DOCSLIB.ORG

Progressive Foreign Policy After Blair a Democratiya Symposium

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Progressive Foreign Policy After Blair a Democratiya Symposium Progressive Foreign Policy after Blair A Democratiya Symposium Notes on the Participants Alan Johnson is the editor of Democratiya. He is also a founder member of Labour Friends of Iraq and co-author of the Euston Manifesto. Since 2003 he has supported the work of Iraqi democrats. With Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation he wrote Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Unions (Trades Union Congress, 2006). John Bew is a Research Fellow of Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge and the Vice-President of the Henry Jackson Society. He is co-author of The British Moment: The Case for Democratic Geo-Politics in the Twenty First Century (Henry Jackson Society / Social Affairs Unit). David Clark is a freelance political writer and analyst. He previously worked for the late Robin Cook MP, joining his staff in 1994 and serving as his special adviser on Europe at the Foreign Office from 1997-2001. From 1991-94 he worked as a research assistant to John Reid MP. David is also chairman of the Russia Foundation and a senior research fellow at the Federal Trust, where he is coordinating a project entitled A Global Strategy for Europe. Isabel Hilton is the editor of openDemocracy. She is a journalist, broadcaster, writer and commentator and has worked for and contributed to a wide range of international media, including The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Economist, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta and the BBC. She has reported extensively from Latin America, South Asia, China, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Oliver Kamm is a columnist at The Times and the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy (Social Affairs Unit, 2005). Ziba Norman is the founder and director of the Transatlantic Institute. She writes regularly on foreign affairs and political issues. Her articles have been published in, amongst others, The International Herald Tribune, The Observer, Prospect Magazine, El Diario Exterior, and The RSA Journal. | 129 | Democratiya 6 | Autumn 2006 Martin Shaw is Professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex. Martin’s more recent books include The New Western Way of War: Risk- Transfer War and Its Crisis in Iraq (Polity, 2005), War and Genocide (Polity, 2003), and Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2000). What is Genocide? will be published by Polity in early 2007. Introduction to the Symposium Alan Johnson (Chair) I would like to welcome everyone. Our theme today is ‘progressive foreign policy after Blair.’ In London on 21 March 2006, during one of a series of major foreign policy speeches the Prime Minister observed that ‘Over these past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy [and] confusingly, its proponents and opponents come from all sides of the political spectrum.’ The democratic and progressive left is certainly divided and the intention today is to begin exploring those divisions. Our discussions today will range over four questions. What is the future of humanitarian interventionism (or ‘the responsibility to protect’)? How should we respond to the threat from terrorism? What kind of relationship should we seek between the EU and the USA? What should be the broad outlines of future Labour Party foreign policy? Session 1: What future for humanitarian interventionism? Introductory remarks by Alan Johnson Tony Blair has been a leading proponent of humanitarian intervention as part of a progressive foreign policy. His speech in Chicago on 22 April 1999 set out ‘a new doctrine of international community’ and the Kosovo intervention was widely supported on the centre-left. In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), sponsored by the Canadian government, examined the difficult questions of the thresholds and agencies of humanitarian intervention and produced a widely hailed report, The Responsibility to Protect. Kofi Annan openly discussed a possible reinterpretation of the UN Charter to facilitate intervention. Well, we seem a long way from those heady days now. The very idea of humanitarian intervention is mired in suspicion, even dubbed ‘the new imperialism.’ The chances | 130 | Symposium | Foreign Policy After Blair of a rescue of the Darfurians facing genocide are near to zero. How can we make meaningful our commitment to a responsibility to protect? What is the future of humanitarian intervention? Martin Shaw on Humanitarian Interventionism First, I assume that we would agree that populations targeted directly with physical violence by authoritarian regimes deserve international solidarity and protection. Second, once actual violence is underway, some sort of international military intervention may be one way to protect that population – we should not disregard other ways. Third, I assume we would agree that international action has the right to override claims to sovereignty by authoritarian regimes. Those three points – which would have achieved a wide degree of consensus in the past, as Alan has pointed out – are now widely discredited. If we look at the most recent situation which really demanded a serious attempt to protect a threatened population – Darfur – we have to conclude that the response of the international community has been pretty dismal. It is important to ask why this slip back has taken place, and why there is a continuing failure to protect. There are a number of reasons. Some we are familiar with. First, the resistance of authoritarian regimes to the principle of intervention, including of course the resistance of states like China and Russia on the UN Security Council. This resistance is echoed by what we could call the reactionary left. Second, the timidity of progressive leaders and the international community, as demonstrated in Rwanda. Third, there is the bureaucratic inertia of the UN. Fourth, the fact that although humanitarian interventions sound nice in