implies an optimism regarding to become one of the most resilient and the prospect that even ordinary people effective in her position? Even some from humble walks have the potential of our greatest thought leaders—such to achieve leadership status. I therefore as Albert Einstein prior to his annus had no difficulty being drawn into the mirabilis—have been roundly discounted persuasive imagery of the “unlikely and routinely dismissed. Einstein was

54 unlikely leaders told more than once by his professors an unsatisfying morass of competing that he had no future in physics—and he propositions and thin conjectures. despaired more than once that they were A reasoned assessment of that large, entirely right. sprawling empirical literature suggests that leaders, whether likely or unlikely, Leaders seem likely—and sometimes seldom spring whole out of some well- even “inevitable”—only with the woven experiential cloth or any precise advantage of the historian’s hindsight set of circumstances. Leadership, I or in the biographer’s artfully arranged would argue, may be an inherently retrospective narrative. We recognize underdetermined process. the “true potential” of a leader, and discern the emerging imprints of his or As an academic social scientist who her greatness, only after we know how takes causal claims seriously, I would it all turned out. In Katharine Graham’s want to emphasize that we do know case, her journey of unlikely leadership some things regarding the (more likely) was occasioned by the tragic suicide genesis and (more fruitful) paths of of her brilliant but troubled husband leadership. For example, Dean Keith Philip Graham. She stepped into— Simonton’s Greatness: Who Makes stumbled into, really—the role of leading History and Why brilliantly arranges the the Washington Post out of perceived extant evidence and sifts meticulously necessity. And it is such necessity that and patiently through that evidence to sometimes creates the conditions for highlight which theoretical alternatives these most unlikely of ascendancies. To become more credible—and which less. be sure, there is always some mystery and His methodological innovations and magic to that process of unexpected and concerted efforts at building useful data unlikely seeming transformation. sets have shown that we can do better than simply relying on creative historical As a social scientist who studies narratives or artful psycho-biographies individuals who attain the highest levels when trying to trace the emergence of of power or achievement, I am often leaders, both likely and unlikely. humbled by how difficult it has proven to tease out even the most modest and The following extraordinary profiles, I carefully circumscribed causal claims hope, will both inform and inspire the regarding the developmental trajectories reader to ponder this issue more deeply. It of eventual leaders. Are unlikely leaders merits our attention. those who do not seem to possess—at first glance at least—the “right stuff” of leadership, yet somehow, when faced with an unexpected or unlikely set of circumstances, rise to the occasion? Or are they individuals of ordinary ilk who just happen to find themselves at the right place at the right time? In short, is it character or circumstance—or some brew of both? As leadership theorists have noted, the logical possibilities are virtually endless and the extant literature

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 55 Buonocore called all other operations outside the base to a halt. Security vehicles pushed out, and a brave Marine driving an unarmored forklift collected the pods that fell from the sky. Lima Co. was well-fueled for the time being, but Buonocore anticipated the need for constant recalculation and USS Green: compromise to manage limited fuel How the American Military supplies for essential operations. Is Lighting a New Energy “There’s a fantastic amount of fuel Frontier to Combat Costs consumed by machines that are so by Carolyn McGourty inefficient,” Buonocore says. “I cannot understand why there’s not a better C arolyn McGourty is a Master in Public strategy to move away from diesel. It Policy candidate for 2011 at the John F. blows my mind that it’s not priority Kennedy School of Government at Harvard number one.” University, focusing on energy policy and A Burning Appetite international affairs. She is a former associate producer for ABC News, where Energy comes at a high expense for the she covered energy and the environment. U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The U.S. military is the largest consumer of energy in the United States, and there’s a high price in the theater of war to bring Night fell in Afghanistan’s Helmand fuel to the battlefield. Supply convoys in province, and U.S. Marine Corps Iraq and Afghanistan are under frequent Executive Officer Michael Buonocore had insurgent attacks, causing a high number decisions to make. of casualties. In 2009, $13.4 billion was The Forward Operating Base was running spent on fuel. The nation’s 2.2 billion low on fuel. Without diesel to supply square feet of military facility space burns generators, nearly 300 soldiers would $3 billion of that energy by itself, mostly be without power, air conditioning, and electricity from coal that also contributes lights. And isolated as it was from other to 40 percent of the DoD’s greenhouse gas U.S. operations, Lima Company, 3rd emissions, as Dorothy Robyn, deputy Battalion, 8th Marines wasn’t always on a under secretary of defense for frequent stop for supply convoys. Installations and Environment, told a Senate committee on 27 January 2010. “Energy in the battlefield is essential,” Buonocore says, who was second in Concerned about costs in both lives command for Lima Co. from 2008 and dollars, there is now an urgent push to 2009. from the Pentagon to develop green technologies, with the Department of Fortunately, help was en route. Waiting Defense emerging as an unlikely leader in until the cover of night to avoid enemy the global energy challenge. fire, an Air Force C-17 cargo aircraft headed toward the base to drop off fuel.

56 unlikely leaders

“In short, our fuel inefficiency endangers consume prodigious amounts of petrol. our troops and threatens our missions,” According to the Defense Department, Robyn stated to the Senate committee. the DoD burns about 300,000 barrels of oil daily. Generators that power “Unleashing war fighters from the operations with electricity in Iraq and tether of fuel and reducing [military] Afghanistan suck up 40 percent of energy installations’ dependence on a costly used by forces. At the height of the Iraq

“(Convoys) are a big target,” says David Crabbe, who served as a convoy commander for the Marines in Iraq during that time. “It was ironic that here we are in (oil-rich) Iraq, and one of our biggest challenges is refueling.”

war in 2003, the Air Force alone devoured and potentially fragile power grid will 300 billion gallons of fuel, according to not simply enhance the environment, it David King, director of energy policy will significantly improve our mission for the U.S. Air Force. Given the long effectiveness,” Robyn said. life cycles of weapons systems, the The Pentagon’s maneuver to become introduction of new energy-efficient more energy efficient sweeps across technologies and incentives will be a the realms of technology, building major logistical and financial challenge efficiency, pricing, and inventive field to implement. And, according to a 2008 tactics. In some cases, such as the new report of the Defense Science Board Task $100-million solar field at Nellis Air Force, there remains a lingering attitude Force Base in Nevada, the military is at the Pentagon that carbon-based energy pioneering renewable technologies on a remains affordable and abundant. large scale. Innovative military pricing “The shift to clean energy and reduced efforts are being undertaken to weigh the energy consumption will entail a true cost of transporting fuel, providing fundamental change in the culture of greener options to be cost-competitive. the Defense Department, which has The Defense Advanced Research traditionally viewed energy as both cheap Projects Agency (DARPA) is pioneering and plentiful,” Robyn told the renewable jet fuel. And the DoD is taking Senate hearing. national leadership on climate change in cooperation with White House efforts Yet top military leadership recognizes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need for such a change. In July 2006, boost biofuel production. for example, General Richard Zilmer urgently requested that the Pentagon send But an energy revolution won’t be an solar panels, wind turbines, and other easy feat. energy-efficient devices into the field The aircraft, ground vehicles, and ships after reliance on fossil fuels jeopardized that drive the Air Force, Army, and Navy American forces in Western Iraq.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 57 unlikely leaders | Carolyn McGourty

an eighteen-month venture with a $100-million price tag to find a way to make algae-based jet fuel affordable. “We fundamentally have to change our thinking about energy in the Air Force,” King says. As part of the plan, the Air Force is transitioning its fleet to run off of fuel generated by the Fischer-Tropsch method, which is mostly gas made from coal or biomass. King says that this will lead to enhanced energy security; Air Force planes will be able to touch down in locations around the globe and refuel without worrying about aircraft- fuel compatibility. Some solutions are much simpler, such as changing flight patterns and cargo loads to become more energy efficient. Nellis Air Force Base (Courtesy of U.S. Air Force) In 2007, Nellis Air Force Base installed Supply convoys transporting fuel were the nation’s largest solar field. Savings so frequently under fire by insurgents, far, according to the DoD, are up to $1 putting troops’ lives and U.S. operations million per year in electricity costs, with at risk. 24,000 tons of reduced carbon dioxide emissions. “(Convoys) are a big target,” says In October 2009, Navy Secretary Ray David Crabbe, who served as a convoy Mabus announced plans to improve commander for the Marines in Iraq energy efficiency for the Navy and during that time. “It was ironic that here Marines, including ambitious plans for we are in (oil-rich) Iraq, and one of our developing a “Great Green Fleet” by biggest challenges is refueling.” 2016, a completely sustainable carrier strike group of nuclear vessels and ships Armed with Greenery powered by biofuel. He also called for half To reduce its energy consumption, the of the Navy’s installations to be powered Pentagon has tripled its investment in by renewables in 2020. energy security technology from $400 million to $1.2 billion over the last four Nationwide, military installations years, according to Robyn’s testimony. It are following green building and also set out a series of ambitious goals. LEED standards to reduce electricity consumption. The Air Force, which consumes 70 percent of military fuel, is pioneering And starting in 2008, the military now synthetic jet fuel and engine-efficiency sprays insulating foam on temporary technologies. DARPA has announced structures in Iraq and Afghanistan

58 USS Green to prevent heated or cooled air from Given both the security and financial escaping, easing the energy demand from concerns over its energy consumption, its diesel-hungry generators. This has the Pentagon has the potential to be a resulted in fewer fuel convoys being sent testing ground for the next generation across the battlefield. of energy technologies coming from universities, the Department of Energy, True Cost of Fuel and the private sector. By the time a gallon of oil makes its way “The DoD can play a crucial role by to soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, some filling the gap between research and estimates range the true cost will end up deployment,” Robyn testified. from anywhere between $6.50 to $400, after logistics and force protection costs Furthermore, Robyn said that testing are included. new technologies could leverage costs and advance technologies coming from

“We fundamentally have to change our thinking about energy in the Air Force,” says David King, director of Energy Policy for the U.S. Air Force.

the private sector, creating new markets, In an effort to shift toward clean and in the end, helping to enhance a and efficient energy, the Pentagon is broader national strategy for instituting a set of requirements that energy independence. mandates decision makers to take into account the final cost of fuel “There’s a real transformation taking place before acquiring or implementing a with the services about energy,” King says. new weapons system. The DoD is also “Frankly, it’s really exciting. There are so developing a methodology that will allow many positive things that can come out of for better cost analysis when deciding on the service, DoD, and the country.” the specific types of tanks or aircraft that should be used during times of war. These innovative pricing mechanisms, Robyn said, can incentivize decision makers to choose energy- efficient technologies.

A Lasting Boot Print Throughout history, many technologies engineered for military use have later made their way into widespread civilian usage. The DoD has also served as an early customer, creating new markets for emerging technologies such as the Internet and electronics.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 59 A Neglected Neighborhood Is Reborn In the eastern outskirts of the world’s second-largest financial capital, one comes across a very different London. The people look and speak different. The soil, polluted from years of industrial activity, permits the growth of only the harshest Going for Gold: and most unsightly weeds. And the old How the London Olympics canal system, a tourist attraction in the Will Set the Record city’s western boroughs, sits here in isolation, hidden beneath a carpet for Sustainability of moss. by Benjamin Supple Yet, it is in this neglected stretch of city, beyond the outer reaches of tourist maps Benjamin Supple is a Master in Public Policy and public transportation, where new candidate for 2010 at the John F. Kennedy business and investment will soon be School of Government at Harvard University. abuzz and where scores of tourists from Supple spent the past summer working for around the world will suddenly blanket the London Organising Committee of the the streets in anticipation. Olympic and Paralympic Games with the Diversity and Inclusion team. Londoners of all locales and ethnicities will become newly united and imbued with pride; more than a million tons of soil will be dug up, treated, and replanted For the international community, the with more inviting foliage; and the Olympic Games represent a rare canals—too long an emblem of neglect— opportunity to bring the world together will begin to glisten and grow, becoming in celebration of human discipline and a “blue vein” coursing throughout and achievement. For the cities that host restoring life to East London. them, however, the honor of staging this global spectacle often comes at a high In two years’ time, London will play social and environmental cost. From host to the 2012 Summer Olympic forced displacements to ostentatious, and Paralympic Games, in the process overbuilt stadiums, the Olympic legacy is becoming a staging ground for best viewed by many as more of a curse than a practice in urban regeneration, blessing. Departing from this unworthy social inclusion, and environmental tradition, the organizers of the 2012 sustainability. While these two mega- Summer Olympics in London have events will come and go in the time decided to use the games as a model for span of just over a month, London aims sustainability, seizing their Olympic to extend its leadership on these issues moment to become a most unlikely leader long after, using the games to set a new in social inclusion and the environment. precedent for responsible and forward- looking action for the future of the planet.

60 unlikely leaders

Olympic Delivery Authority Unveils Olympic Stadium Plans (Courtesy of Getty Images)

The Vision ambitions in an interview with the In 2004, the International Olympic author, “This will be the first time that Committee voted to award the 2012 an Olympic host city has adopted a fully Summer Games to London, a city that integrated approach, bringing together had already hosted the event twice and the goals and planning processes for the seemingly had little to add to the Olympic environmental, social, and movement. Yet, in spite of the odds economic programs.” against it, London was able to win the bid Realizing that 2012 would also mark by adopting a novel approach to games the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, planning. Instead of viewing the games as the London Olympic team sought to a three-week global spectacle, London bid marry its Olympic program to the global organizers chose to highlight how the policy agenda of cutting worldwide entire Olympic planning process could be carbon emissions and reducing energy used as a means to catalyze positive social consumption. The motto of the London and environmental change, thereby Games is “One Planet Olympics,” drawing inspiring other cities around the world to attention to the fact that the resources of follow London’s lead. three planets would be needed if London’s Amanda Kiely, sustainability projects current level of energy consumption manager for the London Organising became the global norm. Committee of the Olympic Games In recognition of this dire forecast, (LOCOG), summarized London’s the LOCOG is striving to make this

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the first ever sustainable Olympics by Through its inclusive social program, incorporating legacy planning into each the LOCOG plans to create a volunteer phase of the Olympic life cycle, measuring workforce of approximately 70,000 and reducing the carbon footprint of people that is statistically representative all aspects of staging the games, and of the diverse demographics of London. using the Olympic context to generate Food and facilities will accommodate greater public interest in environmental people of all beliefs, an issue of special stewardship and social inclusion. import given that the games will be held

“This will be the first time that an Olympic host city has adopted a fully integrated approach,” said Amanda Kiely.

The Impact during Ramadan in 2012. And all public By August 2012, the fruits of London’s transportation and Olympic venues are ambitious environmental and social designed to be not only accessible but agenda should be clearly visible. The comfortable for disabled people. Olympic Stadium will be encircled by a With an eye toward fostering a positive system of rejuvenated canals, connected domestic legacy, Olympic organizers hope to the Stratford tube station by a large, that Londoners will continue to benefit arching pedestrian bridge intended to from the games long after they have symbolize the interdependence between concluded. The city of London will create people and their environs. a new urban park with 45 hectares of Spectators will be transported between new natural habitat, which, according to venues by a low-emissions vehicle fleet Kiely, “will be the largest new urban park and presented with green travel plans that Europe has seen in 150 years.” And to help them navigate London’s public the Olympic village, built to the highest transportation system. standards of energy efficiency, will remain in place as affordable housing for East Rainwater will be stored and then used Londoners, who will, after the games, during the games to flush toilets in now be surrounded by new business sporting venues; buildings in the Olympic opportunities and connected to the rest village will be 44 percent more energy of the city through enhanced public efficient than buildings constructed in transportation. London in 2006i; and the Olympic torch, normally a source of unnecessary carbon Finally, to further promote an emissions, will be fueled by a newly international legacy of sustainability, developed “low-carbon fuel solution.” London will attempt to make British Standard 8901—a newly created standard

for sustainable event management

enforced in the United Kingdom—an i This is compared to the energy-efficiency international standard that will become standards that new buildings in London had to meet by law in 2006.

62 Going for Gold binding for all cities delivering Olympic- Yet, regardless of the ultimate verdict scale mega-events in the future. on the success or failure of London 2012, what is clear is that London’s The World Is Watching environmental and social agendas will The Olympics now command some of the not be hidden from view; rather, they will largest global television audiences in the be placed at center stage for the world to world. Looking back to the previous judge as it will. Olympic Summer Games, which were held in Beijing, Nielsen’s research shows An Unlikely Success Story that 4.7 billion people, or approximately The fact that the LOCOG is striving to 70 percent of the world’s population, assume a leadership role on watched some part of the Beijing Summer environmental sustainability is unlikely Games in 2008. More than two billion on many levels. First, it is surprising that watched the opening ceremonies alone. the Olympics, long seen as a celebration of profligacy, will now become a low- Matt Baum, a media expert and carbon event with the goal of promoting a professor at the John F. Kennedy School more responsible and sustainable of Government at Harvard University, interaction with the environment. And it said in an interview with the author that is odd that East London, long hidden the 2008 Summer Games, in terms of from view behind the glitz and glamour the sheer number of viewers, was “quite of its western counterpart, will soon possibly the largest television event in become the focus of global attention and human history.”

The Olympic torch, normally a source of unnecessary carbon emissions, will be fueled by a newly developed “low-carbon fuel solution.”

Although China fell short on many of its London’s best hope to rebrand itself for Olympic promises on the environment the twenty-first century. and human rights, its Olympic moment However, as governments worldwide still served to increase global scrutiny on continue to balk at their responsibility these issues while sparking a prolonged to act urgently and decisively on the debate on how to best address them. environment, it is from such unlikely If recent history is any indication, sources as these where leadership is, by London, like Beijing, may also fall short necessity, beginning to arise. And with on many of its environmental and social the whole world soon to be tuned in, it is goals. And given the reality of modern London’s aspiration to deliver. media and its fickle television audience, it is likely that London’s potential shortcomings may come to overshadow its many successes in the global spotlight.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 63 media, grabbing headlines on CNN and in the New York Times. Agha-Soltan’s death became a symbol for the Iranian anti-government movement, and online social media amplified that symbol for the rest of the world to see.

Traditional Power Circumvented The Empire Strikes Back: The image of Agha-Soltan’s death was not Social Media Uprisings and one that Iran’s government wanted the the Future of Cyber Activism world to see. In a country notorious for its media censorship, the emergence of by Ramtin Amin online social networking sites and cell phone cameras now allows citizens to Ramtin Amin is a Master in Public Policy bypass state-censored media instantly and student at the John F. Kennedy School of transmit a message or video clip to Government at Harvard University where he countless others at little or no cost. Digital concentrates in international and global media has enabled average citizens, affairs. He has conducted extensive including the two bystanders at the scene research at the nexus of technology and of Agha-Soltan’s death, to provoke democracy and plans to pursue doctoral outrage and motivate millions of people work in this field upon graduating. to their feet at the touch of a button. Such a level of power was previously limited to just a small number of people within a Neda Agha-Soltan and a few close friends governing regime or those leading an headed toward the center of Tehran, Iran, opposition group. in June 2009 to join thousands of others in an anti-government protest following But this phenomenon is not unique the disputed presidential election. After to Iran. Around the world, social becoming stuck in traffic, Agha-Soltan networking sites like YouTube and and her friends eventually decided to exit Facebook are becoming unlikely leaders the car to cool off. As she stepped out and of political power, as citizens circumvent gazed at the crowd, the sound of a single political or religious leaders to gunshot rang through the air. A single become champions of their bullet was fired, and she fell to own campaigns. the ground. Digital Activism in Action Bystanders captured her last moments Digital activism, also known as cyber on a cell phone, and within hours the activism or e-activism, describes how grainy, low-resolution footage was citizens can use digital tools to effect uploaded to the Internet and soon spread social and political change. These digital virally across the globe. With links to tools range from mobile phones and the video posted on YouTube, Facebook, digital cameras to Web 2.0 social and Twitter, the amateur clip eventually networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, harnessed the attention of the mainstream and Twitter.

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The use of interactive online platforms activism became recognized as a source of has surged in recent years. YouTube, political power. Facebook, and Twitter are now household names in much of the developed world. Not Without Limitations These Web sites provide users with a The Burmese and Moldovan cases also free and easy-to-use platform to post demonstrate that digital technology is not multimedia content, which is then necessarily a means to an end. Rather, it is accessible to anyone with an Internet an alternative vehicle that must be used connection or mobile phone device. alongside traditional modes of This content can come in the form of a civic activity. blog post, video upload, or “tweet” (a Speaking of this dynamic, Patrick Meier, short message containing 140 characters a scholar who studies digital activism, or less). While these digital tools were writes in his blog iRevolution that “the originally used by many for networking future of political activism in repressive and entertainment purposes, they soon environments belongs to those who mix became a conduit for political activity.

