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Autumn 2008 volume xxxii, number 4 The Wilson Quarterly Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars FEATURES www.wilsonquarterly.com

50 COVER STORY 22 Regime Change 2.0 43 THE GLORY AND THE FOLLY By Robert S. Litwak | U.S. policymakers need to put aside the recent obsession with changing the Campaign ’08 has stirred old discontents about leadership of rogue states and focus on changing politics. What’s wrong with American democracy? their behavior. Is the problem ill-informed voters who are buffaloed by attack ads and political ephemera, or 28 The New Kindergarten is it that elections don’t give adequate voice to the By Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call | The popular will? Or does a long view reveal that the campaign for universal pre-kindergarten could hurt American system works pretty well after all? the one group that most needs help: the children of The Irrational Electorate | By Larry M. Bartels low-income families. An Admirable Folly | By Denis MacShane Poll Power |By Scott Keeter 36 The Big Thaw Bury the Hatchet | By Gil Troy By Joshua Kucera | Global warming is shrinking Greenland’s ice sheet—and heating up its movement for independence from Denmark. 16 Only Words By Charlotte Brewer | For a century, the Oxford English Dictionary has served as a monument to ON THE COVER: Illustration by Jon Reinfurt, www.reinfurt.com. the English language. Now that the OED has emi- The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Woodrow grated to the Internet, will it ever be the same? Wilson International Center for Scholars.

2 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 DEPARTMENTS

14 EDITOR’S COMMENT A Habsburg Plan for Brussels, in the United States. from Orbis By Jonathan Engel 16 LETTERS Reviewed by Charles Barber 80 RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY 18 AT THE CENTER Conservative Complicity, from 99 Concrete Reveries: Claremont Review of Books Consciousness and the City. 12 FINDINGS By Mark Kingwell Will Evangelicals Hail Mary? Reviewed by Geoff Manaugh from Theology Today 100 White Heat: IN ESSENCE 82 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY The Friendship of Emily our survey of notable The Arrow of Time, from articles from other Dickinson and Thomas journals and magazines Scientific American Wentworth Higginson. What Is ‘Natural’? from By Brenda Wineapple 67 SOCIETY Conservation Magazine Reviewed by Stephanie E. Schlaifer Crime’s New Address, from The Atlantic 84 ARTS & LETTERS 101 Targeting Civilians in War. Happiness Paradoxes, from Ameri- What’s American About American By Alexander B. Downes can Law and Economics Association Art? from The Review of Reviewed by Hew Strachan Books Annual Meetings and American 102 Volunteers:A Social Profile. Sociological Review Paris’s New Look, from Metropolis By Marc A. Musick and John Wilson The Global Warming Diet, from Mesopotamian Treasures, Reviewed by Darcy Courteau Environmental Science and from The Art Newspaper Marrying Anita: Technology 103 A Quest 86 OTHER NATIONS for Love in the New India. 69 POLITICS & GOVERNMENT The Battle of the Caspian Sea, By Anita Jain The Inside-Out City, from from Middle East Policy and Reviewed by Renuka Rayasam The New Republic The Middle East Journal 104 The Science of Fear: 70 FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE Ability Grouping, from Economic Why We Fear the Things We Bogged Down Again, from Development and Cultural Change Shouldn’t—and Put Ourselves Survival India’s Sick Democracy, from in Greater Danger. By Daniel Gardner And by the Way..., from India Review Reviewed by Evelin Sullivan Foreign Affairs 105 Einstein’s Mistakes: History Recharged, from . 67 CURRENT BOOKS The Human Failings of Genius The American Interest By Hans C. Ohanian 89 A Thousand Hills: Fortified Diplomacy, from Reviewed by David Lindley RAND Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Review Man Who Dreamed It. 106 Buckminster Fuller: 73 ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS By Stephen Kinzer Starting With the Universe. Edited by K. Michael Hays and The Long Tail Tale, from When Things Fell Apart: Dana A. Miller Harvard Business Review State Failure in Late-Century Africa. By Robert H. Bates Reviewed by Edward Tenner The Graying of Kindergarten, from Reviewed by G. Pascal Zachary 108 Massacre at Mountain The Journal of Economic Perspectives 92 Hidden in the Shadow Meadows. Beating the Market, from of the Master: By Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. The Journal of Wealth Management The Model-Wives of Cézanne, Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard Monet, and Rodin. Reviewed by T. R. Reid 76 PRESS & MEDIA By Ruth Butler 110 Hollywood Under Siege: Virtually Invisible, from Reviewed by Kate Christensen Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, Science and BMJ 96 The Other Half: and the Culture Wars. 77 HISTORY The Life of Jacob Riis and the By Thomas R. Lindlof Colonial Warming, from World of Immigrant America. Reviewed by Aaron Mesh The Journal of American History By Tom Buk-Swienty Reviewed by James McGrath Morris Medieval Protectionism, from Comparative Studies in Society 97 American Therapy: 112 PORTRAIT and History The Rise of Psychotherapy Prague, 1968

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 3 The WILSON QUARTERLY EDITOR’S COMMENT

EDITOR Steven Lagerfeld

MANAGING EDITOR James H. Carman

SENIOR EDITOR Judith M. Havemann

Democracy by the Ounce LITERARY EDITOR Sarah L. Courteau

ASSISTANT EDITOR Rebecca J. Rosen

EDITORS AT LARGE Ann Hulbert, James Morris, This magazine is known for airing both sides of the issues, but some- Jay Tolson times even that is not enough. Inspired by the quadrennial outbreak of COPY EDITOR Vincent Ercolano complaints about American political life during this election year, we RESEARCHER Katherine Eastland commissioned articles that stake out four sides on the question of what CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Daniel Akst, Stephen Bates, Martha Bayles, Linda Colley, Denis Donoghue, ails the American system. Max Holland, Walter Reich, Alan Ryan, Amy E. Schwartz, Edward Tenner, Charles Townshend, The big surprise is that so much of what our authors debate is at bot- Alan Wolfe, Bertram Wyatt-Brown BOARD OF EDITORIAL ADVISERS tom the same fundamental issue that engaged the Founders: How dem- K. Anthony Appiah, Cynthia Arnson, Amy Chua, ocratic should a democracy be? To what extent should it be ruled by the Robert Darnton, Nathan Glazer, Harry Harding, Robert Hathaway, Elizabeth Johns, Jackson unadulterated will of the people and to what extent should it be guided Lears, Robert Litwak, Wilfred M. McClay, Blair Ruble, Peter Skerry, Martin Sletzinger, by their elected, presumably better-informed, representatives? S. Frederick Starr, Philippa Strum, Martin Walker The cluster leads off with an alarming portrait of irrationality in the FOUNDING EDITOR Peter Braestrup (1929–1997)

American electorate by political scientist Larry M. Bartels. The implica- BUSINESS DIRECTOR Suzanne Napper tions of the voter incompetence he uncovers point in a very Madisonian CIRCULATION Cary Zel, ProCirc, Miami, Fla. The Wilson Quarterly direction, toward insulating the nation’s political leaders more effectively (ISSN-0363-3276) is published in January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and against the fickleness of public opinion. Arriving at a similar destination October (Autumn) by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 by a different route, historian Gil Troy contends that our current discon- Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. Complete article index available online at tents are rooted in the demise of the political parties as grassroots insti- www.wilsonquarterly.com. Subscriptions: one year, $24; tutions that touch the lives of citizens, even though they remain powerful two years, $43. Air mail outside U.S.: one year, $39; two years, $73. Single copies mailed upon request: labeling and money-raising machines. Despairing of going back to the $8; outside U.S. and possessions, $10; selected back issues: $8, including postage and handling; outside future, Troy looks to political leaders to restore “muscular moderation” in U.S., $10. Periodical postage paid at Washington, public life. D.C., and additional mailing offices. All unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by a self- But political scientist and pollster Scott Keeter argues that Ameri- addressed stamped envelope. MEMBERS: Send changes of address and all subscrip- cans are quite competent citizens. He asserts that opinion polls, though tion correspondence with The Wilson Quarterly mailing label to Subscriber Service, The Wilson often maligned, are an indispensable tool for giving citizens a stronger Quarterly, P.O. Box 420406, Palm Coast, FL voice in government, especially those deprived by income or educational 32142–0406. SUBSCRIBER HOT LINE: 1-800-829-5108 inequality of the opportunity to participate fully in American politics. POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to The Wilson Quarterly, P.O. Box 420406, Since American political scientists often hold up parliamentary Palm Coast, FL 32142–0406. Microfilm copies are available from Bell & Howell In- democracy as superior to the U.S. system, we also asked veteran British formation and Learning, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. U.S. newsstand distribution through Disticor parliamentarian Denis MacShane for his perspective. To our surprise, Magazine Distribution Services. For more information what came sailing back across the Atlantic was a very large and fragrant call (631) 587-1160 or fax (631) 587-1195 or e-mail: [email protected]. bouquet for the American spectacle. As they say over there, have a look. ADVERTISING: Brett Goldfine, Leonard Media Group. Tel.: (215) 675-9133, Ext. 226 Fax: (215) 675-9376 —Steven Lagerfeld E-mail: [email protected].

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POPULATION CONTROL’S 25. But while the need is increasing, nancy. Intentionally or not, men have MISSTEPS funding for reproductive health serv- been largely excluded from govern- the searing critique of the ices is flat or declining. mental and non-governmental initia- population control/family planning Why? It is not, as Connelly says, tives on reproductive health. movement in Matthew Connelly’s arti- because the movement is “largely Folk beliefs about men’s sexuality cle [“Controlling Passions,” Summer becalmed.” Saying so diminishes the (and sexual irresponsibility) are exac- ’08] can be summed up this way: Mis- work of tens of thousands of reproduc- erbated by men’s institutional exclu- takes were made. tive health advocates around the world. sion from family planning programs, Early proponents, alarmed by It is, in large part, because of the stren- including the development and mar- unprecedented population growth, uous opposition to contraception and keting of contraceptive technologies trampled human rights and health in abortion among religious conservatives that are invariably designed for women pursuit of lower birthrates. But, as in the United States who have used their alone. The idea that men do not share Connelly concedes, their better influence within the Bush administra- in responsibility for birth control and impulses ultimately prevailed. At the tion to export their ideology worldwide. the reproductive health of women or 1994 United Nations population con- Although it is not his intent, Connelly’s themselves is a self-fulfilling prophecy, ference, the world’s nations endorsed work lends support to those forces. in part due to these population control the Cairo Agenda, which rejects top- Connelly is right about the danger of efforts. The implications are profound down population control and affirms going backward; climate change, food for those working to prevent the spread that all people should have the serv- shortages, and other crises could revive of HIV/AIDS. ices, the rights, and the power to make calls for “population control.” But per- Matthew Gutmann their own choices about sexuality and haps the greater danger is of not going Professor of Anthropology childbearing. forward and accomplishing the criti- Brown University Those aspirations remain unreal- cally important goals set forth in the Providence, R.I. ized. Today, some 120 million couples Cairo Agenda. worldwide want to delay or prevent Laurie Mazur Matthew Connelly paints a childbearing, but lack access to contra- Takoma Park, Md. distorted picture of international ception. Every year, 80 million women family planning prior to 1990. have unintended pregnancies—45 mil- To this day, family planning Indeed, there were highly reprehen- lion of which end in abortion, which is and reproductive health are routinely sible episodes in India and China, often unsafe. More than half a million regarded as “women’s issues,” except but the rapid decline in family size women die from complications associ- with respect to HIV/AIDS and sexually across Asia and Latin America was ated with childbearing. transmitted infections. Men are men- largely the result of voluntary family Right now, the largest generation of tioned in passing, but the assumption is planning becoming available on a young people ever is coming of age. that they probably have little to do with large scale. Nearly half the world’s population— birth control because they don’t want to Connelly also makes the common three billion people—is under the age of share responsibility for preventing preg- mistake of suggesting that correla- tions between education and family LETTERS may be mailed to The Wilson Quarterly, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. size are causal. Common sense tells 20004–3027, or sent via facsimile, to (202) 691-4036, or e-mail, to [email protected]. The writer’s telephone number and postal address should be included. For reasons of space, letters are usually edited for us otherwise. I happen to have two publication. Some letters are received in response to the editors’ requests for comment. doctorates, but as far as I know it

6 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 LETTERS

does not affect my fertility. For fam- ily size to fall, the proximal determi- nants of family size—namely access to contraception and safe abortion— Celebrating 10 Years in Print must be present. Fall 2008 Malcolm Potts The Hedgehog Review is Fred H. Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning an award-winning journal University of California of critical reflections on Berkeley, Calif. contemporary culture. Each issue addresses one In 1960, only 10 percent of women in developing countries used topic of social concern modern contraception; today, the fig- through essays, interviews, ure is 53 percent. The most logical image galleries, and explanation for this social revolution is reviews. twofold: Most sexually active women and their partners find contraception useful for avoiding unintended preg- ORDER www.hedgehogreview.com nancies. And governments and inter- one year $25 | two years $45 [email protected] national institutions have supported single issues $10 | single essays $2 (434) 243–8935 family planning programs in develop- ing countries that make it easier for published by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia those who are inclined to use contra- ception. How, after all, can fertility Matthew Connelly provides Matthew Connelly replies: The point decline unless couples interact with an invaluable service in explaining of my article was not that manipula- those who “work in family planning”? the dangerous passions behind pop- tion and coercion occurred every- Does Matthew Connelly believe that ulation control. But exposing misbe- where, as Malcolm Potts implies, sexually active couples postpone preg- gotten programs is not the same as though they happened far beyond nancies by fashioning contraceptives in saying that a problem does not exist. India and China, the two most pop- their kitchens or simply wishing? In my home country of Guatemala, ulous countries in the world. Bangla- Connelly seems to have interviewed the population today is five times desh, Singapore, Nepal, and South no contraceptive users in developing what it was when I was born, and it Korea also paid people to stop having countries to ask if “a movement made could double again in my lifetime. children. Many countries, including them do it” or whether they sought out Most women do not attend high Indonesia, punished those who contraception to improve their lives. school, and about half of them get refused, and still others, such as Such conversations might have pro- pregnant by age 20. Last year, half of Guatemala, Egypt, Pakistan, Taiwan, vided some balance to a historical inter- all children were malnourished, and and Tunisia, paid providers to per- pretation so distorted it offers no lessons the number living in poverty contin- form more sterilizations or IUD for today’s world. ues to rise. Population in itself is not insertions but offered no incentives Robert Engelman the problem, of course. But in a strug- for follow-up care. Vice President for Programs gling society, the more people there Robert Engelman criticizes the The Worldwatch Institute are, the harder it seems to solve all the absence of interviews, but other Author, More: Population, Nature, other problems. scholars have performed them and and What Women Want (2008) Paul E. Munsell provided vivid accounts. My article Washington, D.C. Doral, Fla. was simply meant to show how and

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 7 AT THE CENTER

HISTORY SPEAKS

Horst Brie, still strikingly tall and Over two days, the participants in “Crisis and Con- faintly bohemian-looking at 85, was one of the few frontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968–1969” sat Europeans in Pyongyang when North Korea was around a table armed with giant binders containing preparing to seize the USS Pueblo off its coast on Jan- more than 1,200 pages of documents. Gathered by uary 23, 1968. As the East German ambassador to scholars from the diplomatic archives of the Soviet North Korea, Brie had sent his superiors cable after Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, detailed cable laying out conditions in that most secre- Romania, South Korea, and the United States, the tive of communist countries. He had been watching documents hold the written record of the capture of the North Koreans ratchet up pressure on South the Pueblo. As tape recorders rolled, the partici- Korea, and recognized immediately that the seizure of pants compared their experiences with the written the Pueblo was a North Korean provocation. chronicle of the seizure. The North Koreans killed Kang In Deok, who oversaw North Korea intelli- one crew member on the ship, a barely seaworthy gence for the South Korean spy agency, knew in Army supply vessel sloppily converted for spying at advance that something was up. To little avail, he the height of the Cold War. They tortured the 82 warned his government that an attack by North Korea surviving crew members until, after 11 months, the was imminent. Sure enough, on the eve of the Pueblo’s U.S. government issued a written apology to the capture, 31 North Koreans who had infiltrated the North Koreans—repudiating it even before it was South tried to assassinate President Park Chung Hee issued, but winning the freedom of the Pueblo crew. in his home, which was adjacent to the U.S. Embassy Ambassador Brie said he was struck at the time by in Seoul. That they failed, Kang says now, had more America’s unremitting determination to get its to do with luck than good intelligence. sailors back even at the cost of signing a false Brie and Kang, along with 26 scholarly admission. researchers and American and South Korean intel- ligence officers and diplomats who participated in lthough the conference produced no single the dramatic events of 40 years ago, were brought A explosive disclosure, the transcript, published together in Washington in September for an exercise in full on www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp, will allow in “critical oral history”—an effort to fill the gaps in scholars to draw a more accurate picture of the events. the historical record by consulting those who were And the conference added a human element almost present when history was being made. Critical oral entirely missing in the binders—the frightening threat history has developed over the past decade as a way of a confrontation on the Korean peninsula as the to understand events such as the Cuban Missile Cri- Vietnam War raged nearby. sis, the Vietnam War, and the assassination of Con- For many Americans, the seizure of the Pueblo golese prime minister Patrice Lumumba by going to was quickly overshadowed by North Vietnam’s living sources. Convened by the Wilson Center’s Tet Offensive, the assassinations of the Rev. Martin North Korea International Documentation Project, Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and the directed by Christian F. Ostermann, in conjunction election of Richard M. Nixon. But North Korea with the University of North Korean Studies in never forgot: The Pueblo is now a North Korean Seoul, the conference was designed to clarify the tourist attraction, newly outfitted with a flat-screen historical record and gain insight into the behavior television that shows a video of the government’s offi- of the North Korean regime. cial version of its capture.

8 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 LETTERS

why the United Nations, the World MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY Lee H. Hamilton, Director Bank, and a host of nongovern- BOARD OF TRUSTEES mental organizations pushed these JOURNAL Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair David A. Metzner, Vice Chair harebrained schemes all over the EX OFFICIO MEMBERS: James H. Billington, world, and then paid for them. Librarian of Congress, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Call for Articles Smithsonian Institution, Bruce Cole, Chair, Far from belittling the challenge National Endowment for the Humanities, Michael facing heath and reproductive rights O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, MCU Press announces a Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, Margaret advocates, this history helps explain Spellings, Secretary of Education, Allen Weinstein, new peer-reviewed journal Archivist of the United States. Designated Appointee what they are up against. Many advo- of strategy, international se- of the President from Within the Federal Government: Mark R. Dybul cates mean well, and did not inten- curity, and warfighting con- cepts, featuring both con- PRIVATE CITIZEN MEMBERS: Robin B. Cook, tionally provoke the backlash that Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Sander R. Gerber, temporary and historical Charles L. Glazer, Susan Hutchison, Ignacio E. Sanchez threatens reproductive rights world- studies. The first issue will THE WILSON COUNCIL wide. But that is precisely why would- be published in mid-2009. Sam Donaldson, President be humanitarians need to learn from Elias F. Aburdene, Weston Adams, Martin K. Alloy, Russell The journal welcomes ar- L. Anmuth, Cyrus A. Ansary, David Apatoff, Lawrence E. this tragic history, and not passively Bathgate, Theresa E. Behrendt, John B. Beinecke, Joseph ticles of 4,000 to 8,000 C. Bell, Stuart A. Bernstein, James D. Bindenagel, Rudy accept that “mistakes were made.” words. For information on Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Donald E. Brown, Melva Bucksbaum, Todd Buillione, Amelia Caiola Ross, Joseph A. submissions and editorial Cari, Carol A. Cartwright, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, policy see: Holly F. Clubok, Melvin Cohen, William T. Coleman, Mac Donley, Elizabeth Dubin, F. Samuel Eberts, I. Steven Edel- 21ST-CENTURY SLAVERY http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/mcupress son, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Susan R. Farber, A. Huda Farouki, Michael Fleming, Joseph H. Flom, The John R. Miller’s article “Call Honorble Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, John H. French, Morton Funger, Alma Gildenhorn, It Slavery” is commendable for focus- Marine Corps University Press Michael Glosserman, Roy M. Goodman, Raymond A. ing on the fact that too little attention 3079 Moreell Avenue Guenter, Loretta Greene, Kathryn Walt Hall, Edward L. Hardin, Marilyn A. Harris, Patricia Hassett, Gail Hilson, is paid to the modern scourge of Quantico, Va. 22134 Laurence Hirsch, John L. Howard, Osagie Imasogie, Dar- rell E. Issa, Benjamin Jacobs, Miguel Jauregui Rojas, Maha human slavery in the form of traf- Kaddoura, James Kaufman, Edward W. Kelley, Christo- pher J. Kennan, Joan Kirkpatrick, Willem Kooyker, Steven ficking [Summer ’08]. Yet his asser- countries that rank at the bottom of Kotler, Markos Kounalakis, Richard L. Kramer, William H. tion that Freedom House does not our survey and those that the U.S. Kremer, Muslim Lakhani, Daniel L. Lamaute, James C. Langdon, Raymond Learsy, Francine Gordon Levinson, weigh slavery in its annual survey, State Department cites for failing to Harold O. Levy, Genevieve Lynch, Frederic V. Malek, David S. Mandel, Anastasia K. Mann, Jeffrey A. Marcus, Thierry Freedom in the World, is incorrect. take adequate measures to prevent Marnay, Daniel M. Martin, John J. Mason, Anne McCarthy, Stephen G. McConahey, Thomas F. McLarty, Donald F. Those subjected to slavery in its trafficking in its annual Trafficking in McLellan, Alan Meltzer, John Kenneth Menges, Linda B. various forms are denied the most Persons Report. Mercuro, Tobia G. Mercuro, Kathryn Mosbacher-Wheeler, Jeremiah L. Murphy, Stuart H. Newberger, John E. basic rights we hold to be universal. Jennifer Windsor Osborn, Jeanne L. Phillips, Rob Quartel, Thomas R. Reedy, Renate Rennie, Edwin Robbins, Nina Rosenwald, Juan Those rights—freedom of person, Executive Director Sabater, Anthony Scaramucci, Steven E. Schmidt, Patricia Freedom House Schramm, Timothy R. Scully, Hyun-kyo (Frank) Shin, freedom of movement, equal access Thomas H. Shuler, George P. Shultz, Raja Sidawi, John before the law, freedom of choice of Washington, D.C. Sitilides, Mark A. Skolnik, William A. Slaughter, James H. Small, Shawn Smeallie, Jennifer K. Smith, Thomas F. employment—are all measured as Stephenson, Robert A. Stewart, Peggy Styer, Peter John R. Miller is absolutely Terpeluk, Norma Kline Tiefel, Timothy Towell, Mark C. fundamental civil liberties in our sur- Treanor, Anthony G. Viscogliosi, Marc R. Viscogliosi, Chris- vey. Moreover, the survey’s method- right that most Americans assume tine Warnke, Peter S. Watson, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Paul M. Wolff, Joseph ology specifically considers the traf- that the Emancipation Proclamation Zappala, Richard S. Ziman, Nancy M. Zirkin ficking of women and/or children in brought a final end to slavery. This the scoring of civil liberties, and the prevents them from acknowledging The Wilson Center is the nation’s living memori- problem is regularly cited in the nar- that slavery is still a problem today, al to Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. It is located at One Woodrow rative reports. long after the age of Lincoln. Miller Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. Created by law in Few forms of abuse shock the tells the history of the 19th-century 1968, the Center is Washington’s only independent, wide-ranging institute for advanced study where conscience more than that of human abolitionists not to say “Our work vital cultural issues and their deep historical back- trafficking. It is no coincidence that here is done,” but as a call to action. ground are explored through research and dialogue. Visit the Center at http://www.wilsoncenter.org. there is a strong correlation between Thankfully, he is in good company.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 9 LETTERS

The State Department’s 2007 years earlier, a mainstream traffic engi- tions, meaning it will likely be easier, Trafficking in Persons Report, Can- neer would have regarded such a pro- not harder, to implement his ideas com- ada’s secretary of state, the British posal as absurd. If a street was crowded pared to more sweeping reforms. government, and the United Nations with automobiles, the problem was the It is exactly these subtleties that will have all drawn on the history of 19th- car’s prodigious demand for space. A help people become more cautious century abolitionism in working to typical recommendation was to give without even realizing it. Just as Van- end slavery. Even more important, spatially efficient trolley cars the right derbilt describes, people are relatively slaves themselves continue a narra- of way. courteous at a country fair parking lot in tive tradition begun by Frederick The examples of the first traffic rev- a grass field with no traffic rules. What Douglass and Harriet Tubman. In olution and Monderman’s career is to stop us from organizing our local 2008, the bicentennial of the act that demonstrate that apparently inevitable main streets similarly? ended America’s external slave trade, truths about people, roads, and vehi- Heather Smith here’s hoping we heed Miller’s call to cles are not so inevitable after all. We will Planning Director harness memories of the most revo- need these examples if we are to leave Congress for the New Urbanism lutionary movement in America’s behind the outdated paradigms that Chicago, Ill. past. Let’s call it slavery, and then dictate the growth of our cities today. let’s call our movement abolitionism. Peter D. Norton How did traffic control in Zoe Trodd Assistant Professor the United States degenerate into its Tutorial Board in History and Literature Department of Science, present mess, a sign- and limit-obsessed Harvard University Technology, and Society system where drivers are transmogrified Cambridge, Mass. University of Virginia into passive and inattentive robots? And Author, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the why has this not happened to the same Motor Age in the American City (2008) extent in Europe? Hans Monderman is A MAN WITH A PLAN Charlottesville, Va. part of the answer. In his engrossing new book Monderman, sensitive to the needs Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt introduces Tom Vanderbilt’s essay is an of the driver, rather than to local tax col- readers to dozens of experts on the excellent starting point for understand- lectors, litigators, and over-anxious par- complex interplay of roads, vehicles, ing the ideas (and the considerable ents, embraced a number of counter- and people. For his article in the WQ, charm) of Hans Monderman, the revo- intuitive ideas. Perhaps the most he had to choose just one. He could lutionary Dutch traffic engineer. How- important is his insight that a “feeling of not have chosen a better subject than ever, I was disappointed that the essay safety”—the illusion of predictability that the Netherlands’ “traffic guru,” Hans ended with a pessimistic assessment of is so much a part of the U.S. landscape, Monderman [“The Traffic Guru,” whether we can incorporate Monder- with its wide roads and highly control- Summer ’08]. man’s ideas into our American cities. ling signs—is actually a very bad thing. To traffic experts, Monderman’s At the Congress for the New Urban- The result is a driving environment story is fairly well known, as it should be. ism, an organization dedicated to replac- that emphasizes control—not by the What is not well known is that Mon- ing placeless sprawl with walkable cities driver, but by American traffic engi- derman was less a revolutionary than a and towns, we strongly believe that neers. Unfortunately, the traffic engi- counterrevolutionary. The paradigms Monderman’s ideas show us how far a neers are not actually driving the car, that he challenged were themselves misguided understanding of safety has and a system that robs drivers of their products of an earlier revolution in traf- taken us from common sense. The most discretion has produced disastrous fic engineering that began in American surprising feature of the changes Mon- results. America would have roughly cities in the 1920s. derman favored is that they are visually 6,000 fewer fatalities per year if our Since about 1930, the prevailing underwhelming—removing pavement highway death rate per mile were the view has been that a congested urban markings, signage, and pedestrian bar- same as Britain’s, where stop signs and road needs widening. But just a few riers are surprisingly subtle interven- traffic lights are used sparingly and law