principle, the reality of putting military forces into any situation is always a lot messier than it looks on the drawing board. The actual implementation of humanitarian interventions has not been free of problems, to say the least. But there is another factor, newer and more specific, and that is the association of the idea of humanitarian intervention with, and its cooption by, the more ambitious war-making projects of the Bush administration and the neo-cons, and the endorsement of those projects by the Blair government and by some other progressives. And this is where I would want to focus. These projects have ratcheted up the difficulties of achieving effective interventions to protect threatened populations. In Kosovo, the methods chosen by Clinton and NATO did not | 131 | Democratiya 6 | Autumn 2006 best protect the civilian populations but caused a lot of problems. And what has happened in Iraq has made it difficult to conceive of even a limited proportionate military intervention to protect threatened peoples. So there is a dilemma for the progressive left. One answer to this is to extend the logic of humanitarian intervention into the endorsement of aggressive wars and regime change and the whole radical new agenda that has been opened up by Bush. But this undermines international law, the UN, the principles of democracy and human rights for which humanitarian intervention claims to stand – look at the nature of the bombings, the experience of Guantanamo, and so on. It leads to the cooption of the progressive left. The alternative is not necessarily an easy one. It is to acknowledge that there is a fundamental problem with modern war and military power. This is the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. Since that time we have learnt the dangers of war in modern society. War is not compatible with human rights. Opposition to war-making is really a fundamental principle of progressive politics which should stand alongside the commitment to democracy and human rights. This is the dilemma that tears the progressive left and it needs to be resolved before there can be any real progress. John Bew on Humanitarian Interventionism I will start with two predictions about the likely future of humanitarian intervention. First, calls for humanitarian intervention are likely to increase in the next decade or so – whatever happens in Iraq – as a consequence of globalisation. Second, there is likely to be a reaction against humanitarian intervention post-Blair in Britain, and post-Bush in the US. For progressives it is better America is engaged with the world, with all that entails, than not engaged at all, with its head in the sand. Yes, it is easy to travel along with critics of Bush’s foreign policy. But just think where Republican foreign policy was pre-Bush! Let’s look at this from top-down and bottom-up. From a top-down perspective, Gordon Brown, for all sorts of reasons, will feel he must draw a line under what has happened in Iraq. How he does that is going to be absolutely crucial for what happens in the next decade or so in British foreign policy. Brown has not been part of the anti-war movement in any sense. George Galloway recently described Blair and Brown as ‘two cheeks of the same arse.’ However, Brown has hardly been Blair’s wing-commander. He has not really shown the same ardour and passion about these issues. | 132 | Symposium | Foreign Policy After Blair So, how will Brown draw his line in the sand? One option is to withdraw troops. It seems to me inconceivable that Brown will do that. It would be a recipe for disaster. The second option is that Brown will say something like ‘we will not go to war again without the UN.’ This is more likely to be his course of action.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Television Dramas Have Increasingly Reinforced a Picture of British Politics As ‘Sleazy’
    Television dramas have increasingly reinforced a picture of British politics as ‘sleazy’ blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/new-labour-sleaze-and-tv-drama/ 4/22/2014 There were 24 TV dramas produced about New Labour and all made a unique contribution to public perceptions of politics. These dramas increasingly reinforced a picture of British politics as ‘sleazy’ and were apt to be believed by many already cynical viewers as representing the truth. Steven Fielding argues that political scientists need to look more closely at how culture is shaping the public’s view of party politics. On the evening of 28th February 2007, 4.5 million ITV viewers saw Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott receive a blowjob. Thankfully, they did not see the real Prescott on the screen but instead actor John Henshaw who played him in Confessions of a Diary Secretary. Moreover, the scene was executed with some discretion: shot from behind a sofa all viewers saw was the back of the Deputy Prime Minister’s head. Prescott’s two-year adulterous affair with civil servant Tracey Temple had been splashed across the tabloids the year before and ITV had seen fit to turn this private matter into a broad comedy, one which mixed known fact with dramatic invention. Confessions of a Diary Secretary is just one of twenty-four television dramas produced about New Labour which I discuss in my new article in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations. Some of these dramas were based on real events, others elliptically referenced the government and its personnel; but all made, I argue, a unique contribution to public perceptions of politics.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    NOTES Introduction 1. Robert Kagan to George Packer. Cited in Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate: America In Iraq (Faber and Faber, London, 2006): 38. 2. Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neoconservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004): 9. 