Digital technology is an alternative vehicle that must be used alongside traditional modes of civic activity.

“This new form of decentralized and master both digital activism and leadership encourages greater civic civil resistance.” activism and is more resistant to shocks,” Indeed, one of the most significant said Zephyr Teachout, former director of threats to digital activism occurs when Internet organizing for the Howard Dean cyber protests replace protesting in the for America campaign, in an interview public square. As more and more activists with the author. go online to release their energy and Human rights abuses and public protests frustration, others may become blind to once masked from the world are now their efforts, and large-scale movements made visible with digital technology. may be harder to organize as a result. For example, the brutal government crackdown on Burmese monks—who Not so Fast, Iran’s were peacefully protesting for democratic Government Responds reform—was revealed through video Iran understands the danger of social and blog postings, shedding light on media’s power. When crowds pour out Burma’s harsh political realities. Similarly, into the streets of Tehran, it is not the during the 2009 Moldovan parliamentary number of protesters that frightens the elections, digital activists successfully ruling regime but the handheld gadgets used Twitter to organize street protests stuffed in their pockets. and demand a recount. Although the “This is the first revolution that has protestors failed to prompt a change of been catapulted onto a global stage leadership or a new election, the world and transformed by social media,” said took notice of their efforts, and digital

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New York University adjunct professor and Internet scholar Clay Shirky in an interview in TED Blog. “That kind of participation is really extraordinary.” While the Iranian government was once slow to respond effectively to opposition cyber campaigns, it has now implemented a number of tactics to counter digital activism. The ruling regime has tried everything from increasing its censorship of traditional news mediums like newspapers and television to blocking or delaying access to popular social networking sites like Twitter and YouTube. But the government hasn’t stopped there. In an ironic twist of fate, it “recording video (1)” by Flickr user Paul Keller has also begun to exploit the same digital democratic reform or if the campaign interfaces that were used against it. For will dissolve like similar movements in example, it posted erroneous information Burma and Moldova. But what is certain about protest meeting times and locations from the 2009 election aftermath is that and unsuspecting citizens showed up to the utilization of digital technology be met by baton-wielding militia forces.

One of the most significant threats to digital activism occurs when cyber protests replace protesting in the public square.

Next, the regime established a “cyber has provided anyone with an Internet army,” managed by the Iranian connection with the opportunity to lead Revolutionary Guard Corps. It’s purpose and direct movements in ways that were is not only to disseminate an onslaught impossible a decade ago. of party-line information, but also to sift The impact of the Agha-Soltan video through vast amounts of personal data is undeniable. The very mention of available on social networking sites. This “Neda” conjures up feelings of shock and information is then used to track down, hope in all those who yearn for a more arrest, imprison, and even torture transparent and democratic Iran. In Iranian citizens. recalling her life, Agha-Soltan’s boyfriend Today, Iran is stuck in a precarious state told the Associated Press “she only ever of affairs. As the opposition movement said that she wanted one thing, she continues to protest in cyberspace and wanted democracy and freedom for the the public square, it is difficult to predict people of Iran.” whether it will succeed in achieving

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classes. It laid low the relatively wealthy enclave of Petionville and wreaked havoc on the shacks and hovels of Cite Soleil, a teeming slum of 500,000. “This catastrophe didn’t target the poor and illiterate,” points out Paul Auxila, a native-born Haitian and project chief of a revolutionary health project in Haiti. “Just Asking the like the poor died in their slums, the VIPs Right Questions: died in their mansions—this affected every level.” An Experiment in Health Care Leadership in Haiti Auxila is the father of a health care experiment based right in Haiti and an by Taylor Chapman unlikely leader in a place that’s become a global stage for tragedy and despair. T aylor Chapman is a first-year Master in Since 1999, Auxila has led the world’s Public Policy candidate at the John F. longest ongoing experiment in pay-for- Kennedy School of Government at Harvard performance (P4P) financing in health University. Originally from Houston, Texas, service delivery in sites across Haiti. before coming to Harvard, he spent four The project’s remarkable successes hold years as a teacher in Kumamoto, Japan, and crucial lessons as the nation struggles Charlotte, North Carolina, where he to heal and rebuild. If adopted, these struggled against inequity, poverty, and strategies could vastly improve the results misallocated resources as a member of the of reconstruction efforts and the long- Teach For America program. term health of Haiti and its people.

From Pool Man to Health On 10 January 2010, Haiti crumbled. An Care Entrepreneur earthquake of a magnitude unmatched in Paul Auxila exudes a mixture of the last two-hundred years struck with technocratic competence and quiet, sudden and vicious fury—then returned strong leadership. His caramel skin, again and again. The original quake impish eyes, and bon vivant’s few extra measured 7.0, but more than fifty pounds make him instantly approachable, aftershocks surpassing 4.5 rocked the but his focus and boundless energy tell impact zone in the days and weeks that you that this is a man who gets things followed, causing further damage and done. As Auxila himself puts it, “I have no ripples of fear. The true death toll may tolerance for mediocrity or never be known, but many estimates procrastination. In what we do, nothing is place the figure around 200,000, with a just a piece of paper; every line on that further 1.2 million of the 9 million page represents a person’s health.” pre-quake population Auxila’s parents divorced while he remaining homeless. was still a child growing up outside The damage is most concentrated in of Port-au-Prince, and he soon found the capital of Port-au-Prince, but the himself adrift among his four siblings. devastation made no distinction among When he traveled to Puerto Rico to

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visit his sister at graduate school, he Auxila was determined to earn a place simply decided to stay. Despite his lack in the organization. When then-MSH of Spanish, he enrolled at the local high Vice President Peter Rusel came for a site school, graduated on time, and then visit, Auxila urgently pressed a manila earned a degree from Puerto Rico’s envelope into Rusel’s hands as he left. most distinguished technical university. The VP opened the envelope on his Immigration restrictions prevented him flight back to America to find Auxila’s from accepting the job IBM offered him handwritten letter explaining the work in New York, and so he ended up back in he had done and his passion for MSH’s Port-au-Prince, helping his mother run a vision. The next day, Auxila received a call hotel and idly passing the time. A chance from Rusel. “Congratulations,” said the encounter at this hotel’s poolside would executive. “You are now MSH’s youngest- set the course of Auxila’s next twenty- ever international staff member.” seven years and ultimately change the way Today, Auxila has been with MSH for health services are financed in Haiti. more than twenty-seven years, serving

Surrounded by such stark failings, MSH faced a critical question: What was preventing these organizations from achieving real results in Haiti?

A consultant with a company called on projects in more than thirty countries. Management Sciences for Health (MSH) A key part of the success that propelled happened to be staying in the hotel where him to his current position as VP/COO Auxila’s was working, and when the two is the experiment in pay-for-performance struck up a conversation by the pool, they health financing in Haiti that he has led found themselves mutually fascinated. since 1999. The consultant was surprised to find such educated, multilingual pool staff (Auxila Improved Results from now spoke both Spanish and English in New Incentives addition to his native French and Creole) Even before the earthquake, Haiti was a and invited Auxila to come to MSH’s public health disaster. Despite sharing the meeting with the Haitian health ministry same island as the Dominican Republic, to act as interpreter. Auxila had never Haiti’s average life expectancy is ten years heard of an organization like MSH, which shorter and its infant mortality rate is focuses not on providing health services more than double that of its next-door but on helping health care providers in neighbor. Many of the problems leading the disadvantaged world do their jobs to these ghastly disparities could be more efficiently. prevented through vaccination (an epidemic of measles infected more than a The meeting went swimmingly, and thousand victims in 2000) or proper MSH offered Auxila a small, temporary treatment (common diarrhea and contractor’s job to design personnel gastroenteritis constitute the second software. Inspired by MSH’s mission,

68 Asking the Right Questions

Child is treated by nurse after Haitian earthquake | “barn får behandling” by Flickr user UNICEF Sverige leading causes of death). Entities ranging 152 service delivery points, it was from the U.S. government to the Red essential that MSH get the most out of the Cross to Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health funds at its disposal; however, results were have struggled for decades to make Haiti “extremely uneven.” Some contracting a safer, healthier place, but real progress nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has proven elusive. Surrounded by such achieved vaccination rates of 70 percent stark failings, even with international of their targeted populations, but others efforts and resources, MSH faced a critical with the same resources reached only 7 question: What was preventing these percent. Clearly, improvement was not organizations from achieving real results only possible but critical. Auxila’s key in Haiti? insight was to imagine that these NGO contractors could respond to In 1999, MSH served as the conduit, economic incentives. manager, and consultant to USAID as it disbursed funds for providing key P4P is a financing model well established health services to the Haitian population. in the private sector but rarely used Dealing with contractors spread across in contexts like the one Auxila faced

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in Haiti. In brief, the idea is to reward The Haiti experiment shows that this certain results (good performance) with combination—redefined objectives and increased economic incentives. These stronger incentives—has vast potential incentives can take different forms: a fee to improve capacity and results. Most per positive result (salesmen who work importantly, it proves that P4P can be on commission), bonuses above and effective not only in private industry, beyond base salary (Wall Street firms and but also in many varieties of large-scale other major corporations), or a portion of projects and partnerships. Christine the next year’s budget added or withheld Letts, management expert and senior (the model adopted by MSH). associate dean for executive education at the John F. Kennedy School of In Auxila’s P4P scheme, MSH chose Government at Harvard University, three service providers with whom agrees that “the principles of the Haiti to implement a performance-based project are applicable for almost anything financing model. Rather than continue in which you can envision what you want reimbursing the providers with a fixed your results to look like and establish fee for outputs (e.g., the raw number of measurable targets.” The potential individual inoculations given), MSH applications range from education to negotiated to “wager” 5 percent to 10 health care to community organizing, percent of each service provider’s yearly but most crucially, these lessons must be budget contingent on the provider brought to bear in the rebuilding of Haiti. reaching certain outcomes, or results (e.g., a target percentage of local children How P4P Can Help Rebuild Haiti who have received the full range The challenge of rebuilding Haiti is of vaccinations). unusual because the nation was already a The results are stunning. From the three colony of well-meaning humanitarian organizations in the pilot program in organizations before disaster struck. 1999, the P4P finance model has grown According to the New York Times, there to include more than twenty-five different were “at least 10,000” humanitarian providers today in regions covering 45 entities. Yet Haitians have seen little real

Auxila’s key insight was to imagine that these NGO contractors could respond to economic incentives.

percent of Haiti’s population. Statistical improvement in their lives in years past; evidence all along the way indicates for most, life has gotten worse. Thus, the that the organizations under the P4P lessons of MSH’s P4P model—about how model outperformed those under to design a system in which objectives are traditional models and improved their accomplished more reliably and own performance relative to prior years. efficiently—are vital as the nation In some instances, vaccination coverage struggles to recover. among a population doubled within “As we go forward, we must move away a year. from business as usual,” Auxila affirms.

70 Asking the Right Questions

“There has been a lot of investment in Auxila adds, “Not that it would make the Haiti, but results are not corresponding.” tragedy worth it—nothing could—but Above all, the recovery must “really this is an opportunity to wake up and emphasize results, endpoints, and question ourselves. What lessons can accountability; that’s what the pay-for- we learn from this as we move forward? performance model is all about.” The More resources are flowing into our clarity and alignment of the objectives country now than we’ve ever seen in the are key. Auxila says, “We should rebuild past—how can we make sure we use them the health system? Great. What does that right this time?”

These lessons must be brought to bear in the rebuilding of Haiti. mean? What will it look like? When an As the world watches to see if Haiti can NGO talks about ‘cleaning an area,’ what rise from the rubble stronger than before, does that look like? Will they fumigate for we would do well to look to the insights mosquitoes? Clear away all houses and of Auxila’s unlikely leadership and the rubble? It’s not about what are we going to lessons it provides for achieving do with this money, but what will it look real results. like when we’re finished?” Auxila, echoing New York Times’ David Brooks’s view that in Haiti “responsibility is often not internalized,” admits that “accountability has not been a part of our culture.” But the lessons offered by MSH’s Haitian experiment in performance- based financing could help to germinate a culture of accountability in the cracks left by this latest disaster. “In any catastrophe or chaos, there is always an opportunity,” he says. “This is—I don’t know if it’s the last—but a major opportunity for our collective consciousness to wake up and reevaluate.” Auxila’s P4P experiment holds a valuable lesson for a beleaguered Haiti and all stakeholders in its recovery: we must ask better questions. Instead of “What are we doing?” we must ask “What should we see as an end result?” and “What incentives will drive people to achieve exactly that?”

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 71 Manny Diaz held two terms as mayor of Miami, Florida, from 2001 to 2009. Never having held public office before becoming mayor, Diaz used his private-sector background to help turn the finances of the city around and to introduce “Miami 21,” a forward-thinking land use and urban planning blueprint for the city.

Leading Cities: Both Nickels and Diaz championed the U.S. An Interview with Mayors Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Greg Nickels and Manny Diaz Agreement in which U.S. city mayors representing more than 81 million Interviewed by Jeb Breiding and Americans have pledged to reduce carbon Torren J. Blair emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

Jeb Breiding wrote for the Economist and has written articles for other important ksr publications including the Financial Times Which current U.S. city mayors do and the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a leading you admire? Swiss newspaper. He is currently writing a book on the economic and political history nickels of Switzerland. He is a mid-career Master in Rich Daley in Chicago. He’s faced big Public Administration candidate at the John challenges but has made progress and has F. Kennedy School of Government at implemented an effective green agenda. Harvard University. diaz Torren J. Blair is a mid-career Master in Michael Bloomberg in New York City. He Public Administration candidate at the John personifies the type of mayor who hails F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard from the private sector and brought some University with a background in social of the lessons from that work to his services, higher education, governing style. He’s willing to do what and communications. needs to be done to run the city. Jeb Breiding and Torren J. Blair interviewed Mayors Greg Nickels and Manny Diaz on 8 ksr What do you mean by a “green agenda?” February 2010 at the John F. Kennedy School What are the pitfalls and opportunities of Government at Harvard University. presented by a green agenda?

Greg Nickels held two terms as mayor of nickels Seattle, Washington, from 2002 to 2010. He Well, there are pitfalls and opportunities developed a reputation as one of the in any agenda item. In my tenure in country’s “greenest” mayors by advancing Seattle, we endorsed the Kyoto protocol robust environmental goals and breaking and more than 1,000 mayors around the ground on the light rail, a rapid transit country did so as well. We tried to tackle project in the greater Seattle region. small enough chunks of the problem in our green agenda so that we could achieve

72 interview

initial progress and then try to build on ksr this momentum. What were the obstacles for the city of Seattle as you tried to implement a diaz large-scale project like the light Part of the challenge with a green agenda rail project? is educational, to ensure that everyone recognizes the problem. I think Seattle nickels and other West Coast cities are well In Western cities in the United States, we educated on the realities of climate tend to “hate sprawl and despise density.” change, but education remains one of the Despite this, the people of Seattle agreed major challenges in Miami. We focused a that they wanted a city that was vibrant lot of effort in Miami on education—the and diverse. Urban density is a tool to foundation of a truly green agenda. achieve these goals over time.

“In cities, people see the results of the government’s work. It’s not theory. You can touch and see the progress.”

ksr Public transportation has been debated What kind of practical policies have you in Seattle since the 1920s, but we decided implemented as part of your we wanted to be action-oriented. When green agenda? you have an initiative as large as our light rail project, building political will is the diaz biggest issue. The timing of the project In Miami, we focused on land use is also very important. You have to be regulations and urban planning through willing to “take the hits” and keep our Miami 21 initiative. We tried to take moving forward. a long-term view in our green agenda. While some might advocate policies that ksr subsidize the purchase of hybrid cars, we In these large-scale projects, did you get instead focused on creating an area in any significant support from the the city where cars are not needed federal government? because you have sufficient density, enhanced public transportation, new nickels bike lanes, etc. Beyond homeland security, we got very little from the federal government during Similarly, when I was conference our terms. president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, we launched a $3 billion Energy diaz Efficiency and Conservation Block We heard nothing from them with one Grant program to support local efforts to exception. During the Bush era, reduce energy consumption and to create homelessness was one issue where we got renewable energy resources. some additional support from the federal government. Philip Mangano from here

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in Boston was heading up the federal results of the government’s work. It’s not efforts to address homelessness. We did theory. You can touch and see see some coordinated support on this the progress. front from Washington. ksr ksr If you were asked to take over a “failing” President Barack Obama recently U.S. city like Detroit for a five-year period, completed his first year in office. What do how would you approach this challenge? you wish he had done differently? nickels diaz In a city like Detroit, you have to ask From outside, it’s easy to criticize Obama. yourself what are your assets and how do But he came into office and was asked to you build around them? In Detroit, I confront incredibly tough circumstances. would set a vision for the city to build the I think he’s done a good job. One of the greenest cars in the nation. I’d try to things we did in Miami when the ARRA partner with the federal government in [the American Recovery and this effort, try to attract the best engineers Reinvestment Act of 2009] was passed and manufacturing talent back to Detroit. was push for more direct funding to the As mayor, you set a vision that people can cities. Cities are structured to have rally around, that people can draw hope “shovel-ready” projects. Cities like Miami from. You try to create a long-term goal can host immediate building projects and that makes people want to move into the be accountable. downtown of the city again because they believe there is a future there. While some might say Obama rolled the dice on health care reform, I would argue that’s what a leader is supposed to do. nickels I’m proud of Obama. If I had any advice for him, it would be to ask less of Congress, to do even more via executive order. If something happens to go wrong, ask for forgiveness later. With Obama in office, I feel that U.S. cities have a real partner in Washington, D.C. With Obama, we’re starting to see more movement on important initiatives like broadband smart grids. Like Mayor Diaz, I like the accountability that is built into city politics. As mayor, you never felt like you’d wasted a day. You have direct contact every day with the people you care most about. I don’t think this happens as frequently at the state and federal level. In cities, people see the

74 unlikely leaders

great heights in chauvinistic Russia—was now an outsider grounded in a wheelchair. Yet despite this tragedy, Yasina has spent the latter part of the past decade staging a comeback. And she’s doing it by fighting for the disabled.

Ramping Up Rights for “Death-Lite” the Disabled in Russia In modern Russia, virtually no facilities exist for wheelchair users. Indeed, by Maria Snegovaya Russian society scarcely understands the lack of such amenities to be a problem. Maria Snegovaya is a visiting fellow at the The disabled consequently face a tough Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian existence, without the support that they Studies at Harvard University. Her research might have taken for granted if they were interests also include political economics, born in America or Europe. Traditionally, development economics, economic history, disability in Russia means “death-lite”— and environmental economics. ostracism, belittlement, and isolation in one’s home because public spaces and attitudes block access and empowerment. Irina Yasina belonged to the Russian elite Yasina has spearheaded a national for most of her young life. Daughter of a movement to change this sad state government minister, she was a respected of affairs. economist and successful politician. She transcended the thick Russian glass Her successful public campaigns have ceiling to become head of the department included “wheelchair strolls,” in which of public communications in the Russian prominent, able-bodied Russians sit Central Bank and played an active role in in wheelchairs and attempt to visit formulating Russia’s macroeconomic museums, cafes, stores, and movie policy. Just a few short years later, theaters. The participants are often however, she lost everything. arrested by the Russian police for “traffic disturbance.” These innovative “sit-ins” After the 1998 financial crisis, Yasina have succeeded in attracting media and was dismissed from the Central Bank. political attention to the problem of Vladimir Putin’s arrival to power and the wheelchair accessibility. shifting elite structure led to the arrest of Michael Khodorkovsky, founder of a Yasina’s tenacity and conviction earned philanthropic organization and Yasina’s her an appointment to the Russian boss. Her association with Khodorkovsky President’s Council on Human Rights turned from asset to liability overnight. and the Development of a Free Society In the midst of these misfortunes, she in 2008. She is presently attempting to was diagnosed with an incurable, fast- introduce Russian legislation that would evolving neurological disease that robbed improve the conditions of the disabled by, her of the use of her legs. This young, for example, overturning a prohibition attractive woman—who had soared to

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 75 unlikely leaders | Maria Snegovaya

In contemporary Russia, Yasina represents a new kind of personality—actively engaged in real civil work, wielding a measurable impact on public policy.

on unaccompanied wheelchair users In today’s Russia, many people perceive boarding airplanes. that they have little control over access to their civil rights. Yasina’s campaigns and In 2009, Yasina’s work helped to convince tremendous personal drive to improve the Moscow authorities to invest in a high conditions of the disabled in Russia will school wheelchair-accessible elevator—a serve a powerful lesson for future modest accomplishment by Western Russian reformers. standards but a veritable breakthrough for civil rights advocacy in Russia. She has also fostered a volunteer student movement for the accessibility of public places in Moscow, conducting outreach and organizing numerous charity events across the region.