10 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 LETTERS

enforcement more directly targets actual properly conceived, are about the whole In appraising the use of the dangerous driving. human project, and transcend artifi- humanities, Wilfred M. McClay is right Monderman’s maxim that “when cial disciplinary boundaries. The to take the long view and recall what the you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave work of our colleges and universities humanities have meant from the like idiots” applies more to the United ought to recognize the whole of this ancients onward. He casts the human- States than to any other country I have study and not just the parts. Students ities as the study of things that distin- driven in. It’s surely time we did some- should be asking what it means to guish us from animals, angels, and thing about it. be human, and should be studying machines. An aged notion, yes, and John Staddon both the whole and its parts for some though it retains its currency among James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and period of their undergraduate the general public, it receives only an Neuroscience, and Professor of education. occasional endorsement from faculty Biology and Neurobiology McClay has done us a fine service in members. When literature professors Duke University helping us see larger possibilities for the talk about race, sexuality, and colonial- Durham, N.C. humanities. ism, they do so in an abstract, theoreti- Christopher B. Nelson cal idiom. As a result, people, including President their colleagues in the sciences, ignore THE EXAMINED LIFE St. John’s College them. I read with great pleasure Annapolis, Md. But when literature professors Wilfred M. McClay’s “The Burden of discuss works that lift human beings the Humanities” [Summer ’08]. In his In his sanctimonious and all out of drudgery, mindlessness, and attempt to explicate what the humani- too predictable essay, Wilfred M. vulgarity—art that transcends the ties are and why their study is important, McClay reheats many of the old plati- moment, ideas that alter the path of he does well in moving beyond a listing tudes that effete literary intellectuals civilizations—they garner respect. of humanistic studies to a considera- have used to justify their hopelessly insu- When they stand for the eloquence of tion of human concerns. lar and inconsequential studies. He Abraham Lincoln, the beauty of John I would suggest that one further asserts that the humanities somehow Keats, or the wisdom of Leo Tolstoy, step back might help. The fundamen- detect things that the natural and social people listen. When great writers set tal concerns of every thoughtful man sciences cannot because the humani- commonplace beliefs such as free- and woman are: Who am I? What is ties “grasp human things in human dom and liberty into their timeless my place in the world? What ought I terms, without converting or reducing prose, people recognize the vital role to do with my life? These human ques- them to something else.” However, the humanities play in civic life. tions invite us to ask in what sense we McClay does not bother to explain what Many professors stand squarely are collections of molecules and prod- “human things” and “human terms” are, against this basic premise. Ironically, ucts of our genes, descendants of apes nor why numbers and chemical mod- laypersons often have more conviction or children of God, thinking beings els are different. about the value of the humanities. Do and lovers of wisdom, acquisitive ani- The result is that whatever is too humanities professors have enough mals and lovers of pleasure, sensible hardheaded, or arithmetical, or sim- faith in their material and themselves beings with appreciation for art as ply not touchy-feely enough is con- to stand up and affirm their subject’s an expression of nature, and political sidered alien to the human condi- value? Still, McClay envisions a resur- animals and moral beings with rights tion. This is the sort of disciplinary gence: “If the past is any guide, what we and duties. chauvinism that has done far more call ‘the humanities’ will survive and The human mind is not compart- damage to the “humanities” than thrive.” mentalized into humanities, arts, and postmodernism or accusations of Mark Bauerlein sciences. We may have left and right uselessness could ever do. Professor of English sides of the brain, but we think with a Stephen Thurman Emory University single, whole mind. The humanities, Berkeley, Calif. Atlanta, Ga.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 11 FINDINGS brief notes of interest on all topics

Tourist Trapps to places such as the Lake District. spawned bus tours of movie-related Cineplex and omnibus While that still happens, TV and sites in Salzburg, Austria, where the movies now dominate.” von Trapps had lived and much of Tourism once reflected a quest for New Zealand companies lead the movie was shot. The bus tours authenticity, Erik Cohen writes in pilgrimages to Lord of the Rings continue today, complete with Society (July–August 2008), but sites. Near York, England, Castle onboard sing-alongs. This summer, these days, natural attractions Howard attracts people who adore the von Trapps’ onetime villa in can’t compete with contrived ones. movies shot there, not only Barry Salzburg became a hotel, where you No surprise, then, that movies and Lyndon but also Garfield: A Tale can sing “Edelweiss” between TV shows lure audiences around of Two Kitties. On Location Tours courses at dinner. the globe. “In the past, tourists in New York markets a Sex and the Lots of Salzburg residents aren’t have visited places related to City outing: “Have a cupcake at part of the chorus. One local com- books,” says Sue Beeton, author of the bakery where Miranda stuffed plained to the Austrian News, “I Film-Induced Tourism (2005). cupcakes into her mouth!” think it’s a strange marketing de- “Wordsworth caused people to A tourist favorite is The Sound of vice for a city where Mozart was look at the English countryside in Music, the 1965 musical about the born.” Another told Bavaria Radio, a different way, encouraging visits Trapp Family Singers. The hit film “Busloads of blue-rinse old dears arriving here give us all the willies.”

Breathe Uneasy Propelling debate America’s 22.9 million asthma sufferers have nothing against clean air—on the contrary, they’re fans—but they’re protesting a looming antipollution rule. Most asthma inhalers now propel their medication, albuterol, into the lungs with ozone-sapping chloro- fluorocarbons (CFCs). Inhalers aren’t big spewers of CFCs—they accounted for around 0.1 percent of emissions in 1987, when the United States ratified a save-the- ozone treaty. But the Food and For Salzburg,a few least-favorite things: Julie Andrews and co-stars in The Sound of Music (1965). Drug Administration has barred

12 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 FINDINGS

the sale of CFC inhalers starting January 1. Pharmaceutical companies have developed inhalers with a different propellant. They’re more cumbersome to use, though: They take more effort to prime, and they have to be rinsed. In the view of some asthma sufferers, they’re also less effective. They’re about three times as costly, too. “The issue is even more disconcerting considering that asthma disproportionately affects the poor and that, accord- ing to recent surveys, an esti- mated 20 percent of asthma James Garfield’s 1881 assassination helped spawn civil service reform but not Secret Service protection. patients are uninsured,” says Sci- entific American (August 2008). was this: “It would never do for a Guiteau’s execution, Congress Given the likelihood that many President to have guards with enacted the Pendleton Act, a step Americans with asthma will cut drawn sabers at his door, as if he toward replacing political back on their medicine to save fancied he were . . . an emperor.” appointees with civil service money, “what seemed to be a In truth, soldiers were posted hirelings. But it did nothing to good, responsible environmental outside the White House during make presidents less vulnerable. decision might in the end exact the Civil War, and plainclothes Only after the third presiden- an unexpected human toll.” police officers guarded the presi- tial assassination in 36 years, that dent 24 hours a day. At least, they of William McKinley in 1901, did Men of the People were supposed to. When John Congress seriously contemplate Wilkes Booth reached the presi- presidential safety. The issue Safety last dential box at Ford’s Theatre, proved contentious. One senator From George Washington’s time Ellis writes, the policeman had declared it “antagonistic to our to the turn of the 20th century, stepped away “for reasons that traditions” to surround a presi- American presidents took pride in remain unclear.” dent with “a sort of Praetorian mingling unprotected with the In 1881, Charles Guiteau failed Guard.” Putting soldiers in civil- citizenry. As Richard J. Ellis ex- to win a federal job but succeeded ian garb affronted some members plains in Presidential Travel (Uni- in killing President James Gar- of Congress more deeply still: The versity Press of Kansas), armed field. So was it time to protect House Judiciary Committee said guards represented the sort of presidents more systematically? that plainclothes troops, “under royalist pomp that had no place in Not according to Congress. The the pretense of protecting the the New World. “A plain, repub- Lincoln assassination was President,” might follow “secret lican President of the United deemed a wartime fluke, Ellis orders” to spy on the people. States,” John Tyler said of himself says, whereas the Garfield Some maintained that the values in 1843, “my bodyguard I desire to assassination was blamed on of the American republic likewise be the people, and none but the patronage—Guiteau’s bitterness clashed with the idea of making people.” over missing out on a political presidential assassination a fed- From Abraham Lincoln, there appointment. A few months after eral crime, punishable by death.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 13 FINDINGS

The killer of a president, said one report Twenge et al. Asian Amer- faster,” says researcher John Hawley. senator, should “suffer the same icans now account for half of the At the annual meeting of the penalty that would be inflicted freshman class on some California American College of Sports Medi- upon him if he were to murder campuses, though they’re only one- cine in late May, Ronald W. Dei- the humblest citizen.” sixteenth of college students in the trick reported on another study. In fact, the Treasury Depart- United States as a whole. Deitrick gave 800-meter runners ment’s Secret Service, created to Who’s to blame for the rise of about 20 grams of baking soda 90 battle counterfeiting, had begun campus narcissism outside Califor- minutes before a competition. in 1894 to assign a few officers to nia? The authors suggest taking a Some got nauseated, but the rest protect presidents, without con- hard look at programs in primary improved their times by an aver- gressional authorization. In 1906, and secondary schools to boost self- age of 2.2 seconds. “For a relatively Congress formally gave it the re- esteem. Most kids’ self-esteem is short running distance, that’s very sponsibility and appropriated just fine, they say, and such pro- significant,” Deitrick says. To the funds for the purpose. grams’ effects “are likely to be nega- list of substances prohibited by Republican fraternity at last gave tive for normal children. ‘I am spe- the Olympic Committee’s World way to precarious reality. cial’ teaches narcissism rather than Anti-Doping Agency—methyl- self-esteem.” dienolone, 19-norandrosterone, Narcissism U. Or maybe we should ask if hydrochlorothiazide, and parahy- college students are mimicking their droxyamphetamine, among many Do re me me me professors, 93 percent of whom, others—Deitrick would add bi- When high school students were according to Gazzaniga, deem their carb: “It violates the spirit of fair asked if they had an above-average work above average. play by artificially enhancing per- ability to get along with others, 100 formance.” percent said yes. It’s an example of Pantry Power how we flatter ourselves, Michael S. Says Who? Gazzaniga writes in Human: The Sci- No-penalty kicks ence Behind What Makes Us Unique Predictably, the Olympics reinvigo- Fullish disclosure (Ecco). That feeling of specialness rated the debate over the use of “Finished intelligence should in- lives on after high school graduation, steroids in athletics. Now, two stud- clude careful sourcing for all ana- according to the Journal of Personal- ies suggest that performance lytic assessments and conclusions” ity (August 2008). Jean M. Twenge enhancers may be as close as the to aid “verification of particular and four coauthors examined 24 kitchen. statements.” That’s among the rec- years’ worth of college students’ At RMIT University in Mel- ommendations in the 2005 report scores on the Narcissistic Personality bourne, Australia, endurance of the Silberman-Robb Commis- Inventory test. Increasingly, accord- cyclists rode until exhausted, then sion, which investigated intel- ing to the researchers, college drank a carbohydrate beverage, ligence failures regarding Iraq’s students are addicted to self-love. either unaltered or spiked with the putative weapons of mass But not in California. Narcissism equivalent of five to six cups of cof- destruction. scores for students there have held fee. Four hours later, the caffeinated The recommendation echoes steady, and they’re significantly athletes had two-thirds more glyco- one made four decades earlier by a below scores for students in other gen in their muscles than the other CIA analyst who used the pseudo- states. The reason may be Asian group. Glycogen helps muscles re- nym John Alexander. “After some Americans, who “score significantly cover. “If you have 66 percent more dozen years’ immersion in intel- lower than Whites, Blacks, and His- fuel for the next day’s training or ligence, I still find myself reacting panics on measures related to indi- competition, there’s no question uncomfortably to its rather cavalier vidualism, including narcissism,” you’ll be able to go further and disregard for the footnote,” Alexan-

14 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 FINDINGS

der wrote in the CIA’s in-house book and take it to the Boston scene pages from his book and mar- journal, Studies in Intelligence, in police. . . . Instantly the press keted Oil! Fig Leaf Edition on Bos- 1964. An intelligence estimate pre- agencies flash the name of your ton streets. Then he arranged to sell pared for readers at the highest book to every town and village in what he called an unexpurgated level—the president and other sen- the United States, and your pub- copy of the risqué novel to a police ior officials—almost never lisher gets orders by telegraph lieutenant. Before he could be pros- identified sources and evaluated from Podunk and Kalamazoo. ecuted, though, police discovered their reliability, in footnotes or any- The literary editors grab the book that he had slyly slipped the cop a where else: “The more serious its out of the pile they had set aside Bible. “Not all the wealth in New import and the closer it is to the to be turned over to the second- York could hire me to write a story influential official who will act upon hand dealers. The printers of your as foul as the tale of what Lot’s it, the slighter is its overt back-up.” book have to telegraph to the mill daughters did to their drunken old The no-footnote system had for a carload of paper for a new father in Genesis,” Sinclair wrote in become “job protection for the edition.” The New Yorker. mediocre analyst,” Alexander wrote. Sinclair tried to get arrested for In court, an exasperated magis- “Living with undocumented intelli- selling the book on Boston Com- trate said, “We think you have had gence has blunted our perception of mon, but police ignored him. Next, enough publicity, Mr. Sinclair.” its dangers and inadequacies.” he excised the nine allegedly ob- —Stephen Bates The June 2008 Studies in Intelli- gence reprints the Alexander article and assures readers that footnotes citing sources and indicators of their reliability “have become more nearly the norm, in practice and by direc- tive.” But not soon enough.

Heating Oil! Striking it richer From Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! flowed the 2007 film There Will Be Blood, which won two Oscars. In 1927, the year it was published, the book earned a comparable honor: banned in Boston. Rick Wartzman tells the story in Obscene in the Extreme (PublicAffairs). When Boston police arrested a bookstore clerk for selling the novel, Sinclair was delighted. “Your book is dead, and your wife and kids can’t go to the seashore this summer,” he wrote in The New Yorker. “But then some good angel puts it into the head of a Boston preacher to read your Upton Sinclair—activist,muckraker,and self-promoter—hawks expurgated copies of Oil! in Boston.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 15 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Only Words

For more than a century, the Oxford English Dictionary has dominated language lovers’ bookshelves. Now it is online, and a new edition may never see book covers again. In the digital age, will the OED remain a cultural cornerstone?

BY CHARLOTTE BREWER

I consult the Oxford English Dictionary plements produced during the previous two decades, but almost every day. The binding on my first edition, the last it did not venture to revisit the outdated Victorian and installment of which was published in 1928, is disinte- Edwardian scholarship of its elderly parent. That makes grating. Shreds of vellum flutter onto desk or carpet OED3, as aficionados call it, the hottest English- every time I open one of the 12 massive volumes, which language lexicographical product around. can weigh as much as 15 pounds. Because I’m research- But could the online edition spell the end of the OED ing the history of the OED, I need to compare the first as we know it? Earlier this year the OED’s U.S. editor told edition with the second. But truth be told, I also have a The New York Times Magazine, “We have about 20 years’ sentimental attachment to these cream-colored pages, more work to do revising and adding entries. Who knows stained by age and use, with the complex yet clear pat- what will happen with technology in 20 years? We cer- terning of each element in an entry (headword, pro- tainly don’t.” Bibliophiles and technophobes greeted this nunciation, etymology, definition, quotations), which remark with intense anxiety, speculating that the OED’s James Murray, the first chief editor of the OED, designed publisher, , would never issue a to be “eloquent to the eye.” printed edition of the OED again. Bibliophilic considerations aside, however, the OED At first, I wondered whether the sackcloth and ashes Online is my dictionary of choice. This remarkable were warranted. True, books do furnish a room, and the 20 resource displays both the second edition of the OED, volumes of the second edition of the OED fulfill this pur- published with great fanfare in 20 volumes in 1989, pose admirably. (The photographic reductions of the OED and the gradually accumulating third edition, begun in with which many dictionary lovers are familiar—two vol- 2000 and due to be completed some decades hence. The umes for the first edition and three for the second, accom- great value of the OED’s third edition is that it is the first panied by a magnifying glass—aren’t on the same scale, but revision ever undertaken of this vast dictionary. The still look quite handsome on the shelf.) The fact is, however, 1989 edition merely spliced the first edition with sup- that the OED Online is the last word in space saving and portability, as well as lexicography. And it is now so much Charlotte Brewer is the author of Treasure-House of the Lan- guage: The Living OED (2007). Her website Examining the OED, at easier to look up words. Instead of determining which of http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main, publishes recent research and histor- the 20 volumes you need, pulling the heavy tome off the ical material on the OED. She is a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and professor of English language and literature at Oxford University. shelf, finding an uncluttered and sturdy surface on which

16 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Legendary editor James Murray, shown here around 1900, helped midwife the Oxford English Dictionary into being from millions of paper slips on which volunteers recorded individual instances of English word usage.The first edition of the dictionaryrequired more than four decades to complete. to lay it, and fumbling through the pages for the right had to relinquish this ideal fairly quickly. Such a thing was entry, you can tap the keyboard and skip blithely from one as impossible then as it would be now, even with all the elec- end of the alphabet to the other in the blink of an eye, find- tronic aids we have to hand. The vocabulary of English, as ing 10 words in the time it used to take to track down one. of all languages, appears to be infinitely variable. So why all the hand-wringing about the loss of this unwieldy behemoth? Is it the sheer physical substance of this great work, the size and heft of it, that makes the o many of those who contributed to the first edition prospect of its disappearance into the ether a cause for of the OED, from around 1860 onward, their task alarm? That’s part of the answer, not least because the T must initially have seemed endless. The editors OED’s history is one of agonizingly slow emergence into hoped to read as much as they could of everything that had physical form. Reviewing the second edition in 1989, the ever been printed in English, relying on armies of volun- novelist William Golding cast his mind back to its heroic teers to scour libraries and private collections and to write and idealistic origins: “In the high days of Queen Victoria down, on slips of paper measuring four by six inches, the a dictionary was conceived, not to say dared, which words they thought were worthy of inclusion, along with matched her iron bridges, her vast ships and engines.” A the authors and titles and dates of the works in which characteristically Victorian project, the OED set out to they had found them, and the sentences in which those encompass the entirety of the English language, recording words appeared. These quotation slips, thousands of them, within its pages every single word. Of course, the editors were posted back to the editors and stored haphazardly in

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 17 Oxford English Dictionary sacks and boxes. Only when James Murray took over the A dictionary, wrote the French man of letters Anatole editorship in 1879 were they thoroughly sorted and filed in , is “the universe in alphabetical order.” Perhaps pigeonholes. Not one page of the dictionary had yet been above all others, the OED encourages the idea that it con- published, and it took another five years under the method- tains everything that has ever been thought or said by any- ical and painstaking Murray before the first installment body speaking English, and is hence a record of the lan- appeared, in 1884, covering the entries A–ant. The dic- guage’s culture and history. As one reviewer wrote of the tionary was finally completed 44 years later, by which time OED in 1899, “Everything is to be found here, but one feels much of the earlier part of the edition was out of date and that human faculties are inadequate to penetrate the details the editors were already compiling a supplement (pub- of so vast a collection.” Virtually every entry of the OED lished in one volume in 1933). munificently displays quotations of real historical usage, The array of massive volumes on the shelf is literally a often derived from the works of the great writers in the language—Chaucer, Shake- speare, Milton, Pope. The quotations are the reason the OED is so very long, and they A DICTIONARY, wrote the French man of are certainly the reason it is the greatest dictionary ever letters Anatole France, is “the universe in written (and such a fabu- lously good read). alphabetical order.” Understandably, lovers of the OED find it alarming that this record of human labor, which stretches over monument to this protracted gestation period and to the so many years and records such a vital aspect of our culture, vast quantity of material from which the OED was assem- might sublimate into a form without physical dimension. bled. It also testifies to the scope of the English language. Still more alarming is the notion that the latest, and best, edi- Right from the dictionary’s first appearance, readers and tion of the great work exists only on the Internet. Even OED reviewers loved it for its awesome compendiousness, and its Online enthusiasts concede that many things immediately slowly increasing mass gave an appropriate impression of evident in the printed book are obscured or not apparent on its scholarly substance. The novelist Arnold Bennett the screen: the length of an entry, which may stretch over reported in 1928 that he had “been buying it in parts for several columns and pages; the relationship between one nearly 40 years,” and judged it “the longest sensational entry and its neighbors; the variation in page count among serial ever written!” the letters—in the first edition, C has a massive single vol- You can get a sense of the OED’s intellectual capacious- ume all to itself, the same size as the one devoted to all of ness just by turning the pages in any of the enormous vol- V, W, X, Y, and Z. umes and casting your eye down the extraordinarily detailed It’s hard to avoid the conviction that such an accu- entries. What made the dictionary revolutionary when it mulation of knowledge and erudition should have a phys- appeared, and makes it revolutionary still, is that every def- ical dimension: The dictionary’s sheer size is important to inition it contains is based on a study of the empirical data: our understanding of its value. As his poetry attests, those masses of original quotation slips that recorded a W. H. Auden was a lifelong lover of the OED, and visi- word’s use in real historical sources from 1150 to the pres- tors to his flat in New York City often remarked on the ent day. From these scraps of paper (eventually numbering battered copy of the dictionary that took up so much more than five million for the first edition) the lexicographers space on his shelves. After he moved to Austria in 1972 constructed their picture of the history of a word’s usage he kept it in his otherwise sparsely furnished work- from the beginning of its life to its end—from cradle to grave, room, except for the volume he used to sit on at table, as as they themselves said. if (so one guest reported) he were a child too small for the

18 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Oxford English Dictionary nursery furniture. Schoolchildren and college students entry for make, one of the most complex verbs in the lan- who encounter the great work electronically have no way guage, in 2000. On several occasions since, they have to fathom its physical might and bulk, and its weighty made changes—I can’t give you chapter and verse, because difference from all those other online dictionaries— the first version, and all the subsequent ones through June, whether today’s Merriam-Webster or its forebear, Noah have been expunged from the record. (I printed out the Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Lan- entry on two occasions, around 2002. The first time it guage, which in its online versions is sadly stripped of all came to about 98 pages, the second to about 102. But I mis- quotations save those from the Bible. laid these piles of paper, and now they are lost to me for- The fate of Webster’s dictionary points up another prob- ever.) Scholars find this evanescence upsetting and infuri- lem with Internet reference works. You ating; even the casual reader may find can never be sure of what it disconcerting. By con- you are getting. Material trast, the printed book is can be silently subtracted (more or less) permanent and added. The editors and unchanging. If a new add a new tranche of edition supersedes the old, words and entries to the old does not disappear. OED3 every quarter. Still, even those who These take two forms: caress their dog-eared first, slow and steady revi- OEDs must acknowledge sion of each old entry (so that the dictionary is that they might avoid cut- flawed. For instance, why did ting their teeth on the vagaries it take cookie cutter so long to of the first edition’s treatment of reach its pages? The new June A—on which the 19th-century Heavy reading: The OED’s second edition weighs 150 pounds. entry records the word’s first lexicographers cut their teeth— use in 1864, and as early as today’s revisers began in the middle of the alphabet, at the 1922 it was being used in a derived sense—“Characterized letter M); and second, new words and corrections from by homogeneity or lack of originality; conformist, unimag- across the alphabet. No need for subscribers to squeeze a inative, generic”—indicating that the initial meaning was new volume of the revised work onto their shelves next to firmly established in the language. (The OED’s evidence is existing volumes. Instead, each fresh batch of cutting-edge a quotation from the Chicago Sunday Tribune: “There scholarship miraculously materializes on everyone’s screen. are always ‘cookie cutter’ tendencies among us. One of In June subprime made its way into the OED for the first these this year is the caracul trimmed coat which every time, with the current meaning attested from 1993. So did other woman in New York wears.”) But the OED lexicog- cookie cutter and wantaway, a British word usually used to raphers passed the word by: Inevitably, in building so vast describe a professional soccer player who wants to trans- an edifice of scholarship, they have sometimes missed the fer to a different club. Anyone familiar with the old way of occasional brick. As one of them wrote in 1951, when he was doing things, when dictionary revisions took decades to trying to persuade the publishers to take on the expense of appear or came out piecemeal in printed supplements, will revising the OED afresh, this greatest of dictionaries, agree that the swiftness, convenience, and neatness of despite its public reputation for unimpeachable authority, Internet production is simply wonderful. has “hosts of wrong definitions, wrong datings, and wrong crossreferences.” So the electronic OED enables comparatively easy he new OED may be a revision-minded editor’s correction of past errors on the one hand, and swift dream, but it’s trickier for readers seeking a truly addition of new words and usages on the other. But it T definitive definition. The entry you consult in Jan- also does something just as important, undreamt of by uary may be different by March. The editors first revised the the OED’s first makers. However much we may lament

