SIPA News January 2012
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JANUARY 2012 SIPANEWS NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE POWER OF PERCEPTION SIPANEWS VOLUME XXV No. 1 JANUARY 2012 Published semiannually by Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs The quickening pace of globalization over the past two decades has undermined traditional national From the Dean identities and helped to promote ethnic, social, cultural, and even transnational solidarities that com- pete for primacy. More than 200 million people worldwide now reside outside their country of birth. Most of the rest of the world’s population now live in cities that are becoming more and more diverse. As the essays in this issue of SIPA News demonstrate vividly, individual identities and attachments are changing on a vast scale. In some places, of course, economic crises and political tensions have fueled a revival of nationalist sentiment against outsiders, but in most of the world, urbanization, education, and rising consumption are making people more cosmopolitan. In many places, identity formation has become an object of policymaking for national as well as local governments and of lobbying (or marketing) by social entrepreneurs of all kinds. Governments seek to reshape the attitudes of potential foreign investors and end up creating or perpetuating national or local mythologies, while cultural symbols and achievements, from ancient ruins and transnational religiosity to pop music and football (soccer), are being deployed by governments and non-state actors alike to create a sense of community (or of tension and confrontation) where it did not exist before. These are powerful trends, pushed along by the rapid proliferation of new means of social communication. SIPA, for example, is working hard to enhance and expand its own community of more than 18,000 alumni in 153 countries. A record number of SIPA alumni volunteered to serve on an enlarged Alumni Council that now includes active alumni representatives from around the world. You can find SIPA via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, in addition to the Morningside Post (the student run blog space) and the SIPA web page, with its videos of timely lectures and conferences on the great public policy challenges of our times. SIPA graduates are also playing key roles in reaching out to all Columbia alumni. Karen Poniachik (MIA ’90), for example, now heads the new Columbia Global Center in Santiago, Chile. Karen is Chile’s former minister of energy and minister of mining. Ipek Cem-Taha (MIA ’93, BUS ’93), a well- known media personality in Turkey, directs the new Global Center in Istanbul. SIPA graduates also play leading roles in Columbia University Clubs from Beijing to Bogotá. Whether you are a SIPA grad or not, don’t hesitate to get connected. John H. Coatsworth Dean, School of International and Public Affairs Interim Provost, Columbia University contents FEATURES INSIDE SIPA p. 2 p. 13 p.22 p.31 p.35 Nationalism 2.0 An Island of Open Reconstructing the Faculty Honors Witnesses to History: By Ethan Wilkes Identity: Singapore Chinese Farmer and Awards SIPA Interns around and Long-Distance By David Borenstein By Alex Burnett the World Nationalism By Michelle Chahine p. 4 By Priyam Saraf Marketing Macedonia p.25 p.32 By Sara Ray Forever Young: Leaders in Global p.36 p.16 China’s Belief Energy: Seeking PhD Students Connect An Identity to Call Their in Its Own Solutions to Climate Change and p. 7 Own: Singaporeans Benevolent Rise Sustainable Energy Civil War Branding a Global and the Question of By Rebecca Chao By Alex Burnett and By Alex Burnett City, One Campaign Michelle Chahine Immigration SIPA Alumnae Direct at a Time By Crystal Neo New Global Centers By Andrea Moore p.28 Development through p.33 p.18 Football: A Vision SIPA Events p.37 p. 10 Nation for Sale: for the Balkans Highlight Emerging From SIPA to Iraq to Rebranding Murder Selling Sierra Leone By Behar Xharra and Economies and Martin Waehlisch Afghanistan: An Inter- City: Mexico’s By Jennifer Wilmore Economic Priorities view with Carlos Terrones Fight to Change the by Michelle Chahine Image of a Battered Border Town p.20 p.34 By Nathaniel Parish Flannery Post-Soviet Identity From Recipients to p.38 Donors: Brazilian and Foreign Policy Class Notes Formation in Ukraine, Students Turn Compiled by Pat Jones Estonia, and Latvia Classwork into By Tim Sandole Real-world Policy By Michelle Chahine p.39 Donor List NATIONALISM 2.0 BY ETHAN WILKES 2 SIPA NEWS dentity matters in international affairs. How political, economic, or tory identity that can work in support of policy objec- tives. Many do so through the explicit connection of military power moves the affairs of state is easy to see. But it is what a product or experience with its country of origin. Ipeople believe and hold to be true—their identities—that underpins While not everyone can call Cape Town, Seoul, these power resources and defines their use. or Mumbai home, many can go on safari, own a Samsung