Ramping Up the Fight Still, a lot of heavy lifting on this issue remains. The Moscow government building, where the medical examination of disabled people takes place, has an entrance with lots of staircases and no ramps. Yasina has chosen, on principle, not to receive her medical checkup there until access to the building improves, and “Wheelchair sign under a fresh coat of paint” by she is therefore still not officially Flickr user man pikin registered as a disabled person. Yasina’s peaceful protests have rendered vivid the problem of wheelchair accessibility, laying the groundwork for future advances. In contemporary Russia, Yasina represents a new kind of personality— actively engaged in real civil work, wielding a measurable impact on public policy. Thanks to her unlikely leadership, the attitudes of Russian society toward disabled people are gradually starting to change.

76 The Taubman Center for State and Local Government and its affiliated institutes and programs are the Kennedy School of Government's focal point for activities that address state and local governance and intergovernmental relations.

The Center focuses on several broad policy areas, most notably: public management, innovation, finance, and labor-management relations; urban development, transportation, land use, and environmental protection; education; civic engagement and social capital; and the impacts of information technologies on both government and governance.

The Center also disseminates this research via publications, instruction in the Kennedy School's graduate and executive education programs, sponsorship of conferences and workshops, and interactions with policymakers, public managers, and other scholars. More information about the Taubman Center is available at www.hks.harvard.edu/taubmancenter. You may also reach us by phone at 617-495-5140 or by email at taubman@ harvard.edu.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 77 In 2008, we had two women running for the highest elected offices in the United States in the same election year— something unimaginable fifty years ago. Furthermore, a recent survey by TIME magazine revealed that 89 percent of both men and women are comfortable with a woman earning more than her OP-ED: Why Women, male counterpart. Why Now? While these relative gains should not be dismissed, there is still a long way to go. by Heather Milkiewicz Stark statistics reveal areas where women continue to lag behind men. Women Heather Milkiewicz is a first-year Master in still lack equal work for equal pay, and Public Administration in international American women make up only two development candidate at the John F. percent of CEOs among Fortune 500 Kennedy School of Government at Harvard companies, according to a December University with a particular interest in 2009 article in the Economist. Despite gender issues. the fact that more women have entered the workforce, the amount of time women spend on housework is still much The landmark women’s right to vote higher than that of men, on average two victory is nearly a century behind us. times as much, according to sociologists Since then we have witnessed the 1960s Constance Gager and Scott T. Yabiku in feminist movement, Roe v. Wade, Title a recent Journal of Family Issues study. IX, and finally, a serious female contender Women also pay disproportionately more for a U.S. presidential bid. It is easy to for health care than men. A recent Service think that the struggle and strife of the Employees International Union report past have paid off. American women can estimates that, all else equal, a twenty- rest easy knowing our job to push the two-year-old woman will pay up to so-called feminist agenda is obsolete. one-and-a-half times more than her male Welcome to the “post-feminist” era. counterpart for health insurance. Rates Not so fast. . . of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and harassment as well as legal impediments There is no denying that women have for proper resolution are still high. made substantial progress on many According to the National Crime fronts. Thirty years ago, the ratio of Victimization Survey, 232,960 women in men to women at undergraduate college the United States were raped or sexually campuses was three-to-two, and today assaulted in 2006, averaging to more than the situation is reversed, according to an 600 women every day. October 2009 article in TIME magazine. According to the Institute for Women’s Treatment of women in the media is Policy Research, women working full disheartening, at best. We are immersed time throughout the year now make 77 in a society where sexist jokes are percent of what men make annually, commonplace, where the word “bitch” is compared to 59 percent forty years ago. used without flinching, where radio is rife

78 OP-ED: Why Women, Why Now? with lyrics derogatory toward women, in American politics, Susan Carroll and where many television shows and describes the similarities of Hillary advertisements still portray women as sex Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin, not on objects. Furthermore, images of women issues, but on the treatment both received in the media can be very misleading, during the 2008 election on the basis of

An all-inclusive contemporary feminist movement could reconnect women with the aspiration of equality. often displaying unattainable standards their gender. The striking observation of beauty. Twenty-five years ago, the that Carroll points out is that the average model weighed 8 percent less personality and demeanor of each woman than the average woman, while models was caricatured in terms of a particular today weigh 23 percent less, according gender stereotype. Hillary Clinton was to a February 2008 Newsweek article. embodied by pantsuits, short hair, and According to psychologists Helga Dittmar a tendency to emote stiffly—a generally and Sarah Howard, actors and models in masculine characterization. Conversely, the popular media are approximately 20 Sarah Palin was pegged as the hyper- percent below the ideal body weight, a sexualized female with her more stylish level that meets the diagnostic criteria for attire, designer glasses, and high heels, as anorexia nervosa. evidenced by the infamous photoshopped image of her standing in front of the The effects of exposure to such images American flag clutching a rifle in a bikini. may also be reflected in the changing trends and rising profits within the And, to make things worse, six major beauty industry. In her essay in the studies of happiness revealed that over the New Atlantis, Christine Rosen warns past three decades women have become of the “age dropping” phenomenon in increasingly unhappy. This is in contrast America—the obsession with youth and its increasing association with beauty, which most negatively impacts women. In particular, she discusses the dangers of the rising prevalence and acceptance of cosmetic surgery. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 around 11.5 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed, with women accounting for almost 92 percent of these procedures. The negative treatment of women in the media was evident in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. In her new book Gender and Elections, a collection of essays outlining the role of gender Photo by Emily Goodstein

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to men’s happiness levels, which are found open dialogue between and within the to have increased over time and age. two sexes is necessary to create not only an understanding of the problem but These disturbing trends should not be a solution devised by men and women acceptable to anyone—man or woman. together. In the words of singer Helen And, sadly, they will continue unless there Reddy, “I’m still an embryo with a long, is acknowledgement by society at large long way to go until I make my brother that they exist and need to be addressed. understand.” Women, be strong and A widespread feminist movement aimed invincible—you are women, let’s hear at achieving equality could be the key you roar! to achieving mutual respect within and amongst the sexes. This is in contrast to the recent “feminist backlash” in which women seek to disassociate with a feminist movement and the “girls gone wild feminism” that causes women to grotesquely exploit their sexuality under the guise of empowerment. Instead, an all-inclusive contemporary feminist movement could reconnect women with the aspiration of equality that previous generations have worked so hard to achieve. In a November 2009 op-ed in the New York Times, journalist Judith Warner observed that the inclusion of the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives version of the health care bill “passed not just because a group of Catholic bishops bore down on Democratic lawmakers. It passed because it could”—because it could. The realities that women are facing today—unequal pay for equal work, disparaging treatment in the media, discrimination in society at large, and increasing unhappiness—all exist because they can. Women, let’s not forget all our achievements, for we should be proud of what we along with our sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers before us did to get us here. But let’s not disappoint them and let’s not stop there. We are in need of a resurgence of the feminist movement, led by women but joined by men. An

80 contents | governance

Governance

82 Teaching an Old Government New Tricks by Andrew Nipe 87 Fighting Patronage with People Power by Zara Snapp 92 Financial Crisis 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Structured Finance, the Financial Crisis, and Capital Market Regulation by William Werkmeister 99 Change They Don’t Believe In: The Political Presence of the Basij in the Islamic Republic of Iran by Azadeh Pourzand 104 A Lebanese Confession: Why Religious Politics Is Bad for Lebanon by Maurice Obeid 109 Unlikely Routes: Stronger Militaries through the Transformation of Military Education by Agus Yudhoyono and Malik Ahmad Jalal

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 81 The Swedish economists’ goal of crafting a balanced default option while encouraging citizens to attempt to choose for themselves backfired. The advertising campaign framed social security as a way for citizens who hadn’t saved enough to “catch up.” Two-thirds of the 4.4 million eligible adults were sufficiently motivated Teaching an Old to design their own portfolio in the first year of the programi. However, despite Government New Tricks: mailed educational material, they chose (How) Can the Public Sector in a predictably irrational way. Primed Take Advantage of the Biggest with a view that this was a way to move Change in Economic Thinking from behind the pack to out in front, of our Generation? citizens inadvertently became risk seeking and selected funds with a high by Andrew Nipe three-year historical average return, low international diversification, and high Andrew Nipe is a second-year Master in hidden fees. The lack of diversification Public Policy student at the John F. Kennedy resulted in significant losses when the School of Government at Harvard University “tech bubble” burst shortly after. This concentrating in business and government policy illustrates the power—and the policy. He has worked in central agency peril—of implementing what could be the strategic policy units in the Department of most influential addition to our economic Premier and Cabinet in Victoria, Australia, policy arsenal in over a generation: and Her Majesty’s Treasury, London, as well behavioral economics. as in private-sector management consulting. What Is Behavioral Economics? Economics is the analysis of individual More than ten years ago, Sweden, a and collective decision making. country known for its comprehensive Economists aim to maximize overall social welfare policy, privatized part of its utility by looking at incremental decisions social security system. This new, private (by reviewing marginal costs and system developed by economists allowed benefits) and by assessing any impacts participants to design their own social outside the parties involved security portfolio from the 456 different (externalities). Policy makers use options offered. Recognizing that many economics to adjust the costs and benefits citizens would accept the status quo to maximize overall utility in almost portfolio, the Swedish economists every realm of society. Economics carefully created a well-designed and informs policies on issues as diverse as diversified default option. They also corporate regulation, environmental attempted to overcome this “status quo” policy, health care, and education reform. bias by encouraging citizens to choose their own policies through extensive i This was significantly more than in later television, billboard, and years. When no campaign was in place, opt radio advertising. outs dropped dramatically (to 8.4 percent).

82 governance

Classical economists view people as rational, utility-maximizing actors. Individuals know what they want and are consistent, methodical, and emotionless in pursuing it. Behavioral economists, on the other hand, tend to see people as swimmers of varying ability, being pulled in certain directions by tidal currents. These currents can be societal norms, personal emotions, or decision-making rules of thumb, known as “heuristics.” Behavioral economics combines the insights from lab experiments on decision making and the findings of psychological field research into real-life behavior. The by Flickr user dierk schaefer existence of these “cognitive biases” is a profound challenge to the “rational on the form is to opt in or to opt out. actor” model of orthodox economics. It However, behavioral economics shows suggests that many of the assumptions that many people assume the default is used by policy makers in structuring their the right option and do not change it. incentives may not be true in practice. Therefore, simply changing the default on a form to be opt in rather than opt out in How Behavioral Economics Can this scenario could allow an individual to Create Public Value save thousands of dollars over a lifetime Understanding when and why people and prevent the burden of providing for deviate from the “all people always act our retirement from falling on rationally” assumption can highlight the government. cost-effective ways of changing individual decisions to promote public value. It can However, the reverse is also true; failing also help avoid policy that is inadvertently to appropriately account for biases can exaggerating decision-making biases that mean getting the design wrong, which can unchanged could result in large economic make things worse. Behavioral economics costs. Behavioral economics can therefore is rising in popularity and usage, but help design better policy, achieve better governments lack the skills and, more outcomes, and cut wasteful incentives. importantly, the culture to use it properly. This is why the U.S. government needs to One example of how using behavioral significantly redesign the way it creates economics can create public value is policy to focus on four design strategies: through an “opt-out” scenario. In the case (1) simple; (2) implementation-focused; of choosing whether to enroll in a 401(k) (3) personalized; and (4) tested. plan when starting a new job, classical economists may argue that individuals The Swedish economists in designing will make the rational decision to enroll, their social security system acknowledged since there is a very small cost to ticking the benefits that a well-crafted default a box; the selection an individual makes option could afford the country. That’s should be the same whether the default why they designed a default that

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 83 governance | Andrew Nipe

was indexed to keep costs low and Cialdini recently analyzed the wording internationally diversified to cut systemic of the common plea for guests to reuse risk. However, the Swedish example also towels in hotel bathrooms. The wording shows how even policy makers sensitive on a sign in the bathroom read, “HELP to cognitive biases can fail to understand SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. You can how biases may interact (and how strong show your respect for nature and help they can be). Swedish economists tried to save the environment by reusing your overcome the default bias with advertising towels during your stay.” Researchers then that exaggerated other biases, ultimately adjusted the wording with alternative leading to a suboptimal outcome. statements that appealed to a well-known bias to abide by social norms. The most Recommendations for Making effective read, “JOIN YOUR FELLOW Good Policy GUESTS IN HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. In a study conducted Good policies based on behavioral in fall 2003, 75 percent of the guests economics are made by carefully who stayed in this room participated structuring decisions to take into account in our new resource savings program cognitive biases in how people decide. by using their towels more than once. This may include design of the default You can join your fellow guests in this option (because of the status quo bias), program to help save the environment thoughtfully structuring options (given by reusing your towels during your aversion to losses), and using information stay.” This sign increased reuse by 12 campaigns that improve awareness of percentage points. But details matter; the importance of decision making. the other signs appealed to the same bias Many of the changes may sound subtle, but used a different characteristic and but their impact on decision making were much less successful at increasing can be enormous. As introduced above, towel reuse. For example, the sign using this section looks at the four strategies a gender appeal read, “JOIN THE MEN of simple, implementation-focused, AND WOMEN WHO ARE HELPING personalized, and tested. TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. In a Simple policies will work better because study conducted in fall 2003, 76 percent they avoid the overlapping of biases of the women and 74 percent of the men that led to the failure in Sweden. participated in our new resource savings Behavioral economics frequently program by using their towels more utilizes lab experiments to establish and than once. You can join the other men isolate causation rather than testing the and women in this program to help save relationship between multiple biases. the environment by reusing your towels Fewer moving parts make for more during your stay.” This sign increased predictable outcomes, while policies reuse by less than 4 percent. Small details that evoke multiple biases can produce in implementation can have dramatic complex, varied, and unpredictable consequences for outcomes. responses across a target population. Decisions are individual, and therefore, Greater attention to implementation policy also needs to be personalized. details is also critical in behavioral Although we may be “predictably economics. Decision scientist Robert irrational,” behavioral economics

84 Teaching an Old Government New Tricks highlights that our individual responses incentives (for those who didn’t need it) are varied. In 2009, Marianne Bertrand or fraud (excluding those who shouldn’t and Sendhil Mullainathan undertook receive it) further increase complexity. A a study of direct marketing for credit prime example is the U.S. tax code, which cards and found that minor details such is filled with complex clauses, exemptions, as a photo on the letterhead matching and thresholds. the recipient’s gender and race increased It might be possible to circumvent demand to the same extent that a the simplicity deficiency if the public five-percentage point reduction in the sector were better at policy trials. But advertised interest rate would. The U.S. government needs to focus on four design strategies: (1) simple; (2) implementation-focused; (3) personalized; and (4) tested.

Simple, implementation-focused, and fearful of public failure, policy trials personalized aren’t mutually exclusive, are less common than they should be. but they may be difficult to achieve Although the public is comfortable with simultaneously. Continuous policy testing randomized pharmaceutical trials, they is the fourth recommendation that can are individually less comfortable with, say, help maximize the benefit-cost analysis their child being a guinea pig in education of each policy by testing different options trials. And the long lag between policy to determine which is best. Behavioral changes and potential impacts also makes economics is a fundamentally pragmatic trials difficult to justify. The political discipline. Vernon L. Smith was awarded criticism that results from “failed” policy the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 makes trials more difficult to support. for having established lab experiments In order for behavioral policies to work as a tool in empirical economic analysis. effectively, the public sector needs to first The field of behavioral economics has increase its risk threshold by providing gained its insights from testing, trials, mechanisms or incentives that would and simulations; the raison d’être of the allow more policy trials. One step toward field is understanding how and why real this could be the Social Innovation people make decisions. Thus, continuous Fund recently launched by the White assessment is imperative. House. Additional funds for innovative, results-oriented, nonprofit programs Impediments to Making Good could help prove to the public that the Behavioral Economics Policy possible benefits of government-funded Policy makers tend toward complexity, experimentation is worth the risk. and this makes simple policy difficult in Another impediment to good behavioral practice. Contemporary policy is the art economics policy is simply the skills of the compromise, or combining parts of deficit in government. Behavioral what both sides want. It almost always economics relies on decision science, results in more complex policy. Attempts a technical capability that very few at targeting policy to avoid wasted individual policy makers sufficiently

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understand, as the Swedish economists impending public-sector skills crisis as quickly learned. As a result, even if a generation retires. That the two are behavioral economics has public value occurring at the same time could provide and legitimacy, policy makers may still the opportunity and motivation to solve be left with a tremendous capability both problems at once. The authors argue deficit. Building up the skills within the that if the government invested the right bureaucracy to understand, design, and resources, the productivity gains could be implement behavioral economics is an immense—$300 to $600 billion.

Leaders in the public service need to make significant changes to their policy-making process.

enormous task. The aging of the public Conclusion sector (and looming retirement) may Behavioral economics has the potential to provide an opportunity to recruit and achieve better outcomes at lower costs. It train the next generation of policy makers can also inform policy makers about in this new and powerful discipline. when the rational-actor approach would produce ineffective or even perverse Jack Donahue is skeptical of attempts incentives. It therefore has tremendous to introduce technical skills into potential public value, not to mention government. His book, The Warping growing support. of Government Work, outlines how the process of recruiting, choosing, But without a concerted training and and retaining skilled persons differs recruitment drive, policy makers are significantly between the private and unlikely to have the skills to design public sectors. The public sector finds and enact policy properly. At least it difficult to attract the best and the as important as the technical skills is brightest, and the job security the public the policy-making process. Even if sector offers attracts a risk- and change- government can find the skills, leaders averse worker. Donahue numbers the in the public service need to make behavioral economists in government significant changes to their policy-making at no more than a dozen, and the ability process to enable the key elements to attract top talent is hard—even in a of good behavioral economics policy struggling economy. to come through. Policy needs to be simple, personalized, details-focused, Overcoming the skills deficit is an and continuously tested. Public-service enormous challenge. It might be tempting leaders need to make sure their teams to augment a skills deficit with outside approach behavioral economics with a consultants, but a true solution would be fresh take on policy making. Without to build the long-term capability through changing the status quo of policy making, better training of policy advisers. This behavioral economics could itself prove to call is directly in line with Linda J. Bilmes be a bigger bias than the very problems it and W. Scott Gould’s most recent book, seeks to overcome. The People Factor, which argues for a $10 billion investment to overcome an

86 governance

formal political activities and to restore his hope in electoral mechanisms of change?

The Legacy of Party Patronage in Latin America Throughout Latin American history, political candidates have bought votes Fighting Patronage with using money, food, or land. In fact, during election seasons, it is not People Power uncommon to see candidates handing out by Zara Snapp titles for plots of land to their voter base. Yet, surprisingly, payment for votes does Zara Snapp is a 2010 Master in Public Policy not seem to be the primary reason for candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of why people choose to support candidates Government at Harvard University. She has and political parties. Despite the fact that worked in community-based organizations one in five voters in Colombia has been in Latin America and the United States for offered money or other compensation for the past nine years, most recently with the his or her vote, according to the 2008 Kellogg Foundation. Latinobarometer survey, as I talked to folks in the streets no one mentioned that as a motivation for voting or not voting. I had only been in Colombia for two days, This could partly be attributed to shame but it was time to start researching local regarding payment or to a voter having citizens’ motivations for political received an amount he or she perceives as involvement as part of the research for my too insignificant to mention. Regardless, master’s thesis. As I approached a street the absence of payment in discussions vendor sitting on a bench, he continued with voters signals the potential for more calmly polishing watches with a black effective means of engaging citizens. velvet cloth. This man was my first target. However, these unscrupulous practices When I asked if he would answer a few have resulted in a majority of citizens questions, he readily agreed. feeling disenfranchised with political I soon learned that Wilson, the watch systems. When political participation is seller, had never voted in any elections, driven by a promise of payment, political and he identified himself as not being demonstrations lose legitimacy in the politically active. However, as we spoke eyes of the public. Instead, cynicism and further, he told me about his role as the distrust in the political system breed president of a union of street vendors apathy in the greater public regarding and the vendors’ attempts to organize its ability to play an active, meaningful themselves to attain more rights. Even role in the policy process. Additionally, though he may have felt a sense of when insecurity infiltrates every aspect powerlessness at the electoral level, he of public and private life, people are more still was trying to affect change on a local likely to avoid risk taking in politics. level. This left me to wonder: What does Some individuals tended to cite long it take to engage someone like Wilson in hours on the job as a reason for not

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instruments such as the promotion of charismatic leaders.