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 19 Oxford English Dictionary the loss of the material book in all its comfortable solid- retrieved according to different taxonomic criteria. Key- ity, those thousands of pages of dense print were largely ing in all the information, and checking it, took well over impregnable to any kind of systematic analysis. In the 200 person-years.) wake of digitization we can, for the first time, bring to Does a more comprehensive understanding of the light, and utilize, the rich linguistic and literary treasures OED compensate for the loss of those handsome vol- previously scattered piecemeal among individual entries. umes? Will it really matter if the OED is never printed In one respect, alphabetically organized dictionaries, again? Given the OED’s likely length (or size) when com- or encyclopedias, are arranged arbitrarily: All that data— plete, would any of us be able to afford it if it were? On bal- the quotations themselves, and information about ety- ance, I remain convinced that the advantages of digitiza- mology, pronunciation, definitions, spelling forms, and tion dwarf the disadvantages, for scholars, and even more so on—is ordered not according to sense or date or so for the thousands of people who now have electronic provenance but by the letter with which the headword access to this dictionary—many more than could ever begins. Now we can run successions of searches and have been envisaged for the printed form—whether at see all the words first recorded in the language in 1599 home or at an academic institution. (In the United King- or 1776 or 1968, or all the quotations from Emily Dick- dom, you can access the OED free of charge at your local inson, or all the hapax legomena (one-off coinages) that library; in the United States, an individual subscription the second edition of the OED quoted from James Joyce’s costs $295 a year.) The OED’s transformation is one more Ulysses. (The total for the last of these is 54, down to 44 example of the democratization of knowledge in the dig- in OED3 because the lexicographers have recently found ital age. fresh examples of these words, some from earlier sources To say this is not to dismiss the attachment to books and some from later—meaning that they aren’t hapax as mere sentiment. We are now, involuntarily and legomena any more.) unceasingly, it often seems, assailed by a superabun- What’s more, we can begin to assess the nature of the dance of electronic information, which can confuse and primary information from which the OED was con- repel as much as it enlightens us. By contrast, when we structed—its quotations—and the inevitable biases of pick up a book, we are making a deliberate choice that selection and interpretation that went into its making. We is limited to the contents between the cover, and we might guess that both the Victorian and Edwardian lexi- can see, feel, and smell what we are getting. As a mate- cographers favored a particular literary canon from which rial object, a book bears its own physical history of use to draw their quotations. This, as it turns out, was the case: (whether our own or other people’s), without which, The most quoted individual sources in the OED’s first edi- arguably, we cannot fully comprehend its social and tion were Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Walter Scott, cultural significance. I recognize that electronic resources the Bible, and a medieval historical poem called Cursor can never replicate the range and character of experi- Mundi. So were these works the giants that constructed ences that accompany the consultation of a printed vol- the English language? Or were they the ones the lexicog- ume, and I can see the argument that the switch to dig- raphers most delighted in quoting from? ital resources is dehumanizing. Nevertheless, I think the trade is worthwhile, if not for all books then certainly for the OED. Anyone who knows and loves this work, one igitization of the OED has been an extraordinary of the greatest of human endeavors, must agree that the gift, enabling us to better understand both the more fully and intensely we can engage with its contents, D strengths and the weaknesses of the dictionary, the better. Indeed, that is the best way to repay the suc- as well as to look up lots of words quickly. This is due to cessive editors and contributors for the years of devotion the search tools Oxford University Press has provided, and they have poured into it. Whether or not the OED is to the enormous expense it lavished, in the 1980s, on printed again, the computer tells us more about this transforming the physical object into electronic form in the extraordinary intellectual achievement than those heavy first place. (All the different elements in each entry were volumes will ever do. So let us embrace digitization, not electronically tagged, so that they could be subsequently deplore it. ■

20 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 We Can’t Live on Ideas Alone • Since the WQ got its start more than three decades ago, we have been powered by ideas. Not the intellectual fashions of the moment, or the fare peddled by pundits and publicity departments and ax grinders, but good-faith efforts by leading writers and thinkers to grapple with issues of our times in a thoughtful, critical, and nuanced way. We take pride in the fact that we have been “accused” over the years of being both a liberal and a conservative magazine. We regard such judgments as testament to the fact that we’re fulfilling our mis- sion to examine the ways of looking at the world in all of their variety. But a magazine cannot run on ideas alone. Beholden to no niche audience, advertiser, or political constituency, neither can we turn to any of these groups when we need to pay the bills. Revenues from subscriptions and other sources simply don’t cover all our expenses. The cost of paper goes up. So do authors’ fees. And, yes, gas prices. So we turn to our readers, in full faith that you value what we do enough to help us continue doing it, without compromise, by contributing whatever you can.

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XXX/XJMTPODFOUFS/PSH0FYIJCJU THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Regime Change 2.0

There is more than one way to get a rogue state to change its ways.

BY ROBERT S. LITWAK

“The Most Dangerous Man in the World?” States after the 9/11 attacks—the Libyan regime’s miserable shouted the cover of Newsweek. Iran’s radical president Mah- human rights record secured Qaddafi 11th place and a “dis- moud Ahmadinejad in 2008? No, the man was Libya’s honorable mention” in Parade magazine’s 2008 ranking Muammar al-Qaddafi and the year was 1981. Twenty-two of “The World’s Worst Dictators.” That pop compilation of years later, in late 2003, the Libyan dictator surprised the autocrats included not only those Rice singled out but also, world with the announcement that his country would ter- embarrassingly for an administration trumpeting a “free- minate its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. dom agenda,” the leaders of three key U.S. allies—Saudi Ara- The strategic turnabout ended years of secret negotiations bia, Egypt, and Pakistan. One man’s dictator is another’s with the United States and Britain that had focused initially indispensable partner in the “global war on terrorism.” The on Libyan complicity in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am competition between contradictory values and objectives— flight 103 in 1988 and subsequently on Libya’s proscribed on the one hand, President Bush’s Wilson-on-steroids rhet- WMD programs. The Bush administration claimed the dis- oric about “ending tyranny”; on the other, the ugly accom- armament coup (coming just eight months after the toppling modations Washington has made with the “world’s worst” for of Saddam Hussein’s regime) as a dividend of the Iraq war the sake of counterterrorism and oil—has naturally fueled and declared that Libya could now emerge from its United charges of hypocrisy. There may be no resolving this tradi- Nations–imposed diplomatic isolation. Libya was poised to tional tension in American foreign policy between ideals and rejoin what American presidents from Woodrow Wilson to interests, but the tension can be managed. George W. Bush have metaphorically called “the family of The roots of the current debate can be traced to an nations.” Does the Libyan precedent—“The Rogue Who important conceptual shift that occurred around 1980. Came in From the Cold,” as a headline in Foreign Affairs put Before then, the terms “rogue,” “pariah,” and “outlaw” were it—hold lessons for dealing with other states that egregiously used interchangeably to describe states whose repressive rul- violate international norms of conduct? ing regimes engaged in the most extreme violations of In 2005, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice iden- international norms governing the treatment of civilian tified six countries—Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe, populations; notorious examples were Pol Pot’s Cambodia Burma, and Belarus—as “outposts of tyranny,” she conspicu- and Idi Amin’s Uganda. After 1980, the focus shifted from ously omitted Libya as a seventh. Yet though that former the internal behavior of a state (how a regime treats its own “rogue state” was no longer engaged in weapons proliferation people) to its external behavior (how it relates to other or terrorism—the issues of urgent concern to the United states in the international system). Two key criteria marked a state as “rogue”: the sponsorship of terrorism and the pur-

Robert S. Litwak is director of international security studies at the suit of WMD. In accordance with the shift to a concern with Woodrow Wilson Center. A former director for nonproliferation on the states’ external behavior, the State Department inaugu- U.S. National Security Council staff, he is the author of Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11 (2007). rated an official listing of countries employing terrorism as

22 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Scared straight? Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi gets a warm welcome in Brussels after abandoning his weapons of mass destruction program late in 2003. an instrument of policy. And in a 1985 speech, President waging of a hot war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 to reverse Ronald Reagan called Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, and Saddam’s aggression. Richard Cheney, then secretary of Nicaragua “an international version of Murder Incorpo- defense, spoke of the need to prepare for the “Iraqs of the rated” with “outlaw governments who are sponsoring ter- future.” This mission assumed added urgency with the post- rorism against our nation.” war discovery by UN weapons inspectors of Iraq’s unex- Over the years, the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror- pectedly large WMD programs. The Clinton administration ism has been subject to politicization. Particularly glaring further elevated the rogue state concept in U.S. policy by was the decision in 1982 to drop Iraq from the list as part asserting that the rogues, whose core group comprised of Washington’s “tilt” toward the Saddam Hussein regime Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Libya, constituted a distinct cat- just as Iraq was suffering battlefield setbacks in its attritional egory in the post–Cold War international system. The war with Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. Ironically, the country “rogue” rubric carried the dubious connotation of essentially that would one day be held up as the archetypal “rogue state” crazy states not susceptible to deterrence and traditional was being courted, not penalized, by the Reagan and George cost-benefit diplomacy. Secretary of State Madeleine H. W. Bush administrations through what proved a flawed Albright told the Council on Foreign Relations in 1997 that engagement strategy. Iraq was not placed back on the State “dealing with the rogue states is one of the greatest chal- Department’s terrorist list until a month after its August lenges of our time . . . because they are there with the sole 1990 invasion of Kuwait. purpose of destroying the system.” The new conception of rogue states was strongly rein- But the Clinton administration’s translation of rogue forced by the coincidence of the end of the Cold War and the state rhetoric into strategy exposed major liabilities of the

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 23 Regime Change 2.0 term. The pejorative label was an American political rubric dent Mohammed Khatami’s surprise election in 1997 without standing in international law. And because it was offered Washington a perceived opportunity for diplomatic analytically soft and quintessentially political, it was applied engagement. Concluding that the category had become a selectively and inconsistently. , for example, a state political straitjacket, in 2000 the Clinton administration jet- with active WMD programs and links to terrorism, was then tisoned the term “rogue state” in favor of the infelicitous being wooed by the Clinton administration in the Middle “states of concern.” But the incoming George W. Bush East peace process and so was pointedly not referred to as administration pointedly restored it to the U.S. foreign- a rogue state, whereas Cuba, which met none of the crite- policy lexicon in accordance with what observers called its ria, was included in the roster of rogue states because of the “ABC”—“anything but Clinton”—stance. political clout of the Cuban émigré community. The defini- Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 9/11 recast the American tional problem went further: How was one to categorize debate on rogue states. Bush administration officials argued states that met some of the criteria, such as India and Pak- that the threats to the United States in this new era were inextricably linked to the character of its adversaries—undeter- BEFORE 9/11, THE United States sought rable terrorist groups and unpredictable rogue states. to contain rogue regimes; afterward, the Accordingly, administration hard-liners insisted that strategy shifted to undoing them. merely changing the behav- ior of these states would no longer suffice because the istan after their 1998 nuclear tests? Another important bad behavior derived from their very nature. The prolifer- reason that the term was so elastic was its focus solely on ation of WMD capabilities to rogue states, in tandem with objectionable external behavior; the Clinton administration the sponsorship of terrorism by their unstable ruling did not address odious actions within states, such as Burma, regimes, created a deadly new “nexus.” The nightmare sce- that violated international norms. Opponents of the admin- nario was that rogue regimes could transfer nuclear, bio- istration soon appropriated the term for their own purposes. logical, or chemical weapons to their terrorist clients, who Thus, one conservative critic labeled China a rogue state would have no moral or political compunctions about because of its human rights abuses and nuclear cooperation using them against the United States. This redefinition of with Pakistan and urged President Bill Clinton to cancel his the threat led to a radical change in U.S. strategy. Viewing 1998 state visit to Beijing. As with pornography, people Iraq through “the prism of 9/11,” in then–secretary of know a rogue state when they see one. defense Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, the administration The translation of the rogue state concept into policy made the decisive shift from a pre-9/11 strategy of con- sharply limited strategic flexibility. The assertion that these taining regimes to a new strategy of undoing them. countries constituted a distinct class of states pushed policy- The UN Security Council crisis leading up to the onset makers toward adopting a one-size-fits-all strategy of com- of the Iraq war in 2003 began as a debate about Iraq and prehensive containment and isolation. Once a country was Saddam Hussein but turned into a referendum on the relegated to the “rogue” or “outlaw” category, critics viewed United States and the legitimate exercise of American any deviation from hard-line containment and isolation as power. The rancorous, divisive debate was in sharp contrast tantamount to appeasement. The rogue state strategy to the international solidarity mobilized in the immediate proved more an attitude than a coherent guide to policy. And aftermath of 9/11. The terrorist attacks ushered in a new era in practice, the attitude came up against hard political of vulnerability, but despite the constant refrain at the time realities—first in North Korea, where the threat posed by that “everything has changed,” they did not alter the struc- Pyongyang’s advanced nuclear program in 1994 necessi- ture of international relations. To the contrary, they solidi- tated negotiation, and later in Iran, where reformist presi- fied that structure. Relations between the United States and

24 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Regime Change 2.0 its former Cold War adversaries Russia and China moved worldwide of Saddam Hussein being inspected for lice by a to their closest since World War II. U.S. military medic after his capture were no doubt an Political scientist John Ikenberry has argued persuasively important factor affecting the timing of Qaddafi’s WMD deci- that the key to America’s international success during the sion. It was a necessary but not sufficient condition for Cold War was the embedding of U.S. power in international Libya’s WMD disarmament. The crux of the Libyan deal was security and economic institutions, such as NATO and the the Bush administration’s willingness to eschew the objective World Bank. That made the exercise of American power of regime change and instead offer a tacit assurance of more legitimate and less threatening to other states and fos- regime survival. In essence, if Qaddafi halted his objection- tered the perception of the United States as a benign super- able activities in the areas of proliferation and terrorism, power, even as it advanced American national interests. It Washington would not press for a change of regime in also explains why the demise of the Soviet Union and the Tripoli. Without such a credible security assurance, Qaddafi end of the bipolar Cold War system did not trigger the rise would have had no incentive to relinquish his WMD arsenal; of a coalition of states to balance American power. to the contrary, the belief that he was targeted by the U.S. But as historian John Lewis Gaddis observes, “The administration after Iraq regardless of any change in Libyan rush to war in Iraq in the absence of a ‘first shot’ or ‘smok- policy would have created a powerful incentive for him to ing gun’ left . . . a growing sense throughout the world there accelerate his regime’s efforts to acquire unconventional could be nothing worse than American hegemony if it weapons as a strategic deterrent. was to be used in this way.” The perception of the United States as a rogue superpower, which had arrogated an unfettered right of military preemption, unleashed a diplo- he contrasting precedents set in Iraq and Libya matic effort by France, Germany, and Russia to block the have important implications for the nuclear crises use of force against Iraq by withholding the legitimizing Twith North Korea and Iran, but they also raise a fun- imprimatur of the United Nations. damental question about the meaning of a term that has At the heart of the dispute was the cardinal principle of been central to the U.S. foreign-policy debate: “regime sovereignty. President George H. W. Bush faced a far eas- change.” The Iraq war reinforced the widespread but mis- ier task building an international coalition for a showdown leading connotation of regime change as a sharp split with Iraq in 1991 than his son did 12 years later. In the first between old and new, and as something brought about by gulf war, Security Council authorization and the forging of outsiders rather than insiders. The term is better viewed as a broad multinational coalition to liberate Kuwait were embodying a dynamic process that occurs along a contin- diplomatically possible because Saddam Hussein had vio- uum. Total change—through war (Germany and Japan) or lated a universally supported international norm: State revolution (China and Iran)—that not only removes a sovereignty is to be protected from external aggression. By regime’s leadership but also transforms governmental insti- contrast, in the bitter 2003 UN debate, the attainment of tutions is rare. More commonly, the degree of change is lim- Security Council approval for military action was bound to ited, as when a newly elected political party makes a signif- rouse strong opposition rooted in that same international icant policy shift, or when one leader supplants another in norm: Compelling Iraqi WMD disarmament through an an authoritarian regime. Leadership is perhaps the key externally imposed regime change would be a precedent- determinant of change, affecting its pace and extent, or setting negation of state sovereignty. indeed influencing whether it will be undertaken at all. In contrast to the change of regime in Iraq, the Libyan The most important instance of regime change in the lat- case offered the precedent of change in a regime. When ter half of the 20th century was accomplished in the Soviet Qaddafi announced that Libya was voluntarily terminating Union under President Mikhail Gorbachev through neither its covert WMD programs and submitting to intrusive inter- revolution nor war. In 1989, diplomat George Kennan national inspections to certify compliance, the Bush admin- declared an end to the Cold War, arguing that the Soviet istration and its supporters claimed that he had been “scared Union under Gorbachev had evolved from a revolutionary straight” (as one analyst put it) by the regime-change prece- expansionist state into an orthodox great power. Gor- dent in Iraq. The Iraq war and the powerful video broadcast bachev’s grand strategy—a form of regime change by inter-

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 25 Regime Change 2.0 nal evolution—was to integrate a transformed Soviet Union or compelled to comply with international norms? Through into the international order forged after World War II. The targeted strategies that create effective influence on their rul- complementary U.S. strategy of the post–Cold War era has ing regimes. The aim is to present each with a structured been to promote the integration of post-Soviet Russia into choice between the rewards of behavior change and the that international order. penalties for non-compliance. Of course, some outlaw states Historically, the periods of greatest turmoil in the mod- may still strongly resist this process of “resocialization” (to ern era have arisen from the emergence of expansionist great use political scientist Alexander George’s term). powers with unbounded ambition, such as Nazi Germany In the case of Libya, the origins of Qaddafi’s strategic or Stalin’s Soviet Union, seeking the wholesale transforma- turnabout date to the mid-1990s, when Libya’s domestic economy was collapsing under the twin impacts of THE UNITED STATES must make clear UN sanctions and low oil prices. With even the that its objective is to change the behavior regime’s core constituencies under stress, Qaddafi’s hand of regimes, not replace their leaders. was forced. The Libyan leader reportedly sided with the regime’s pragmatic tech- nocrats, who argued that the tion of the international order. With the demise of the country’s radical foreign policies (which had landed the Soviet Union, the defining feature of contemporary inter- “dangerous” Qaddafi on the cover of Newsweek in 1981) had national relations has been the absence of competition become a costly liability. Bowing to “new realities,” Qaddafi among the great powers that might bring with it the risk of even embraced economic globalization, declaring, “The major war. Although China’s meteoric rise and Russia’s world has changed radically . . . and being a revolutionary uncertain political trajectory have prompted balance-of- and progressive man, I have to follow this movement.” power realists to question the long-term durability of this current condition, neither great power is mounting a frontal assault on the existing international order. Some commen- lobalization—the driving force of the world tators declared that Russia’s military intervention in Geor- economy—is a double-edged sword. Reinte- gia in August marked the return of the Cold War. This G gration, especially for an oil-exporting state development could alternatively be viewed as the reasser- such as Libya, offers tangible benefits. But opening up tion of traditional Russian national interests. Though a their countries and engaging in the global economy State Department official called Russia a “revisionist” state also carries for these beleaguered regimes the risk of after its move into Georgia, its revisionism is in the con- political contagion that might threaten their survival. ventional tradition of a great power seeking to create a Dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Il realize that sphere of influence on its periphery. This stance is closer to a soft landing for their society would likely mean a hard the Monroe Doctrine than to the Comintern. To be sure, landing for their regime. Since autarky is not a viable Russia’s new assertiveness carries risks of regional strife and long-term alternative to integration, their strategy is inadvertent military escalation, but in contrast to its behav- essentially to muddle through, gaining the benefits of ior during the Cold War, the Kremlin is not advancing an outside economic links while attempting to insulate alternative vision of international order. themselves from the political consequences. Operating beyond the bounds of international order are If these states can’t be induced to comply with inter- a diverse group of weak, isolated countries—ranging from national norms , they should be compelled to do so. By Burma to Zimbabwe, and Belarus to North Korea—that credibly threatening the interests of those who keep the defy global norms of behavior but do not threaten the sta- regime in power—the military, security services, key eth- bility of the entire system. How can these states be induced nic groups, and other elites—the international community

26 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Regime Change 2.0 can leverage a change in behavior. Comprehensive sanc- Washington to make a choice, to resolve its own policy tions, as evidenced by the decade-long UN experience in contradiction. It must make clear, as it did with Libya, that Iraq, have an indiscriminate negative impact on the civil- the U.S. objective is to change the behavior of regimes, not ian populace. By contrast, targeted sanctions, such as replace their leaders. Because of the cardinal principle of travel and financial restrictions, are directed at individu- state sovereignty, Washington will be hard pressed to win the als, commercial entities, and organizations. In the Libyan support of Russia and China for meaningful sanctions on case, the impact of multilateral sanctions on the regime’s Iran if Moscow and Beijing believe that the United States power base ratcheted up the pressure on Qaddafi to alter means to overthrow the Iranian regime. course. When elite groups conclude that their country’s The promotion of a rules-based international order also defiance of global norms is a threat to requires that the United States not turn a their own specific interests, they blind eye to non-democratic allies, become what political scientist such as Egypt and Saudi Ara- Bruce Jentleson has character- bia, that are not pariahs along ized as “transmission belts, car- the lines of Burma and Zim- rying forward the coercive babwe but that also flout pressure on the regime to important international comply.” But such pressure norms. To avoid can also be short- charges of hypocrisy circuited (again, and double stan- to use Jentleson’s dards where com- metaphor). Take peting foreign-pol- the case of Iran, icy interests are at where the finan- stake, the United cial windfall from States must be will- the elevated price ing to set a mini- of oil permits Ah- The Bush administration has gone head to head with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but mum bar for com- has been unclear whether it is bent on replacing the regime or would settle for a change in its behavior. madinejad to pliance by its allies cover his regime’s economic misanagement and buy off and to pay the price when nations do not comply. Easier said critics. Or the case of insular North Korea, where China, than done, but that is the task facing U.S. policymakers. fearful of precipitating the collapse of the Kim Jong Il re- Perhaps most important to America’s efforts to sup- gime, has refused to exert its unique leverage on Pyong- port international order is the need to reaffirm its own yang over the nuclear issue. commitment to work through international institutions In offering a structured choice to these regimes, the and abide by their norms. After 9/11, President Bush United States must be prepared to take “yes” for an answer asserted that Washington would not be so constrained; when one of them changes its behavior. Yet throughout the it did not need “permission” to defend America. The Iraq nuclear crisis with Iran, the Bush administration has sent war was the high-water mark of that instance of U.S. uni- a mixed message. Top officials have stuck to the familiar lateralism. Washington has since acknowledged that mantra “All options are on the table”—a clear reference to multilateralism conveys political legitimacy and that the possibility of military action. But to what end? Is the U.S. the involvement of other states provides practical utility. goal to change the behavior of this “axis of evil” member or The embedding of U.S. power within international insti- to change its ruling regime? Iran faces profound societal tutions would mark a return to what liberal interna- contradictions and hard choices: Is the Islamic Republic an tionalists view as America’s formula for success after “ordinary” state that accepts the legitimacy of the interna- World War II. The pressing challenge for the United tional system, or a revolutionary state that rejects the norms States in the post-9/11 era of vulnerability is to tend to of a system regarded by hard-liners as U.S.-dominated? But the national interest without calling into question the pushing Tehran to make the right choice also requires nation’s commitment to international norms of order. ■

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 27 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

The New Kindergarten

The case for universal pre-kindergarten isn’t as strong as it seems.