3. Critiques of the war on terror and its origins include Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (Routledge, New York and London, 2004); Francis Fukuyama, After the Neocons: America At the Crossroads (Profile Books, London, 2006); Ira Chernus, Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin (Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO and London, 2006); and Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (Doubleday, New York, 2008). 4. A report of the PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000: 76. URL: http:// www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf (15 January 2009). 5. On the first generation on Cold War neoconservatives, which has been covered far more extensively than the second, see Gary Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1993); Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America’s Politics (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979); Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005); Murray Friedman ed. Commentary in American Life (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2005); Mark Gerson, The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars (Madison Books, Lanham MD; New York; Oxford, 1997); and Maria Ryan, “Neoconservative Intellectuals and the Limitations of Governing: The Reagan Administration and the Demise of the Cold War,” Comparative American Studies, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Coventry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
    Coventry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of people who have shaped British history, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The Oxford DNB (ODNB) currently includes the life stories of over 60,000 men and women who died in or before 2017. Over 1,300 of those lives contain references to Coventry, whether of events, offices, institutions, people, places, or sources preserved there. Of these, over 160 men and women in ODNB were either born, baptized, educated, died, or buried there. Many more, of course, spent periods of their life in Coventry and left their mark on the city’s history and its built environment. This survey brings together over 300 lives in ODNB connected with Coventry, ranging over ten centuries, extracted using the advanced search ‘life event’ and ‘full text’ features on the online site (www.oxforddnb.com). The same search functions can be used to explore the biographical histories of other places in the Coventry region: Kenilworth produces references in 229 articles, including 44 key life events; Leamington, 235 and 95; and Nuneaton, 69 and 17, for example. Most public libraries across the UK subscribe to ODNB, which means that the complete dictionary can be accessed for free via a local library. Libraries also offer 'remote access' which makes it possible to log in at any time at home (or anywhere that has internet access). Elsewhere, the ODNB is available online in schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions worldwide. Early benefactors: Godgifu [Godiva] and Leofric The benefactors of Coventry before the Norman conquest, Godgifu [Godiva] (d.
    [Show full text]
  • The Onlife Manifesto Luciano Floridi Editor
    The Onlife Manifesto Luciano Floridi Editor The Onlife Manifesto Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era Editor Luciano Floridi Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford Oxford, Oxfordshire United Kingdom Image made from models used to track debris in Earth orbit. Of the approximately 19,000 man-made objects larger than 10 centimetres in Earth orbit as of July 2009, most orbit close to the Earth. Source: NASA Earth Observatory / Orbital Debris Program Office: http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Debris_Low_Earth_Orbit.png original publication date 12 September 2009. ISBN 978-3-319-04092-9 ISBN 978-3-319-04093-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948552 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s) 2015. The book is published with open access at SpringerLink.com Open Access This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncom- mercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. This work is subject to copyright. All commercial rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publica- tion does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
    [Show full text]
  • Contemporary Left Antisemitism
    “David Hirsh is one of our bravest and most thoughtful scholar-activ- ists. In this excellent book of contemporary history and political argu- ment, he makes an unanswerable case for anti-anti-Semitism.” —Anthony Julius, Professor of Law and the Arts, UCL, and author of Trials of the Diaspora (OUP, 2010) “For more than a decade, David Hirsh has campaigned courageously against the all-too-prevalent demonisation of Israel as the one national- ism in the world that must not only be criticised but ruled altogether illegitimate. This intellectual disgrace arouses not only his indignation but his commitment to gather evidence and to reason about it with care. What he asks of his readers is an equal commitment to plumb how it has happened that, in a world full of criminality and massacre, it is obsessed with the fundamental wrongheadedness of one and only national movement: Zionism.” —Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University, USA “David Hirsh writes as a sociologist, but much of the material in his fascinating book will be of great interest to people in other disciplines as well, including political philosophers. Having participated in quite a few of the events and debates which he recounts, Hirsh has done a commendable service by deftly highlighting an ugly vein of bigotry that disfigures some substantial portions of the political left in the UK and beyond.” —Matthew H. Kramer FBA, Professor of Legal & Political Philosophy, Cambridge University, UK “A fierce and brilliant rebuttal of one of the Left’s most pertinacious obsessions. What makes David Hirsh the perfect analyst of this disorder is his first-hand knowledge of the ideologies and dogmata that sustain it.” —Howard Jacobson, Novelist and Visiting Professor at New College of Humanities, London, UK “David Hirsh’s new book Contemporary Left Anti-Semitism is an impor- tant contribution to the literature on the longest hatred.