The Difficulties with a Top-Down Approach Charismatic leadership can serve as an impetus to overcome patronage by motivating greater participation among citizens to bring change. In the case of Colombia and many other Latin American countries, charismatic leadership is necessary for most any politician to succeed. However, the decision to harness the momentum of a The author interviewing Senate candidate Juan charismatic leader in a positive direction Carlos Florez, whose campaign is run solely by does not always occur. While the populist volunteers. rhetoric of many political leaders increases citizen participation in an getting involved in politics, and others election context, it often fails to create a simply did not believe the political class sustained political dialogue between has the capacity to bring change. communities and policy makers. So, the question remains: What inspires In Colombia, charismatic leadership has participation beyond patronage, and how been a significant factor in promoting can campaigns tap into that motivation to increased political participation. transform the conception of citizenship, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe encourage democracy, and, ultimately, and others in his political coalition win elections? have taken on the role of the ultimate In order to inspire participation and authorities with responsibility for the begin to answer this question, campaigns country’s internal security conflict as should focus on strategies that involve a means of maintaining a hold on the building social capital amongst their voting majority. Despite slight declines supporters. Decentralizing both in voter participation since Uribe’s first campaign roles and the development of election, citizens are hesitant to support a candidate’s political platform so that regime change during crises, and if Uribe participation is not overly reliant on one can sustain levels of heightened tension, person and instead builds capacity within there is a greater probability he will communities to take action can be an maintain electoral power. The trend of effective way to build this social capital. great leaders inspiring increased political participation is mirrored in countries Strategies to Overcome such as Venezuela with President Hugo Party Patronage Chavez and Bolivia with President Evo Bottom-up approaches focusing on Morales. However, the question of how building social capital in the community sustainable or organic this participation appear to be more sustainable over the truly is remains unclear. long term than relying on top-down

88 Fighting Patronage with People Power

Charismatic leadership can also be Harvard University, describes social deployed to perpetuate patronage when capital as social networks, norms, and leaders move to stifle opposition. After trust that encourage citizens to act in the region’s transition to democracy in concert and successfully pursue shared the late twentieth century, constitutional values and goals. Greater social capital term limits were placed throughout can motivate participation, since citizens Latin America in an attempt to eliminate with a sense of community are more the tradition of patronage politics and likely to raise their voices and influence dictatorships. It would appear that this policy makers. rationale has faded from the memory of Mitchell Seligson, a professor at many who continue to favor a strongman Vanderbilt University and director of the style of leadership. Presidents in Bolivia,

What inspires participation beyond patronage, and how can campaigns tap into that motivation to transform the conception of citizenship, encourage democracy, and, ultimately, win elections?

Latin American Public Opinion Project, Venezuela, and Ecuador have changed conducted a 2005 study linking social their constitutions to allow themselves to capital and political participation in lift or extend their own term limits. While Latin America. He found that weakened this could be interpreted as an indication intermediary organizations—such as of citizens’ greater trust for those in community-based groups, interest power, it also signals an increased groups, or other associations—currently dependence on one person’s leadership. create an environment suited to “neo- The only president in the region who has populist” presidents who are only held gracefully exited and transferred power accountable in electoral terms and can while maintaining consistently high levels manipulate public policy and institutions of popularity has been Chilean President to permit themselves free exercise Michelle Bachelet. of power. Building Social Capital from the In the campaigns I interviewed, the Bottom Up common motivation for all volunteers Demonstrating tangible change through was feeling like they were part of a engagement in the political process and movement of “like-minded” people, offering meaningful roles in campaigns which created a social network that also can also have the potential to stimulate existed beyond the work they were doing participation, but this rests greatly on the together. Engaging, maintaining, and ability of campaign organizers to build sustaining political participation is thus social capital by including diverse transformed into engaging, maintaining, communities. Academic and author and sustaining group identity. Robert Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at

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From neoliberal economic reforms in the region to a prevalence of dictatorships, civil society has only recently begun to take on a larger role within the public policy discourse, with the suggestion that a campaign must strive to increase social capital and thus tap into participation networks. The question remains, however, how does one build and spread common norms, trust, and shared goals? Figure 1 — Satisfaction with services after decentralization (controlled for urbanization, education, and income). Note: in the figure “DDPC” refers to Decentralization: the municipalities in Bolivia that decentralized services. (Source: Mitchell A Structural Way Seligson’s “Can Social Capital be Constructed?” 2005.) to Increase Social Capital Seligson asserts that the treatment provided by municipal decentralization of government functions officials in Seligson’s Bolivian study when can encourage greater participation, more controlling for urbanization, education, meaningful roles, and increased trust and income. Decentralization was also among constituents and institutions. found to create greater participation in Referring to a case study of Bolivia, rural areas, thus decreasing the urban Seligson found that decentralization led bias common in other realms of politics. to more local decision making, which in As many folks in Colombia expressed turn contributed to the building of to me, “son los campesinos que sufren,” stronger social capital. In Seligson’s study, which translates to “it is the peasants that when communities felt closer to decision suffer.” Within national politics, creating makers they were more likely to make opportunities for decentralization might demands on them, leading to greater once again engage rural communities accountability and ultimately increased in the public policy process and create satisfaction with government policy and incentives for long-term vision over services. He noted in the study, “an short-term monetary gains. important dynamic developed around However, decentralization doesn’t fully this interaction between civil society and answer the question of how to induce local government, one that helped greater political participation. Rather, it strengthen them both and build is a tool that may prove useful over the social capital.” long term. This illustrates an important Figure 1 demonstrates an increase difficulty with the question of motivating in satisfaction with the services and participation—mechanisms to measure

90 Fighting Patronage with People Power it take a long time and need sustained involvement of various stakeholders. Better education, role modeling positive participation, and even strengthening networks are all long-term goals with few visible, short-term solutions.

The Challenge of Decentralizing Political Campaigns Shifting the paradigm from an all- encompassing charismatic leader is difficult, but moving campaigns into a more decentralized organizing model Sergio Fajardo, presidential candidate, campaigning might provide the means to motivate and on the streets of Bogota. His platform is based on stimulate participation. Greater eliminating corruption and generating opportunities accountability could make it hard if not throughout Colombia. impossible for these politicians to promise but not follow through. activity and the talents of the community are more likely to be fully utilized. Decentralizing campaigns could take many forms and might include: Imagine if campaigns could tap into the natural organizing ability of someone • Building regional teams to run like Wilson and combine tangible change local events and grassroots organizing while building • Designing and implementing a road social capital across socioeconomic lines. map for any volunteer that enters Perhaps then at the age of thirty-eight, he the organization would vote for the first time. • Creating mechanisms for each volunteer to reach a specific goal that then moves that individual to the “next level” and provides greater responsibility • Identifying “uncontaminated” political networks that can be tapped for new supporters and volunteers Ultimately, this will flatten the hierarchy of a political organization, which, according to academic discourse, results in higher participation since greater responsibility lies with each participant. However, this can be difficult for those running a national campaign because it implies a loss of control. On the upside, decentralization will mean there is greater cultural relevance to every campaign

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 91 from a disconnect between policy makers and Wall Street.

The Mortgage Origination and Securitization Process Securitization is the process whereby mortgage, auto, credit card, student, and other types of loans are pooled and used Financial Crisis 101: as backing, much in the same way houses A Beginner’s Guide to back mortgage loans, for the issuance of Structured Finance, the bonds. The mortgage payments are used to fund future bond interest and payment Financial Crisis, and Capital obligations. The securitization process is Market Regulation vital to helping banks issue new mortgage and business loans by allowing lenders to by William Werkmeister convert existing loans to cash. The lenders can then use that cash to finance new W illiam Werkmeister is a concurrent loans, which will also eventually be graduate student at both the John F. securitized and resold. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Yale School of Just as a wealthy family safeguards its Management, where he focuses on financial assets using legally separate trusts, a crisis, economic development, and lender’s loans are transferred to a trust, economic development policy. Prior to which securitizes the loans and issues coming to Harvard, he was an investment bonds through an investment bank. The banker with the Structured Finance Division cash from the sale of the securities is used of Citigroup and a founding partner of two to compensate the lender. This “asset venture capital funds. transfer” reduces risk by eliminating the asset’s exposure to the general corporate liability of the lender and, therefore, “Securitization,” “special purpose entities,” increases the value of the loans. “leverage,” “subprime,” and “collateralized During the mortgage securitization mortgage-backed securities” are all terms process, investment banks create classes commonly used by financial market of bonds, varying in their maturity experts to describe the mortgage crisis. length and risk levels, called mortgage- Yet, these terms mean very little to the backed securities (MBS) (see Figure average American. 1). For other assets—car loans, student This article seeks to demystify the loans, and business loans—the securities financial crisis—to explain the mortgage are known as asset-backed securities origination and securitization process, (ABS). The payments from underlying the causes of the financial crisis, and mortgages are used to fund the mortgage- finally, some potential ramifications of backed security payments; typically, the crisis and the monetary policy used to the mortgaged-backed bonds are paid target it. We also suggest a new potential in a sequential order, with one being contributing factor for the crisis resulting completely paid off before the next bond makes any payment. The MBS that

92 governance are paid first are considered safer and, process actually reduces investor risk. generally, carry a lower interest rate than For example, the payments made from those that pay off later. Much in the way MBS to investors are typically less than that individuals vary in the degree of risk the total interest and principal payments they take on when making investments, made on the underlying mortgages, a so do investors. As a result, MBS tend feature termed “excess spread.” This excess to be more appealing to investors than spread creates a cash cushion if some actually buying the underlying mortgage mortgages end up defaulting. loans because the MBS allow investors to select bonds matching their particular Disconnect Between Washington risk preferences. Pension funds and and Wall Street insurance companies typically prefer The mortgage market, which includes lower-returning, lower-risk investments, brokers, lenders, borrowers, investment whereas hedge funds seek higher returns bankers, special servicers, and and are willing to invest in riskier assets institutional investors, is a complex to achieve these returns. In almost system. The years preceding the mortgage all cases, however, most institutional crisis saw the introduction of mortgage investors would not purchase thirty- issuance and capital market regulations, year mortgages. Investment bankers with legislators not fully understanding also attempt to structure MBS so that the effects of their new laws, which would they are less risky than the underlying later “set the stage” for the mortgage collateral; the securitization mortgage crisis.

Figure 1 — MBS Issuances by Year (in billions of U.S. dollars) (Source: IMF)

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One example of these unintended from the higher risk. Not only did the consequences is the Clinton mortgage loans begin failing more administration’s National regularly, but when default occurred, Homeownership Strategy. An attempt to losses were more extreme, as lenders help people purchase homes, this policy began offering higher-levered 90 percent introduced bank quotas for high-risk, and even 100 percent or more loan-to- subprime loans and loans based on race value mortgages. As was typical in a rather than credit analysis, leading to an mortgage cycle, mortgage losses increased overall increase in mortgage risk levels. and some higher-risk MBS failed. Subprime loans are loans provided The severity of the current mortgage to borrowers with very poor credit failures was exacerbated by mortgage whom lenders believe are more likely fraud resulting from falsified, inflated to default on their debts. The National appraisals and the “no-doc” loans policy. Homeownership Strategy also introduced These “no-doc” loans had an unintended “no-doc” loans, mortgage loans for which consequence at the securitization level— the borrower is not required to prove his far down the mortgage chain from the or her income. On top of these policy borrowers the policy was intended to concerns, appraisers, often hired by help. Investment bankers, relying on mortgage brokers, and in the backdrop of the information provided by borrowers a skyrocketing mortgage market, began and mortgage brokers, underestimated vastly inflating estimated housing prices. mortgage risk levels, as borrowers

The securitization process is vital to helping banks issue new mortgage and business loans by allowing lenders to convert existing loans to cash.

Quotas for subprime lending lowered misrepresented their incomes and, the credit quality of mortgages issued therefore, their ability to make mortgage over the past decade. Investment payments. Investment bankers failed bankers began securitizing lower-quality to add sufficient credit enhancement to subprime loans in large scale by the early the MBS, due to the misrepresentations. 2000s. Banking data began to show, on Inflated appraisals and inaccurate data average, deteriorating FICO scores (a meant that MBS were often rated as far measure of borrower credit quality) and safer than, in actuality, they were, and loan-to-value ratios. Even though the MBS began to fail at rates higher than increasing risk and mortgage default rates predicted by the models. led to the failure of riskier bond classes, the effect was largely muted by structured Other Institutional Causes finance bankers who, in securitizing While the financial crisis has its roots in the increasingly riskier mortgage loans, the mortgage and structured finance added more “credit enhancement” to markets, its severity is a result of many deals to protect mortgage-backed bonds regulatory, industry, and structural

94 Financial Crisis 101 factors, including a lax regulatory entities called conduits and structured environment, a lending boom, mortgage investment vehicles (SIVs). SIVs bought fraud, increased leverage and MBS that could not be placed with other interconnectedness within the financial investors, and conduits were used to store sector, maturity mismatches at financial mortgages until enough were available for institutions, and concentrations of a securitization deal (typically, $2 billion mortgage risk within the banking sector. to $3 billion in mortgages were needed to complete a bond offering). The entities Banks had traditionally securitized loans issued short-term—less than one year— not only to generate liquidity, but also notes securitized by the conduit’s assets, to reduce their exposure to loans and, termed asset-backed commercial paper sometimes, particular classes of loans (ABCP). The banks often guaranteed the (e.g., mortgage, auto, etc.). Yet, in the ABCP, yet, because the guarantees were past decade, banks increasingly bought less than one year in term, the banks MBS backed by subprime mortgage were not required under international pools. International banking agreements banking rules to hold capital against the mandated “risk-weighted” capital guarantees. Thus, the banks were still adequacy ratios that required a greater essentially exposed to the risk of the ratio of equity capital to be held against mortgages and collateralized mortgage- riskier asset classes. Many lenders, noting backed obligations and yet did not hold that highly rated MBS required them to equity capital against the risk. hold less than half the capital required for unsecuritized mortgages, began swapping In addition to bank guarantees of long-term mortgage holdings for conduits, financial insurers guaranteed mortgaged-backed bonds. While many of MBS and other securities, and many the MBS were AAA-rated (a rating shared banks engaged in “interbank” lending. with safe U.S. Treasury bonds), they were This created the risk that the large-scale still far riskier than Treasuries yet they failure of MBS, or the failure of a large had the very same capital requirements bank, could cause adverse effects or as Treasuries. Banks also benefitted, as failures at other institutions. AIG was AAA-rated MBS usually offered much driven to reorganization by the rapid higher investment returns than similarly failure of many bonds it guaranteed. rated treasuries and corporate bonds. At the time of its bankruptcy, Lehman Investment banks also began investing Brothers was in default on more heavily in mortgage-backed securities than $8 billion in debt to Citigroup. in 2004, after the U.S. Securities and Interconnected guarantees for MBS Exchange Commission allowed them to helped to spread the financial crisis from manage their own credit risk and decide one institution to the next. for themselves how much cash to keep against the MBS, as Viral V. Acharya and Moral Hazard and Conflicts Matthew Richardson wrote in “Causes of Interest of the Financial Crisis” in a 2009 issue of While the National Homeownership Critical Review. Strategy increased home ownership levels in the United States, particularly among Investment banks also placed many the poor and minority classes, it also had mortgages, either pre- or post- the unintended effect of fostering securitization, onto off balance sheet

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mortgage fraud and reducing the with the banks for future deals, to reliability of credit data used by the compromise on ratings. capital markets. Many argue that the crisis was further perpetuated by moral hazard Bankruptcies, Bailouts, and and perverse incentive structures the Aftermath throughout the credit markets—hazards The effects of the U.S. mortgage crisis that need to be addressed to reduce the were far-reaching, affecting not only risk of future crises. The most prominent credit market participants, but also issues of moral hazard include spreading to the U.S. real markets and, the following: eventually, sparking a global economic • Mortgage broker compensation and recession. Insurance companies and regulation. Mortgage brokers are pension funds, while not suffering compensated on a fee basis relative to significant investment losses, were the value of mortgages originated affected by ratings downgrades on the and, therefore, are incentivized to bonds they purchased. Such downgrades work with appraisers to inflate values lowered the credit quality of their and borrowers to inflate investment portfolios. Insurance reported incomes. companies were forced to cut back on issuance of new policies, attempt to raise • Appraisers. Until recently, banks more capital, and swap out lower-rated often allowed mortgage brokers to assets for higher-rated ones. choose appraisers versus using independent ones. By 2007, the ABCP market had dried • Bank securitization. The up, and banks were unable to refinance securitization process allows banks to the one-year commercial paper backing “sell off” loans on a regular basis, the longer-term assets in their conduits eliminating their long-term exposure, and SIVs. Some banks attempted to take except perhaps reputational, to the the SIVs back onto their balance sheets, loans they originate. A structure, and at one point, the federal government similar to Small Business proposed the funding of a master SIV Administration loans, where lenders to purchase the toxic assets. The master hold a small portion of the loans in SIV never came to fruition. Bear Stearns, the long term would still facilitate one of the originators of the structured liquidity in credit markets while at finance markets, had associated SIVs the same time forcing banks to take a leveraged between five and fifteen times. long-term interest in the loans Other investors in high-risk tranches they originate. sold directly into the market, such as hedge funds, suffered significant losses. • Rating agencies. Rating agencies, With hedge funds, insurance companies, which grade the bond tranches and SIVs unable or unwilling to buy investment bankers structure, are MBS, banks no longer had an outlet to compensated on a per-rating basis, sell their MBS and, therefore, convert not by investors, but, rather, by the existing mortgages to cash; mortgage investment banks. Some argue the issuance by banks slowed, and by 2008 compensation structure incentivizes mortgages were issued to only the very rating agencies, which wish to best borrowers. maintain long-term relationships

96 Financial Crisis 101

Some market participants received federal obligations to numerous other banks, aid, others did not. The U.S. federal may have caused interbank failures. government invested hundreds of billions But neither Bear Stearns, one of the of dollars to shore up Freddie Mac and originators of the MBS markets, nor Fannie Mae, quasi-governmental agencies Lehman Brothers were large commercial (with private investors) that guarantee banks; the Treasury supported JP loan pools—and also buy, pool, and Morgan’s purchase of Bear Stearns, while issue mortgage-backed securities and not intervening to help save Lehman. pass-through certificates. While helping Both accumulated significant exposure to sustain liquidity in the mortgage to MBS throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

The effects of the U.S. mortgage crisis were far- reaching, affecting not only credit market participants, but also spreading to the U.S. real markets and, eventually, sparking a global economic recession. markets, perhaps the biggest beneficiaries Some theorize former U.S. Treasury of the Freddie and Fannie bailout Secretary Henry Paulson’s decision to save were insurance companies and other Goldman Sachs and Bear but not Lehman institutional investors holding Freddie Brothers was politically motivated. and Fannie securities, or securities Paulson was, in fact, the ex-CEO of benefitting from Freddie and/or Fannie Goldman and a bitter enemy of Lehman guarantees on underlying collateral. Some CEO Dick Fuld. have argued that rather than supporting With insurance companies and other old Freddie and Fannie guarantees, it key institutional investors suffering from would have been cheaper to create new capital shortfalls, and unwilling and institutions with stricter credit policies—a unable to purchase new MBS, liquidity in move that would still have maintained the credit markets vanished. As a result, liquidity in the credit markets. However, banks were unable to clear mortgages off pension funds, insurance companies, and their balance sheets and, with increased other MBS and pass-through investors credit standards, were reluctant to issue of Freddie and Fannie would have loans to all but the very highest-quality suffered significant losses, with potential borrowers. The financial crisis, then, contagion spreading effects resulting from through the channels of tight credit financial institution “interconnectedness.” markets (business as well as real estate Similarly, while AIG (the world’s largest credit) and investor losses became a real insurer), Bear Stearns, Citigroup, and crisis, resulting in falling output in the Goldman Sachs all received government U.S. goods and services markets and, support, Lehman Brothers did not. eventually, spreading to the rest of Understandably, a failure of AIG, with the world. hundreds of billions in insurance policies In addition to declining real output and outstanding, or Citigroup, with its large tightening credit markets, the financial

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Federal Reserve Bank Assets Versus Time (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

crisis caused significant monetary policy Conclusion ramifications. Between September 2008 The current financial crisis resulted from and September 2009, the Federal Reserve a combination of origination fraud, a Bank tripled the money supply in an credit boom, easing capital market attempt to stimulate the economy and regulations and origination standards, fight liquidity issues; many individuals perverse incentive structures, financial and organizations began hoarding money, innovation, and increased leverage/debt and the “velocity” (or turnover rate) for ratios. Many of these issues, in turn, cash declined. The composition of the occurred as a result of the unintended Fed’s asset base (see Figure 2), which effect of legislation introduced in the two had historically consisted of safe U.S. decades preceding the financial crisis. As government bonds, loans to banks, and we enter a new decade, the Obama foreign reserves, changed dramatically. administration is now working to By September 2009, with the Fed buying establish a new regulatory framework to up toxic structured debt, nearly half of prevent another financial market crisis the Fed’s assets were asset and mortgage while, at the same time, struggling to backed bonds. In essence, the U.S. money stimulate real economic growth within supply was backed in large part by the the tight confines of a burgeoning budget toxic structured debt. As SIVs discovered deficit and expanded money supply. The during the financial crisis, MBS weren’t economic challenges we face are greater exactly the best collateral! than any since the Depression, but eighty years later we are fortunate to have more As the U.S. real economy begins to advanced fiscal and monetary policy tools improve, and the velocity of money at our disposal to stimulate growth and increases, the Fed is now tasked with curtail inflationary pressures. developing a strategy to shrink its balance sheet and rein back in the money supply, or risk significant inflationary pressures. However, this undertaking is complicated by the fact that the Fed must find buyers for its large asset- and mortgaged-back investment portfolio in order to reduce the money supply.