BY DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV AND DOUGLAS M. CALL

In her Christmas 2007 campaign ad, Hillary before kindergarten—for all children, regardless of Clinton was shown arranging presents labeled “Universal whether their mothers work and regardless of family Health Care,” “Alternative Energy,” “Bring Troops Home,” income. Pre-K has hardly enjoyed a universal embrace. and “Middle-Class Tax Breaks.” She then paused, looking Twice in recent history, attempts to create similar somewhat puzzled, before delivering the punch line: national programs foundered on controversy and went “Where did I put universal pre-K?” down to defeat. In California, voters recently turned “Universal pre-K” has become a politically popular their backs on a statewide plan. campaign cause. Clinton is no longer a candidate, of In a 2006 referendum, the Golden State’s voters course, but has promised an ambitious rejected universal “free” preschool by a margin of three pre-kindergarten agenda; John McCain’s advisers have to two. Proposition 82, “Preschool for All,” was backed by hinted that he will do the same. And why not? The rhet- the activist actor-director Rob Reiner and the California oric surrounding pre-K programs is quite extraordi- Teachers Association; it would have given all California nary: They close the achievement gap between low- four-year-olds “equal access to quality preschool pro- income children and their more affluent peers; they grams” for three hours a day for about eight months a prepare all children, including middle-income children, year—to be paid for by a 1.7 percentage-point increase for school; and they provide financial relief to working in the tax rate for single individuals making more than mothers who have been paying for child care. $400,000 and couples making more than $800,000 Yet as the Clinton TV spot unwittingly suggested, uni- (almost a 20 percent tax increase, by the way). Although versal pre-K programs do not have an obvious place in attendance was theoretically voluntary, the proposition today’s crowded child-care world. Sometimes called “the would have effectively withdrawn government subsi- new kindergarten,” pre-K is in most cases just what its dies from other forms of care, so that families needing name implies: a year of publicly funded half-day school or wanting a free or subsidized program would have had

Douglas J. Besharov is the Joseph J. and Violet Jacobs Scholar at the no choice but to use their local school’s pre-K. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a professor The referendum sparked a statewide debate that went at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He was the first director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, and is the beyond the typical mix of platitudes, generalizations, and author of Recognizing Child Abuse: A Guide for the Concerned (1990) and exaggerations. Yes on 82, the prime sponsor of the refer- other books. Douglas M. Call is a research associate at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. endum, repeated the oddly precise claim of RAND

28 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The New Kindergarten

words of a Los Angeles Times editorial, establish- ing “a cumbersome bureau- cracy . . . under the state Department of Education, which has done a disap- pointing job with K–12 schools.” Strangely, the over- whelming rejection of uni- versal pre-K by the voters of our largest state has had no discernible impact on the national debate. It’s not that California just happened to have more preschool pro- grams than the rest of the country. Nationwide, about 74 percent of four-year-olds now spend time in some form of organized child care.

o understand what is going on, a little T history will help. Beginning in the 1950s, a steadily higher proportion of married women with children took jobs outside the home. Between 1950 and 1970, the proportion of married mothers in the And it’s only the beginning.A youngster awaits the graduation ceremony at a preschool in Danville, Kentucky. work force doubled, rising Three-quarters of the nation’s four-year-olds are currently enrolled in some form of organized child care. from about 20 percent to about 40 percent. (Single researchers that “every dollar California invests in a qual- mothers have always had little choice but to work, or go ity, universal preschool program will return $2.62 to on welfare.) In 1971, spurred by this change, as well as the society because of savings from reduced remedial edu- emerging women’s movement, a group of liberal Democ- cation costs, lower high school dropout rates, and the rats led by Walter Mondale (D.-Minn.) in the Senate and economic benefits of a better-educated work force.” John Brademas (D.-Ind.) in the House pushed the Child Opponents pointed out, however, that more than Development Act through Congress. It was an expansive 60 percent of California four-year-olds were already in measure, designed to create a federalized system of child a child-care center, a nursery school, or Head Start, and development services. Children were to be enrolled that the new program would have subsidized the middle- regardless of whether their mothers worked and needed class families now paying for child care while, in the child care, on the ground that all children would bene-

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 29 The New Kindergarten fit from a government-supervised child development political force for their favored causes. Maurien McKinley effort. of the Black Child Development Institute explained: “It is Initially, key senior officials in the Nixon adminis- to the advantage of the entire nation to view the provision tration supported the measure, seeing child care as an of day care/child development services within the context important component of their approach to welfare of the need for a readjustment of societal power relation- reform. But after some uncertainty, President Richard ships.... As day care centers are utilized to catalyze devel- M. Nixon vetoed the bill, famously criticizing its “com- opment in black and other communities, the enhanced munal approaches to child rearing over [and] against political and economic power that results can provide effec- the family-centered approach.” His veto—and the specter tive leverage for the improvement of the overall social and economic condition of the nation.” EVEN THOUGH THEY DO NOT “need” In the next three-plus decades, child-care advo- child care, about half of stay-at-home cates struggled to come up with a formula that would mothers place their children in a preschool be more attractive to voters, but they repeatedly overesti- or nursery school. mated support for gov- ernment-provided child care for middle-class children of “communal” child rearing—not only killed the bill but and underestimated the desire of parents for choice and took the political wind out of the child-care issue for a flexibility. decade. Mondale himself became alarmed by the back- In the years after Nixon’s veto, tens of millions of Amer- lash even in his politically liberal home state. ican mothers entered the labor force. By the 1990s, about Most liberal commentators have seen only con- 70 percent of married mothers had left full-time child rear- servative politics in the Nixon veto, but even many ing for jobs outside the home, and child-care options had supporters of a federal child-care program thought proliferated. According to the National Institute for Early the bill was deeply flawed, in ways that its congres- Education Research (NIEER), about 74 percent of all four- sional backers may not have understood. The legisla- year-olds are in “formal” child-care centers for at least part tion would have jumped past the states to fund hun- of the day, while the remainder are in “informal” arrange- dreds if not thousands of “prime sponsors” (mostly ments, a category that includes care by anybody from their local governments and nonprofit organizations)—all to parents or relatives to the lady down the street. be selected by officials of the U.S. Department of Married mothers entered the labor force in waves. First Health, Education, and Welfare. The prime sponsors came married women with older children, who were in were, in turn, supposed to establish local “child devel- school anyway and often could take care of themselves after opment councils” composed of parents, children’s serv- school. Then came those with young children, who needed ices specialists, and community activists. These local someone else to care for them. In 1975, only 34 percent of entities would then fund as many as 40,000 individ- mothers with a child under age three worked outside the ual providers. home; by 1990, 54 percent did. Moreover, new mothers are If this web of federally administered, community- quick to return to work. About seven percent do so within based programs sounds like an echo of the War on Poverty, one month of their child’s birth, and about 41 percent within that’s because it sprang from the same social agenda—and three months. many of the same activists. They distrusted state and Some think that American mothers are in the process local governments and wanted “community groups” in of completely abandoning their traditional child-rearing control. The bill’s supporters boasted that this nation- role, but the picture is more mixed. The influx of married wide cadre of well-funded organizations would be a strong women with children into the labor force largely came to a

30 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The New Kindergarten halt in the 1990s. About 30 percent of all mothers today still money for child care by religiously oriented organizations— do not work outside the home. Include those who work only even though 28 percent of all center-based programs in 1990 part time—most often less than 20 hours a week—and you were operated by religious groups—unless they removed all will find that almost 50 percent of all mothers, and almost elements of religiosity from their premises. 60 percent of those with a child under three, are not in the That provision was a late addition to the bill, apparently full-time labor force. at the urging of the National Education Association and the Although some of these women might take full-time jobs National Parent Teacher Association. These organizations if child care were free, most have decided to delay return- were interested less in the theory of church-state relations ing to the labor force until their children are older. In fact, than in maximizing the money available for public schools even though they do not “need” child care, about half of stay- and their employees. And they worried that by using vouch- at-home mothers place their children in a preschool or ers (thus avoiding strictures against federal aid to religious nursery school (for at least a year) because they want them institutions), the bill would create a precedent for vouchers to be with other children in a structured learning environ- in K–12 education. Many of the advocacy groups that orig- ment. For these mothers, government-funded pre-K might inally supported the ABC bill—especially those represent- be a welcome financial break, but it would have little or no ing religiously based providers, such as the U.S. Catholic educational effect. Conference and its allies—were incensed. While the fight over aid to sectarian programs festered for almost two years, another, and ultimately more sig- xcept among women on welfare, the great increase nificant, rift developed among the Democrats who con- in working mothers had taken place by the late trolled Congress. Key leaders in the House, led by Thomas E 1980s, when child-care advocates made their sec- Downey (D.-N.Y.) and George Miller (D.-Calif.), decided ond major push for a universal program. In 1987, the Act for that any new child-care bill should provide greater assis- Better Child Care Services, or the “ABC bill,” as its support- tance to low-income families rather than attempt to start ers happily dubbed it, was introduced in Congress. Like the a universal child development system, as the ABC bill legislation Nixon had vetoed 15 years earlier, the ABC bill would. It is unclear whether they opposed a universal sought to create a nationwide system of child development federal program in principle—as Marian Wright Edelman services. of the Children’s Defense Fund charged—or were simply This time, however, there was no Great Society being pragmatic. Their own explanation was that a uni- model; the states would administer the program, versal system was unlikely to be funded (at least in any although they were to be guided by local advisory coun- meaningful way) and that, in the meantime, low-income cils. Each year, the states would distribute $4.6 billion as families needed help. grants to child-care centers or, in some circumstances, Meanwhile, Congress had passed legislation that as vouchers to eligible families. Families would be eligi- encouraged mothers to leave welfare for work. Downey, ble to receive assistance on a sliding scale if their income Miller, and their allies wanted to “make work pay” for these did “not exceed 115 percent of the State median income mothers—by providing government-funded child care for a family of the same size.” In high-income states and by supplementing low earnings through an expanded such as Connecticut and New Jersey, that meant a fam- Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). ily of four with an income of more than $100,000 would In 1990, Congress and President George H. W. Bush have been eligible. Nationally, the average income cut- finally agreed on a law, much different from the original off for eligibility for a family of four was about $79,000. 1987 ABC bill, that created a $1.3 billion annual program (Unless otherwise indicated, all dollar amounts in this called the Child Care and Development Block Grant and essay are in 2007 dollars.) a new half-billion–dollar entitlement for families “at risk” The ABC bill seemed headed for easy passage until con- of becoming welfare recipients. It also doubled the EITC, troversy broke out among its liberal backers over a new pro- from $11.9 billion in 1990 to $24.6 billion in 1993. vision barring the states from expending child-care money It is difficult to judge what would have happened had for “sectarian purposes or activities.” In other words, no the original ABC bill become law, but the narrower

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 31 The New Kindergarten

Downey-Miller approach was a boon to low-income fam- 18 percent of those under age two) receive child-care aid. ilies. The EITC is now a $45 billion-a-year program, pro- Both the Child Development Act of 1971 and the ABC viding financial assistance to more than 23 million fami- bill of 1987 foundered, in part, on the seemingly wide polit- lies. And the administrative structure it created—especially ical opposition to a universal child-care program that ignores child-care vouchers—became the basis of the massive the immediate needs of low-income families. But rather expansion of child-care funding six years later under Pres- than learn from this lesson, advocates are pushing yet again ident Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform law. That year, the for a universal program. This time, the selling point is Republican Congress—pushed hard by the Clinton “school readiness” rather than child development, and the administration—decided that if mothers were expected to focus is only on placing four-year-olds in public schools. But the result is the same: Married Mothers at Work, 1960–2007 a middle-class–oriented program that does not Percent 70 meet the needs of low- income families. Advocates claim that 60 EmployedWorking part part-time time pre-K programs do not have to be in schools, and 50 that they would be happy to see existing child-care 40 centers improved with pre-K funds (though that

30 would leave out sectarian programs). But the “qual- EmployedWorking full full-time time ity” requirements these 20 programs impose, such as college degrees and spe- 10 cialized credentials for teachers, are, in the words 0 of The Los Angeles Times,

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2007 “written in such a way to Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics favor programs at public The proportion of married women with children under age 18 who worked full time outside the home leveled off at schools.” about 48 percent in the late 1990s, a decade after part-time employment reached a plateau of about 20 percent. In any event, given the strong political support work, the government should help pay for child care—the for universal pre-K from teachers’ unions and the allied edu- same argument that had appealed to Republicans as far cational establishment, it should not be surprising that back as the Nixon administration. In only five years, from most state pre-K money has gone to new programs in pub- 1996 to 2000, federal and related state child-care spend- lic schools. In the 2003–04 school year, about 90 percent ing almost doubled, rising from $7 billion to $13.6 billion. of children supported by pre-K funds were enrolled in pub- Add in funding for Head Start, and the total rose from lic schools. $11.7 billion to $19.9 billion. Spending has remained rel- Why add a new, school-based program for four-year- atively flat since then. olds when, as we have seen, about 70 percent of all three- The result has been an unprecedented increase in and four-year-olds nationwide already spend at least some the number of children in government-subsidized child time in some form of center-based child care or Head Start? care. But more needs to be done. Only half of all eligible Wasn’t this goal of universality the political and program- four-year-olds with low-income working mothers (and only matic hurdle that brought down California’s Proposition 82?

32 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The New Kindergarten

Would it not be sounder policy to expand the programs that American parents). And if it is an education program, it already exist? might attract the children of stay-at-home mothers and Perhaps the politicians supporting universal pre-K do would certainly justify taxpayer spending on middle-class not know the extent of existing preschool services. (That and more affluent families. (After all, schools are free to all, seems to have been the case in California.) After all, like the regardless of income.) rest of us, they are constantly exposed to a barrage of com- Justifying free pre-K is politically important plaints about the inadequacy of child-care services. And because, contrary to what the news media imply, two- some governors seem to have been persuaded that a pre-K parent families in which the mother works are actu- program would raise test scores, thus helping to prevent the ally much wealthier than those with stay-at-home financial penalties for failing to meet the standards of the No mothers. As The Los Angeles Times complained, uni- Child Left Behind Act. The advocates of univer- sal pre-K, however, know exactly what they are doing. ONLY HALF OF ALL ELIGIBLE four- In public, they justify creat- ing a new program by year-olds with low-income working mothers claiming—often with some hyperbole—that existing receive child-care aid. programs are of such poor quality that displacing them will be a net good. Thus, Nathan James, a spokesman for versal pre-K makes a “taxpayer-funded preschool Rob Reiner, asserted that as few as 25 percent of the four- available to middle-class and rich families, which can year-olds in day care were in quality programs. Care for the easily afford it.” Although other factors are involved, others “could be baby-sitting or throwing a kid in front of a consider that in 2006 the median income for house- TV set,” he said. holds with two earners was $76,635, almost 40 per- That kind of exaggeration—with its remarkable sug- cent more than that for married-couple households gestion that the majority of parents hand their children over with only one earner ($55,372). to dreadful caregivers—distracts attention from the real The key to this “pre-K is just another year of school” argu- question: Would it not make more sense to improve the ment is the claim that, unlike Head Start, pre-K programs existing programs than to start up a fresh group of efforts provide educational benefits to all children, not just the dis- whose quality is far from guaranteed? For example, “Project advantaged. “All children make phenomenal gains” in Upgrade” (funded by the U.S. Department of Health and pre-K, claims Libby Doggett, executive director of the advo- Human Services) used rigorous evaluation techniques to test cacy group Pre-K Now. Rob Reiner told the National Gov- a revised curriculum for child-care centers in Florida. It ernors’ Association that pre-K programs produce a “huger raised test scores on at least some elements of cognitive impact” on how all children do “in school and later on in life.” development as much as the best state pre-K programs— At first glance, the idea that starting school a year ear- at a much lower cost. (Because pre-K pays teacher-level lier would boost the learning of middle-class children might salaries, on an hourly basis it costs about 50 percent more make sense. (Let’s pass on the worry that many experts have than center-based care.) about the negative impact of starting formal education too In private, advocates give a more plausible explanation. soon.) We want our children to do the best they can in They say that the phrases “universal preschool” and “uni- school, so, presumably, the earlier they start preparing for versal pre-K” are meant to suggest the extension of public school, the better. education. The idea is to finesse the major reasons why past Unfortunately, no scientifically rigorous evidence sup- efforts to enact a universal child-care program failed. If ports the claims of pre-K’s impact on middle-class chil- pre-K is just adding another year to schooling, then it is not dren. James Heckman, a University of Chicago Nobel lau- taking over child rearing (a prerogative carefully guarded by reate in economics, is one of the strongest voices in favor of

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 33 The New Kindergarten early education for low-income children, but here is what temporary fix to a long-term problem. he says about applying the model to the middle class: “Advo- Nonprofit and for-profit child-care centers face a cates and supporters of universal preschool often use exist- subtler threat. Full-time working mothers who use ing research for purely political purposes. But the solid evi- pre-K (whether because of its presumed quality or dence for the effectiveness of early interventions is limited because it is free) no longer need their services. And to those conducted on disadvantaged populations.” As Bruce because pre-K fills only a few hours of each day, these Fuller, an education professor at the University of Califor- mothers tend to patch together some combination of nia, Berkeley, and author of Standardized Childhood before– and after–pre-K activities for their children. (2007), explains, “For middle-class kids the quality of pre- Because they generally cannot use child-care centers for school centers would have to approach a nirvana-like con- this purpose, children are more likely to wind up in infor- dition to present radically richer environments than the mal care, provided by neighbors, relatives, and others—the majority of middle-class homes, or home-based caregivers.” very care that pre-K advocates criticize most. It’s not that knowledgeable pre-K backers don’t know When researchers studying New York State’s uni- this. Fuller reports on a conversation he had with one of the versal pre-K program raised the possibility that pre-K key foundation funders of the pre-K movement: “When I programs “could negatively impact the enrollment of asked [universal pre-K] benefactor Sue Urahn of the Pew four-year-olds at nonpublic child-care centers and Charitable Trusts why government should subsidize preschools,” a pre-K advocate asked, “Is this necessar- preschools for all families, rich or poor, she acknowledged ily an all-negative outcome?” that ‘you probably won’t get the degree of benefit for middle- Or perhaps advocates would prefer the Oklahoma class children that you would for poor kids.’ But, she added, solution. Using mostly federal funds, the state simply universality may bolster the political will to widen chil- pays child-care centers for a full day for each child, even dren’s access to, and to improve the quality of, preschool.” if the child is only present for four hours. (This practice So that’s the strategy: promise the middle class a free is documented in government reports, but the folks in lunch. Thus far, it seems to be working. Each year sees an Washington either don’t know or don’t care about it.) increase in the number of children in pre-K programs. In Another troubling aspect of the pre-K movement is the 2006–07 school year, the NIEER reports, 14 states had that it is a retreat from parental choice in early child- 25 percent or more of all four-year-olds in pre-K, and three hood arrangements, an approach that has been nur- states had reached 50 percent. tured since the passage of the block grant bill in 1990. In most places, pre-K programs are simply being added Since then, more than $100 billion in child-care sub- to the mix of preschool programs, with little or no attempt sidies has been distributed through vouchers—with to coordinate them with existing child-care programs or nary a problem—while low-income parents have had Head Start. The eventual goal, apparently, is to have uni- the freedom to choose the providers they want, largely versal pre-K programs substitute for all programs that now without government constraints. (Even unlicensed serve four-year-olds. providers can be used in most states.) But parents in But is it the right strategy? What about the nearly neighborhoods served by pre-K have only one choice: 500,000 four-year-olds in Head Start? And what about the send their children to the public program or dig into almost 1.6 million four-year-old children of full-time work- their pockets to send them to one of their own ing women—children who need more than part-time care choosing. while their mothers are on the job? Vouchers are controversial for K–12 education, but they have been widely accepted in the child-care world—because the context is so different. Remem- re-K is already eating into Head Start enroll- ber, the children involved are three-year-olds and ments. Last year, Congress responded to what four-year-olds. Even some strong critics of vouchers P was called “underenrollment” by allowing Head for the schools, such as John Witte, a political scien- Start grantees to enroll more infants and toddlers, and tist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have to raise income eligibility ceilings. This is, at best, a concluded that for preschool programs a “voucher

34 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The New Kindergarten system seems to be the best choice to maximize Debate rages about how best to close the achieve- opportunity and equity and educational efficiency.” ment gap, but all specialists agree that to be success- Besides encouraging responsive programming and ful, programs must be focused on the children’s deep service improvement, vouchers provide a high degree needs and be intense enough to make a difference. of flexibility needed to accommodate the disparate That means multiple years of educational and sup- needs of families. Some parents want, or need, only port services for the parents as well as the children— half-day care; some need evening or after-hours care; and that simply is not something pre-K and its three others need full-day care, perhaps with extended or four hours of school-based services will provide. hours. Some parents want their children cared for by Some observers think that, if pre-K programs other family members; some want to use neighbors; really worked for the middle class, they would widen others want a nursery school; still others prefer a care the achievement gap. Bruce Fuller points out, “The center, perhaps in a church. Some parents may want well-orchestrated universal preschool campaign at all their children of different ages in one place; others once says their silver bullet will help all kids and close may not care. Some parents will want their children early achievement gaps. That’s pretty difficult to pull close to home; others will want them close to work. off. It means that children from middle-class and The variations are almost infinite. Accommodating wealthy families will accelerate in their development, such variation is all but impossible in a top-down, and then poor kids will accelerate even more.” pre-K regime. Perhaps sometime in the future all American chil- Perhaps most troubling, universal pre-K does little, dren will be in free child care, at least by the time they if anything, to solve the most vexing educational prob- are four years old. But we seem far from that goal. One lem facing America: the achievement gap that puts research group estimates that a universal pre-K system low-income, mostly minority children so far behind would cost roughly $55 billion a year, more than six more fortunate children. On a host of important devel- times the roughly $9 billion the federal and state gov- opmental measures, low-income children suffer large ernments now spend on four-year-olds. If past esti- and troubling social and cognitive deficits compared mates for the costs of other social programs are any with others. This translates into a lifelong achieve- guide, it would not be unreasonable to double that ment gap that curtails the educational attainment, forecast. employment opportunities, and earnings potential of Universal pre-K might be a boon to the middle large numbers of children—especially among African class—depending on whether, in the end, it is their tax Americans, Latinos, and other disadvantaged dollars that pay for it—but it would still leave unmet minorities. the much more serious needs of low-income children. Half of all eligible low-income working mothers still do not receive child-care subsidies. Would it not be wiser he achievement gap has many causes, from policy to help them purchase better child care than to the poverty stemming from a history of dis- channel more funding into pre-K programs that serve T crimination and restricted opportunity to the higher-income children whose parents do not neces- child-rearing styles of many disadvantaged families. sarily work? Cause and effect are intermingled in multiple and con- Twice before, efforts to create a universal pro- troversial ways. Early childhood education is a poten- gram stalled in Washington. But this round’s edu- tially important remedy to some of these problems, but cation-based strategy may work. Although it failed the plain fact is that the family is the primary teacher with the voters of California, special interests hold of young children—and compensatory programs face much greater sway in the nation’s capital. So, to a much larger challenge than pre-K advocates’ rheto- answer Hillary Clinton’s question: Universal pre-K is ric commonly suggests. What parents do (and do not caught in the midst of middle-class and interest- do) counts much more than any early education group politics. As usual, the most disadvantaged chil- program. dren may lose out. ■

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 35 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

The Big Thaw

To much of the world, Green- land is an obscure island sheathed in ice, a giant white blotch on the map. Now, a warming climate is freeing up the country’s resources in pre- viously frozen expanses of land and sea, and Greenlanders are bestirring themselves to seek independence from Denmark.

BY JOSHUA KUCERA

Nuuk, Greenland, is a poky little place. Its fanciest hotel shares a building with a grocery store. A town of brightly painted wooden houses against a dramatic mountain backdrop, Nuuk looks like a western ski resort with some European-style public housing thrown in. But in this sleepy setting, where a population of 15,000 lives a mere 150 miles south of the Arctic Cir- cle, a revolution is brewing. Very slowly. For decades, Greenlanders have gently agitated for greater freedom from Denmark, the nation that colonized them centuries ago. In 1979, they attained home rule—which produced, among other changes, a new, Inuit name for the capital, Nuuk (pronounced the polls to take another major step out of Denmark’s “nuke”), formerly known by the Danish name shadow: They are likely to approve a law that will Godthåb. On November 25, Greenlanders will go to formally give Greenland the right to declare independence and make Greenlandic—which is Joshua Kucera is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. His closely related to the Inuit languages spoken in articles have appeared in Slate, Time, and Jane’s Defence Weekly, among other publications. Canada—rather than Danish, the official language.

36 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Sermitsiaq mountain towers over the harbor of Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, a sleepy town where pro-independence sentiment is gathering force.