phone, or learn yoga. The greater the From transnational movements to nation brands and even new nation- appeal of these products and experiences, and an hood, national identities are increasingly vying for international influence. individual’s awareness of their origins, the more likely They are being packaged for global consumption and exist inasmuch as that individual might be favorably predisposed to sup- porting, or even advocating on behalf of, a World Cup they earn international recognition. These identities represent a new form bid for South Africa, a free trade agreement for South of nationalism—what we might call “nationalism 2.0”—that is externally Korea, or a UN Security Council seat for India. oriented, inclusive, and participatory. Where the stakes are particularly high, coun- tries foster nationalism 2.0 less through links with Traditionally, the notion of a “national” identity States “has a responsibility to help stop the killing engaging products and experiences than through was wedded to the nation-state. It was an identity in the Darfur region.” Interestingly, according to appeals to the values of their intended audi- rooted in the common bonds that defined and unit- a CBS News/New York Times poll conducted this ences. In particular, new states such as Kosovo, ed a national constituency, such as ethnicity, reli- past fall, only 43 percent “agree with the views of South Sudan, and potentially Palestine have gion, and language. It was an identity that came as Occupy Wall Street,” a movement that ostensibly sought to win support for nationhood by project- a birthright, produced patriots, and fought “for God represents 99 percent of Americans and concerns ing identities that appeal to an American sense of and country.” It served as the je ne sais quoi that issues far closer to home than Tibet or Darfur. Wilsonian idealism. By casting their struggle for made Frenchmen French and Germans German. What Free Tibet and Save Darfur represent, in self-determination in a familiar ideational context, But anyone with an Internet connection is no lon- contrast to Occupy Wall Street, is the key tenet of they have succeeded in engaging significant levels ger a prisoner of geography; identities are no longer nationalism 2.0: identities that appeal to individu- of public advocacy in the United States to support accidents of origin. The ease of access to information als’ aspirations for advocacy and provide a coherent their aspirations for independence. and international experiences has replaced the tra- platform in which many can participate might have These examples stand in stark contrast to the ditional notion of a national identity with something a discernable impact on policy. Save Darfur proved no less deserving independence-minded region of more of our own choosing. For those of us who have instrumental in securing Congressional support for Kurdistan. There are many reasons a Kurdish state come of age with this exposure, our self-selected putting UN peacekeepers on the ground in Sudan. has not materialized, not the least of which are the identities are increasingly wedded to nations of like- U.S. presidents continue to chide China over treat- geopolitical ramifications for Turkey, Syria, Iraq, minded individuals rather than to nation-states. We ment of Tibetans, to the great ire of Beijing. and Iran. But Kurdistan, like Occupy Wall Street, are defined and united less by the national identities More than a few countries have recognized the has also failed to project enough of an externally we are born into than by the transnational identities power of nationalism 2.0 and are making con- oriented, inclusive, and participatory identity to in which we choose to believe. We are becoming scious efforts to package a coherent, consistent, capture a transformative level of global advocacy advocates rather than patriots. Our fight is increas- and well-communicated identity to the outside for its cause. ingly for cause before country. world through the use of a nation brand. Identity, indeed, matters in international affairs. Nowhere is this reality more apparent than in Some nation brands are small and product An identity that cannot travel, one that remains transnational movements like Free Tibet and Save focused, such as the Bahamas’ promotion of great restricted to its national boundaries, becomes the Darfur. That there is scarcely an elected official tropical holidays, while others encapsulate an entire tree that no one heard fall in the forest; its ability in the United States who would openly argue national idea like those for India and South Africa. to affect policy will be minimal. In a world where against either of these movements is indicative They might be used to raise reputations, as in the national identities are increasingly of our own of the extent to which the electorate has internal- cases of Ghana and South Korea, or change them, choosing, the ability of a country or cause to influ- ized these transnational identities as part of the such as with the states of former Yugoslavia.