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Republic, and those individuals are willing to fight to protect their Islamic nation against the “demons” of the West. Some of these other youth make up the Basij, who stand in the streets in the name of Allah as agents of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Agha-Soltan herself may have been a victim of a Basiji militiaman. And Change They Don’t though her death has been portrayed as a Believe In: symbol of the young Iranian movement The Political Presence of the arising in opposition to the allegedly fraudulent presidential election of June Basij in the Islamic Republic 2009, her death also symbolizes the will of Iran and capacities of the Basij in shutting down demonstrations of this nature. by Azadeh Pourzand This article explores the complex political, Azadeh Pourzand is a Master in Public social, and religious presence of the Policy candidate with a concentration in Basij and its student volunteers in the international and global affairs at the John F. universities of Iran. The United States, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard among other nations and international University. An Iranian-American, she was actors, must understand this split within born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Her work the rivaling Iranian youth factions to and writings on Iran are mostly focused on make informed decisions with respect human rights and freedom of expression. to a future Iran. The Basij is a key factor in the implementation of the coercive reactions of the Iranian government In the aftermath of Iran’s contentious and against the recent demonstrations, and divisive June 2009 presidential election, without a careful study of its concepts the world witnessed the death of Neda and tactics, U.S. policy will fail to capture Agha-Soltan—a young, modern, female the complete portrait of the political and university student and demonstrator who social dynamics in Iran. was shot and killed in the chaos of Tehran’s postelection protests. Since the The Formation and Role of demonstrations and the death of Agha- the Basij Soltan, many have become fascinated The Basij, which means “mobilization” in with understanding the youth and Persian, was established by the order of university students’ opposition “green” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—the movement in Iran. Stories about the founder of the Islamic Revolution of young Iranians who protest and often pay 1979. Under the charge of the Islamic a high price for a more democratic society Revolutionary Guard, the original have been abundant in the Western function of this volunteer paramilitary media. But there is another side to the group was to defend the Islamic Republic contemporary story of Iran. A portion of against foreign threats and enemies. the youth population still supports the During the 1980 to 1988 Iran-Iraq War, hard-liner authorities of the Islamic thousands of its members fought at the

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front lines without sufficient arms or Student Basij, the University Basij, the proper training. For the many who never Public Service Basij, and the Tribal Basij. returned, death was equated According to the University Basij bylaws, to martyrdom. volunteers are defined by their loyalty to The number of Basiji volunteers quickly the Supreme Leader Khomeini, and it is increased during and after the war. The their responsibility to recruit, educate, new volunteers began to take on the and mobilize volunteer students to their responsibility of protecting the Islamic cause. Their primary goal is to maintain nation and values from threats within. and strengthen the desire to fight against They became one of the major enforcers estekbar e jahani, which literally translates

Beyond its political visibility during the reform movements of the past decade, the University Basij has started to gain an institutional presence in the government.

of the hijab for women, detained women to “global arrogance” and refers to who violated the Islamic dress code, perceptions of Westernization from the broke up mixed-gender parties, and United States, Europe, and others. arrested those who would secretly drink Despite the norm that evolved during alcohol. The Basij aggressively monitored and after the Iran-Iraq War, nowhere and removed any sign of “Westernization” in the general bylaws of the University from Iranian society. Meanwhile, it Basij is there an explicit order for student served the poor in towns and suburban volunteers to secretly or openly monitor communities by providing them with other students as the agents of the economic, religious, educational, and Islamic Republic. However, the general sociopolitical rewards to perception among many university encourage recruitment. students is that the Basij volunteers are accepted into universities for the The Evolution of the purposes of ascertaining whether other University Basij students or professors are abiding by The presence of the Basij members Islamic principles and the ideology of the became particularly critical in institutions Islamic Republic. Consequently, tension of higher education. In his final days, exists between the University Basij Imam Khomeini invited and called the student volunteers and youth to take part in the jihad of other university students without knowledge in schools, universities, and governmental affiliations. society. Following his speech in 1989, the university chapter of the Basij was officially formed. Today, the Basij consists of five chapters: the Pupil Basij, the

100 Change They Don’t Believe In

“Protests at Karim Khan Street, Tehran, Iran” by Flickr user 27389271

The Political Visibility of the while others fought against the closure University Basij during the of the reformist newspaper, Salam. Reform Movement Paramilitaries, allegedly mostly Basij In the past decade, the Basij has evolved volunteers dressed as ordinary students, into a fiercely political paramilitary entity. responded with violent physical attacks Despite Khomeini’s public statement that on the protesters. The violence continued “the military and Revolutionary Guards as the demonstrations carried on for would include the Basij [as a group that] five days in Tehran and other cities. One should stay away from politics,” the Basij person was reportedly killed during these and its university wing have become demonstrations and many other student violent agents of the current government’s protestors were arrested. Meanwhile, oppression. This increased political role there was largely impunity for the Basij emerged after the election and reelection as the Supreme Leader and the Supreme of the reformist former President Council of the Cultural Revolution Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and 2001, praised their hard work to put an end to during which time tensions between the the riots. reformists and conservatives intensified. It is important to note that “students These tensions became most visible against students” is not a new during the dueling student protests of 13 phenomenon in Iran; in fact, it has been July 1999. During this demonstration, practiced since the early years of the some students called for reforms Islamic Revolution. In the beginning

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years of the Islamic Revolution, for familiarize themselves with the cultural instance, the universities were shut and political aspects of this battlefield, use down for three years in the name of the their judgment, and act determinedly Islamic Cultural Revolution. During this when necessary, wherever that may be.” time, students and professors who were In the face of the government affiliates of the government helped do empowerment of the Basij, the opposing background checks and prepare reports students continued to make their voices of fellow students and professors to heard. On 7 December 2009, Iran’s purge oppositional forces. Because of National Student Day, university students this process, many were denied access to throughout Iran gathered to express their universities once they reopened and those dissatisfaction, chanting slogans and that were accepted found a new strictly demanding a recount of votes from the Islamic and ideological agenda in place. June election. As journalist and activist

If the West excludes from its discourse those who are sympathetic toward the policies of the hard-liner government, it will fail to offer a framework that captures the complexities and key factors of the recent developments in Iran.

The University Basij in the Termeh Mandegar writes in an article on Green Movement insideIRAN.org, “Despite plans by the Beyond its political visibility during the government to hold an official Student reform movements of the past decade, the Day ceremony and include only the University Basij has started to gain an pro-(President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad institutional presence in the government. students, other students . . . managed to During the protests in June 2009, the hold their own demonstrations. These security forces asked the Basij volunteers demonstrations were followed by another to provide assistance in operations against wave of popular uprisings.” the protestors. On 2 October 2009, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Aftermath of the 2009 went a step further and ordered the Presidential Election for University Basij student volunteers to act the Basij against the potential unrests in Despite Iran’s inevitable reliance on the universities without waiting for the Basij for oppression of uprisings, it is approval of higher authorities. In an important to recognize the Basij’s failings article by BBC Persian, Major General in the eyes of the leadership of the Islamic Mohammad Ali Jafari explained, “the Republic. The Basij has disappointed the University Basij has the independence to leadership of the Islamic Republic in its act timely and appropriately in the ability to fatally restrict political battlefield of the ‘soft war.’” He added, opposition and demonstrations. As “The young fighters of this war must

102 Change They Don’t Believe In scholar Ali Alfoneh states in a If the West excludes from its discourse PolicyWatch article for the Washington those who are sympathetic toward the Institute for Near East Policy, “There are policies of the hard-liner government, it signs that the regime leadership has not will fail to offer a framework that captures been particularly happy with the Basij’s the complexities and key factors of the performance.” Alfoneh continues, “A recent developments in Iran. weak Basij will be a serious problem if the Iranian regime becomes embattled. The regular military would not be able to pick up the slack: besides being politically noninterventionist, it is based in garrisons along the country’s international borders, far from major urban centers.” As such, the recent momentous demonstrations and the expectations of the hard-liner government from the Basij have overwhelmed this paramilitary entity.

Implications for U.S. Policy Makers The Islamic Republic might be at one of its most defensive moments, and the conservatives are determined to do all it takes to retain its power. Thus, they will use all of their forces—including the Basij despite its “poor” performance—in order to oppress, win, and forcefully survive. There is little hope that the agenda of the Basij will become any less political and violent. Given the repressive methods and violence that the hard-liner leaders and their affiliates have utilized in the streets and in prisons, American policy makers must not justify or legitimize their motivations and actions. Simultaneously, however, American and Western policy makers should study, understand, and consider the aspirations and functions of the other side of the recent unrest in Iran; groups such as the Basij are considered the core symbols of the government’s repressive forces. The world must continue to discuss human rights violations that have escalated against peaceful demonstrators in Iran.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 103 devised to promote peaceful coexistence among disparate communities, it really does just the opposite; it deepens sectarian differences and weakens the state by encouraging allegiance to one’s confessional group over the nation.

Historical Perspective A Lebanese Confession: For a country of only four million people, Why Religious Politics Is Bad Lebanon is intensely diverse religiously, for Lebanon culturally, and politically. The country is a mosaic of seventeen confessions of by Maurice Obeid various Christian and Muslim stripes, none of which comprises a majority (see Maurice Obeid is a Master in Public Policy Figure 1)i. Rivalries—Christian versus and Master in Business Administration Muslim, Christian versus Christian, and candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Muslim versus Muslim—date back to the Government at Harvard University and the first millennium and have long hindered Harvard Business School. He serves on the the development of a unified Student Advisory Board for the Center for national identity. Public Leadership at the Kennedy School. Confessionalism is the political embodiment of this fractured reality. An offshoot of consociationalism, it In Lebanon, you are never simply is a form of government involving Lebanese. You are Sunni from Beirut, guaranteed group representation. Other Maronite Catholic from Jounieh, or Shia consociational states include Belgium, from the South. Whether seeking to Switzerland, and Nigeria—all of which marry or applying for a job, the first are divided along ethnic, religious, or question is always what “confession,” or linguistic lines, with no group large religious sect, you belong to. That is the enough to govern alone. To remain stable, reality of Lebanese society, a reality these countries rely on consultations reinforced by confessionalism—the among the political elite of each major political framework that is tearing the group to conduct the messy work of country apart. governance. When consociationalism is Rarely cited beyond the Lebanese organized along religious lines, it is context, confessionalism is a democratic called confessionalism. system that distributes positions in i There are twelve Christian sects (in numeric the government, legislature, and civil order): Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, service proportionally among religious Greek Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac communities. For instance, if a certain Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syriac confession is said to make up 20 percent Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean of the population, its political leaders Catholic, Assyrian, Copts, and Protestant. are guaranteed 20 percent of legislative There are five Muslim sects (in numeric seats. That’s the theory, anyway. And order): Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma’ili, and though this framework was originally Alawite. And there is a shrunken Jewish community.

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5% 1% Other Druze 19% Christian sects (36%) in decreasing order:

Maronite

29% Greek Orthodox Shia 7% Greek Catholic

4% Armenian Orthodox 2% Other Christian 3% 29% Sunni

Figure 1 — Current Demographic Estimates for Key Confessions Source: An Nahar Newspaper (2006)

As early as the thirteenth century, communal tension institutionalized by Lebanon adopted various forms of the confessional framework. A growing confessionalism to protect the identity Muslim population—fueled by lower of its diverse communities and ensure emigration and higher birth rates—felt a balance of power. The system in its neglected and demanded a greater share modern form was established under of the political power. Sectarian rifts the 1926 constitution. When a census exploded. In all, the war claimed more in 1932 identified Christians as the than 200,000 lives. majority, the ratio of Christians to The war ended in 1989 with the Taif Muslims in parliament was set at six to Accord, which diminished Christians’ five, with subgroups within each faith relative power. Muslims and Christians receiving their own guaranteed number were now to have equal representation, of seats. Intense wrangling ultimately and the Christian president was stripped led to a compromise stating that the of some executive authority. A bright spot Lebanese presidency would always go to for Lebanon at large, however, was that Maronite Catholics (the largest among the accord identified the elimination of the Christian sects), the prime ministry to confessionalism as a national priority. Sunnis, and the presidency of parliament The divisive framework that helped lead to Shiites. thousands to their deaths and many more The state functioned, barely, until its to emigrate was supposed to be consigned collapse in 1975 with the outbreak of a to the dustbin of Lebanese history. But civil war. While the war was precipitated twenty years later, still no progress has by myriad internal and external been made in this direction. forces, a central factor was the inter-

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The Case against anemic levels of integration across Confessionalism its communities. Proponents of confessionalism insist that Another source of division is that in with no group constituting a majority of a confessional state, the proportional the Lebanese population, representation power of each religion must (in theory) of every confession must be guaranteed to be perpetually recalibrated to account ensure that each group has a political for changing demographics over time. voice. Coexistence, we’re told, is crucial. But because the matter of religious And indeed it is. The problem is that balance is a sensitive political issue, a confessionalism has bred perverse national census has not been conducted incentives that undermine the very in Lebanon since 1932 (see Figure 2). possibility of harmonious coexistence. A Christian majority in that census Almost by definition, a nation depends gave Christians the highest number on the development of overarching of representatives, but as the century economic, social, and cultural structures progressed and the Sunni and Shiite of cooperation that transcend intra- populations increased, Christians were national factionalism. Confessionalism, wielding a disproportionate amount however, promotes the primacy of of power. The Taif Accord adjusted the religious identity. In Lebanon, religious shares of representation, primarily in institutions exercise direct control over favor of Sunnis, but today, Christians many facets of daily life, such as marriage (who make up the majority of the and inheritance. Confessionalism has diaspora) and Shiites feel disenfranchised. also institutionalized patronage in the This bitterness is further aggravated by political system. Indirect controls and the widening Sunni-Shiite divide across clannish clientelism are plentiful, as jobs, the Middle East—a divide that, according housing, and education are often obtained to a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, is through appeals to confessional political particularly acute in Lebanon. How long leaders. These zouama provide favors and before the eruption of a new protection to their constituents in return calibrating war? for unquestioned electoral loyalty. This

The more entrenched the Lebanese are in a confessional society, the more solidified their prejudices become and the harder it is to cultivate national unity.

A perpetually delicate confessional encourages close vertical assimilation balance makes the state extremely within confessional communities and sensitive to internal and external obstructs horizontal integration across stressors. Minor changes in the political them, incubating religious-based “states” environment can trigger instability, within the state. As a result, the country and there have been several attempts at suffers from a weak national identity and artificially bloating population numbers of specific communities to gain greater

106 A Lebanese Confession

60 political clout. In the 1950s, for instance, 50 Lebanese President 40 Camille Chamoun 1932 Census naturalized Christian 30 Palestinians in an effort to boost 20 2006‐2010 Average the number of 10 of estimates Lebanese Christians. Similarly, in 1994, 0 the naturalization of Christian Sunni Shi'a Druze Syrian workers and Figure 2 — Demographic Changes by Religion, 1932-2010 by Percentage Sunni Palestinians Source: 1932 Census; Central Intelligence Agency (2006); Statistics Lebanon aimed to bolster the (2008); An Nahar Newspaper (2006); CIA World Factbook (2010); U.S. Sunni population. Department of State International Religious Freedom Report (2008) Although no census took place to recalibrate power [national] texts before doing so in based on these demographic changes, [people’s] minds?” But the maturity inflating the number of a confession’s argument is self-fulfilling. The more members provides more votes for that entrenched the Lebanese are in a demographic and strengthens its leaders’ confessional society, the more solidified political power in negotiations. their prejudices become and the harder it is to cultivate national unity that Externally, foreign actors have further transcends religious lines. A sustainable contributed to Lebanon’s instability by nation depends on the development of applying pressure to the confessional common interests across communities. structure. Israel collaborated with the Confessionalism should therefore Christians in 1982, seeking to empower be abandoned. them as it invaded the country. Western countries have long favored the Still, the secularization process needs to Christians, the Arab world has backed be gradual and inclusive. As required the Sunnis, and today Iran supports the by the Taif Accord, parliament should Shiites. Amidst this playfield of foreign put forth a transition plan. Under interference, the loser is the parliament’s oversight, a task force Lebanese state. of leading political, intellectual, and religious figures would present proposals The Path Forward for a secular framework. A bicameral Many contend that a secular solution can transition government would be be found only once the Lebanese are formed—one chamber based on the “mature” enough to more fully separate current confessional framework and the religion from the state. In a December other elected without confessional quotas. 2009 article in the Lebanese Daily Star, The chambers would work jointly on a the patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite strategy for national reconciliation to Church asked, “What is the advantage of reaffirm the Lebanese identity through abolishing political confessionalism in

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substantial reforms in governance, champions of reform remain electoral law, and civic education. confessional leaders demanding a bigger piece of the pie, the result will Of course, this proposal assumes be more knee-jerk defensiveness widespread political will, which thus that exacerbates inter-communal far has been lacking. Public opinion is hostilities. Perhaps, as Nawaf Salam, (predictably) divided along confessional a Lebanese academic and diplomat, lines. With changing demographics, has written in “Deconfessionalizing former critics of confessionalism have the Call for Deconfessionalization” become its strongest enthusiasts, while its for the Lebanese Center for Policy former advocates are now its opponentsi. Studies, “Deconfessionalization is too Shiite Muslims, with their plurality of the serious an issue in Lebanon to be left population, lament their current level to traditional politicians. Instead, it is of power compared to what they would a challenge for civil society and new exercise under a majority rule. Previously social forces.” According to Salam, secularized Christians, on the other hand, deconfessionalization will depend on the are now fearful of the rising power of emergence of strong nongovernmental Muslims and are more willing to accept organizations that cut across sectarian the confessionalized status quo. barriers, collectively acting both as In fact, a recent survey by the Lebanese pressure groups and as a successful model Opinion Advisory Committee found that for what a nonconfessional state would more than 50 percent of Lebanese agree look like. that political confessionalism is rooted in This path to a secular and sustainable Lebanese culture and cannot be removed. Lebanon would be long and tortuous This political landscape is reflected in but, one hopes, possible. After all, when Lebanon’s parliamentary maneuvering. confessionalism was embedded in the When the debate about abrogating country’s constitution, it was regarded as confessionalism surfaced in January an interim political arrangement whose 2010, as it often does, the Shia speaker of architects emphasized the need for its parliament called for the formation of a swift riddance. That was eight national committee to oversee the process decades ago. of ending this framework. Threatened by what they perceive would be the Michel Chiha, a Lebanese thinker, once Islamization of the country, Christian wrote in Politique Intérieure, “A nation leaders were quick to veto such a move. is a guarantee for confessions, but Change will require a revitalized confessions are not a guarantee to the political and civic culture. If the nation.” Indeed, without reform, they just might be the nation’s undoing.

i Current demographic estimates for key confessions; the figures in parenthesis are the 1932 census figures: Christians ~35 percent to 40 percent (down from 54 percent); Sunnis ~25 percent to 30 percent (up from 22 percent); Shiites ~30 percent to 35 percent (up from 20 percent). No official figures exist (see Figure 2).