In an age of violent independence movements such But Greenland’s independence aspirations are also get- as those of Kosovo and East Timor, this is national lib- ting a boost from an unlikely source: global warming. eration in slow motion. The impulse toward self- Americans might joke about the visible effects of cli- determination is the same as in liberation movements mate change during a spell of warm weather. But more elsewhere across the globe: Greenland’s 56,000 people than anywhere else in the world, Greenland is experi- are mainly Inuits who have little in common with Danes. encing honest-to-God warming. The island’s ice sheet—

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 37 Greenland which contains 10 percent of the world’s fresh water, more likely that Erik gave Greenland an attractive name equivalent to the entire Gulf of Mexico—is melting at a to lure other settlers there.) rate of 57 cubic miles a year, and the loss is apparent Denmark’s colonization of Greenland began in 1721, everywhere. Midway up the back side of Nuuk’s land- when a missionary, Hans Egede, came there looking mark mountain, Sermitsiaq, which looms over the city for the Norse settlers, who hadn’t been heard from since like Mt. Rainier does over Seattle, Greenlanders point the 14th century. Egede worried that the Protestant out a gray band where the ice on the mountaintop has Reformation had passed Erik’s descendants by, leaving shrunk and the glacier below has receded. In 2007, the them unredeemed Catholics. He found no Norsemen (they died out under mys- terious circumstances in the 15th century), but MUCH OF GREENLAND is covered stayed on to convert the Inuits to Christianity. by an ice cap so thick that no one knows Egede’s efforts opened the door to a Danish mon- whether the island is a single landmass or opoly on trade in whales and furs with the island, an archipelago. and eventually coloniza- tion. Denmark’s rule was marked by a combination Northwest Passage, which runs south of Greenland and of benign neglect and paternalistic social engineering. along Canada’s northern coast, was free of ice for the first For example, while 18th-century missionaries attempted time since scientists began monitoring it. All of this to end the Inuits’ traditions of polygamy and communal melting is helping to unlock the mineral and petroleum living, a 1782 directive prohibited Danes from “corrupt- resources under land and sea, offering the prospect of ing” the Inuits with alcohol, limited contact between Kuwaitesque wealth to Greenland’s citizens. Danes and Inuits, and urged that the Inuits’ welfare Greenland is an unusual place. It’s the world’s largest “receive the highest possible consideration, even override island, three times the size of Texas, but it has no inter- when necessary the interests of trade itself.” city roads—people travel between Greenland’s “cities” (a Though most Inuit Greenlanders converted quickly word Greenlanders use to describe even settlements of to Christianity, economic change came more slowly. 2,000) by boat and helicopter. Jets arriving from abroad Until the beginning of the 20th century they lived a life can’t land in Nuuk because the airport runway is too of dogsleds, igloos, and subsistence seal hunting, as their short, so they must fly to one of two remote former U.S. ancestors had for millennia. Then Denmark embarked air bases, hundreds of miles away, from which travelers on various modernization schemes that converted the continue on by helicopter or prop plane. economy into one based on industrial fishing and fish More than 80 percent of Greenland is covered by an processing, and forced Inuits to abandon their tradi- ice cap so thick—10,000 feet at the center—that no one tional seminomadic lifestyle and settle in towns in knows whether the island is a single landmass or an archi- Danish-built wooden houses. pelago. Settlements lie only on the coasts; the icy interior A visitor familiar with Native American reservations is uninhabitable year round. But in summertime the or Canadian Inuit territory—the closest historical ana- coastal regions of the south are verdant with grass and logues to Greenland’s experience—will notice the dif- wildflowers, and it is not difficult to understand why Erik ference between such places and Nuuk immediately. the Red named the place Greenland when he was exiled Nuuk has the feel of a well-tended frontier outpost, with there from Iceland in ad 982. (The commonly told story cheery wooden houses painted in primary colors com- about his attempt to trick invaders by switching the names peting for space with 1960s-era apartment buildings. of Iceland and Greenland is almost certainly false; it is (One such building houses a full one percent of Green-

38 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Greenland

tered an unprecedented scene of drunkenness: Fully half the patrons were incapable of walking in a straight line. Yet most Greenlanders acknowledge that their experi- ence with Denmark has been more positive than negative. “Denmark is the best colonial power we could have had,” Lars-Emil Johansen, a former prime minister in his sixties, told me. Johansen, like most Greenlanders, regardless of their ethnic background, has a Danish name and speaks Dan- ish. (A notable exception is the current prime minister, who speaks only Greenlandic.) “We’ve never been at war with In the eyes of former Greenland prime minister Lars-Emil Johansen, Denmark has been a generous colo- nial power. But Greenland’s newly accessible energy deposits may end this antiquated relationship. them or been oppressed, and the process of independence is land’s population.) Lately, the city has added a bit of cos- not a protest against Denmark. But we want a relation- mopolitan flair with several handsome examples of ship based on mutual respect. We don’t want to rely any- avant-garde Scandinavian architecture. The gently more on the goodwill of the Danes.” undulating wood-and-glass Greenlandic cultural center The negotiation of Home Rule put a Greenlander-run has been written up in the international design magazine government in administrative control of nearly all state The Architectural Review. responsibilities in 1979. Today the only Danish govern- But aside from the dramatic scenery and Inuit faces, ment presence in Nuuk is a high commissioner of Green- Nuuk isn’t so peculiar as most visitors expect. Several land and a staff of a dozen to act as a liaison to the Dan- years ago the Danish author of an academic paper on ish prime minister’s office. The Self-Government Act to be Greenland felt compelled to add in a footnote: “Most voted on in November lays out 32 areas, including the Danish cities have a minority of Greenlanders. Most court system, immigration and border control, and edu- blend in, but a small fraction constitutes a highly visible cation, in which the Greenland government will take group of bums, carrying always an open beer bottle. more responsibility. Most significantly, the law will allow Many Danes are surprised to come to Greenland and see Greenland the right to exercise self-determination, or to cities that, as much as conditions permit, look like other declare independence outright. small North European cities. On Sunday mornings many This may seem like a tame step. But it suits the cautious Greenlanders walk to the local bakery to buy freshly nature of both Danes and Greenlanders: One scholar at baked rolls.” the University of Greenland has argued that Danish rule Still, the social dislocation caused by Danish urban- has been so successful because both cultures value com- ization schemes is evident. The suicide rate is five times munitarianism, egalitarianism, and emotional restraint. that of Europe, and one politician told me that the rate But it’s not just emotional restraint that is keeping of child sexual abuse is 15 times higher than in Denmark. Greenlanders from impetuously throwing off the Dan- Alcoholism is rampant. I went to Nuuk’s oldest water- ish yoke. There is also the matter of the most frequently ing hole, Kristinemut, on a Friday night, and encoun- cited number in Greenland: three billion Danish kroner

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 39 Greenland

(about $600 million), the amount of the annual Danish construction of an aluminum smelter there, which would subsidy to Greenland’s home-rule government. That begin operating around 2015. (Greenland produces amounts to more than $10,000 for each of the island’s none of aluminum’s ingredients, but its abundant residents, and about half the government budget. With hydropower can cheaply power smelters.) independence, Greenland would lose that subsidy. Oil and natural gas exploration, too, have begun in Traditionally, Greenland has had few options for indus- earnest. Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey released its try: Seafood accounts for roughly 90 percent of its export first comprehensive assessment of the oil and natural gas income. It also depends on Denmark for access to higher potential of the Arctic, and found that the seas off north- education institutions (only 150 students attend Green- eastern Greenland were among the most promising, with land’s sole university) and health care. But Greenland’s an estimated 8.9 billion barrels of oil and 86.2 trillion cubic financial dependence on Denmark very soon could be feet of natural gas. “If this resource is proved and realized, history. Companies around the world are realizing that northeastern Greenland would rank 19th” among the Greenland, that vast yet obscure country to the north, is world’s 500 oil and gas provinces, the report predicts. sitting on a mother lode. The seas to the west of Greenland are also rich with prom- In the last four years mining companies, primarily ise, estimated to contain beneath their floors 7.3 billion based in Canada, Britain, and Australia, have begun barrels of oil and 51.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. operations at Greenland’s first two mines—one for gold To say that change in Greenland’s economy is mov- and another for olivine, a greenish crystalline mineral ing at a glacial pace doesn’t mean what it used to. The increasingly used in pollution-fighting carbon dioxide country’s underground wealth, unlocked by global absorption. (The Danes operated mines throughout warming, promises to revolutionize the economy—and their colonization, but on a relatively small scale; all of fast. In 2005, a British mining company announced them closed decades ago.) The government has given the that it had found “massive” deposits of zinc and lead on green light to other companies to open five new mines land that had recently been exposed by a retreating gla- by 2011. Thirty companies carried out another 78 cier. A dramatic reduction in sea ice—10 percent every prospecting explorations last year, and the government decade since 1979—has made it easier to prospect for oil expects that gold, diamonds, rubies, and minerals such offshore. In a PowerPoint presentation at a Texas energy as olivine and niobium (used as a steel alloy) could soon conference this year, Greenland’s Bureau of Minerals and become mainstays of Greenland’s economy. Alcoa and Petroleum maintained that while some models predict the Greenland government are also contemplating the that the Arctic Ocean will be ice free in 2080, others

Many Nuuk residents, transplanted from traditional villages, live in 1950s and ’60s era utilitarian public housing.This building, known as Blok P,houses a full one percent of Greenland’s population.

40 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Greenland show an ice-free Arctic Ocean as early as 2040. nearly all Greenlanders survived by hunting seal, whale, The changing climate is even creating new opportu- and muskox. But hunting requires favorable conditions— nities in agriculture. Farming—a relatively new occupation clear skies and solid ice. Bad weather frequently meant in Greenland introduced by Danish settlers—is thriving on starvation. the southern coast. On a bucolic hillside near the town of Few Greenlanders live as subsistence hunters today, Qaqortoq, I visited a government agricultural research sta- but in the northern part of Greenland many do, and they tion where agronomists experiment on little rows of are keeping alive the traditions that all Greenlanders turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, and strawberries, and used to observe. Global warming threatens their liveli- then teach local farmers to raise the crops. The govern- hood and way of life. Solid ice is necessary for dogsleds ment is hoping to reduce Greenland’s dependence on (and the increasingly common snowmobiles) to get food shipped from Denmark, and these efforts have got- around, but as winters become milder, the Greenlanders’ ten a boost from global warming: Since 1990, the grow- “roads” are growing slushy and dangerous and the hunt- ing season has lengthened by about three weeks, said ing season is shrinking. Kenneth Høegh, the station’s director. Agriculture will More snow is falling (warmer air holds moisture), always be a niche activity, but the greening of Greenland making it harder for game animals to forage. Thunder has spurred its (surprisingly numerous) swanky restau- and lightning, once unheard of, have been reported. rants to build menus around local foods. They proudly Jacky Simoud, a tour operator in southern Greenland, serve dishes that include ingredients such as reindeer, said, “Here, a good winter is a cold winter—the sky is muskox, angelica root, snow peas, potatoes, and rhubarb clear and the fjord is frozen so you can go anywhere by (which featured in a cold dessert soup I sampled) that were snowmobile. But for the last four or five years it gets grown, hunted, or gathered in the country. warm and cold, warm and cold, and you never know what will happen with the ice. So you just stay home.” But for every negative effect of global warming, reenlanders have always been subject to the there is a positive one for Greenlanders. There is less vicissitudes of the weather. Their traditional hunting but more farming. The thawing of the fjords G beliefs hold that the weather is a demanding makes navigating northern Greenland in winter on a god, named Sila, who must be appeased. Until the 1920s, dogsled more difficult, but kayaking in the spring and fall is easier. Shrimp are fleeing the warmer seas, but cod are coming. Overall, Greenlanders are fairly sanguine about these shifts. “We’ve always been subject to the weather in Greenland, and this has made us adaptable to the changes taking place,” said former prime minister Johansen. “We need to use the opportunities that climate change gives us rather than complaining about the downsides.” Global warming presents “huge opportunities,” said Minin- nguaq Kleist, the bookish young head of the government office that is coordinating the transi- tion to self-government. “Ten or 15 years ago, people would say

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 41 Greenland you were completely unrealistic if you talked about inde- extension an independent Greenland, some leverage pendence. But now it’s very realistic.” over the United States. The base “is a ticket to the world’s It’s realistic in large part because the route to eco- only superpower,” Kleist said. nomic self-sufficiency is more apparent now than it’s ever been. The most important part of the November referendum is a revenue-sharing arrangement for the enmark is likely to go along with whatever Green- petroleum and mineral wealth. Under the new law, landers decide on the independence question. A Greenland and Denmark would split the revenues Dfew Danish right-wing politicians oppose Green- until Denmark’s share became equivalent to its annual land’s independence, arguing that after supporting the $600 million subsidy. After that, Greenland would island for decades, Denmark should reap the material ben- keep the rest. Once Greenland no longer needed the efits to come. But that’s a minority opinion. Though some subsidy, the main argument against independence Greenlander politicians accuse Denmark of dragging its feet, would disappear. the Danes have largely gone along with the independence The Greenland government is confident that the drive. referendum will pass, but not everyone supports Pro-independence Greenlanders take inspiration from independence—at least at the pace at which the gov- the experience of Iceland, which declared independence ernment appears to be pursuing it. One opposition from Denmark in 1944 and now enjoys one of the highest party, the Democrats, has come out against the refer- standards of living in the world. Icelanders return the affec- endum, arguing that it adds extra responsibilities with- tion: Icelandic superstar Björk has dedicated “Declare Inde- out creating any additional income. “The law is the next pendence,” a song on her most recent album, to Greenland. step to independence, and we want to see the oil before “Damn colonists,” she sings. “Ignore their patronizing/Tear we start spending the money from it,” said Jens Fred- off their blindfolds/Open their eyes.” eriksen, the Democrats’ leader. “Independence is But Björk’s angry rhetoric doesn’t jibe with the mood in important, but not to the little child who goes to bed Greenland. In a more nationalistic place, Hans Egede, Den- hungry, and there are a lot of children in Greenland like mark’s first missionary colonizer, might be seen as a villain; that.” He sees a timeline of “30, 40, 50 years” before in Greenland he’s regarded with indifference. (Statues, such an eventuality. Independence “depends on so paintings, and memorials to Egede are everywhere—Nuuk’s many things, and maybe in the end it won’t be possi- main hotel is even named after him—but all the Greenlan- ble,” he said. ders I asked said they didn’t think much about his role in Others worry that independence would make Green- their history.) Some politicians suggest that Greenland land vulnerable to other powers that may not have Den- might choose to stop somewhat short of independence mark’s gentle touch. That’s the concern of Aqqaluk from Denmark and opt instead for a free association Lynge, the top Greenland representative to the Inuit Cir- arrangement, wherein Greenland would have its own con- cumpolar Council, an international organization repre- stitution but retain some ties, mainly in defense and diplo- senting Inuits in Greenland as well as Alaska, Canada, macy, with Copenhagen. Aruba (the Netherlands), the and Russia. He has argued that independence would put Cook Islands (New Zealand), and Micronesia (the United Greenland at the mercy of the United States and its oil States) are potential models. companies. In Johansen’s small office in Nuuk’s government The United States has another key interest in Green- building hangs a poster of his political idol, Nelson land: Thule Air Base on the far northern coast of the Mandela. Johansen identifies with Mandela not because island. On the base—built immediately after World War he believes the Greenlanders suffer as grievously as II, during which the United States assumed military blacks did in apartheid South Africa, but because Man- control over Greenland to keep it out of the hands of dela emphasizes reconciliation. “His idea of looking to Germany—is a radar installation that is part of the Bal- the future, not dwelling on the past, is something I listic Missile Early Warning System. Independence advo- admire,” Johansen said. “We don’t want to be a colony cates argue that the radar site gives Denmark, and by anymore, but we will still be friends with Denmark.” ■

42 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly

TALK OF CHANGE HAS FILLED THE AIR IN CAMPAIGN ’08, BUT SO HAVE many of the same old complaints about American politics. We asked four diverse observers—two political scientists, a British politician, and a historian—to take a deeper look at what’s wrong (and what’s right) with the American system.

Larry M. Bartels exposes irra- Scott Keeter defends polls and

tional voters...... p. 44 pollsters...... p. 56

Denis MacShane praises the Gil Troy imagines a post-sleaze

American spectacle ...... p. 51 politics ...... p. 63

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 43 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

The Irrational Electorate

Many of our worst fears about America’s voters are true.

BY LARRY M. BARTELS

One of the best-selling political books of the but on how what they don’t know actually affects 2008 election season has been Just How Stupid Are how they vote. Do they manage to make sensible We? a report on “the truth about the American voter” choices despite being hazy about the details of poli- by popular historian Rick Shenkman. Shenkman’s tics and government? (Okay, really hazy.) If they do, little book presents a familiar collection of bleak that’s not stupid—it’s efficient. results from opinion surveys documenting some of the many things most Americans don’t know about politics, government, and American history. “Public ignorance,” he concludes, is “the most obvious cause” of “the foolishness that marks so much of American politics.” Lest this pronouncement seem dispiriting, an obligatory hopeful coda offers anodyne proposals for civic improvement. Never mind whether the additional civics courses and “democracy parties” Shenkman proposes are really going to stem the tide of public ignorance. The reader’s first response to Shenkman’s indictment should be: So what? Does it really matter whether voters can name the secretary of defense or know how long a senate term is? The political consequences of “public igno- rance” must be demonstrated, not assumed. And that requires focusing not just on what voters don’t know,

Larry M. Bartels directs the Center for the Study of Democratic Poli- tics in Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Inter- national Affairs. He is the author of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, published earlier this year by the Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press. An annotated version of this essay can be found online at www.wilsonquarterly.com.

44 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Obviously, what counts as a “sensible choice” is itself When social scientists first started using detailed a matter of legitimate disagreement. Shenkman seems opinion surveys to study the attitudes and behavior of to think that since “foolishness . . . marks so much of ordinary voters, they found some pretty sobering American politics,” voters must be making stupid things. In the early 1950s, Paul Lazarsfeld and his choices. However, most analysts have aspired to judge colleagues at Columbia University concluded that voters by less subjective standards—criteria grounded in electoral choices “are relatively invulnerable to direct specific notions of procedural rationality, or in voters’ argumentation” and “characterized more by faith than own values and interests, or in comparisons with the by conviction and by wishful expectation rather behavior of better-informed voters who are similar in rel- than careful prediction of consequences.” For example, evant ways. Moreover, such analysts have recognized that voters consistently misperceived where candidates what really matters is not whether individual voters go stood on the important issues of the day, seeing their astray, but whether entire electorates do. A lot of idio- favorite candidates’ stands as closer to their own and syncratic behavior can be submerged in the collective opposing candidates’ stands as more dissimilar than verdict of 120 million voters. they actually were. They likewise exaggerated According to Shenkman, “The consensus in the the extent of support for their political science profession is that voters are rational.” favorite candidates among Well, no. A half-century of scholarship provides plenty of grounds for pessimism about voters’ rationality.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 45 The Glory and the Folly members of social groups they felt close to. Rational Public argued that voters could use “infor- In 1960, a team of researchers from the University mation shortcuts” to make rational electoral choices of Michigan published an even more influential study, even though they lacked detailed knowledge about The American Voter. They described “the general candidates’ policies and platforms. These “shortcuts” impoverishment of political thought in a large pro- could take many forms, including inferences from portion of the electorate,” noting that “many people personal narratives, partisan stereotypes, and know the existence of few if any of the major issues of endorsements or other “cues” from trusted people or policy.” Shifts in election outcomes, they concluded, groups. were largely attributable to defections from long- Unlike the analogous literature in psychology, standing partisan loyalties by relatively unsophisti- this first wave of scholarship on political cues and “information shortcuts” stressed their potential value while paying little IN ONE STUDY, only about 70 percent of attention to the ways in which they could lead voters chose the candidate who best matched voters astray. In one of the most colorful exam- their own preferences. ples of an “information shortcut,” political scien- tist Samuel Popkin sug- cated voters with little grasp of issues or ideology. A gested that Mexican-American voters had good rea- recent replication of their work using surveys from son to be suspicious of President Gerald Ford in 1976 2000 and 2004 found that things haven’t changed because he didn’t know how to eat a tamale—a short- much in the past half-century. coming revealed during his Texas GOP primary cam- The intervening decades have seen a variety of paign against Ronald Reagan, when he made the concerted attempts to overturn or evade the find- mistake of trying to down one without first removing ings of the classic Columbia and Michigan studies. In its cornhusk wrapper. According to Popkin, “Showing the 1970s, for instance, some scholars claimed to familiarity with a voter’s culture is an obvious and have discovered what the title of one prominent book easy test of ability to relate to the problems and sen- called The Changing American Voter, a much more sibilities of the ethnic group and to understand and issue-oriented and ideologically consistent specimen care about them.” Obvious and easy, yes—but was than the earlier studies had portrayed. Unfortunately, this a reliable test? Would Mexican-American voters further scrutiny revealed that most of the apparent have been correct to infer that Ford was less sensitive improvement could be attributed to changes in the to their concerns than Reagan? I have no idea, and questions voters were being asked rather than a neither does Popkin. remarkable elevation of their political thinking. When Lacking any objective standard for distinguishing voters were asked the old questions in the 1970s, reliable cues from unreliable ones, some scholars their responses displayed no more consistency or have simply asked whether uninformed voters—using sophistication than the responses from the 1950s whatever “information shortcuts” are available to described by the authors of The American Voter. them—manage to make similar choices to those of In the 1990s political scientists took a different voters who are better informed, as the literature on tack, acknowledging that voters were generally inat- “information shortcuts” suggests. That is what I did tentive and uninformed but denying that the quality in a 1996 study, “Uninformed Votes,” which examined of their political decisions suffered much as a result. presidential elections from 1972 to ’92. Based on sta- A spate of books and articles with optimistic- tistical analyses of votes cast in each election by well- sounding titles such as The Reasoning Voter and The informed and less-informed voters with similar char-

46 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly acteristics, I assessed how closely voters’ actual evant fact or are swayed by the same vivid campaign choices matched the votes they would have cast had ad, no amount of aggregation will produce the req- they been “fully informed.” I found that the actual uisite miracle—individual voters’ “errors” will not choices fell about halfway between what they would cancel out in the overall election outcome. have been if voters had been fully informed and what In addition to assessing how well each individual they would have been if everyone had cast their bal- voter’s choice matched his or her hypothetical “fully lots on the basis of a coin flip. informed” choice, in “Uninformed Votes” I provided In How Voters Decide, political scientists Richard estimates of how well each overall election outcome Lau and David Redlawsk analyzed the same elec- matched what it would have been if every voter had tions using a less demanding criterion for assessing been fully informed. The average discrepancy “correct” voting. (They took each voter’s partisan- between the actual popular vote in each election and ship, policy positions, and evaluations of candidate the hypothetical outcome if every voter had been performance as givens, ignoring the fact that these, fully informed amounted to three percentage points— too, may be subject to errors and biases.) They found more than enough to swing a close election. In four that about 70 percent of voters, on average, chose the cases—1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992—the differences candidate who best matched their own preferences— between actual and hypothetical election outcomes a result, the researchers said, that left them “pleas- were large enough to provide strong evidence that antly surprised.” “errors” by millions of individual voters did not Lau and Redlawsk raised, but did not really entirely cancel out. These departures from “fully attempt to answer, the more consequential question: informed” election outcomes revealed a systematic “Is 70 percent correct enough?” Answering that ques- bias in favor of incumbents, who generally did sub- tion requires a careful assessment of the extent to stantially better than they would have if voters had which “incorrect” votes skew election outcomes. been fully informed, and a smaller bias in favor of Democratic candidates. Clearly, the “miracle of aggre- gation” is not sufficiently miraculous to render voters’ ptimism about the competence of demo- ignorance politically irrelevant. cratic electorates has often been bolstered Studies of this sort make it pretty clear that polit- O (at least among political scientists) by ical ignorance matters—not only for individual votes, appeals to what has been dubbed the “miracle of but also for election outcomes. Thus, this research aggregation”—an idea formalized in a mathematical undermines the notion that “information shortcuts” demonstration by the social theorist Condorcet more or sheer aggregation can compensate for voters’ than 200 years ago. He showed that if several jurors shortcomings. Subsequent work has shed light on make independent judgments of a suspect’s guilt or how some of the powerful political “heuristics” used innocence, a majority are quite likely to judge cor- by ordinary voters contribute to the problem. For rectly even if every individual juror is only slightly example, a team of psychologists led by Alex Todorov more likely to reach the correct conclusion than he established that candidates for governor, senator, or would simply by making a choice based on a coin flip. representative who are rated as “competent” by peo- Applied to electoral politics, Condorcet’s logic sug- ple judging them solely on the basis of photographs gests that the electorate as a whole may be much are considerably more likely to win real-world elec- wiser than any individual voter. tions than those who look less competent. Brief expo- The only problem with this elegant and powerful sure to the photographs—as little as one-tenth of a argument for the efficacy of majority rule is that it second—is sufficient to produce a significant corre- may not work very well in practice. Real voters’ errors lation with actual election outcomes. A follow-up are quite unlikely to be random and statistically inde- study showed that the electoral advantage of pendent, as Condorcet’s logic requires. When thou- competent-looking candidates is strongest among sands or millions of voters misconstrue the same rel- less informed voters and those most heavily exposed

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 47 The Glory and the Folly to political advertising. Most people seem able to provide cogent-sounding The ideal of rational voting behavior is further reasons for voting the way they do. However, careful undermined by accumulating evidence that voters observation suggests that these “reasons” often are can be powerfully swayed by television advertising in merely rationalizations constructed from readily the days just before an election. A major study of the available campaign rhetoric to justify preferences 2000 presidential election by Richard Johnston, formed on other grounds. Michael Hagen, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson tracked Consider the role of Social Security privatization prospective voters’ responses to changes in the vol- in the 2000 presidential election. It was a huge issue, ume and content of campaign ads as well as to news the focus of more than one-tenth of all campaign- coverage and other aspects of the national campaign. related television news coverage and about 200 ads Their analysis suggested that George W. Bush’s razor- on a typical television station in a battleground media thin victory hinged crucially on the fact that he had market in the last week of the campaign. By Election more money to spend on television ads in battle- Day, there was a strong statistical relationship ground states in the final weeks of the campaign. between voters’ views about privatization and their A team of scholars from UCLA elaborated on this presidential choices—just as one would expect if vot- analysis in an attempt to clarify how long the effects ers were pondering this important issue and casting of advertising last. They found that most of the effect their ballots accordingly. However, a detailed analy- of any given ad on voters’ preferences evaporated sis by political scientist Gabriel Lenz found very lit- within one week, and that “only the most politically tle evidence that people actually changed their vote aware voters exhibited . . . long-term effects.” (Of because of the Social Security debate. What hap- course, the fact that the most engaged voters were pened, mostly, was that people who learned the can- susceptible to long-term effects of advertising may didates’ views on privatization from the blizzard of itself be troubling, but at least they responded to a ads and news coverage simply adopted the position of considerable accumulation of arguments over the the candidate they already supported for other rea- course of the campaign rather than solely to the last sons. The resulting appearance of “issue voting” was arguments they happened to hear before stepping almost wholly illusory. into the voting booth.) In another study, the same authors found even shorter half-lives for advertising effects in a variety of state-level and congressional indings such as these have led some political races. A third study, by a different team, also found scientists to discount the role of “issue voting” only ephemeral advertising effects in the early stages F in elections. Where else can one look to find of a Texas gubernatorial race. A major ad buy pro- support for the idea that voters are making rational duced a seven-point increase in voter support for the choices? Perhaps they rely on a straightforward judg- featured candidate a day after the ads aired, but no ment about whether the country seems to be on the discernible effect two days later. The authors noted “right track” or “wrong track,” as pollsters often put it. that this “pattern of abrupt change and equilibra- Incumbents do, after all, tend to prosper in elections tion” in voter intentions in response to campaign when times are good and suffer when times are bad. advertising “appears to be inconsistent with a model In an influential 1981 book, Retrospective Voting in of rational learning.” American National Elections, political scientist Mor- These and other recent studies offer abundant ris Fiorina attributed the electoral significance of evidence that election outcomes can be powerfully economic booms and busts, successful or unsuccess- affected by factors unrelated to the competence and ful wars, and favorable or unfavorable social condi- convictions of the candidates. But if voters are so tions to the fact that even uninformed citizens “typ- whimsical, choosing the candidate with the most ically have one comparatively hard bit of data: They competent-looking face or the most recent television know what life has been like during the incumbent’s ad, how do they often manage to sound so sensible? administration.” The less they know about the details