    [Show full text]
  • The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and the Milosevic Lobby - the Henry Jackson Society Archive 16/09/2014 19:35
    The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and the Milosevic Lobby - The Henry Jackson Society Archive 16/09/2014 19:35 Latest Tweet Please wait while our tweets load. If you can't wait - check out what we've been twittering. MoreShare | ShareShareShareShare Publications Policy Pamphlets & Reports Strategic Briefings Backgrounders Letters Conversations Editorials Policy & Research Areas Regions Britain Greater Europe & Eurasia European Union European Neighbourhood Russia & Eurasia The Americas North America Latin America Middle East & Africa Middle East Africa Asia Pacific East Asia South Asia South East Asia & Australia Themes Democracy & Development Environment & Economy Global Security & Terrorism Transatlantic Relations & Defence Events Future Events file:///Users/markohoare/Desktop/MyFiles/Articles/Current%20affairs/HJS/2006ChomskyMilosevic.webarchive Page 1 of 19 The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and the Milosevic Lobby - The Henry Jackson Society Archive 16/09/2014 19:35 Past Events Campaigns & Projects Affiliated Projects Worldview Global Power Europe YPFP London Greater Surbiton APPG Media Centre Online Shop Recommended Reading Email List Sign up here and keep up to date by joining the HJS mailing list Email Sign up HOME > Policy & Research Areas > Regions > Greater Europe & Eurasia > European Neighbourhood The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and the Milosevic Lobby By Marko Attila Hoare, 4th February 2006 Sometimes facts are stranger than fiction. On 31 October 2005, The Guardian published an interview with Noam Chomsky, prophet of coffee- table anti-imperialism and verbal conjuror extraordinaire, carried out by the journalist Emma Brockes, which was highly embarrassing to him. The interview exposed him as having revisionist views in relation to the Srebrenica massacre, which he described as ‘probably overstated’ and which he has minimised at various times and in various ways.
    [Show full text]
  • Type of Paper: Code
    Transcript: Q&A Partnering with the Muslim Community as an Effective Counter- Terrorist Strategy Dr Robert Lambert MBE Co-Director, European Muslim Research Centre, University of Exeter; Lecturer, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews; and Former Head, Muslim Contact Unit, Metropolitan Police Chair: Professor Rosemary Hollis Professor of Middle East Policy Studies; Director, Olive Tree Programme, City University 20 September 2011 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/ speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. Transcript: Partnering with the Muslim Community Rosemary Hollis: Well I don't think you've disappointed at all in terms of taking on the establishment and sundry individuals in terms of their attitude towards counter-terrorism. And I note that we can hear directly from Ibrahim Hewitt and Interpal in the first question.
    [Show full text]
  • Labour Loses out to Lara As Britain's Youth Fails to Spot the Cabinet
    Labour Loses out to Lara as Britain's Youth Fails to Spot the Cabinet August 1, 2000 It 's Pokemon vs. the Politicians! 1 August 2000, London: Video games characters are more recognisable to Britain's youth than the country's most powerful politicians, including Tony Blair. That is the shock result of a new survey of 16-21 year olds released today by Amazon.co.uk, Britain's leading online retailer, which commissioned the research as part of the launch of its new PC and Video Games store. When asked to identify photographs, 96% correctly named Super Mario and 93% the Pokemon character Pikachu, whereas the Prime Minister was correctly identified by only 91%. Lara Croft, pin-up heroine of the Tomb Raider games, was identified by 80% of respondents. However, Tony Blair has a far higher profile than his cabinet colleagues. Less than one in four (24%) of 16-21 year olds recognised Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Home Secretary Jack Straw was correctly identified by just 33%, and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook by 42%. Other members of the cabinet fared even less well - Mo Mowlam was correctly identified by only 37% of respondents and Peter Mandelson by a meagre 18%, despite their recent high media profile. Donkey Kong, the gorilla hero of video games since the 1980s, was the least recognisable video games character at 67%, but still polled 25% higher than any cabinet member except for the Prime Minister himself. When asked how important a role the politicians and video games characters played in their lives, despite the politicians polling higher than the video games characters, nearly one in three (29%) said that Tony Blair was either not very important or not all important to their lives.