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The words of U.S. philosopher-president Thomas Jefferson adorn the walls of Jefferson Hall at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. They reflect the ethos that mastering warfare will not be sufficient to guarantee the preeminence of an army. Rather, it is the wisdom acquired by mastering all forms of knowledge that Unlikely Routes: enables a country to project power Stronger Militaries through through nonmilitary means, which will the Transformation of ultimately determine supremacy. This article explores the key factors that have Military Education led the U.S. Army to develop leadership by Agus Yudhoyono and that takes into consideration the political, Malik Ahmad Jalal social, and economic aspects of a conflict in order to devise a nuanced A gus Yudhoyono is a captain in the military strategy. Indonesian Army and a mid-career Master in There have been instances when the U.S. Public Administration Mason Fellow for military did not live up to Jeffersonian 2010 at the John F. Kennedy School of ideals, but in the past two-hundred Government at Harvard University. years there have also been outstanding Yudhoyono served in the United Nations U.S. generals who have exemplified the Peacekeeping Forces in Lebanon from 2006 tradition of utilizing force judiciously. to 2007 as the operations officer for the U.S. General George Marshall, who Indonesian Battalion. was hailed by Winston Churchill as the organizer of Allied victory in World Malik Ahmad Jalal is a 2011 Master in Public War II, was an equally great statesman Administration in International as he was a diplomat. He foresaw that a Development candidate specializing in broken and wounded Europe could not development and security at the John F. be healed by another Treaty of Versailles Kennedy School of Government at Harvard forced upon the defeated powers, but that University. He has worked as an investment instead what was required was the forging banker in London and has founded a think of a common vision for a prosperous tank specializing in Turkey, Pakistan, future. As architect of the European and Indonesia. Recovery Plan, General George Marshall set the foundation for peace in Europe that has led to the European Union. “I hope our wisdom will grow Most recently, when sectarian violence with our power and teach us that spiraled out of control in Iraq, General the less we use our power, the David Petraeus turned conventional greater it will be.” military thought upside down in devising — Thomas Jefferson a counterinsurgency doctrine. Instead of a search-and-destroy mission, the U.S. military protected the local population to create pockets of security and used

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 109 governance | Agus Yudhoyono and Malik Ahmad Jalal

diplomacy and patronage to wean support that studying with a diverse group of away from al Qaeda. In addition to an cadets and working with the military extra 24,000 troops, the judicious use of and political leadership of countries the local tribal system and collaboration in Europe, Asia, and Africa gives U.S. with community leaders resulted in the officers an unparalleled education in success of the surge. diplomacy and cross-cultural leadership. We believe the three factors that created Expanding Knowledge and the leadership that led to this success are Nurturing Continuous Learning the following: The U.S. government dedicates a 1. The exposure of cadets and officers to significant portion of its annual defense other cultures throughout their expenditure to the training and military career development of its military. Evidence of 2. A widening of the breadth of cadet this is the fact that the U.S. Military and officer knowledge and Academy is one of the country’s leading encouragement of liberal arts colleges, with a student-faculty continuous education ratio of no more than six-to-one, resulting 3. An open and discursive educational in extensive interaction between students system that encourages debate and and instructors. critical thinking A well-funded U.S. military offers comprehensive and well-rounded The World Is West Point’s four-year training at West Point. The Training Ground duration of training is longer than that of Every year an estimated sixty non-U.S. developing country armies and therefore students join West Point to train with allows every cadet to study military American cadets. The academy also science, two years of a foreign language, requires each class to have students from and subjects as diverse as engineering all fifty U.S. states, making for and liberal arts (including recitation of tremendous diversity of opinion. Success poetry!). This equips cadets with a broad at the academy thus requires set of tools to deal with challenges in their collaboration across cultural and military careers. ideological divides. General Ehsan ul Haq, former chairman This cross-cultural training continues of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee after West Point as the U.S. Army sends of the Pakistan Army, who worked officers to work with the leadership of closely with former U.S. Secretary of a diverse set of countries. As a result, State Colin Powell and the U.S. military individuals have a unique opportunity during Operation Enduring Freedom, has to understand new cultural and political pointed out that the ethos of research and contexts and develop strong relationships development is deeply engrained within that last long into their careers. One such U.S. society and also in the culture of the example came when General Pervez U.S. Army. This emphasis on research and Musharraf of Pakistan conducted a coup development means that there is a lifelong in October 1999. His first call was not commitment to acquire a wide range of to the U.S. State Department but to U.S. skills and knowledge. General Anthony Zinni. This shows

110 Unlikely Routes

Post-West Point, U.S. military officers methodology has the benefit of generating have extensive learning opportunities diverse ideas and also internalizing these such as the advanced degree program to ideas and values in the cadets for the achieve a master’s or doctorate degree, long term. shorter-duration executive education Today’s information and globalized age programs, and the elite one-year National have transformed the challenges faced Security Fellowship Program. General by modern armies. New technologies Tad Oelstrom, director of the National are empowering nonstate actors to pose Security Program at the John F. Kennedy

West Point allows its cadets to develop the independent and critical thinking that is necessary to avoid the mistakes of the past and ensure that an institution is adaptive to a changing environment.

unpredictable dangers. In addition, School of Government at Harvard the rapid flow of information has now University, points out that the National enabled new forms of dynamic social, Security Fellows gain exposure to the political, and economic interactions that wealth of experience at institutions such have increased instability. All of these as Harvard University and the Council factors lead to a dynamic and complicated on Foreign Relations and then take this security environment that places knowledge back to their operational and enormous intellectual demand upon policy-making roles. These opportunities military officers. It is important that all as well as a formal framework that armies, specifically those from developing encourages officers to advance their countries, learn key lessons from the way educational qualifications help sustain the the United States conducts its professional quest for further knowledge. military education to prepare for the challenges of a transformed Infusing Critical Thinking security environment. The system of education at West Point nurtures a critical mind where acceptance How Can Other Countries Learn of ideas is won through the analytical from the U.S. Experience? discourse of facts and reasoning of We offer three recommendations in argument. For example, a second-year this section. cadet is currently writing an essay on the lessons of My Lai. By openly discussing Recommendation 1: The United one of the darkest events of U.S. military States should increase cross-country history, West Point allows its cadets to participation for cadets and officers from develop the independent and critical developing countries through intensive thinking that is necessary to avoid the joint exercises and greater opportunities mistakes of the past and ensure that an to train and study with U.S. and institution is adaptive to a changing other militaries. environment. The intellectual discourse

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 111 governance | Agus Yudhoyono and Malik Ahmad Jalal

West Point Cadets listen to President Barack Obama | “P120109PS-0957” by Flickr user The White House

Why: Such programs improve wider range of subjects, including understanding between militaries, social sciences. The duration of cadet demonstrate positive American values to training should be increased and foreign officers, and give foreign officers officers incentivized to seek educational access to world-class education that they opportunities and broaden their might not otherwise have. intellectual horizon throughout their careers. How: This can be accomplished by expanding the International Military Why: Increasing long-term educational Education and Training and Professional opportunities is important because two Military Exchange programs to include years of training may not be sufficient to a greater number of foreign military infuse a new set of values (appreciation officers. Executive programs should be of intellectual discourse and continuous introduced for the top-ranking officers learning) or achieve in-depth knowledge from developing countries to study with of a wide range of subjects that are the U.S. National Security Fellows in top considered important to understanding U.S. universities. One challenge to this the social and political context of initiative is that it would have to be led by conflicts. In addition, if officers believe the U.S. government, which is susceptible their professional military careers will to domestic political conditions that suffer by pursuing educational training could interrupt the program. For this will prevent them from participating example, the exchange program between in continuous education opportunities. the United States and Pakistani and How: Countries should increase the Indonesian militaries in the 1990s was duration of training at the military interrupted due in part to the work of academies from the current one or two lobbyists, resulting in a generation of years to four years. They should also military officers who were not exposed to reframe the curriculum to increase the U.S. educational system and networks. emphasis on the social and political Recommendation 2: Countries should aspects of security, not just concentrating build a solid intellectual foundation on tactical military strategy. A formal by reforming current military training framework should be instituted with curriculums to expose officers to a authorized periods of leave for officers

112 Unlikely Routes to update their education without How: The profile of the selection process penalizing their military careers. The should be raised and made prestigious, challenge of initiating such a policy is with only the most competent officers that armies of developing countries are being selected. A greater portion of resource-constrained and their priorities teaching should be conducted through lie in modernizing weaponry rather analysis of case studies with cadets and than increasing training. Therefore these officers taking different positions and initiatives might not receive support from arguing from those vantage points. Two

Learning should be encouraged through debate and discourse methodology rather than a rote learning method. ministries of finance or even within the challenges are that developing countries army itself. do not have sufficient human and financial resources and that this method Recommendation 3: Countries should will challenge the existing norms of not develop a long-term commitment questioning higher authorities, hence to educational growth by providing eliciting resistance from some opportunities in a meritocratic system. senior officers. Learning should be encouraged through debate and discourse methodology rather Conclusion than a rote learning method. Wars are no longer about defeating an Why: Having a meritocratic system of enemy army and subjugating a local selection and promotion of officers would population. They are increasingly about ensure that the more competent and eliminating threats from nonstate actors, academic officers rise, thus providing which cannot be achieved without the incentives for other officers to also support of the local population. If upgrade their skills, knowledge, and developing countries fashion the training experience. Similar to the justification and development of their officer cadre on for Recommendation 2, if officers feel the U.S. model, they will find their that their professional military careers military leadership more capable of suffer when perusing educational training meeting the complex and programs, they will be prevented from multidimensional security challenges. participating in continuous education, More importantly, such an education especially abroad. Methods of learning would instill in their officers the through classroom discussions and debate limitations of military power, and this allow students to deepen and internalize might just deter future military internal their understanding of the subject being interventions and indirectly contribute to taught much more effectively than the stability and growth of democracy in through rote learning. This will further developing countries. equip the cadets with values of critical thinking and teamwork.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 113 MALCOLM WIENER CENTER FOR SOCIAL POLICY

The Malcolm Wiener Center is a vibrant intellectual community of faculty, masters and PhD students, researchers, and administrative staff striving to improve public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor.

The work of the center draws on the worlds of scholarship, policy, and practice to address pressing questions by: l carrying out research on important policy issues affecting the lives of those most vulnerable and needy l providing professional education for those in the world of practice l educating the next generation of academics and policy scholars l ensuring that research and education are closely tied to and draw from politics and practice in the ﬁeld l developing working partnerships with the broader policy community For more than two decades the Malcolm Wiener Center has been an inﬂuential voice in domestic policy through faculty work on community policing, welfare reform, youth violence, education, urban poverty, youth and the low-wage labor market, American Indian economic and social development, and medical error rates. Our research portfolio is both broad and deep, spanning many academic disciplines, encompassing traditional research as well as executive sessions, case-based research and action research, and employing a variety of research methodologies. It is inspired by our focus on bettering the lives of our fellow citizens, particularly those who are most vulnerable and needy.

WEBSITE: www.hks.harvard.wiener

114 book review

account of how jihad has played out as a violent, political tool—in a way unique Beyond Charlie to South Asia. Jalal Wilson’s War: writes about The Evolution of Jihad in jihad’s South Asia—A Review of departure Partisans of Allah from its oft- cited Koranic roots as an “inner spiritual by Ayesha Jalal struggle” in the earliest years of Islam. She (Harvard University Press, 2008) then traces the evolution of jihad through Reviewed by Nadia Naviwala the rise of Muslim power in South Asia, British colonialism, and finally American intervention after September 11. In discussing jihad, Jalal rises above the Nadia Naviwala, who is pursuing a Master in strained political correctness that often Public Policy, came to the John F. Kennedy shrouds discussion of Islam in the West School of Government at Harvard University by accepting the link between jihad and from the U.S. Senate, where she served as a violence and explaining how it emerged legislative aide on national security for a in practice. member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Jalal’s history of jihad in South Asia Committee. She has lived in Pakistan and illuminates several recurring themes. travels there frequently. First, northwestern Pakistan is not just a current hot spot; it has been the center of activity since the first jihad in South When Charlie Wilson passed away Asia. Second, two factions within Islam this year, his name was associated have clashed throughout history: those with the end of the Soviet Union and who stress internal spirituality, like many the beginning of the Taliban. These modern Muslims, versus those who associations would not have surprised demand external compliance, such as the the former congressman—the book- Taliban. Third, attempts to defeat external turned-Hollywood-hit Charlie Wilson’s threats tend to end in internecine warfare. War popularized the notion that the Finally, jihad has long been used as a United States inadvertently created the justification for political violence against Taliban by arming the Afghan jihad meddlesome, outside powers: British against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. But colonialism, Russian communism, and the Hollywood-based history leaves out now America’s freedom agenda. hundreds of years of prelude. This may sound like the stuff of Ayesha Jalal’s Partisans of Allah: Jihad historians, rather than policy makers, but in South Asia is a fascinating and timely

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it is remarkably relevant. The centerpiece The most valuable aspect of Jalal’s of Partisans of Allah is Jalal’s exposé narrative, however, is not her explanation on the first jihad in South Asia, which of the heavily studied Afghan Taliban took place in 1821 but bears an uncanny but her layered account of the emergence resemblance to the conflicts we face now. of the “Pakistani Taliban”—one of the It was centered in northwestern Pakistan, most troubling and least understood the same location as al Qaeda’s base today. phenomena of recent years. Jalal deflates And although it was initiated against an the notion that the Pakistani Taliban external enemy, it quickly deteriorated is simply a by-product of the Afghan into Muslim-on-Muslim violence, looting, version by outlining the indigenous popular demands for Islamic shariah law, political and religious trends that led to and tribal treachery. its rise. It is here that Ayesha Jalal most

Jalal rises above the strained political correctness that often shrouds discussion of Islam in the West by accepting the link between jihad and violence and explaining how it emerged in practice.

skillfully links a discussion of religious Similarly, British colonialism first marked ideology with the messy politics of the the response of modern Muslims to future region, illustrating the value of her book perceived external threats. Following as a two-in-one guide to both Islam and the failed “Sepoy Mutiny” revolt of 1857 South Asia. in India, some resorted to the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” philosophy and The most important lesson of Charlie set up a modern university modeled Wilson’s War is not in the story itself, after Cambridge University in England but in its demonstration of how easily in order to catch up and compete with good policy can go bad when nations the West. But others had an opposite get involved in places they do not fully reaction. They withdrew toward religion understand. Jalal writes, “The martyrdom and established a large madrasa in of those who fell . . . continues to Deoband, northern India. weave its spell, making it imperative to investigate the myth in its making.” Since September 11, journalists have Thanks to Ayesha Jalal, aspiring security flocked to this original “Deobandi” experts finally have a fluent narrative madrasa and dubbed it “the birthplace of that discusses jihad unapologetically, the Taliban.” It was Deobandis who set while explaining its practical evolution up thousands of madrasas in Pakistan, from the first jihad to terrorism today. with U.S. backing, to produce fighters for Most importantly, Jalal demonstrates the 1980s jihad against the Soviet Union. that it is not enough to study the Middle Between 1971 and 1988, the number of East and transfer that understanding to madrasas in Pakistan grew from 900 to Afghanistan—jihad has its own history in 33,000. The Afghan Taliban was a direct South Asia. product of the Deobandi madrasas.

116 contents | security challenges

sec urity challenges

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 117 priests and one nun, Sister Sefi, who was a resident of the convent when Abhaya died. Those arrested were subjected to narcoanalysis tests—interviews done by injecting barbiturates into the accused before they are questioned. Soon, video clips of these tests appeared on news channels in India. The media was abuzz Truth Be Told? over the apparent confessions contained The Use of Truth Serum in in the clips, which suggested that Abhaya Indian Law Enforcement had witnessed sexual impropriety in the convent, leading Sefi to beat her with an by Mallika Kaur axe and work with the priests to dispose of the body. Mallika Kaur is a dual-degree student at the Meanwhile, the veracity of the tapes University of California Berkeley School of was being questioned. The victim’s Law (J.D., 2010) and the John F. Kennedy father, suspecting the tapes had been School of Government at Harvard University altered, accused the CBI of not ensuring (M.P.P., 2010). She focuses on South Asian noninterference with the originals. security and human rights issues. Her Adding to this, the Assistant Director perspectives have been informed by of the Bangalore Forensic Science growing up in Punjab (on the Indian side) Laboratory, Dr. S. Malini, who supervised and having worked on advocacy efforts in the narcoanalysis and was widely hailed the United States since 2001. For as the pioneering narcoanalysis expert in introducing her to the prevalence of India, was fired (among other things, she narcotesting, for many discussions on this had forged her educational information). issue, and for constant encouragement to question the normative value of the present Several commentators, including some state of affairs, she thanks her father, Dr. prominent law enforcement experts, Karanbir Singh Sarkaria. have assailed the use of narcoanalysis, questioning both the effectiveness of the practice and the ethical and legal On 27 March 1992, the body of a young implications of employing it. And though nun, Sister Abhaya, was found in the well the Indian police is making increasing of her convent in the Indian state of use of it—not just in sensational cases Kerala. The initial police investigation like that of Sister Abhaya, but also in dismissed the case as suicide, but a burglaries, molestations, and white-collar subsequent investigation by the national crimes—its utility is far from certain. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) declared that it was murder. Does Narcoanalysis Work? Unfortunately, the CBI tried and failed for The chemicals used in narcoanalysis, more than a decade to finger a culprit. including Sodium Pentothal—the drug of The trail ran cold. choice for this interrogation method in India—have long been referred to as Then, in 2008, during its thirteenth “truth serum” since they inhibit the probe into the case, the CBI arrested two control of the nervous system and are

118 security challenges alleged to make the subject less able (and The evidence against narcoanalysis has motivated) to lie. The leading proponent led Koshy Koshy, the former director of this view, Dr. B.M. Mohan of the general of the Bureau of Police Research Bangalore Forensic Science Laboratory, and Development in India, to declare has repeatedly asserted that narcoanalysis the method “completely unreliable.” has a 96 percent to 97 percent success rate Nevertheless, the practice continues. in aiding in the discovery of information Dr. S.L. Vaya, director of the Institute that forwards investigations. Many police of Behavioral Sciences at the Gujarat officers are also enthusiastic. “With this Forensic Sciences University and ‘narco’ I can get anyone to confess additional director of the Directorate of anything,” said one senior police officer in Forensic Science in Gandhinagar, said India in an interview with the author, on in an interview with the author that her condition of anonymity. Gujarat lab conducts narcoanalysis “once a week.” Critics allege that this is precisely the problem. The technique leaves the Narcoanalysis: A Protection subject vulnerable to suggestion and Against Torture? Or Itself a confabulation. The effects of these drugs Human Rights Violation? have been described as anesthetic, The increased use of narcoanalysis also hypnotic, and resulting in a state of raises larger questions about the rule of virtual drunkenness. Dr. Amar Jesani, law and human rights in India. Dr. Vaya a public health advocate and managing argues that it is legal because each case trustee with the Centre for Enquiry “has to be monitored by [a] legal body, into Health and Allied Themes, wrote [and] check and cross-check is important. in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics We require informed consent of person[s] that “there is enough scientific evidence undergoing [the] procedure.” to show that a person under the effect of a drug often plays along with the Moreover, many proponents contend that suggestions made by the interrogator.” narcoanalysis actually protects human rights instead of violating them. Dr. Similarly, Dr. Lawrence Farwell, the Sudhir Gupta of the All India Institute inventor of the noninvasive forensic of Medical Sciences stated in a press technique of “brain fingerprinting,” which interview that narcoanalysis “has been is similar to narcoanalysis and also used developed to protect human rights and is in India today, explained in an interview a humanitarian approach to interrogation. with the author that “it is safe to say that It is safe and absolutely harmless.” One Sodium Pentothal can make the subject superintendent of police in North India more likely to talk freely and more likely agreed, claiming in an interview with the to be suggestible and cooperative . . . author, on the condition of anonymity, [but] this does not necessarily mean more that “the technique is basically invoked likely to tell the truth.” He explained that in cases which are high profile and the “when the subject is innocent, anything option of hard custodial interrogation that produces more cooperation, more is not available.” He further explained suggestibility, and less inhibition makes a that the technique “is very much akin false confession more likely.” to age-old interrogation procedures of keeping [the] accused awake for long

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Police officer in India | “A UP Policeman” by Flickr user lkikon_18

hours or being given intoxicants to lower If narcoanalysis is indeed torture, national the defenses. It should be encouraged to and international standards forbid its save innocents from being put through usage. The Indian Supreme Court has the indignity of ‘tough’ interrogation held torture unconstitutional citing procedures.” The open admittance by law the Constitutional guarantee to “life enforcement personnel that the police and personal liberty.” Internationally, system often employs “hard interrogation torture is prohibited by the Universal techniques”—a euphemism for a range of Declaration of Human Rights as well as treatments including torture—invites a the United Nations (UN) Convention separate discussion. Against Torture (CAT), which India has signed but not ratified. According to CAT, Yet some would argue that narcoanalysis threatening a subject with narcoanalysis is, in fact, a type of torture. In Shri D.K. would meet the requirement of Basu v. State of West Bengal, the Supreme intending to cause mental suffering for Court of India held in 1996 that “‘torture’ the purpose of retrieving information. of a human being by another human Jesani has stated in press interviews that being is essentially an instrument to narcoanalysis “meets all components impose the will of the ‘strong’ over the of the UN’s definition of torture . . . it ‘weak’ by suffering.” Narcoanalysis may be produces physical/mental suffering, it is precisely that, given the mental anguish intentionally inflicted, it is intended for it can cause for subjects threatened with purposes such as getting information, it who may not be aware of the consent confessions, etc. and is inflicted by an requirement or not be confident that it official.” And the Law Commission of will be fairly fulfilled. India, an advisory group to the Ministry of Law and Justice, recently drafted (but