48 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly of policies and platforms, Fiorina reasoned, the more likely they are to rely upon “retrospective” vot- ing as “a cost-cutting ele- ment” in deciding how to vote. Fiorina’s theory struck political scientists as plau- sible, if not entirely edify- ing, because it seemed to demand much less of vot- ers than the old-fash- ioned, unrealistic view that they should follow the news, formulate policy preferences, study the candidates’ platforms and records, weigh the relative importance of cross- cutting issues, and render When shown “transformed” images of George W. Bush (left) and John Kerry, subjects identified the Bush image a considered verdict re- as more masculine and dominant and one theypreferred in wartime,but theyfavored the Kerryimage in peacetime. garding the best future course of government. Instead, they need only judge the partisan elites on “their” side would like to be true, whether things are going well or badly. How hard can the fundamental premise of books such as Rick that be? Alas, my Princeton colleague Christopher Shenkman’s—that a more attentive, politically Achen and I have produced a series of studies sug- engaged electorate would make for a healthier gesting that even unheroic-sounding retrospective democracy—may be groundless. voting may be much harder than it sounds. Even when voters do have an accurate sense of For one thing, voters’ perceptions may be seri- how things are going, they tend to be inordinately ously skewed by partisan biases. For example, in a focused on the here and now. For example, studies of 1988 survey a majority of respondents who described economy-driven voting almost invariably find that themselves as strong Democrats said that inflation voters are strongly influenced by economic condi- had “gotten worse” over the eight years of the Reagan tions during the election year, or even some fraction administration; in fact, it had fallen from 13.5 percent of it, but mostly ignore how the economy performed in 1980 to 4.1 percent in 1988. Conversely, a major- over the rest of the incumbent’s term. ity of Republicans in a 1996 survey said that the fed- That shortsightedness is not just a psychological eral budget deficit had increased under Bill Clinton; quirk; it has significant political consequences. Over in fact, the deficit had shrunk from $255 billion to the past 60 years, there has been a marked partisan $22 billion. Surprisingly, misperceptions of this sort disparity in the timing of income growth, with Demo- are often most prevalent among people who should cratic presidents presiding over more overall growth know better—those who are generally well informed (especially for middle-class and working poor peo- about politics, at least as evidenced by their answers ple), but Republicans presiding over more growth to factual questions about political figures, issues, (especially for affluent people) in presidential election and textbook civics. If close attention to elite politi- years. Thus, voters’ economic myopia has produced a cal discourse mostly teaches people to believe what substantial Republican bias in presidential election

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 49 The Glory and the Folly results—a bias large enough to have been decisive in stunning 46-state landslide that ushered in an era of three of the nine Republican victories since World Democratic electoral dominance. War II: in 1952, 1968, and 2000. The 1936 election has become the most celebrated No Republican boom seems to be forthcoming in textbook case of ideological realignment in American this election year, and John McCain will be punished history. However, a careful look at state-by-state vot- at the polls as a result. Whether the current eco- ing patterns suggests that this resounding ratification nomic distress is really President Bush’s fault, much of Roosevelt’s policies was strongly concentrated in less Senator McCain’s, is largely beside the point. the states that happened to enjoy robust income Voters have great difficulty judging which aspects growth in the months leading up to the vote. Indeed, of their own and the country’s well-being are the the apparent impact of short-term economic condi- responsibility of elected leaders and which are not. In tions was so powerful that, if the recession of 1938 the summer of 1916, for example, a dramatic week- had occurred in 1936, Roosevelt probably would have long series of shark attacks along New Jersey beaches been a one-term president. left four people dead. Tourists fled, leaving some resorts with 75 percent vacancy rates in the midst of their high season. Letters poured into congressional t’s not only in the United States that the Depression- offices demanding federal action; but what action era tendency to “throw the bums out” looks like would be effective in such circumstances? Voters Isomething less than a rational policy judgment. In probably didn’t know, but neither did they care. When the United States, voters replaced Republicans with President Woodrow Wilson—a former governor of Democrats in 1932 and the economy improved. In New Jersey with strong local ties—ran for reelection Britain and Australia, voters replaced Labor govern- a few months later, he was punished at the polls, los- ments with conservatives and the economy improved. In ing as much as 10 percent of his expected vote in Sweden, voters replaced Conservatives with Liberals, towns where shark attacks had occurred. then with Social Democrats, and the economy improved. New Jersey voters’ reaction to shark attacks was In the Canadian agricultural province of Saskatchewan, dramatic, but hardly anomalous. Throughout the voters replaced Conservatives with Socialists and the 20th century, presidential candidates from incum- economy improved. In the adjacent agricultural province bent parties suffered substantial vote losses in states of Alberta, voters replaced a socialist party with a right- afflicted by droughts or wet spells. Shenkman argues leaning party created from scratch by a charismatic that “ ‘throw the bums out’ may not be a sophisticated radio preacher peddling a flighty share-the-wealth response to adversity but it is a rational one.” How- scheme, and the economy improved. In Weimar Ger- ever, punishing the president’s party because it many, where economic distress was deeper and longer hasn’t rained is no more “rational” than kicking the lasting, voters rejected all of the mainstream parties, the dog after a hard day at work. Nazis seized power, and the economy improved. In every While voters are busy meting out myopic, simple- case, the party that happened to be in power when the minded rewards and punishments, political observers Depression eased went on to dominate politics for a are often busy exaggerating the policy content of the decade or more thereafter. It seems far-fetched to imag- voters’ verdicts. The prime example in American ine that all these contradictory shifts represented well- political history may be the watershed New Deal considered ideological conversions. A more parsimo- election of 1936. Having swept into office on a strong nious interpretation is that voters simply—and tide of economic discontent in 1932, Franklin Roo- simple-mindedly—rewarded whoever happened to be in sevelt initiated a series of wide-ranging new policies power when things got better. to cope with the Great Depression. According to the Stupid? No, just human. And thus—to borrow most authoritative political scholar of the era, V. O. the title of another current bestseller, by behavioral Key, “The voters responded with a resounding ratifi- economist Dan Ariely—“predictably irrational.” That cation of the new thrust of governmental policy”—a may be bad enough. ■

50 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 An Admirable Folly

From afar, America’s presidential contests often look more like playground antics than a shining example of democracy. But looks can be deceiving.

BY DENIS MACSHANE

Every four years, when the British and cal parties and nothing much at stake in its elections, a other Europeans watch with shock, awe, and incom- view typical of the mid-20th-century socialist tradition prehension the presidential contest that convulses the he absorbed as a student in England and one that still United States, I’m reminded of President Julius Nyerere’s informs views of American politics from across the joking retort decades ago to American visitors who crit- Atlantic. icized his one-party state in Tanzania. The United States Denis MacShane is a Labor Party member of Parliament in the United is a one-party state too, he would say, but since America Kingdom and was minister for Europe in Prime Minister ’s is so big, it takes two parties to do the job. Nyerere saw administration. He serves on the and frequently writes for newspapers in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. His new book, Globalizing no real difference between America’s two major politi- Hatred: The New , will be published in London this fall.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 51 The Glory and the Folly

Because European politics are defined by an almost history. The gap between the détentist foreign policy of religious divide between socialist and conservative par- the first President Bush and Secretary of State James ties, we can look down our noses at the contest between Baker and the confrontationist foreign policy of Bush’s Republicans and Democrats as the equivalent of a son and Vice President Dick Cheney a handful of years squabble over whether you take your tea with sugar or later represents a far bigger distance between two lemon. But this narcissism of small differences makes for approaches to international affairs than anything seen hugely enjoyable elections, as personality appears utterly in Europe during the same period. to dominate, and these contests are irresistible to the But foreign affairs do not loom nearly as large in European news media. As a politician passionate about America as they do in Europe. With Germany depend- ent on Russian gas and oil supplies, and Poland and the Baltic states unable to EUROPEANS ARE AGOG at larger-than- forget the Soviet occupa- tion of their lands, Euro- life American politicians, so unlike their pean elections often turn on foreign issues. In 2004, own machine professionals who crawl their the Socialist Party in Spain defeated the ruling Span- way up the greasy pole of power. ish conservatives led by José María Aznar because the latter was seen as a making the idea of Europe work, it causes me some dis- puppet of Washington who sent Spanish troops to die in may that British coverage of politics in Germany or an unpopular war in Iraq. For more than a decade before France or Spain is picayune by comparison. Tony Blair assumed its leadership in 1994, Britain’s The fabled British-Canadian press proprietor and Labor Party was seen as unelectable because it was hos- politician Lord Beaverbrook insisted that all politics tile to European Union membership. Today, EU issues should be reported in terms of human interest, and influence all national elections on the eastern side of the there is nothing of greater human interest than the Atlantic to an extent unimaginable in the United States. character of an American president. What novelist would In Britain, the Labor Party likes to present the opposi- have pitched a black freshman senator against a septu- tionist Conservatives as isolationist and anti-European, agenarian war hero? Europe is agog at the prospect of an while right-wing parties present Labor as being too Obama presidency, and there are no politicians in close to Europe and too willing to trade British sover- Europe who have John McCain’s experience as a warrior eignty. In the United States, no matter what the rheto- and courageous prisoner of war. This is larger-than-life ric used to win the nomination, and despite the barrage Hollywood politics for Europeans, whose politicians are of mutual accusations that so excites foreign-policy spe- machine professionals who crawl their way up the greasy cialists, the question of America’s international rela- pole of power. tions or foreign-policy perspectives does not sway many Yet in their obsession with personality—the actor voters. Ronald Reagan versus the moralizing Jimmy Carter, or The key difference, however, remains that Euro- the 1968-generation Bill Clinton versus the preppy peans elect politicians to run their nations, while Amer- George H. W. Bush—Europeans are blind to the fact that icans elect a politician. Even the most dominant politi- the American system is far more likely to produce dra- cal leaders in Europe—the Margaret Thatchers and matic change. The shift from the Jim Crow America of Tony Blairs—can only do what their parliaments allow, the early 1950s to the civil rights America bequeathed by and must regularly appear before and answer pointed Lyndon Johnson at the end of the 1960s was one of the questions from their fellow parliamentarians. In the biggest revolutions in relations between peoples in world United States, the chief executive rarely ventures to

52 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly

Capitol Hill except in magisterial passage to deliver his alities in the knowledge that the person who will be State of the Union speech, which rapt legislators are finance or defense or interior minister will be as impor- expected to receive with no sound but respectful tant as the head of government. American presidents, by applause. contrast, are virtually unchallengeable for four years. The singularity of the American system—one vote for Every head of government in Europe has to deal with a one person to head the nation—contrasts with the Euro- team of ministers who have their own power base pean tradition of one vote for one person who then with because they have been elected and usually are party other parliamentarians decides who will run the coun- grandees. Thus, European voters know not just who try. It frequently happens that one prime minister can will be their president or chancellor or prime minister, succeed another without a general election, as Gordon but who is likely to be foreign or finance minister. In Brown did in replacing Tony Blair. The only exception to America, voters decide on a single individual who will the European norm is France, with its relatively power- lead the nation and, as commander in chief, decide ful president elected in a national vote, but even in when to wage war. Cabinet members are mostly bit France a presidency that amounted to an elected monar- players, usually lacking the kind of independent author- chy in the days of Charles de Gaulle and François Mit- ity European ministers possess. terrand is in the process of being reshaped into one American candidates seeking a presidential nom- more constrained and dependent on support in France’s ination have to promise the passionate and the angry parliament. in their political family that they will have what they In Europe, voters choose a team of political person- want: an end to war, lower taxes, health care reform,

TonyBlair savors his last round of Prime Minister’s Questions in parliament in June 2007 as (right),his now-unpopular successor,looks on.The thrust and parry of parliamentary politics produces seasoned politicians but does not guarantee that they will be effective national leaders.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 53 The Glory and the Folly and so on. Once the candidate is past the hurdle of the rather than policy is central to U.S. presidential contests. nomination, however, these promises start to make Another striking difference between the American and contact with public-policy reality, and after the election European styles of electoral warfare arises from the fact that many fly out the window, as Democrats become free- paid political advertising is banned from European televi- traders and Republicans embrace protectionism. Of sion, removing some of the heat and personal vitriol from course, European leaders, once in office, bend to real- campaigns and keeping the focus on policy differences. I ity and external events. But at least up to Election Day, once showed a group of hard-bitten British political infight- they have to be coherent and offer a manifesto of spe- ers the Willie Horton ad George H. W. Bush’s backers used cific promises that determines if they win or lose. And to destroy Michael Dukakis in 1988, featuring the African having won high office, European leaders still have to American Horton, who committed violent crimes while face fellow parliamentarians who believe in the party on furlough from a Massachusetts prison. These veterans of manifesto on which they were elected and expect their the British political wars sat back in horror at the vicious but leader act on it. Failure to deliver on campaign prom- effective crudeness of the attack, with its blatant exploitation ises can be fatal. A European leader who flubbed health of fears about race and crime. care reform and saw his party lose control of the leg- In British, German, and Spanish elections, televised islature, as Bill Clinton did in 1994, could never have political pitches are limited to formulaic party broadcasts. survived. Each party is allocated a number of slots—usually of up to five minutes—after the main evening news. An independ- ent commission oversees the broadcasts, and while the o be sure, American presidents are not com- tone is partisan, direct onslaughts are out of bounds. Some plete monarchs. They must contend with Con- broadcasts simply present the party leader talking directly T gress, state and local governments, and a to viewers—as boring as can be, especially compared to the Supreme Court that decides major issues such as abor- normal fizz and snap of television advertising in Europe. tion, gun control, and capital punishment (matters that Because European politicians have little direct in Europe are reserved for elected legislators). And, of access to the public through the media, journalists are course, a president must face the voters. But America’s the perpetual mediators (which leaves politicians per- chief executive has unparalleled powers, which is one haps even more obsessed than their American coun- reason why the personalities of candidates—their whims, terparts with controlling the news). Televised inquisi- impulses, and habits—matter more than they do in tions of wannabe government leaders are a major other countries. feature of elections. Some countries have formal Although the personality strengths and flaws of top debates in which the main candidates answer questions political leaders in Europe are under constant scrutiny, from a panel moderated by journalists. Face-to-face nothing matches the minute examination of those who debates between aspirants do sometimes occur (though aspire to the White House. John Major succeeded Mar- not, oddly, in Britain, where no prime minister has ever garet Thatcher as Britain’s prime minister in 1990 with- consented to debate the leader of the opposition). Yet, out anyone knowing or reporting that he was carrying on as in the United States, the TV duels usually disappoint, a passionate affair with a fellow Conservative member of as both candidates are prepared and coached to be Parliament and minister named Edwina Currie. The expert on defense so that punches rarely land. More- story came out only when she published her diaries over, since, other than in France, there are usually after both had left public life. François Mitterrand more than two main party leaders bidding to win seats became president of France while keeping his mistress in the parliament, there is rarely a one-on-one duel. and their child in a Paris apartment. I am not making a Instead, European candidates endure tough individual moral point, but a practical one. To the European eye, the inquisitions by respected TV political journalists who American news media’s relentless invasion of the privacy avidly seek to trip them up. This is a continuous of those who seek the nation’s highest office is another process, not confined to elections, and any politician in factor that firms up the perception that personality Europe who aspires to high office has to face regular

54 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly hard-hitting interviews on TV and the still-popular apparent than real. If in the 20th century the contest European radio services such as the BBC, which com- in Europe was between two different economic sys- mand big audiences for political programs every week. tems, free-market economics versus totalizing statism Aspiring American presidents mostly avoid such and welfarism, with America firmly supporting the rigors, especially during the primaries, when candi- former, the contest today is different. Europeans dates can largely confine their audiences to the ador- accept liberal market economics and struggle as ing crowds of staged town hall meetings and the small American politicians do to find the right approaches caucuses in some supporter’s living room. Anyone to health care, social reform, and the demands of hoping to lead a government in Europe has to con- aging voters. vince the public and party professionals over months, The 21st-century global political contest is now a if not years, by dominating in parliament, public meet- three-way fight. In one corner is democracy. In another ings, and the press, and by walking on the hot coals of is a new form of autocracy represented by the Russian- a televised grilling without flinching or fumbling. By Chinese model of politics, with its emphasis on stability, the time an election arrives, a principal candidate will economic growth, and a strong centralized state. In the have been battle hardened in dealing with the tough- third corner is Islamist politics, whose practitioners, in est of broadcast interrogations. When Tony Blair different soft and hard manifestations, are seeking to win sought to oust Britain’s Conservatives from power in power from Morocco to Indonesia. Europe and Amer- 1997, he already had 14 years of tough parliamentary ica both support market economics, the rule of law, free- experience behind him and had forced his Labor Party dom of expression, and rights for women, gays, and to come to terms with economic and geopolitical minorities, and thus whatever fur may fly over American modernity by imposing his will upon recalcitrant presidential contests should not hide the fact that a Labor leftists. But the Tories still sought to depict broader Euro-Atlantic community exists with common him as Bambi—a child without experience. values independent of differing systems of political However, the greater scrutiny does not necessarily representation. make for better leaders. Europe has had its share of duds. American democracy, even with the flaws, furies, Although politicians such as John Major in Britain and and occasional fun of its quadrennial presidential Jacques Chirac in France won elections, the economic, bouts, remains an example for the world. When social, and foreign policies of their countries under their Barack Obama was born and John McCain was a stewardship were unimpressive. The Austrian Socialists young naval officer, half of Europe lay under com- won power in the fall of 2006, but so ineffective was the munist rule and big Mediterranean nations such new Socialist chancellor that he had to dissolve his gov- Spain, Portugal, Greece, and intermittently Turkey ernment and call fresh elections after less than two years were not yet democracies. By taking the democratic in office. The center-left administration headed by Romano road that America exemplified, Europe has left Prodi in Italy won power in 2006 but was so incoherent it poverty and bad politics behind. The United States is could not stay in office for more than 20 months. Even still needed to inspire others to follow. under the presidential system in France, both Mitterrand European wiseacres often decry the vulgar ani- and Chirac found themselves in office but having to share malism of the American political system. But it works. power with opposition parties that had a majority in the In their own way European politics are just as per- National Assembly and could determine who would be sonal, crude, and creatively destructive, but their prime minister and hold other cabinet posts. great differences, rivalries, and contests over who governs are often resolved by private carve-ups rather than the more democratic public spectacles that he differences between the American and America conducts every four years. And given the European political systems have provided fod- limited quality of leadership it has to offer at the T der for thousands of doctoral dissertations moment, Europe should look in the mirror before it and books. But today the differences may be more looks down its nose. ■

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 55 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Poll Power

“Pollsters and pundits” has become a dismissive epithet in modern politics. Pollsters, at least, deserve much better.

BY SCOTT KEETER

As the votes were counted on the night of this polls in the 1980 presidential election, for example, the TV past January’s New Hampshire Democratic presidential pri- networks projected a Ronald Reagan victory—and Jimmy mary, pollsters and other professionals in the political game Carter conceded—even though people in the West still had began to grapple with an uncomfortable fact: Virtually all time to vote. Critics charged that this premature call may of them had been dead wrong. Despite unanimous poll have literally stopped some westerners from taking the results predicting a Barack Obama victory (by an average of trouble to cast their ballots. There is also a more generalized eight points) on the heels of Senator Obama’s surprising tri- suspicion that polls (and journalists) induce political pas- umph in the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton was going to sivity by telling Americans what they think. As the New emerge the winner. Hampshire story unfolded on January 8, former television The New Hampshire debacle was not the most signifi- news anchor Tom Brokaw seemed to have this idea on his cant failure in the history of public-opinion polling, but it mind when he said, with a bit of exasperation, that profes- joined a list of major embarrassments that includes the dis- sional political observers should simply “wait for the voters” astrous Florida exit polling in the 2000 presidential election, instead of “making judgments before the polls have closed which prompted several networks to project an Al Gore vic- and trying to stampede, in effect, the process.” tory, and the national polls in the 1948 race, which led to per- At the same time, some worry that polls put too haps the most famous headline in U.S. political history: much power in the hands of an uninformed public, and “Dewey Defeats Truman.” After intense criticism for previ- that they reduce political leaders to slavish followers of ous failures and equally intense efforts by pollsters to public opinion. In the White House, efforts to system- improve their techniques, this was not supposed to happen. atically track public opinion date back to the dawn of New Hampshire gave new life to many nagging modern polling, during the administration of Franklin doubts about polling and criticisms of its role in Amer- D. Roosevelt, and nobody seems to get very far in Amer- ican politics. Are polls really accurate? Can surveys of ican politics today without a poll-savvy Dick Morris or small groups of people give a true reading of what a Karl Rove whispering in his or her ear. much larger group thinks? What about bias? Don’t poll- But while there may be reason to worry about the pub- sters stack the deck? lic’s political competence, a far more serious threat to democ- At a deeper level, the unease about polling grows out of racy arises from the large disparities in income, education, fears about its impact on democracy. On the strength of exit and other resources needed to participate effectively in pol-

Scott Keeter is director of survey research for the Pew Research Center itics. Compared with most other Western democracies, the in Washington, D.C. A political scientist and survey methodologist, he is United States has a more pronounced class skew in voter the author of A New Engagement? Political Participation, Civic Life, and the Changing American Citizen (2006), among other books. turnout and other forms of political participation, with the

56 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 An Indiana couple fills out exit poll questionnaires after voting earlier this year in the state’s Democratic primary. Because people respond just as they emerge from the voting booth, exit polls can offer special insights into what kinds of people turned out and what influenced their decisions. affluent much more politically active than those who are less Most voters did not want to see private accounts created in well off. This uneven distribution of political engagement is the Social Security system. Seven in 10 disapproved of what makes public-opinion polls especially valuable. Far Bush’s personal intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, the from undermining democracy, they enhance it: They make brain-damaged Florida woman who was removed from life- it more democratic. As Harvard political scientist Sidney support. Verba observed in 1995, “Surveys produce just what democ- Obviously, polls do not always stop politicians from racy is supposed to produce—equal representation of all cit- going their own way—and they should not always do izens. The sample survey is rigorously egalitarian; it is so—but without polls we would not even know how designed so that each citizen has an equal chance to par- disconnected official actions are from public opinion. ticipate and an equal voice when participating.” Bush’s actions were not unlike those of many other polit- ical leaders who mistook a narrow victory for a mandate. In such cases, polling can provide a useful check. lections are blunt instruments for transmitting the Between elections, polls provide guidance to legislators, public will. One candidate wins, the other loses. Did the executive branch, journalists, and the public itself E the victor prevail because he or she proposed a about what the public wants and what it will stand for. compelling agenda of new policies, or simply because the There is no question that modern American politics is alternative was less acceptable? On the day after his reelec- drenched in public-opinion polling. More than 20 entities, tion in 2004, President George W. Bush declared, “I earned from the Gallup Organization and the Pew Research Cen- capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend ter (where I work) to the relatively new “robo-poll” firms, to spend it.” The president’s troubles in his second term indi- such as Rasmussen Reports, with their computerized tele- cate that this reading of his mandate was incorrect, as he vig- phone surveys, regularly conduct national political polls and orously pursued many policies on which the public was, at make the results available to the public. Dozens more work best, divided. Opposition to the war in Iraq grew in 2005. at the state and local levels. The total number of surveys con-

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 57 The Glory and the Folly ducted in a campaign is large, but impossible to count with L. Douglas Wilder was luckier in 1989, pulling out a narrow certainty. Leaving aside all the research carried out for the victory after leading by five to 10 points in the final polls. But campaign organizations, parties, and interest groups, at the so-called Bradley effect seems to have died out after the least 50 national opinion polls were released to the public 1990s—perhaps because of generational and attitudinal in the month before the 2004 presidential election. change. In five statewide contests in 2006 that featured All told, including surveys by business, foundations, black and white candidates, polls were very accurate. So race and others, marketing and public-opinion research is an probably wasn’t a factor in the New Hampshire surveys. In $8.6 billion industry, according to one recent estimate. But the 2008 primaries that followed New Hampshire, polls in addition to being a big business and an integral part of sometimes overestimated and sometimes underestimated American’s political machinery, survey research has also Obama’s support. The only clear pattern was that his become an academic discipline, with its own academic strength was underestimated in states with large black journals, such as Public Opinion Quarterly, and input from populations, chiefly because Obama got a higher percent- scholars in related areas such as sociology and political sci- age of the black vote than the polls indicated he would. ence. People in the field have been grappling with a large We may never know what went wrong in New Hamp- number of problems. Fewer Americans are willing to par- shire. It is possible that the unique circumstances, with ticipate in polls, and an increasing number are reachable intense media scrutiny just days after the Iowa caucuses and only by cell phone; people with cell phones are more diffi- two very popular candidates, created an extraordinary cult for pollsters to reach and interview. And there are dynamic. many knotty intellectual and methodological challenges, Exit polls were not the problem in New Hampshire, but such as improving the accuracy of polls dealing with mat- in the past they have occasionally been a source of great con- ters including drug and alcohol use or sexual behavior that troversy. In addition to the erroneous early call of Florida for many people are not willing to be frank about. Gore in 2000, leaks of early exit poll results in 2004 that This phenomenon of “social desirability bias” is central showed John Kerry leading caused a sharp drop in the to one theory about the failure in New Hampshire. Polling stock market and wild mood swings among partisans on is a transaction between humans, and people may not both sides. Though the TV news organizations that largely answer a question honestly if they think the person inter- fund the polls did not make any incorrect calls on election viewing them will judge them negatively. They regularly night, the leaks led them to agree to keep future exit poll overreport their virtues, such as church attendance and results sealed until 5:00 pm (est) on Election Day. Now the charitable giving, and underreport their vices. When the network’s poll analysts are literally locked in a windowless American Society for Microbiology asked people whether “quarantine room” and deprived of all communication with they washed their hands after using the toilet, 94 percent the outside world. There were no leaks in the 2006 elections declared that they always did. But when researchers watched and the 2008 primaries. what actually happened in public restrooms they found The more serious challenge in conducting exit polls that only 68 percent did. In New Hampshire, it is possible today is the growing number of voters who choose to vote that people who feared they would be branded racists didn’t before Election Day by absentee ballot or early voting tell pollsters they were going to vote against Obama, even procedures. In Oregon, all voters cast their ballots by if race had nothing to do with their choice, while others sim- mail, and in several other states more than a quarter of the ply avoided pollsters. votes will be cast early. Telephone surveys can create a pic- ture of these voters, but voting in advance poses a grow- ing problem. he race factor is well documented in the history of Exit polls have other limitations as well: Respondents polling. In 1982, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, must fill out paper forms, limiting the number and com- T an African American, reached Election Day in his plexity of questions that can be asked. Yet they provide race for California’s governorship with a six-point lead in the a window on voter psychology that no other method polls but lost to white Republican George Deukmejian allows. Interviews are conducted immediately after peo- by less than one percent. Virginia gubernatorial candidate ple leave the voting booth, offering a more definitive