    [Show full text]
  • UK Think-Tanks, the War on Terror and the Radicalisation Debate
    eCommons@AKU Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series ISMC Series 11-2020 UK Think-Tanks, the War on Terror and the Radicalisation Debate Hadi Enayat Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.aku.edu/uk_ismc_series_ops Part of the Defense and Security Studies Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, and the Terrorism Studies Commons Recommended Citation Enayat, Hadi, "UK Think-Tanks, the War on Terror and the Radicalisation Debate" (2020). Abdou Filali- Ansary Occasional Paper Series. Book 4. https://ecommons.aku.edu/uk_ismc_series_ops/4 ABDOU FILALI-ANSARY OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES UK Think-Tanks, the War on Terror and the Radicalisation Debate Hadi Enayat OCCASIONAL PAPER NO. 4 NOVEMBER 2020 I S S N 2 6 3 3 - 8890 Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series In this Series we publish progressive, innovative research to generate discussion and contribute to the advancement of knowledge. The papers represent work from affiliated faculty, fellows, researchers, and doctoral students across a wide range of research areas, demonstrating both the depth and breadth of research being undertaken at the Institute. We also offer the opportunity for our Masters students who have won the best thesis award to publish an abridged version of their thesis with us. We welcome submissions from external researchers that address current AKU-ISMC research priorities. The views expressed in the Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of AKU-ISMC. Although Occasional Papers are not formally peer reviewed, they are thoroughly researched and are reviewed by members of our research team.
    [Show full text]
  • David Alderson Book Title
    Chapter Title: Saturday’s Enlightenment Chapter Author(s): David Alderson Book Title: End of empire and the English novel since 1945 Book Editor(s): Rachael Gilmour, Bill Schwarz Published by: Manchester University Press. (2011) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvkn0.16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Manchester University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to End of empire and the English novel since 1945 This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Tue, 28 Jun 2016 08:25:58 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 11 Saturday’s Enlightenment David Alderson The principal focus of this essay is on Ian McEwan’s novel, Saturday. The motivation for writing it, however, is to engage with larger debates on the British left – including the liberal left to which McEwan in some sense belongs – about the US- and British-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and more generally about the continuing imperatives of empire. Set on 15 February, the day of the anti-invasion protests – though published in 2005, and written therefore in the knowledge of all that had
    [Show full text]
  • Reliability of Wikipedia 1 Reliability of Wikipedia
    Reliability of Wikipedia 1 Reliability of Wikipedia The reliability of Wikipedia (primarily of the English language version), compared to other encyclopedias and more specialized sources, is assessed in many ways, including statistically, through comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in the editing process unique to Wikipedia. [1] Because Wikipedia is open to anonymous and collaborative editing, assessments of its Vandalism of a Wikipedia article reliability usually include examinations of how quickly false or misleading information is removed. An early study conducted by IBM researchers in 2003—two years following Wikipedia's establishment—found that "vandalism is usually repaired extremely quickly — so quickly that most users will never see its effects"[2] and concluded that Wikipedia had "surprisingly effective self-healing capabilities".[3] A 2007 peer-reviewed study stated that "42% of damage is repaired almost immediately... Nonetheless, there are still hundreds of millions of damaged views."[4] Several studies have been done to assess the reliability of Wikipedia. A notable early study in the journal Nature suggested that in 2005, Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors".[5] This study was disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica.[6] By 2010 reviewers in medical and scientific fields such as toxicology, cancer research and drug information reviewing Wikipedia against professional and peer-reviewed sources found that Wikipedia's depth and coverage were of a very high standard, often comparable in coverage to physician databases and considerably better than well known reputable national media outlets.
    [Show full text]
  • Boisi Center Interviews No
    the boisi center interviews no. 58: September 21, 2011 alan wolfe is the founding director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and professor of political science at Boston College. He spoke with Boisi Center associate director Erik Owens before meeting with a panel of critics to discuss his latest book, Political Evil: What It Is And How to Combat It (2011). owens: How do you distinguish among University of Maryland, trying to get The basic idea behind this manifesto, the types of evil you see in the world? people to sign a liberal hawkish petition and behind a lot of the thinking that called the Euston Manifesto. They want- I was wrestling with, was the notion wolfe: My book is about a specific kind ed liberal intellectuals who supported that we’ve seen evil before—it took the of evil: evil used for political and strate- the general idea of U.S. intervention to form of totalitarianism with Hitler and gic ends. There is lots of evil that has no promote Stalin—and that what we’re witnessing is political character whatsoever, like people another replay of that in the world today. who shoot up schools like in Columbine, The manifesto went on to criticize the Colorado, or post office killings. Some left for standing by and not doing any- forms are mixed. For example, Nadal thing when those evils appeared in the Hassan at Fort Hood, Texas—maybe it past so as to not make that mistake again. was political, or maybe he was just crazy.
    [Show full text]