120 Truth Be Told? has yet to release) a report insisting that The idea was first developed by rural narcoanalysis be banned immediately Texas physician Robert House in since it violates basic human rights. the 1920s. House discovered that scopolamine, the drug he used as an Beyond torture, narcoanalysis can lead anesthetic in his obstetrics practice, could to a violation of the right against self- also result in patients revealing truthful incrimination, protected by Article 20(3) information while in the drug-induced of the Indian Constitution. Koshy, in an “twilight sleep.” When some high-profile interview with the author, stated that even prisoners who were administered the just a few years ago the police “considered

Several commentators have assailed the use of narcoanalysis, questioning both the effectiveness of the practice and the ethical and legal implications.

drug agreed that it made lying difficult, [narcoanalysis] unethical if not outright House’s method received regional illegal, as it amounted to compelling and national attention. A Los Angeles an accused [person] to give evidence newspaper reportedly coined the term against himself against the Constitutional “truth serum” in 1922. guarantee. It was only in the recent past that courts have started giving permission Questions soon arose about the validity of for narcoanalysis.” A case on this issue is information extracted under the influence now pending before the Indian Supreme of such drugs. “The difficulty with ‘truth Court, which reserved its verdict on this drugs’ is that the suspected person case in 2008. Senior counsel Dushyant will confess to almost anything that is Dave has stated in an amicus curiae suggested to them,” offered an article in brief to the court that “There does not Literary Digest magazine in 1930. This appear to be any legal system in the world is criticism that Indian opponents echo which has either allowed or considered today. However, in the United States, the admissible the evidence collected with the drugs continued to be employed by local help of any one or all of the tests.” U.S. police departments well through the 1950s. Comparatively Speaking Alison Winter, University of Chicago If narcoanalysis is indeed as useful in associate professor of history, points crime solving as its Indian proponents out in her paper “The Making of ‘Truth contend, then why do we not hear reports Serum’” that truth serums have, in fact, of the use of truth serums by the New been revived on various occasions, York Police Department or the Los including in treatment of battle trauma Angeles Police Department, which surely in World War II, in forensic hypnosis face intractable crime problems? Part of used by police in the late 1970s, and the answer perhaps lies in the fact that the by psychotherapists in the “recovery” United States conducted its truth serum of memories of childhood abuse in the experiment some decades before India. 1980s and 1990s. Despite its periodic

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use, however, the U.S. National Defense positive first step. However, without some Intelligence College concluded in a 2006 agreement on larger principles and report that although “truth serums . . objectives, the debate over utility could . typically cause the subject to become continue endlessly. Dr. Farwell explains in more talkative . . . there is no guarantee an interview with the author: that any of the information elicited will Like beauty, utility is in the eye of the be accurate.” beholder. For some, utility means The abandonment of narcoanalysis in the eliciting confessions. For others, utility United States might suggest that India means eliciting the truth—which for an should escape the remaining evolutionary innocent subject means not eliciting a cycle and simply learn from the U.S. confession. From a narrow-minded law experience. But Dr. Vaya is unconvinced. enforcement perspective that fails to “If nine people out of ten try a science consider the human rights issues, and fail, [it] doesn’t mean the tenth has to anything that elicits more confessions fail too,” she said in an interview with is useful, even if it has little or no utility the author. in eliciting the truth. From a human rights perspective, anything that In fact, the North Indian superintendent produces increased compliance, of police who wanted to remain decreased inhibition, and decreased anonymous hopes more facilities are higher brain function in a subject established to conduct narcoanalysis. under interrogation is abusive and “Aping the developed countries in likely to produce false confessions, and rejecting the narco,” he said in an thus in many cases is interview with the author, “would be counterproductive for the purpose of counterproductive in a country facing eliciting the truth. [M]y personal view high rates of custodial deaths on account is that the only legitimate role for of nonprofessional interrogation.” His science is to elicit the truth. argument then is that international standards and lessons learned are well Indian law and policy makers should and good, but the fact remains that “third agree on and publicize the desired degree” practices are common in India objectives of investigatory methods, and “truth serum” narcoanalysis is an including ones like narcoanalysis attractive alternative. However, policies that have broad repercussions and that reinforce this unfortunate reality will implications. Such an exercise could help be just as, if not more, problematic as India think of solutions that can gradually those that ignore it. alter the culture around law enforcement. There are no silver bullets, but some Speaking of the Future suggestions include: In India, the complication for the police, 1. Human rights education. Public and to a lesser extent the media, is that awareness and sensitivity to torture since they have been praising this practice must be raised. Whether the for years, they are now vested in Bollywood hero playing a dedicated maintaining its legitimacy—even if they but hotheaded, suspect-beating cop no longer believe in its usefulness. or the inspector in the local police Nevertheless, there is now some debate in station, the use of the “third degree” India about narcoanalysis, and that is a

122 Truth Be Told?

must eventually be seen as could provide useful examples. Such extrajudicial and outside the mores warnings do not in themselves end of society. While the middle and abuse, but the mantra-like regular upper classes are less vulnerable to incantation might gradually influence such abuses, a change in their reality. They may also remind attitudes is essential, precisely given arrested persons that they have basic the gravely class-based nature of rights as per the law.

Indian law and policy makers should agree on and publicize the desired objectives of investigatory methods.

Indian sensitivities; making the 3. Public release of assessment by Law upper-middle class relate to the Commission of India. The common burglar hung upside down commission should immediately in the police station is indeed an release its report. The report is not uphill task. Offering human rights only cited by the Indian Supreme courses in schools and colleges, even Court (to support its decisions), but limited to rights reflected in the it would also bring media attention Indian Constitution, could be a first and can prompt a more nuanced step. Articles 21 and 20(3) will discussion around narcoanalysis. perhaps then enter some level of 4. Legal clarity. The Indian Supreme consciousness of media producers Court must rule on the case pending and consumers alike. It will also since 2008. Without such a ruling the prompt young citizens to question laws around narcoanalysis in things such the nonratification of different states will not be CAT by India, which otherwise standardized and the public will, at aspires to be treated as a rising best, receive the message that the democratic power. legal norms around narco are 2. Requirement for police to inform inconclusive and, at worst, believe arrested persons of basic rights. that the courts are irrelevant in While there shall likely be strong matters of narcoanalysis and resistance, a requirement to inform police procedures. every arrested person of their basic rights should be considered by Besides the scientific arguments Indian law enforcement. The exact questioning the efficacy of narcoanalysis, wording need not mimic the its usage is shrouded with concerns Hollywood version of the U.S.’s about legality and morality. Insofar as Miranda warnings—“you have the narcoanalysis is a reflection of the rule right to remain silent . . . to an of law in India, a holistic approach must attorney . . . if you can’t afford one, not only tackle the practice in isolation one will be provided for you.” But but also attempt to evolve societal mores U.S. Miranda rights or the quite around policing, safety, and rights. different Judges’ Rules in Britain

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 123 supporting local solutions. A prime way in which this shift in thinking can benefit the region is through a new comprehensive policy to confront the challenge of public security. This new strategy would support the capacity- building of Latin American governments in a way that strengthens the rule of law Beyond Drugs, in their societies. With more cooperation, the entire Western hemisphere will Dictators, and benefit from increased safety, decreased Development: transnational crime networks, and a A New Direction for U.S.-Latin foundation of security that is necessary American Relations for social and economic development throughout the region. by David Bluestone Intertwined Nature of U.S.-Latin David Bluestone is a 2010 Master in Public American Relationship Policy candidate at the John F. Kennedy Among all the international challenges School of Government at Harvard University. facing the Obama administration, Latin He has recently worked on public security America is unique because its state actors policy in mayor’s offices in Medellin, do not represent a serious military threat Colombia, and Sucre, Venezuela, and from to the United States. The region’s rising 2007 to 2008 he lived in Bolivia as a power, Brazil, is positioned to challenge Fulbright Scholar conducting research on the United States economically in the political development. region, but has not shown an equal desire to build its military power. Furthermore, despite being the United States’ loudest Since the 1980s, U.S. engagement in critic, Venezuela continues to be one of its Latin America has been characterized top five providers of oil. by Washington’s fixation on the region’s three “D”s: drugs, dictatorships, and Nevertheless, as lawlessness and levels of development. This limited focus is no crime continue to soar, Latin America’s longer appropriate to meet the challenges insecurity represents a new kind of threat and opportunities in today’s Latin to the United States as this insecurity is America. Despite public promises to increasingly spreading north. Portions change the tone of hemispheric relations, of the U.S.-Mexican border are conflict during his first year U.S. President Barack zones and, all too often, sites of mass Obama’s policies have been business killings. This insecurity has also as usual. penetrated some U.S. metropolitan areas. Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, for If the Obama administration wants to live example, has been called the “kidnapping up to its rhetoric and open a new chapter capital of the United States” by many in U.S.-Latin American relations, there in the media due to extremely high must be a paradigm shift away from the rates of illegal immigration and human traditional top-down approach to the smuggling. This insecurity has also region and a new regional commitment

124 security challenges become transnational, as exemplified by federal budget proposal raises doubt over gangs such as the Maras, which originated whether the Obama administration’s in Los Angeles and now has an estimated policies reflect this rhetoric. According network of more than 100,000 members to the administration’s budget proposal, stretching from Canada to the National Drug Control Budget will Central America. increase by 3.5 percent and maintains a

If the Obama administration wants to live up to its rhetoric and open a new chapter in U.S.-Latin American relations, there must be a paradigm shift away from the traditional top-down approach and a new regional commitment supporting local solutions.

Ultimately, these insecurity challenges two-to-one edge in spending on domestic cannot be viewed as something to be and international law enforcement over contained, but rather as something that treatment and prevention. must be proactively confronted. The failure of the Obama administration Not Change, but More of to abandon the status quo and present the Same a new comprehensive strategy toward The perception within much of Latin Latin America has limited its ability America is that President Obama’s to fully engage the region in the way policies regarding security during his first that candidate Obama envisioned. In year have been too reminiscent of those order to change its course, the Obama of his predecessor. Obama prompted administration must make an earnest public outcry and diplomatic shift away from military support and condemnations across the region, counter-narcotics to building the capacity including from Brazil and Chile, when he of its southern neighbors to manage their chose to continue the Bush own internal security problems. administration’s plans to open seven new U.S. military bases in Colombia. Latin America’s Insecurity Issue After an entire career of working in Furthermore, the Obama administration’s marginalized barrios throughout approach to narcotrafficking has been Venezuela, José Luis López Noriega, the inconsistent. As one of her first acts president of FUNDASUCRE, a nonprofit on the job in March 2009, Secretary community service organization in of State Hilary Rodham Clinton Caracas, has figured out why his acknowledged, for the first time, the hometown suffers from such United States’ responsibility to control astronomically high rates of crime and domestic drug consumption. In May insecurity. “Do you know the single 2009, the administration’s drug czar Gil reason why the people say that they love Kerlikowske declared that the “War on living here?” he asks. “People say: Drugs” was over. However, the 2011

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‘Because we can do whatever we want!’” decentralized problem solving, and Leaning his freckled, bald head across the technological advances. Programs such desk, he continues, “And you know why as community policing, local problem- people say they hate living here?” oriented investigation, and statistical Suddenly sitting up straight in his chair data collection through improved with a clap of his hands, he explains, information technology have emerged as “They say: ‘Because other people can do a result. And they have led to significant whatever they want!’” urban recoveries throughout the United States, the most famous of which was the After emerging from decades of regeneration of New York City as a result authoritarian dictatorships, Latin of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s crackdown America’s new democracies have on crime. consciously shifted their policies toward individual liberty. Unfortunately, this Still a work in progress, and by no transition has been accompanied by a means a silver bullet, the policing, crime new crisis of insecurity and disorder. prevention, and security strategies of the With ballooning homicide rates, evening United States represent a balance between curfews, and public fear, Latin America’s individual liberty and crime control that major cities from Caracas to Mexico City could be very well suited to help address to Rio de Janeiro have been paralyzed by the security crises faced by many Latin social disorder and insecurity. American nations. Additionally, Latin American governments can adopt these There is much that Latin American civilian strategies without succumbing to cities can learn from the way major strict military controls that hearken back U.S. cities confronted problems of to the region’s past dictatorships. Instead security and disorder in the 1960s of widespread government repression, and 1970s. According to academics Latin American cities can engage the George L. Kelling and Mark H. community in diagnosing their crime Moore, in their 1988 Perspectives on problems. In particular, using better Policing article “The Evolving Strategy technology, resources, and expertise, a

Latin America’s insecurity represents a new kind of threat to the United States.

of Policing,” as police effectiveness professionalized local police officer can stagnated, major metropolitan centers collect quantitative data from computer became unmanageable with increases statistics (or COMPSTAT) programs and in public fear, crimes rates, domestic qualitative information from community consumption of drugs, and suburban policing programs to help control crime flight. In response to this crisis, American and guarantee the rule of law without scholars formulated, and police chiefs abusing human rights. Furthermore, adopted, new strategies in the 1980s as a by-product of the Afghanistan and and early 1990s. They relied upon Iraq wars, the United States has cutting- increased community involvement,

126 Beyond Drugs, Dictators, and Development

Police in Ecuador respond to a riot | “Rio in Ecuador” by Flickr user Rupert Taylor-Price edge security technology and highly foundation of safety that is critical to trained experts in community building, future social and economic development. which could greatly benefit conflict-zone Many communities in the United States neighborhoods of Colombia and Brazil. have experience with innovative, citizen- based policing techniques. The National A New Strategy of Engagement Institute of Justice and police officials Social disorder problems debilitate many from America’s leading cities should Latin American countries, but they also share their experience with the United have a profound impact on the United States’ Latin American neighbors as they States. Unrest in places like the Mexican grapple with their own problems of crime. border and the cocaine-producing regions This means helping provide the means, of Colombia create conditions that boost knowledge, and technology necessary to some of the greatest existential threats train and equip these officials to adopt facing the United States, such as border proven techniques oriented to problem insecurity and the consumption of drugs solving and crime control in in U.S. communities. If the United States the community. adopts a policy that focuses on helping these societies take control and better There are three key recommendations for institute rule of law as a way to increase the United States moving forward: local public security, they will not only 1. Invest resources in Latin America. tackle the root of the regional security The United States has invested challenges but will also help provide a significant resources into a drug war

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that has not proven effective. The information sharing about criminal emphasis in U.S. funding should shift records of deportees between the from military assistance to measures United States and receiving countries. that enhance public and citizen 3. Provide updated technology. Latin security at the city level, and American governments are assistance should be linked to respect particularly underequipped to face for democratic institutions and their local insecurity challenges in respect for human rights. By helping the realm of technology. With special countries manage their own internal provisions in bilateral trade security issues, the United States will agreements, the U.S. private sector also help create stability that is a could provide the latest technology necessary condition for social, and data collection tools, such as political, and economic development COMPSTAT, that are essential for throughout the entire hemisphere. local law enforcement to penetrate 2. Increase transfers of expertise and gang activity, drug money intellectual exchanges. The United laundering, and criminal networks. States has experience both at home The United States can also consult on and abroad in tackling security best practices to ensure that this challenges. It should therefore technology is not abused. expand the U.S. State Department’s Merida Initiative to include local Moving Forward governments in Central America and On 23 May 2008, Obama the presidential both local and federal governments candidate declared that his “policy toward in South America. The Merida the Americas will be guided by the simple Initiative provides assistance in best principle that what’s good for the people practices and emphasizes more of the Americas is good for the United professional civilian police forces, States.” Focusing on assisting the more effective prosecutorial and Americas in improving their security as a judicial institutions, and support of necessary condition to guarantee security the rule of law. Rather than focusing for the United States and the hemisphere only on military support, the United is ideologically consistent with one of his States should also assist in training a stated foreign policy goals for the civilian-based police force and region—freedom from fear. It also instituting independent law represents a diplomatic change for the enforcement and criminal justice United States, which has an unforgiving institutions. This will deepen and legacy of training some of Latin America’s consolidate Latin America’s most ruthless military leaders. A shift democracies by ensuring that human away from exclusive military support and rights and due process are respected toward civilian police forces and away while order is established. Lastly, from drug eradication and toward the there must be more local-level eradication of fear will go far to help the exchanges between U.S. and Latin United States reengage Latin America and American police departments, such help increase security throughout the as pilot programs between Caracas entire hemisphere. and New York City and Rio de Janeiro and Boston, as well as

128 security challenges

Lading e Export Market After coal and iron ore, education is Australia’s third-largest export market, according to a 2009 Lowy Institute for International Policy report by Michael Wesley on the costs of international education in Australia. Wesley states that, driven by deregulation and the Discord Down Under marketization of the tertiary education sector, education export revenues have by Abhilash Mudaliar nearly doubled from AUD $8.6 billion (U.S. $7.6 billion) in 2004 to AUD $15 Abhilash Mudaliar is a second-year student billion (U.S. $13.3 billion) in 2008. At the in the Master in Public Administration/ same time, reductions in public funding International Development program at the for higher education have made John F. Kennedy School of Government at international students—to whom Harvard University. Born in India, Mudaliar Australian universities are permitted to migrated with his family to Australia when charge full fees—an increasingly he was eight years old. He returned to India important source of funding for when he was twenty-five to work in tertiary institutions. grassroots development. He considers both countries “home.” Changes to the structure of the Australian higher education market have also led to increased competition, with many small, For as long as I can remember, revealing vocational institutions setting up shop in that I’m from Australia has been to invite recent years. Offering courses that include some harmless comment along the lines accounting, management, culinary arts, of “oh, you’re so far away from the rest of motor maintenance, and hairdressing, the world.” In recent months, however, these vocational schools have aggressively the first reaction has been something targeted foreign students. different: “Is it really very racist down there?” The Australian Dream Australia’s international tertiary education Starting in early 2009, dozens of violent ecosystem is fairly sophisticated. Agents attacks—bashings, robberies, and located in major towns and cities across murders—against Indian students in India aggressively market unrealistic Australia have made headlines worldwide. dreams. Thousands of Indian youth— The attacks have applied severe strain unqualified for admission to reputable on Indo-Australian bilateral relations tertiary institutions in India itself— and have started to cost the Australian suddenly find they can enroll in fancy- education market lucrative revenue. sounding schools such as “Cambridge Most notably, the attacks have raised International College” or “MIT” questions about the prevalence of racism (Melbourne Institute of Technology!) in in Australian society. Australia. They’re also told they will be able to find a job and acquire permanent residency without much difficulty.

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Naturally seized with temptation, they are soon on a flight headed down under. As a result, there has been rapid growth in the Indian student population in Australia, from 2,700 students in 2002 to 91,400 (out of a total international student population of 415,000) in 2009, according to Washington Post reporter Rod McGuirk. Not surprisingly, given the open arms with which the new vocational institutes welcome foreign applicants, 70 percent of Indian students attend one of these vocational schools rather than a university, according to a 2009 Lowy Institute report by Janaki Bahadur.

Unlike the larger, established universities, by Flickr user alluvinian which have the appropriate infrastructure to orient and support their international to find the jobs they had expected; students, many of these vocational instead, they continue to drive taxis and colleges provide little to no support at all. man 7-Elevens for months, sometime For students from India—most of whom years, after being declared “qualified.” hail from small towns or villages and who would be lost in Delhi or Mumbai—the Bogus diplomas, however, are not the transition is hard-hitting. Financial only questionable practice. Applying for survival means living in rougher parts permanent residency requires a student of town and having to hold down tough to pass an English-language test and to jobs, such as driving taxis and managing present a work experience certificate night shifts at service stations. It is (for those with qualifications from common to work multiple jobs, often vocational courses). An investigation in illegally. And any sort of meaningful 2009 by a leading Australian television interaction with anyone apart from other network found that unscrupulous students from the same region in India immigration and education agents were is rare. selling English-language tests for up to AUD $5,000 and procuring fake work The hardships would, perhaps, ultimately experience certificates for $3,000-$4,000. be worth it, of course, if the education provided was actually valued by industry. Violent Attacks However, the quality of education at A surge in violent attacks against Indian these vocational institutions mostly students in Melbourne, Australia, during ranges from the mediocre to the abysmal. early 2009 led to a series of large-scale Bahadur remarks, “Frequently, it is protests in the city center. Coupled with mutton dressed up as lamb. Outright headline and round-the-clock coverage in fraud involving phony diplomas is not the Indian media, this compelled the unknown.” Not surprisingly, students highest members of India’s cabinet—the coming out of vocational colleges struggle prime minister and foreign minister—to

130 Discord Down Under raise the issue with their counterparts in they were, in the words of local police, Australia. The Australian government, to “soft targets.” In late summer 2009, its credit, responded quickly and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia constructively. A coordinated inquiry and Gillard visited India and assured Indians response was launched headed by the that students coming to Australia would national security adviser, and the deputy be safe and would receive a good, prime minister held a forum with quality education. student representatives.