58 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly accounting than other methods of who turned out and phone number in the United States an equal chance of what motivated their choices. being included. (Internet polls posted on websites do not Pollsters often hear the accusation that they can manip- have random samples, since people volunteer for them and ulate results, and it is true: They can. In a 1992 effort to gauge are thus very different from the average—much more the impact of wording questions differently, for example, a engaged in public affairs, more ideological in their views, and New York Times poll offered two different questions about not very typical demographically.) antipoverty efforts. When asked if they favored spending Still, even with random sampling, some types of people more money for “welfare,” only 23 percent of the respon- are a little more likely than others to participate in polls. Sta- dents said yes; asked if they favored spending more on tistical weighting—which gives greater clout to the answers “assistance to the poor,” nearly two-thirds said yes. Pollsters working for groups that advocate particular FEWER AMERICANS are willing to viewpoints or solutions may be under pressure to find participate in polls, and an increasing favorable results, and it is possible for them to formu- number are reachable only by cell phone. late questions that get the most favorable response. (In fact, it is exceedingly difficult to write clear, unbiased, com- of people from demographic groups that are underrepre- prehensible questions, and pollsters will be the first to admit sented in the survey and less to the overrepresented—can that they don’t always get it right.) Or, less ethically, pollsters mitigate most of this bias. Because it typically increases the can simply suppress results unfavorable to the client’s point contribution of people with lower levels of education and of view. But most pollsters belong to associations with for- income, weighting tends to increase the percentage of those mal codes of ethics, and, more important, have a strong who say they will vote Democratic. In a July Pew poll, the interest in maintaining their reputations, which is especially unweighted horse-race result among registered voters gave true for polling organizations that work in the public sphere. Obama a one-point advantage over John McCain, 44 per- Despite all the grumbling about polling, hard evidence cent to 43 percent. The weighted result was a five-point lead, that the public dislikes it is difficult to find. Pollsters, of 47 to 42. course, have asked. More than three-fourths of respon- Weighting does not cure all ills. People who are inter- dents in a 1998 Pew Research Center study agreed that sur- ested in the topic of the survey are more likely to participate, veys on social and political issues serve a useful purpose. Still, potentially leading polls to overstate how involved the pub- there seems to be widespread skepticism about poll results. lic is in a subject, whether it is sports, politics, or technology. Another Pew study, for example, found that two-thirds of Weighting can only partially adjust for this, since interest in respondents didn’t believe that surveys of a small part of the a topic may not be closely related to demographic factors. population can yield an accurate picture of the whole pop- This is one of the reasons why post-election polls often ulation’s views. overstate the percentage of the public that turned out to vote. We pollsters have a stock reply to this criticism: If you (The charge that there is a liberal bias in telephone polls don’t believe in random sampling, ask your doctor to take because conservatives are less likely to participate in surveys all of your blood next time you need a blood test. Sampling sponsored by the mainstream media, however, has been is used in many fields—by accountants looking for fraud, shown to be incorrect by experiments in which extraordi- medical researchers, and manufacturers testing for quality. nary efforts were made to ensure a high response rate. The key is that every person in the population has a chance There was no ideological difference in the results.) of being included, and that pollsters have a way to calculate Participation rates have become a more generalized that chance. The usual method of sampling the public is problem for pollsters in recent years. Americans are over- through random digit dialing, which gives every home tele- whelmed by demands on their time and are bombarded

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 59 The Glory and the Folly with requests of all kinds, and they are increasingly using shedding light on what’s behind voters’ positions. technologies such as voice mail and call blocking. As a Another problem facing telephone polling is that a result, survey response rates have declined sharply. The growing number of people are out of reach because they Pew Research Center’s response rates are now around 22 have a cell phone and no landline—currently 15 percent percent, down from about 36 percent 10 years ago. That is of adults, according to U.S. government studies. Cell-only fairly typical of the polling industry. As pollsters work harder Americans tend to be much younger than average, more to recruit participants, costs rise. The average political sur- likely to be members of a minority racial or ethnic group, vey may require calling 15,000 numbers to identify approx- and less likely to be married or own a home. Pollsters are responding; most of the major media polling organ- izations are now adding cell WHATEVER THEIR PITFALLS, election phones to the samples for some surveys. And, for now, polls face the ultimate measure of accounta- experimentation by Pew and other survey organiza- bility: reality. tions is finding that surveys that include cell-only respondents get the same imately 5,000 working telephone numbers, of which about results on most topics as those without cell phone samples. 1,000 will produce a person who agrees to be interviewed. This is because the kinds of people who are reachable only Altogether, this effort will require 30,000 to 40,000 phone on cell phones—the young, the unmarried, renters, calls. It is difficult to provide an average cost, but a typical minorities—have the same kinds of attitudes as similar telephone survey with a response rate of 20 to 25 percent individuals reached on landline phones. But no one knows and good quality control (including extensive interviewer how long this will hold true. training, questionnaire testing, and close supervision of Whatever their pitfalls, election polls face the ulti- the interviewing process) can cost $40 to $50 per interview mate measure of accountability: reality. By that standard, or more. their track record is very good. In 2004, nearly every Rising costs may have serious consequences, since national pollster correctly forecast that Bush would win they increase the temptation to cut corners. For exam- in a close election, and the average of the polls predicted ple, reputable pollsters typically make multiple calls to a Bush total within a few tenths of a percent of what he each telephone number to obtain an interview. It is achieved. Among statewide polls in races for governor cheaper to dial fresh numbers and interview whoever is and U.S. Senate, 90 percent correctly forecast the win- available and willing to talk, but that approach risks ner, and many that did not were still within the margin biasing the sample toward people who are usually at of sampling error. The record in 2000 was similar, home and willing to participate. Another cost-saving though that was an even closer election. measure is the use of interactive voice response tech- nology, or “robo-polling,” in which a computer dials numbers and a recorded voice conducts the survey. t is doubtful that the Founding Fathers would have About one-third of all published polls in the Democra- taken much comfort in the reliability of survey tic primary elections this year and a majority of the Iresearch. They were skeptical of public opinion and published statewide general-election polls completed fearful of direct democracy, believing, as James Madison by mid-September were robo-polls. Overall, they per- artfully declared, that the public’s views should be formed well in the 2006 elections and the 2008 pri- “refine[d] and enlarge[d]...by passing them through maries, achieving an accuracy rate comparable to that of the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom conventional telephone surveys. But they typically have may best discern the true interest of their country, and to include very few questions, which limits their value for whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely

60 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.” interest groups and organizations, such as the National That skepticism is shared today by those who argue Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, or the League of that the public simply does not know enough to form Conservation Voters. rational opinions on most issues of the day. But political A third argument is that citizens are more knowl- leaders have to divine the public’s views from some- edgeable than they seem. As psychologists have noted, where in order to “refine and enlarge” them. If the pub- people often cannot cite the specific factual information lic is too ill informed to be consulted through surveys, on which they base judgments, whether the subject is why bother consulting it through elections? politics, movies, or even other people. But that does not There are four essential arguments that support the mean they made their judgments in the absence of infor- case for a greater role for the public and public opinion mation. Rather, it reflects the fact that people often use in political life. First, while some citizens may be unin- facts to form impressions and then forget the facts while formed or irrational, collective public opinion as remembering the overall impression. I may recall that I expressed in polls is rational and responsive to the events liked watching The Usual Suspects and not recall who and needs of the times. Much as juries reach accurate starred in it or the specifics of the plot. But if I watch it decisions after pooling the perspectives and knowledge again, I am likely to reach the same conclusion about it. of a range of individual members, collective preferences Finally, opinion polls plumb other important ques- in polls reflect an averaging of the perspectives of many tions apart from people’s views on complex decisions different kinds of people that offsets the errors intro- about public policy. They gauge assessments of the state duced by the uninformed. of the national and local economies, the health care sys- Second, people are able to make effective use of tem, the importance of one issue versus another, and “information shortcuts” to develop opinions and reach people’s day-to-day experiences and struggles. On these voting decisions that are consistent with their underly- matters, the views of people with less political sophisti- ing values, even when they don’t have detailed knowl- cation and knowledge can be as important as those of the edge about the issues. Party affiliation is perhaps the better informed. most useful shortcut, allowing voters to select candidates None of this is to say that shortcuts or collective likely to be ideologically in tune with them even if they public opinion always compensate for the failures of know little about where the candidates stand on a range the citizenry, or that there is no room for improvement. of specific issues. Voters also take cues from trusted But the larger point is that the public is better able to make meaningful distinc- tions than many elites assume. When news of a possible affair between President Bill Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky began to seep out in January 1998, the common judgment in political Washington was that Clinton’s presidency would be over if the charges proved to be true. The pub- lic would demand that the president resign or be removed, it was said. The charges did turn out to be true, but the predictions

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 61 The Glory and the Folly were wrong. From the very beginning, Americans told term, with a plan to ease the ban on homosexuals serv- pollsters they opposed the idea of Clinton resigning or ing in the military. Polls showed that the public was, at being impeached. Majorities described themselves as best, divided on this question. That’s not to say that the “disgusted” by the affair, but also said that special coun- military’s prohibition of service by gays and lesbians sel Kenneth Starr should drop his investigation. The was right, but Clinton bucked strong opposition without public was able to separate its judgments about Clinton adequately preparing public opinion for the change. the leader from those about Clinton the person. Indeed, The ensuing controversy weakened him and contributed Clinton’s job approval rating went up after the scandal to the troubles he and his party faced the following year broke: “It is not an exaggeration to say that these judg- in the 1994 midterm elections. ments saved Clinton’s presidency,” said my Pew col- The leaders of the impeachment drive during Clin- league Andrew Kohut. “And it is inconceivable to think ton’s second term were insulated from public opin- that public opinion could have had such an impact in an ion, in part because they represented states or dis- era prior to the emergence of the media polls.” tricts that were homogeneously conservative and thus unlikely to rebuke them for reaching beyond what the general public would support, Jacobs and Shapiro say. hile political professionals must be attuned This pattern is increasingly typical of a Washington to public sentiment in order to survive, their populated by legislators who are from highly gerry- W perceptions are sometimes wrong. Polling mandered districts and can be pushed to extremes by can be an invaluable antidote in such situations. That partisan interest groups that demand ideological loy- doesn’t mean that leaders will always heed it. Later in alty as the price for avoiding a challenge in the politi- 1998, polling showed strong opposition to the Republi- cal primary before the next election. can Congress’s impeachment proceedings, but the GOP Even when they turn to opinion polls, politicians pressed on. It paid dearly for its persistence in the con- may use them less for guidance than for manipulation— gressional elections that fall. to help them craft rhetoric that will allow them to avoid Clinton himself, the master of “triangulation,” conforming to majority opinion when it conflicts with embodies for some critics another fear about polls— their personal or ideological goals. This is not always a that they will turn leaders into followers or panderers. bad thing, but it is ironic that polling has made it much In subtler form, this is a concern that polls provide an easier for officials to minimize the influence of public ultimately unreliable expression of the public mind, opinion when it serves their interests to do so. and because of their apparent authority as “the voice of For all their flaws, polls are a unique source of infor- the people” get more weight than they deserve. The mation about America’s citizenry—not just their opin- Republican Party’s performance in the Clinton scandal ions on issues but also their experiences, life circum- is a good example of politicians not pandering. There stances, priorities, and hopes and fears. All of these is no doubt that politicians sometimes bend with the elements of everyday Americans’ lives are potentially rel- political wind—as they should in a democracy—but evant to the making of policy, and—compared with there is very little evidence that they slavishly follow phone calls and letters to public officials, campaign con- polls. In fact, quite the opposite is true, according to a tributions, the actions of lobbyists and interest groups, study by political scientists Lawrence R. Jacobs and or even elections—polls provide a fair and detailed Robert Y. Shapiro. In Politicians Don’t Pander (2000), accounting of them. they wrote: “What concerns us are indications of The eminent political scientist V. O. Key once defined declining responsiveness to public opinion and the public opinion as “those opinions held by private persons growing list of policies on which politicians of both which governments find it prudent to heed.” Though by major political parties ignore public opinion and sup- no means a perfect instrument, polls make it possible for ply no explicit justification for it.” more opinions, held by a broader and more representa- Indeed, Clinton himself misjudged the potential for tive range of citizens, to be known to the government and a public backlash when he moved ahead, early in his first thus, potentially, heeded. ■

62 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Bury the Hatchet

The antidote to frenzied partisanship won’t be found in politics as usual but in problem-solving leaders who govern from the center.

BY GIL TROY

Despite selecting two men known for their By contrast, our political ancestors often political civility as presidential nominees, Americans in the approached the political game in better humor and fall of 2008 have been enduring yet another nasty political with a closer attachment to political life. Political contest. By September, both candidates could easily have skirmishing involved citizens in at least the most sung along with Britney Spears, “Oops . . . I did it basic acts of democracy, especially voting. again.” A bit of historical perspective can But today, many Americans are soothe some of our discontents. The bystanders left choking on the long-standing paradox of American fumes of partisan combat. Our presidential campaigning is that politics suffer from the para- voters complain about political dox of strong partisanship mudslinging but also respond to combined with weak parties. it. Repeatedly since Thomas Jef- Throughout much of the ferson battled John Adams for 19th and 20th centuries, the right to succeed George Americans did politics via Washington, the Republic has sur- their parties. Partisans regu- vived partisan hysteria and citizen larly read party newspapers disappointment. printed by partisan printers on Yet the ugliness of public life party payrolls. During campaigns, somehow offends modern Americans partisans marched in party parades to more. Today’s festering unhappiness with pol- hear party leaders exhort them to vote the itics is a product of the plummeting faith in politicians party line. American politics’ many military meta- and political institutions that pollsters have tracked phors—the standard-bearer rallied the troops, telling since the 1970s and the escalating spiral of cynicism the rank and file that this was a do-or-die campaign— and despair that has accompanied it. Intense partisan- testified to this intensity of party activity, not just ship among politicians, vicious political battles in the party affiliation. media, and nasty electoral campaigns coexist with exten- Strong parties fostered political engagement. With sive citizen apathy and pathetically low voter turnout. most Americans living on farms or in very small towns, and even city dwellers residing in close-knit Gil Troy is professor of history at McGill University and a visiting neighborhoods, everyone knew who belonged to scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His latest book is Leading From the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents. which party and, even more important, who could

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 63 The Glory and the Folly deliver the goods. Party officials were true community ing attention rather than working behind the scenes leaders, not strangers with fancy titles. And these to get things done. These showboaters entertain or leaders made good—to reformers’ eternal frustra- scare voters, often by affirming their common polit- tion. The infamous “Boss” William Marcy Tweed of ical identities. Problem solving invites reason, com- New York was typical. In the 1870s, Tweed busily promise, and, ultimately, mutual respect; identity lined his and his buddies’ pockets while also passing building invites posturing, passion, and, ultimately, out constituent services personally and spectacularly, intolerance. ranging from Christmas turkeys for the needy to roads, buildings, and parks to transform Manhattan. Even the activities we mock today—the torchlight n the days of Rutherford Hayes and William parades and the florid oratory—were community McKinley, the parties loomed larger than individ- builders. They did not prevent mudslinging. But just Iual politicians, who often seemed undistinguished as competition engenders a grudging mutual respect and interchangeable. Matt Quay of Pennsylvania, among political professionals, the widespread par- Thomas Platt of New York, and other party bosses dom- ticipation in party hijinks reinforced a shared com- inated local and national politics, bullying legislators and mitment to America’s future. And especially after the blur of undistinguished bearded and mustachioed the Civil War put the ultimate polarizing issue of presidents between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore slavery to rest, unifying rituals after Election Day Roosevelt. Thanks to the democratization of the parties, helped heal the community’s partisan wounds. In the last time bosses dictated a nomination was in 1952, Delaware, citizens still celebrate the day after Election when Adlai Stevenson became the surprise Democratic Day as “Return Day.” In some counties, rivals parade nominee. Such top-down politicking would be almost together and in others they bury a ceremonial unimaginable today. Earlier this year, when it appeared hatchet. Especially in small-town America, the post- that the Democratic presidential primaries might not campaign reconciliation was as routine as the pre- produce a clear victor, many party superdelegates were election combat. These rituals, once widespread, reluctant to make the party’s choice, even though that is restored civility by shifting everyone’s identity as precisely the role assigned them. It was a telling indica- active partisans to their more transcendent identity tor of the parties’ weakness that Hillary Clinton, the as patriotic Americans. favorite of the Democratic establishment, lost, while Since the rise of television in the 1950s, the media John McCain, noted for his deviations from party ortho- have become the central forum for American poli- doxy, won the GOP nomination. ticking, and increasingly today that role is being Primary season highlights the parties’ debility, reduc- played by the blogosphere. With the blogger and the ing them to the role of referee among contenders. Then viewer replacing the pamphleteer and the parader, the winner takes over the party structure, frequently politicians focus on marketing themselves and their installing new leaders while commandeering party causes to passive consumers rather than mobilizing fundraising lists. The nominees function much like new passionate soldiers. The new language of politics sheriffs who swagger into town and dominate the scene sounds like this: Spin doctors stage photo ops as poll- for a dramatic but fleeting moment rather than like sters survey voter preferences, spawning celebrity can- local deputies who rise through the system and last. didates. The old promise of a new kind of Internet- Despite being less powerful and more responsive to based citizen politics now looks more and more like public opinion, parties brimming with edge but lacking a mere marketing ploy. Far from reflecting true citi- a mass membership base produce further division and zen engagement, the volume of online donations and alienation. Party links tend to serve as convenient labels the number of website hits have simply been con- rather than defining allegiances. The modern mix of verted into indexes of candidate popularity. culture and politics has made party identity combustible The rise of media politics has spawned a new and polarizing. Fortunately, no single issue like slavery breed of freelancing politicians who excel at demand- divides the nation. Americans are more “purple” than the

64 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 The Glory and the Folly red-blue narrative suggests. Still, the media showcases fundraising—which helps explain the influx into politics Chardonnay-sipping, New York Times–reading, of multimillionaires who can finance their own pro-choice, pro–gay marriage, urban, progressive campaigns. Democrats confronting beer-swilling, Rush Limbaugh–- So much money flows through the system that par- listening, pro-life, pro–traditional marriage, rural, con- ties lose control. Independent political advocacy groups servative Republicans. It is Prius versus pickup, tennis have proliferated to circumvent campaign finance laws versus NASCAR, Ivy League types versus state univer- limiting contributions and give extremists a voice. In sity grads and dropouts. The harsh fights reflect the 2004, these unregulated “527” organizations alone raised rival groups’ disgust for each other, as well as the competition for swing vot- ers who transcend the rigid LIKE FANS OF PROFESSIONAL sports paradigms and can tip elections, such as blue- teams, Americans root themselves hoarse collar suburban Catholics and well-educated soccer for their team but seldom actively moms. Thanks to these divisions, the mid-20th participate in politics. century’s big-tent party coalitions, with Republi- cans including liberals such as Nelson Rockefeller of $400 million. The attack ads that renegade 527s produce New York and Democrats including conservatives such so easily, and inject into the campaign narrative so effec- as John Sparkman of Alabama, have vanished with the tively, such as the Willie Horton ads of 1988 and the Swift Rambler and the rotary phone. Boat ads of 2004, allow forces formally distanced from Parties are now the political equivalent of profes- the parties to polarize the atmosphere, take the focus off sional sports teams. Individuals root themselves hoarse policy, and sway elections. for their side, even occasionally confronting rival fans, The media increase the political nastiness while dis- but few save the pros actually play the game. Increas- tancing voters from those clashes. Citizens become spec- ingly, parties seem less like armies of concerned citizens tators. Headline-driven news emphasizes the extremes, than coalitions of angry ideological and economic inter- the fights, the hysteria, the sensational. Political est groups. While political scientists may hail the rise of reporters, trying to appear objective by quoting two intense partisanship as a spur to political activism, the opposing sides to almost every story, mostly sharpen the interest-group jockeying only feeds the popular impres- differences, slighting any centrist position. The news sion of politics as an insiders’ game. media have for decades broadcast the shrillest voices At the same time, an increasingly odious money from the pro-life and pro-choice movements, for exam- game pollutes the whole spectacle. Beyond branding, ple, even as most Americans have accepted a centrist candidates most appreciate the party infrastructures as position, disliking abortion theoretically but being too fundraising vehicles. In 2004 the presidential candi- pragmatic to outlaw it. The media’s Kabuki theater may dates raised more than $600 million, while the two not always sway Americans, but it demoralizes and dis- parties raised an additional $1.2 billion for both the tances them. congressional and national campaigns, despite the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform limiting “soft” funds. Money has become an unavoidable preoc- s has been the case with almost every new tech- cupation of modern politics, draining time and attention nology, from the telegraph to television, the rise from the public’s business. Even incumbent senators A of the Internet fed false expectations that it estimate that they spend a third of their time would create a new, more democratic, interactive poli-

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 65 The Glory and the Folly tics. But blogging’s harsh, unfettered nature has coars- States is not Europe. The American political tradition ened politics. The fact that so many bloggers are essen- is pragmatic and centrist. Our greatest presidents led tially anonymous allows them to spew rancor, rumor, from the center, seeking the golden path of national lies, and obscenities. Increasingly, the MSM (main- unity. George Washington inspired Americans to rally stream media) appear by contrast staid, centrist, boring, around their “common cause.” Even at the nation’s even responsible. Deadlines—once daily, now without moment of maximum political extremism, Abraham limit in the age of the Internet—demand a constant Lincoln moderated the abolitionists’ antislavery fervor stream of stories, diluting the quality and upping the to keep the wavering border states fighting for union. rhetorical ante in the effort to grab attention. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s big-tent New Deal incorporated In an ever-escalating rhetorical spiral, political dis- some changes radicals demanded while preserving cussion in the media and the blogosphere becomes capitalism. These leaders understood that a democracy, harsher, sleazier. At the same time, the stories that stand resting on the consent of the governed, requires citizens out are the sensational and polarizing ones rather than to buy into politics. They were not namby-pamby waf- the constructive, bridge-building ones. A variation of flers, but muscular moderates, rooted in core principles Gresham’s law applies: Just as bad money drives out the but nimble, confident, and patriotic enough to com- good, bad rhetoric and sleazy politics drive out—or at promise when necessary. least eclipse and obscure—the good. In an age of celebrity politics and weakened parties, presidents have to fill the void, transcending partisan- ship and combating alienation. The media obsession he strains within the American political system with the Celebrity in Chief gives the president far more reflect a broader cultural crisis. It is hard to power than any party boss ever enjoyed. The “bully pul- T expect temperate leaders and reasonable pol- pit” of the White House has never been so prominent itics in a culture of excess, a culture that encourages in American life, with the president so able to set the Americans to indulge almost every impulse. There are, national tone and shape the country’s conversation. however, signs of backlash. The two major party nom- Future presidents should nurture civic engagement inees of 2008 both rose to prominence by criticizing and restore confidence in government, even while the political status quo, though as they consolidated maintaining a particular party identity. their positions and charted strategy in the summer of Muscular moderation from our leaders, and a 2008, the forces pushing for more partisanship renewed faith among citizens, requires a new Ameri- prevailed. can nationalism, with national identity trumping party Leaders willing to demand centrist government loyalty. The public’s frustrated yearning for a patriotic and less alienating politics are rare. Moderation is not and civic revival fueled both Ronald Reagan’s success considered sexy; bipartisan initiatives are frequently and Barack Obama’s meteoric rise. Both men cap- deemed boring. Ironically, it has been left to a media tured Americans’ desire for greater faith in their lead- celebrity to fill part of the yawning gap in the middle. ers, their country, their system, themselves. The excite- The comedian Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has ment about John McCain’s compelling life story become a hero to young Americans—and one of their likewise reflects a yearning for simpler, more patriotic primary sources for news—by throwing off partisan times, rooted in self-sacrifice rather than self- shackles and mocking the system. Stewart skewers indulgence. Republican incompetence, Democratic impotence, We will start reducing the tension and reviving and media irresponsibility with equal intensity. He some faith in politics when we have leaders who under- says his comedy comes “from feeling displaced from stand that they must lead from the center, uniting society because you’re in the center. We’re the group of Americans around core values and ensuring that pol- fairness, common sense, and moderation.” itics are once again about being rooted in community Despite the forces pulling politicians to the and solving problems, not just rooting for one set of extremes, Americans must remember that the United culture warriors over another. ■

66 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 In ESSENCE reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad

Society 67 // Politics & Government 69 // Foreign Policy & Defense 70 // Economics, Labor & Business 73 // Press & Media 76 // History 77 // Religion & Philosophy 80 // Science & Technology 82 // Arts & Letters 84 // Other Nations 86

SOCIETY The phenomenon is not confined to Memphis; it has also been reported in Louisville, Ky., Florence, S.C., and Chicago suburbs such as Crime’s New Address Maywood. Why haven’t the new neighbor- barricaded and claustrophobic pub- hoods influenced the inner-city THE SOURCE: “American Murder Mys- lic-housing complexes deserved the transplants rather than the other tery” by Hanna Rosin, in The Atlantic, July–Aug. 2008. wrecking ball. But cities fell in love way around? “Demonizing the high with federal programs that seemed rises has blinded some city officials Eight shots exploded out- to promise a better life for folks liv- to what was good and necessary side a police station at the end of a ing in ghettos while freeing about the projects, and what they suburban road recently, routine for downtown land for spiffy redevelop- ultimately have to find a way to a Tuesday night in what is now one ment. And instead of counseling the replace: the sense of belonging, the of Memphis’s crime hotspots. A lit- departing residents and carefully informal economy, the easy access tle more than a decade ago the helping them get established in to social services. And for better or area was quiet, but that was before affluent neighborhoods, most cities worse, the fact that the police had Memphis launched a noble social handed out vouchers and told them the address,” Rosin writes. experiment, the demolition of to move in a rush, without support. In Memphis, crusaders are push- inner-city housing projects and Crime increased, Rosin writes, ing for better social services such as dispersal of residents into peaceful because the former residents of health clinics, child care, and job neighborhoods where they would public housing chose moderately training in the former public-hous- be free from the debilitating ef- poor neighborhoods that were ing residents’ new neighborhoods. fects of concentrated poverty. already on the decline, and the But the problems of the poor are What happened instead, writes addition of thousands of poor new- deeper than anything government Hanna Rosin, an Atlantic contrib- comers pushed these areas beyond by itself seems able to solve. Escap- uting editor, was that crime fol- the limit of what a community can ing poverty, Rosin writes, requires “a lowed their path, devastating new tolerate before crime and other will as strong as a spy’s: You have to neighborhoods, spreading rob- social problems take off. While the disappear to a strange land, forget beries and murders across a wider spread of crime has a host of where you came from and ignore city swath and, in 2007, turning causes—unemployment, gangs, and the suspicions of everyone around Elvis’s hometown into the nation’s rapid gentrification are also im- you.” most violent city. portant—researchers are seeing a In the interim, city leaders must How could such good intentions national pattern of crime pushing acknowledge a bitter truth: The have gone so wrong? Surely the old outward after projects come down. projects are gone in name only.