The quality of education at these vocational institutions mostly ranges from the mediocre to the abysmal.

While Indian media outlets were quick Over the next six months, it seemed that to brand the entire Australian nation as the issue had been laid to rest; no further “racist,” cooler heads in both countries attacks on Indian students were reported. took a more considered view. It was The real problem, it seemed, lay with the widely concluded that any racial element unscrupulous vocational school industry, in these attacks was purely incidental. which led to the conditions that made Many experts felt that the attacks were Indian students more likely to fall victim largely opportunistic and financially to violent crime—something that itself motivated crimes that victimized was on the rise in Australia. those who were already in positions of However, a new spate of attacks in early vulnerability, that is, Indian students 2010 has brought the issue back to the living in unsafe neighborhoods and fore. Eight attacks in less than a month’s holding dangerous jobs. A former time frame included the fatal stabbing Australian diplomat to India attested of twenty-two-year-old Nitin Garg as he that most of the culprits were typical walked through a park on the way to start “garden-variety criminals”—drug addicts, his shift at a fast-food restaurant. Unlike muggers, and the like—that exist in all big previous attacks, this attack (and others of cities around the world. Moreover, reports recent months) did not involve robbery, suggested that the perpetrators were largely ruling out economic motives. people of multiple ethnicities, including Local police, however, quickly ruled out White Australians and youth of Middle racism, prompting an Indian newspaper Eastern and East Asian descent, rather to publish a cartoon portraying than members of organized racist gangs. Australian police in the white robes of the The investigations did, however, shed Ku Klux Klan. light on some serious deficiencies in Australia’s education sector, specifically Policy Responses the mushrooming vocational sector. These attacks on Indian students raise Promises were made to clean up the important questions for policy makers industry, and Indian students were and Australian society more broadly. advised to exercise greater caution given

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From a purely economic perspective, spend each year. The latest advice to the attacks and their fallout are already Indian students from Victoria’s Police causing significant damage. As of the Chief Commissioner Simon Overland to time of this writing in early 2010, the “look as poor as you can” to avoid being Indian government had issued two travel assaulted falls somewhat short of advisories to students going to Australia. the mark. And, according to the most recent figures Victoria doesn’t need to look far to from Australia’s immigration department, learn. Just across the border in South the number of Indians applying for Australia, the state government has in student visas to Australia has dropped place comprehensive support systems by almost 50 percent. Total international for its international students. In addition student visa applications, meanwhile, are to a formal orientation process for all down by a quarter, which no doubt is at new incoming students, the government least partly a reflection of the damage that provides individually tailored support Australia’s reputation has suffered.

The latest advice to Indian students from Victoria’s Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland to “look as poor as you can” to avoid being assaulted falls somewhat short of the mark.

Certainly, the attacks highlight serious and advice on employment, housing, issues in Australia’s education apparatus. and visa requirements. There is even a The focus areas for policy makers are process whereby students can complain fairly obvious. There needs to be stricter about the quality or content of the course regulation of educational quality, in which they are enrolled. Little wonder particularly at vocational schools. Public we’ve heard virtually none of the same funding for tertiary education should be problems being experienced by the 32,000 reviewed to lessen the strong incentives Indian students in Adelaide, Australia. institutions have to enroll international But while the need for a direct regulatory students. Regardless of the number response in the education sector is enrolled, international students need increasingly acknowledged in Australia, to be provided with access to adequate the need for Australian society to support systems during their time in introspect on racism appears less so. Australia. Last, but certainly not least, the role of agents in overseas student There is now enough evidence to suggest recruitment merits strong oversight. that there is an element of racism Students, often coming from more involved in at least some of the attacks vulnerable populations in India, need that have taken place. Attacks have started to have realistic expectations before to occur with increasing frequency and, boarding a plane. They deserve a better moreover, without a corresponding product and service for the billions they economic motive. Some of the attackers

132 Discord Down Under are reported to have shouted racist by the government, and released a few invectives and articulated xenophobic months after the riots, blamed deep- fears. Statistics show that Indians in rooted segregation for the tensions. Australia are two and a half times more Yet, despite efforts to foster integration, likely to be attacked than any other ethnic a follow-up government report in group, according to a 2010 BBC News 2006 noted that segregation was still report. Jim Saleam, head of the far right entrenched in some areas. In France, Australia First Party, has said that “not episodes of civil unrest in 2005 and 2007, only are these Indian students taking as well as riots in mid-2009, highlighted away the seats in colleges and universities the disaffection felt by youth of North . . . by staying back . . . they are becoming African descent. Of late there is strong a serious threat to white Australians in debate on the push by French lawmakers the job market.” for a partial ban on the burqa. I lived in Melbourne for seventeen No doubt the issues in England and years, and it is, by and large, a peaceful France are far from “solved,” but at least place where people are proud of their there is a degree of open public debate multicultural society. Sure, I ran into the and, more importantly, acknowledgement odd bigot every now and then, but not from leaders that race is an issue. In any more often than in other parts of the Australia, after months of denying that world, including India, where I’ve lived racism was playing a role in attacks for eleven years. In fact, thanks to their on Indian students, at least some in naturally outgoing nature and propensity power have also started to open up to travel, I’ve always found Australians to to the possibility. Overland recently be amongst the more tolerant and aware acknowledged “some of what we are of different cultures. seeing is racist. There is no denying that.” And Foreign Minister Stephen Smith However, it’s been nearly five years since has said “it seems clear” that some of I last lived in Melbourne. And by all the attacks “have been racist in nature.” reports the city is certainly a much more However, amongst leaders in the state of dangerous place. Whether it’s also become Victoria, where the majority of attacks a more racist place is an open question. have taken place, there continues to be A 2008 study, which interviewed 12,500 reluctance. When Victorian opposition people over almost a decade, found that leader, Ted Baillieu recently accused the one in ten people in Australia believe government of being in denial over “racist some races to be superior to others. violence,” state government members More than anything else what is needed reacted with hyperbole, suggesting is more open public debate on race and Baillieu had branded Victorian “mums racism in Australian society. Parallels and dads” racist. with other societies suggest that such Perhaps the sooner Australian society can introspection is often slow moving. In start wrestling with these issues rationally England, a series of major riots across and openly, the sooner I can go back to multiple cities during 2001 reflected explaining to my American and European interracial tensions, particularly friends that it’s really they who are very between White and South Asian Muslim far away from the rest of the world. communities. A report commissioned

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 133 funding designated in the 2009 budget and comes in addition to monies allocated for other activities many would consider sufficient for the “build” phase of the counterinsurgency strategy. The money has gone to the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which is intended to allow military commanders Aid as a Weapon: to quickly and easily spend money on Can Money Buy Victory humanitarian and in Afghanistan? reconstruction projects. by Michael Buonocore There has been an increasing expectation amongst policy makers and the general public that money allocated Michael Buonocore spent the last four years for humanitarian and reconstruction as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine purposes will achieve joint security Corps and returned from a seven-month gains for both the United States and tour in the Helmand province in Afghanistan Afghanistan, in addition to improving in June 2009. He is currently pursuing a indigenous quality of life. Though aid has Master in Public Policy degree at the John F. always been seen as having some kind of Kennedy School of Government at return for the United States, the explicit Harvard University. use of aid as a fundamental component of military strategy for defeating an enemy and stabilizing a community is unique in “Clear, hold, build” has become the the context of post-September 11 conflicts primary component of the U.S. and untested. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. It refers to the idea that the At first blush, this strategy seems to military needs to forcibly remove the make intuitive sense and is seen as enemy from population centers, remain a fundamental element of the larger in place to prevent the enemy from strategy that has recently been credited regaining a foothold, and build civil with many of the security gains in Iraq. structures and institutions so that the But the conflict in Afghanistan is very local population becomes strong enough different from the situation in Iraq for to protect itself from the insurgency. It many reasons, and the applicability of seeks to neutralize the enemy by denying the “clear, hold, build” strategy is being access to the civilian population, whose called into question by some prominent support, or at least passive consent, is researchers. There have been several required to continue operating. attempts to evaluate the efficacy of aid, but they tend to narrowly focus on For fiscal year 2010, the U.S. Department how individual Afghans’ perceptions of of Defense has allocated $1.5 billion of government institutions and actors are its annual budget toward humanitarian affected by this aid. However, the true and reconstruction projects. This year’s value of aid should not be measured in allocation is almost 50 percent greater terms of the perceptions of those to who than humanitarian and reconstruction aim is targeted, but rather by its ability

134 security challenges to achieve objectives set by the military government leaders is essential to success commander on the ground. in Afghanistan, and it makes sense that this is measured by how those who Andrew Wilder, a researcher from Tufts are governed perceive them. However, University, is one of those questioning it is shortsighted to also measure the the assumption that “clear, hold, build” contribution of military aid to security in can work in Afghanistan. Wilder has only these terms. spent the past two years studying the impact of aid on Afghans’ perceptions of The value of military aid should not local government. He has used informal be assessed strictly on the immediate interviews with Afghans to assess whether impacts it has on the average Afghan the average person has a positive or but rather on the extent to which it negative attitude toward aid in general, contributes to objectives established specific aid projects, those who distribute by commanders on the ground. Aid is aid, and the new Afghan government. simply another instrument available to Though the study has yet to be finalized, commanders that allows them to achieve Wilder’s initial findings overwhelmingly short- and long-term objectives. The end suggest that Afghans do not view aid objective remains the development of as positive, and in fact, many see it as a a credible, self-sustaining government wasteful or even corrupting force. uncorrupted by the enemy, but there are many incremental objectives along the Wilder further argues that aid is actually way that military aid can actively help having a destabilizing effect throughout achieve that are not adequately measured the country by creating tension between in terms of citizen’s perceptions. the perceived beneficiaries of aid and those who are seemingly excluded. This Aid is a “soft power” instrument that aid may also exacerbate local corruption, commanders can use when the tenability which Afghans have identified as a central of using weapons or other explicitly reason for not accepting local government coercive measures to achieve military institutions. Wilder’s conclusion is that objectives decreases. The most relevant aid needs to once again be thought of in criteria for evaluating the efficacy of strictly humanitarian and developmental this aid, therefore, must be based on the terms and divorced from the idea that aid objective for the intervention and to is a weapon in the fight against the enemy. what extent this objective was achieved. Given the amount of money the military Because every commander-sponsored is now spending on aid and the centrality humanitarian or reconstruction project of it in the military’s counterinsurgency does not have the immediate goal of strategy, these findings are significant improving perceptions, it is of limited and clearly call many of the assumptions utility to measure its effectiveness in only driving military strategy in Afghanistan those terms, as Wilder does. into question. Instead, the efficacy of aid intervention Many who have spent time in should be evaluated based on the Afghanistan will agree with Wilder’s objective that the specific context observations and testify to the validity of requires. As security situations improve to his approach. Increasing the legitimacy the point where the effectiveness of “hard of U.S.-supported local institutions and power” instruments begins to decrease,

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 135 security challenges | Michael Buonocore

soft power instruments that can be used shoot rockets, or throw hand grenades to both influence and negotiate with at will, commanders should not be Afghan leaders fill the void. Commanders free to implement humanitarian or can exchange aid for action, which can reconstruction projects without doing the be an effective way to incentivize actors’ equivalent analysis that goes into utilizing change in behavior. In this sense, it is a any other weapon system. remarkably adaptable tool; for example, Part of this analysis involves anticipating aid can target projects specifically for collateral damage and taking mitigating Afghan leaders, it can be designated for actions to minimize its effect. outcomes a commander wants to pursue

Without discretionary aid, the military could still execute the clear and hold but would no longer be capable of supporting the “build” phase.

without recognition, or it can be used to Commanders must identify the negative coerce an actor by threatening to award consequences of a project from its aid to a rival local actor. conception to the time it is completed. Of course, the gains from using aid in this Every project carries risk, and after those way must be weighed against potential risks and the mitigating actions are negative outcomes that could result, identified, a commander must decide and Wilder’s observations illustrate how if the risk level is acceptable or not. potent the negatives can be. But that does The commander must gauge whether not mean aid should never be used in this the reasonably expected positives from manner. In some circumstances, negative initiating and completing the project outcomes can be mitigated. In others, outweigh the reasonably expected anticipated negative outcomes may be negative outcomes, and if they do, if it is a judged an acceptable consequence in the project worth pursuing. pursuit of greater strategic gains. Moreover, just as a commander would Wilder’s observations are undeniably be reprimanded if he discharged a useful because they may demonstrate $10,000 piece of weaponry without a that aid is not being used like the clear understanding of the outcome of weapon it is intended to be. Every time his action, a commander should also be a Marine or soldier discharges a rifle held accountable if an initiated $10,000 and every time a commander decides to aid project had no reasonable expectation neutralize a target with a 1,000-pound of achieving a particular military goal. bomb, there is a process in place to This not only necessarily means that there ensure that the action chosen is, in fact, must be clearly articulated objectives appropriate. To be effective, aid must for every project, but it also means that be understood in the same way—as a commanders must be committed to weapon. Just as no commander is free achieving these objectives. to have his subordinates fire their rifles,

136 Aid as a Weapon

The rules of engagement governing the the mission. It is easy to say that the use of other weapons should be applied United States and Afghanistan would be to the use of aid. This would require that better served if these humanitarian and before a project is initiated and funds reconstruction projects were undertaken spent, a commander must be able to by another federal agency with more observe a problem in the community experience and specific training, but the and specifically identify the source of reality is that this responsibility has been it. Commanders must also ensure that delegated to the military. Aid has been the aid project is proportional and extremely valuable to commanders on the appropriate to the identified problem. deck, and it has achieved results. The true If access to water is an issue, digging a metric for gauging military aid is implicit well may be appropriate, but contracting in what these investments accomplish for the district governor’s brother to truck the commander, not necessarily the effect in bottled water from Kabul may not. they have on government officials or the If a commander is trying to influence a individual Afghan. At its most effective all district official, initiating a project that three parties derive mutual benefits, but disproportionately benefits the official as long as the commander is reaching the may be appropriate, but expending desired result of a particular project and $50,000 to do so without communal the negative outcomes do not exceed the benefits is probably not proportional. gains, aid projects are worth pursuing. In the end, perhaps the strongest argument in support of the value of military aid is to simply imagine a situation in which commanders do not have access to such funds. Without discretionary aid, the military could still execute the clear and hold but would no longer be capable of supporting the “build” phase. Without this capacity to build, it is hard to understand what exactly the military would do to advance the mission—it would simply become an occupying force, influencing those it could by almost exclusively coercive means. The military would still be able to provide a community some level of security, but only that, and it has become clear that in these conflicts the military needs to do so much more. It has long been our military’s responsibility to fight and win wars, but in counterinsurgency campaigns where what it means to win is less clear, the military needs access to both hard and soft power instruments to accomplish

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 137 I received a phone call only two days after the quake from a program director, Martha Thompson, at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) asking if I might be available as a part- time consultant for the organization in its Haiti relief efforts. I jumped at the chance. I agreed to escort Thompson to Haiti in Kenbe Espwa: February on an assessment mission to Keeping Hope for Haiti — identify where UUSC’s support might be of greatest benefit to people falling A Photo Journal Essay of through the cracks. Public Service Roughly half of our time was spent by Wendy L. Flick in rural areas of the Central Plateau assessing the situation of refugees who W endy L. Flick is currently a mid-career fled from Port-au-Prince and the other Master in Public Administration candidate half in and around the capital city of at the John F. Kennedy School of Port-au-Prince. Food, water, and shelter Government at Harvard University. Prior to topped the list of needs everywhere, her work with the Pond Foundation, Flick but not far behind were the desires for was the founder and coordinator of a employment, education for the children, volunteer services program for Sangre de and rebuilding of the country. Cristo Hospice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Though the overall devastation is before that she worked as a carpenter for unbelievable and overwhelming, it is the Chestnut Ridge Construction Company individual stories that stick with me most. building log homes in Pennsylvania. Here are just a few: • Poly, a teenage girl staying at the As director of international programs for Mouvman Peyizan Papaye peasant- the Pond Foundation from 2000 to 2009, training center in Papaye, was one of some of my most satisfying work was only two children to survive the partnering with Haitian organizations. collapse of her school in Port-au- From 2003 to 2007, we created sustainable Prince. She has a huge lump on the development programs in permaculture, side of her head and is deeply renewable energies, food security, and traumatized at the loss of her friends. potable water. When the Haitian • Josette Farme is a woman we met at earthquake hit on 12 January 2010, I was the St. Terese Hospital in Hinche. She engrossed in a January intensive course at is in her late thirties and has eight the John F. Kennedy School of children between the ages of one and Government at Harvard University. twenty. Her husband died, and she Immediately my attention was split— lost both of her legs and her home in trying to ascertain the safety and survival the earthquake. Now that her wounds of my Haitian friends and colleagues are healing there is pressure for her while attempting to engage in my course to leave the hospital due to a shortage work. I was itching to find a way to help. of beds. But she has nowhere to go

138 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti

A tent camp about 20 kilometers east of Port au Prince. Very few of the makeshift shelters are rain-proof, and the rainy season begins in April.

and no prosthetics to assist with Signs like this one on the fence of a tent camp were mobility. We also discovered that everywhere, in every language; “Ed nou, ayudanos, there is no regular provision of meals please help us.” at the hospital, so her children spend their days scrounging for food to feed her and themselves. • My good friend Agathe Jean-Baptiste survived the earthquake physically unscathed with her eleven-month- old baby girl Agla. But like many Haitians, she carries a lot of invisible trauma from the experience. A medical doctor, Agathe went to volunteer at one of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince and says she saw something she wishes she had never seen—the miscellaneous body parts of nursing students mixed in with the

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 139 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti | Wendy L. Flick

Women receiving bags of rice from a USAID distribution point. Their next hurdles will be to make it safely back to their tent camps, then scrounge for pots, water and firewood to cook the rice. These basic necessities are not easy to come by.

rubble as bulldozers cleared away the the rural areas to which hundreds of debris from the collapsed nursing thousands of people have fled, school adjacent to the hospital. overwhelming the already limited local resources in those areas. Every person I met had stories like these, some of horror and trauma, 3. Job creation must be a high priority others of miraculous escapes and hope. in the immediate cleanup, as well as Nearly everyone offered ideas for what in the long-term reconstruction is needed to move forward. After eight plans. People are eager to get back to days of listening to Haitians’ ideas, I am work and do not want to retain convinced of the following priorities: dependence on food aid. 1. Haitian voices must be actively 4. Better solutions for shelter need to be engaged in meetings with found. Many people are living under international humanitarian bedsheets that provide some shade organizations and in all major from the sun but will be useless for planning meetings for both short- protection from the rains. term relief and long-term recovery Despite the current enormous strain plans. Haitians need to be the ones to on local resources from the influx of decide how Haiti should be rebuilt. refugees, some pockets of hope were 2. Aid distribution must be focused not evident in the countryside. For example, only on Port-au-Prince but also on the programs I helped implement in my

140 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti

Woman cooking for her family in a makeshift kitchen in a tent camp in Mariani. earlier partnerships in the Central Plateau region, such as the development of family gardens and microdrip irrigation, are still going strong. These methods, scaled up for more extensive sustainable farming, can offer hope and viable solutions to the local residents and to the thousands of internally displaced persons flooding into the countryside. Most of the food production techniques also are transferable for urban use.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 141 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti | Wendy L. Flick

Tent camp in Mariani. Shelters here are made from bedsheets that offer some privacy and sunshade, but not much rain protection. Rainy season begins in April.

Refugee mother and baby in Papaye, Central Plateau.

142 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti

Remains of a maternity clinic in Port au Prince.

Distribution of bags of USAID rice with UN “blue hat” protection.

harvard kennedy school review | volume 10 | 2009–2010 143 Kenbe Espwa: Keeping Hope for Haiti | Wendy L. Flick

New arrivals for refugee registration at MPP in Papaye. This woman arrived on crutches because she lost her left leg in the earthquake.

Remains of a church in Port au Prince.

144 harvardkennedyschool Review Call for Papers Want to be published in the 2011 Harvard Kennedy School Review?

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