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SOCIETY tion in the unisex marketplace. The in January? Eager to help curtail two researchers question whether global warming by grilling only locally Happiness women might have exaggerated their grown beef? Then pay more attention well-being in earlier surveys because to what you eat and less to geography. Paradoxes they wanted to say what they thought Surprisingly, write two engineers at THE SOURCES: “Paradox of Declining researchers wanted to hear. And they Carnegie Mellon University, con- Female Happiness” by Betsey A. Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, in American Law and wonder whether higher expectations sumers can do more to reduce green- Economics Association Annual Meetings, might also contribute to the happi- house-gas emissions by shifting fam- 2008, and “Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States, 1972 to 2004: An Age- ness deficit. The increased opportu- ily menus one day a week from red Period-Cohort Analysis” by Yang Yang, in nity to succeed in new realms may meat and dairy products to chicken, American Sociological Review, April 2008. have increased the “likelihood of be- fish, or vegetables than they can by George McGovern and lieving that one’s life is not measuring buying 100 percent locally grown George Wallace were running for up,” they write. food. president, Bangladesh had just be- Another surprising finding is that Christopher L. Weber and H. come a country, and The Godfather older people are happier now than Scott Matthews found that the was on movie screens when the first when they were young, writes Yang delivery of food from producers to researchers from the National Opin- Yang, a sociologist at the University of grocery stores accounts for only ion Research Center at the University Chicago. “Overall levels of happiness four percent of America’s food- of Chicago began asking Americans increase with age,” she says. Forget related greenhouse-gas emissions. whether they were “very happy,” the likelihood of declining health, loss Most of the environmental impact “pretty happy,” or “not too happy.” of employment, and a shrinking net- of food is the result of things that Thirty-six years later, the pattern of work of friends. Older people tell happen during the production the annual answers they have given researchers that these take a toll, but phase. Transportation as a whole looks paradoxical. are counterbalanced by the benefits of accounts for only 11 percent of Over the last three decades retirement. The happiness meter food’s life cycle emissions, and women have narrowed the pay gap seems to rise steadily until about age international air freight only two with men, blasted ahead of them in 70, then begins to level off. percent of that. education, and seen a slight rise in the Aside from the alternative, old age No matter how it is measured, amount of time their husbands spend is not normally a sought-after state. Weber and Matthews write, “red tending house. Yet they are less happy But contrary to expectations, Yang meat is more greenhouse-gas than they were before these changes finds, in general the odds of being intensive than all other forms of occurred, according to Betsey Steven- happy improve five percent with food,” because of the long supply son and Justin Wolfers, of the Whar- every decade of life. chains of animal feed. Dairy prod- ton School at the University of Penn- ucts are second. They are about half sylvania. The researchers express the SOCIETY as intensive as red meat, calorie for female happiness shortfall in complex calorie. Fruits and vegetables take statistical equations. But its magni- The Global about the same toll on the environ- tude is roughly equivalent to the dif- ment as chicken, fish, eggs, and nuts. ference in misery between a state Warming Diet The impact they have on the envi- with 4 percent unemployment and THE SOURCE: “Food-Miles and the Rela- ronment is less in the production one with 12.5 percent. tive Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the phase, but greater in delivery and United States” by Christopher L. Weber and Stevenson and Wolfers suggest H. Scott Matthews, in Environmental Sci- transportation. that women might be less happy than ence and Technology, May 15, 2008. Weber and Matthews estimate in the past because of increased anxi- that if the average household bought ety as they struggle to balance tradi- Worried about the environ- every food product locally, it could tional female roles with new competi- mental cost of eating Chilean grapes save about as much energy in a year

68 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 IN ESSENCE

Last year the University of similarly withdrew EXCERPT its 1984 degree. . . . Maybe The Economist will cancel Mugabe’s subscription next. . . . Are honorary degrees really such silly things that we should mock their Sic Transit Gloria bestowal or withdrawal?. . . They do seem to lack core importance in the academic enterprise. . . . On the other Doctorate hand, eliminating honorary degrees would knock The case of Robert Mugabe gets one thinking about commencement ceremonies down yet another notch, to this most peculiar of academic nods [the honorary some still undiscovered level of boredom. degree]. . . . In June the University of Massachusetts at Amherst rescinded the honorary doctorate it had —CARLIN ROMANO, literary critic for The Philadelphia bestowed on Zimbabwe’s longtime president in 1986. Inquirer and critic at large for The Chronicle Review, July 11, 2008

as if it cut back on driving by 1,000 driving 1,160 miles. If red meat were local food, including the taste of miles. If it substituted a bean or veg- eliminated altogether, it could save fresher, riper produce. But for the etable casserole for roast beef every emissions equal to driving 8,100 average family, saving the envi- Sunday, it could save the equivalent of miles a year. ronment by reducing “food-miles” is the greenhouse gases produced by There are many reasons to buy not the most important.

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT Vienna, where the people who can afford it live close to the center, and the poor and newcomers live on the outskirts, writes Ehrenhalt of the city The Inside-Out City where his grandfather operated a tai- lor shop on the site of what is now the

THE SOURCE: “Trading Places” by Alan is shifting from an overwhelmingly University of science complex. Ehrenhalt, in The New Republic, Aug. 13, black city to one where African Amer- Not even assistant professors live near 2008. icans are teetering on the verge of the campus now. Too expensive. Remember the breathless minority status. Before September 11, The demographic inversion spate of news stories when the first 2001, about 25,000 people lived south doesn’t represent the abandonment of few couples moved into converted of the World Trade Center in Manhat- the suburbs or a mass movement of department stores in downtowns tan. Now the same area is home to inner-city immigrants fleeing inflated across America about a decade ago? 50,000. Charlotte, North Carolina, gas prices. Rather, “the massive Debunkers of this trend have pointed has 12,000 people living downtown, outward migration of the affluent that out the minuscule numbers ever and will have more when its supply of characterized the second half of the since. Even so, writes Alan Ehrenhalt, homes catches up with demand. Van- 20th century is coming to an end,” executive editor of Governing maga- couver, British Columbia, houses 20 Ehrenhalt says. The deindustrializa- zine, cities are truly undergoing a percent of its 600,000 residents in tion of the city, with its consequent complicated and profound “demo- two square miles at the city’s heart. loss of jobs, also heralds the loss of the graphic inversion.” Chicago, “Hog Butcher for the noise and grime that accompanied Central cities are becoming lighter World, Tool Maker, Stacker of them. Random street violence, while in hue and deeper in pockets. Atlanta Wheat,” is becoming like 19th-century beginning to increase, is not the spec-

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looting of archaeological sites, DUIs and off-road EXCERPT vehicle violations, illegal camping, fishing and hunting out of season. Marijuana is grown on the mountain- sides in the southern half of the Daniel Boone, and The Park’s New Wildlife every fall, especially at Halloween, the woods are set afire. With fewer and fewer Any crime you find in wild places left, less and the big city you’ll find here less “outdoors,” many in [Kentucky’s] Daniel more Americans flock to Boone National Forest, but the national forests, no big-city police officer bringing their own ideas of gets the chance to deal with “wilderness” with them. such a variety of offenses: assault, murder, rape, —KATHY DOBIE, author turkey baiting, timber theft, of The Only Girl in the drug trafficking, body Car (2003), in Harper’s dumping, ginseng poaching, Where the bodies, the ginseng, and the marijuana are buried. Magazine, July 2008

ter it was in the 1980s. A striking “pro- have children, and, at the other end, unlikely to become the slums of 2030, city sensibility” has emerged. “The the rapidly growing number of but may retrofit themselves with more demographic changes that have taken healthy and active adults in their six- town centers and sidewalks and street place in America over the past ties, seventies, and eighties—have grids superimposed on strip mall generation—the increased propensity combined virtually all of the signifi- landscapes. The friendly mom-and- to remain single, the rise of cohabita- cant elements that make a demo- pop grocer will not reappear, but tion, the much later age at first mar- graphic inversion not only possible but within our big cities, Ehrenhalt writes, riage for those who do marry, the likely,” Ehrenhalt concludes. “we are groping toward the new com- smaller size of families for those who The leafy suburbs of today are munities of the 21st century.”

FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE soon as federal troops undertook Reconstruction in the South in 1865, Northerners began to lose heart over the slow rate of progress. Deciding by Bogged Down Again 1877 that the effort was a failure, they supported the troop withdrawals that

THE SOURCE: “America’s Quagmire Men- now have in common? would leave blacks to their fate. tality” by Dominic Tierney, in Survival, The average American prematurely Fast-forward to the second wave Winter 2007–08. branded them all quagmires. of nation-building, at the turn of the What do post–Civil War Americans are predisposed to see 20th century—in the Philippines, Reconstruction and U.S. nation- failure in state-building efforts, writes Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere. In building efforts in the Philippines, Dominic Tierney, a political scientist Manila, Mark Twain wrote, America Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, and at Swarthmore College. Almost as blundered into “a mess, a quagmire

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from which each fresh step renders tion, trade, and a handful of “swash- the difficulty of extraction immensely Americans today are buckling” nations with hard-left presi- greater.” In 1933 President Franklin inclined to seize a ver- dents and easy access to Venezuelan D. Roosevelt promised to end the dict of failure from the oil money. interventions. jaws of success. Jorge G. Castañeda, the former After the Cold War, the United Mexican foreign minister who now States launched another round of teaches at New York University, says interventions, in Somalia, Haiti, and results of recent nation-building that whoever succeeds the deeply Kosovo. “In a now familiar pattern,” efforts to the results in Vietnam, but, unpopular George W. Bush will enjoy Tierney writes, “Americans perceived rather, look at basic information about a honeymoon that he can use to ease every one of these missions as a a mission and “see failure analogous to strained hemispheric affairs. Cuban failure.” Vietnam,” Tierney says. relations will move toward normaliza- Yet in the course of intervening in Rogue states, failed states, wea- tion if America seizes the initiative by Somalia during 1992 and ’93, the pons of mass destruction, and terror- lifting its embargo and dropping re- United States saved probably around ism are likely to require more nation- strictions on travel and remittances. 100,000 lives, halved the number of building in the future, according to Better Cuban deportment can come refugees, and repaired much of the Tierney, even as Americans today are later—if Cuba really wants to be part infrastructure, at a cost of 43 Ameri- inclined to seize a verdict of failure of the international community, it will can lives. Likewise, the U.S. force from the jaws of success. The best need to deal with the confiscated present in Haiti from 1994 to ’96 presidential strategy for the inevit- property claims of Miami émigrés and reinstalled an elected government, able need to rebuild chaotic countries such. Immigration reform can be en- mitigated suffering, halted the is to avoid grandiose claims, promote acted along the lines of the measures exodus of refugees, supervised elec- a long-term perspective, and fight recently defeated in Congress if a new, tions, and trained police at a cost of back the tide of skepticism and more popular president with a four American lives. Even so, Soma- disillusionment. genuine mandate makes it an early lia is considered a military disaster; priority. Trade pacts can be extended Haiti, a failure. FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE and improved with the addition of The long newsreel of U.S. nation- labor and environmental protections. building includes only one scene that And by the Perhaps most touchy will be deal- the public applauds as successful—the ing with Latin America’s “two Lefts.” reconstruction of Germany and Japan Way... There is a “modern, democratic, glob- after World War II. The postwar ex- THE SOURCE: “Morning in Latin Amer- alized, and market-friendly Left, ception to the quagmire axiom shows ica: The Chance for a New Beginning” by found in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, parts that Americans approve of nation- Jorge G. Castañeda, in Foreign Affairs, of Central America, and up to a point, Sept.–Oct. 2008. building only when the nation turns Peru,” Castañeda says. Then there is a out looking a lot like the United States. It is a rare presidential hard Left—a “retrograde, populist, Vietnam appears to be a turning election that isn’t billed as the most authoritarian, statist, and anti- point in quagmire history. It evokes important in memory, but 2008 has a American Left thriving in Bolivia, such negative memories that even real claim to the title. The new presi- Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, oblique references skew polling results dent will face two ongoing wars, a Nicaragua, and , and, to a about nation-building. Responses flagging economy, huge federal defi- lesser extent, in Argentina, Colombia, were 15 percentage points more posi- cits, high oil prices, and all the issues and Paraguay.” tive toward U.S. efforts in Somalia surrounding global warming. Mean- The soft-Left countries, Castañeda when the question contained no allu- while, four big challenges on the writes, are reluctant to stand up to the sion to Vietnam than when it did. minds of our neighbors to the south hard liners and don’t try to export Most observers do not compare the barely make the list: Cuba, immigra- their models of democracy. But the

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hard-liners do—and it is entirely pos- who are resisting attempted subjuga- “answer to how people should live their sible they can realize a version of Che tion by armed minorities,” President lives,” Gaddis writes. But the other half Guevara’s old dream of entangling Harry S. Truman left office with an of the Bush Doctrine—ending America in not two or three but many approval rating of 26 percent. And the tyranny—suggests “freeing them to Vietnams by creating not two or three Monroe Doctrine, which put America find their own answers.” but “many Venezuelas.” The strategy is off limits to further European coloniza- After the end of the Cold War left to win power by the ballot, conserve tion, largely languished until President the United States the only super- and concentrate it through constitu- James Polk dusted it off in 1845 to sup- power standing, its leaders became tional changes, then create armed port Manifest Destiny. A hundred convinced that democracy had tri- militias and monolithic parties. All of years from now, could a revived Bush umphed because it was the indispen- it can be financed by the Venezuelan Doctrine help guide U.S. foreign pol- sable political path to success. But national oil company, and it can be icy? John Lewis Gaddis of Yale, who when the Bush administration tried accompanied by social policies carried has been called the dean of Cold War to impose it on Iraq, the U.S. actions out by Cuban doctors, teachers, and historians, doesn’t rule it out. looked like a ploy to concentrate instructors, and backed by Russian Gaddis finds the kernel of the Bush power in America’s own hands. arms. Doctrine in a single sentence of Presi- In his inaugural address, Bush paid One of the reasons the soft-Left dent George W. Bush’s second inaug- tribute to two forms of liberty: promot- countries don’t go toe to toe with allies ural address in 2005. “It is the policy of ing democratic movements wherever of the Venezuelan president Hugo the United States to seek and support they push up small green shoots from Chávez is that they “all are terrified of the growth of democratic movements whatever improbable sand, and end- being left hanging by Washington,” and institutions in every nation and ing tyranny, period. In Iraq, Gaddis, Castañeda says. America has let down culture, with the ultimate goal of end- says, the United States tried the first its friends by reducing promised drug- ing tyranny in our world.” The ultimate without notable success. He hopes that fighting aid to Mexico, maintaining goal—“ending tyranny in our world”— the “tyranny” sentence from Bush’s sec- high tariffs against Brazilian ethanol, sounds noble enough. But what about ond inaugural heralds a return to the and (so far) failing to pass a trade promoting “the growth of democratic earlier notion of liberating people so agreement with Colombia, its “best movements and institutions in every they can solve their own problems. friend in the hemisphere.” nation and culture”? “But sometimes,” he says, “a speech is If the new American president Democracy is not for every Tom, just a speech.” seizes the initiative, Castañeda be- Dick, and Somalia. It thrives only lieves, he has a unique chance to leave where security, stability, and the rule of FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE “a greater mark on the hemispheric law are established, Gaddis says. Even relationship than any group of leaders James Madison, America’s fourth Fortified in generations.” president and principal author of The Federalist, had his doubts about the Diplomacy FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE form of government. Madison was THE SOURCE: “The Future of Diplomacy: almost assuredly thinking of Athens, Real Time or Real Estate?” by Jerrold D. Green, in RAND Review, Summer 2008. History which democratically botched the Peloponnesian War, and Rome, where Consider Belgium, a coun- Recharged corruption and violence made the pop- try the size of Maryland with 10 THE SOURCE: “Ending Tyranny: The Past ulace toss democracy aside and leap million people and some of the and Future of an Idea” by John Lewis Gaddis, into the arms of Caesar Augustus. world’s best food. It is home to no in The American Interest, Sept.–Oct. 2008. In the 21st century, the imposition fewer than three magnificent Five years after he enunci- of democracy has had a rocky history. American embassies and missions ated the Truman Doctrine, which Making it the cornerstone of U.S. pol- housing ambassadors and staff promised support for “free peoples icy suggests that America knows the that represent U.S. interests in

72 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 IN ESSENCE

America’s new embassy in Iraq is a fortress made up of two dozen buildings covering 104 acres. Its cost has escalated from $592 to $736 million.

Belgium, NATO, and the Euro- safety zones rather than immersing sufficient value added. Could routine pean Union. In an era dominated them in local culture. visa applications be moved offshore? by the Internet, cell phones, video- America will always need repre- Could experts fly in for meetings conferencing, and modern airline sentatives stationed overseas to han- with local officials? Britain is already connections, writes Jerrold D. dle sensitive or specialized tasks and experimenting with “laptop Green, president of the Pacific to understand the cultural, linguis- diplomats,” and other nations are Council on International Policy, tic, political, and social factors that asking foreign service staff to cover “policymakers need to reassess make each country different, Green more than one country. whether retaining many tra- says. The antiquated embassy-based The new U.S. embassy in Iraq is ditional in-country functions of model may not achieve that goal. roughly the size of Vatican City, embassies still makes sense.” Embassies are impediments to with desk space for 1,000 workers Embassies such as the one to understanding local culture and behind blast-resistant walls. Bagh- Belgium, a historic building on a costly to staff. Twenty-first-century dad, to be sure, is a special case. busy underpass recently surrounded overseas representation needs to be But the world is full of unique by a chainlink fence and a jumble of sharper and smarter—but diplomats challenges to American diplomacy. bollards and barricades, are “vulner- need to get their mail delivered to To be effective, Green writes, em- able, expensive, and cumbersome.” the countries where they are bassies need to be integrators, not They wall diplomats in secluded stationed only when there is bunkers, as they are today.

ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS from such niche products would stretch out in a “long tail” on a sales chart, eventually overtaking the high-volume sales of the bestsellers. The Long Tail Tale Anita Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School, re-

THE SOURCE: Should You Invest in the touting the revolutionary coming cently tested Anderson’s idea. Long Tail?” by Anita Elberse, in Harvard of the “long tail.” His thesis: that Looking at Rhapsody music Business Review, July–Aug. 2008. online companies such as Ama- “plays” over a three-month span zon and Rhapsody could cheaply (more than 32 million trans- Wired editor Chris Ander- market hard-to-find products actions), she found that “the top son made a big splash in 2004 such as offbeat song tracks or 10 percent of titles accounted for with his article (later a book) books, and the individual sales 78 percent of all plays, and the

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top one percent of titles for 32 renters (those averaging at least of kindergarten is that states have percent of all plays.” Although the 50 rentals over six months) did raised the minimum age of numbers represent a much dare to “venture into the tail” to enrollment. But this accounts for greater diversity of songs (since select rarely rented titles. Telling- only a quarter of the change. The even one percent of a million is ly, though, all the consumers rest is the “redshirting” of young- still 10,000) than might be avail- rated the popular movies as more sters intentionally kept out of able at, say, a typical Wal-Mart enjoyable than the obscure ones. school by at least some parents store, Elberse found that overall “It is a myth,” Elberse says, “that who expect them to grow bigger, Rhapsody sales were still more obscure books, films, and songs smarter, and more competitive in densely clustered around the are treasured.” the “arms race” for high school “head”—the more popular offer- Even though the online world football and Harvard. ings—than the “tail.” The same offers consumers astounding Educators often describe this pattern held when she looked at diversity, Elberse writes, it also extra year of school-free child- Quickflix, an Australian service opens “a flood of products all hood as a “gift of time” that gives that rents DVDs by mail: “Some competing for consumers’ atten- socially or educationally underde- 150 titles (roughly the number of tion.” In such a volatile market- veloped children a chance to movies released annually to the- place, it’s always going to be eas- mature. But it can also enable aters by major Hollywood stud- ier for better-known products to enterprising parents to position ios) accounted for nearly a fifth of rise to the top, a truism illus- their offspring to be the oldest in all rentals.” trated by a decision Hyperion the class, instead of just average. Elberse and a colleague also Books made in 2006 to back a There is no evidence that seniority looked at Nielsen reports about new title trumpeting a red-hot guarantees success in the long run, online music and video sales. Internet phenomenon: Chris but in sports, studies have shown They showed that “sales did shift Anderson’s The Long Tail. that children who make the elite measurably into the tail.” Sales of soccer, hockey, swimming, and obscure DVDs increased, for ex- ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS tennis teams are disproportion- ample. But the overall revenue ately born just after the age cutoff from such sales still showed that The Graying of for those leagues, write the two “an ever smaller set of top titles public-policy scholars. continues to account for a large Kindergarten Having a few hefty nearly-seven- chunk of the overall demand for year-olds in a class of children who THE SOURCE: “The Lengthening of Child- music.” hood” by David Deming and Susan recently turned five can skew the Elberse also uncovered some Dynarski, in The Journal of Economic curriculum of the class as teachers Perspectives, Summer 2008. familiar patterns, matching those “raise their standards, resulting in described by William McPhee in Kindergarteners are get- lower relative performance and the early 1960s in his book ting older and older, and it’s not increased grade retention rates for Formal Theories of Mass Behav- good for the economy, write children who enter school at the ior. McPhee had suggested that David Deming and Susan Dynar- statutory age,” the authors say. Red- people who shop sparingly tend ski of the Kennedy School of Gov- shirting parents are more likely to to gravitate toward popular ernment at Harvard. The age of be richer and better educated than products—no big surprise—but children entering school has those who enroll their children as also that high-volume consumers gradually risen since 1968, so that soon as they are old enough to were much more willing to ex- today one in every six fails to start attend. plore obscure items. When El- classes in the traditional year of Postponing kindergarten in- berse looked at video rentals, for the child’s fifth birthday. tensifies inequality in American instance, she found that volume A major reason for the graying life, Deming and Dynarski con-

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clude. It puts the average five- Paraphrasing billionaire specula- year-old at a disadvantage when tor , he writes, “The compared to children who are 12 A denizen of the question is not whether you’re to 15 months older. It means that hedge fund world says right or wrong—it’s how much younger children may be labeled that investment you make when you’re right and immature (and studies have prowess is no more how much you lose when you’re shown that such children are con- common there than wrong.” sequently more likely to be elsewhere. Efficient market theorists judged learning disabled). It believe that investors are totally makes drop-out rates a bigger rational. In fact, Jaeger says, they drag on the economy because are driven by fear, greed, and a host teenagers who leave school as theory, which holds that stock of behavioral “biases.” But irration- soon as the law lets them often prices already reflect all the ality still doesn’t create free lunches have less education under their available information about a or predictable prices. Even during belts. It also depresses lifetime company, making it impossible bubbles and panics, which are earnings by delaying entry into for anybody to get a leg up. prime moneymaking opportunities the labor market. Efficient market theory no for savvy investors, there are no In the end, the increased num- longer dominates the academic riskless profits and no way to fore- ber of senior kindergarteners has discipline of finance, says Robert cast market turning points. Many implications for that “third rail of A. Jaeger, senior market hedge funds lost money “selling American politics,” Social Se- strategist at BNY Mellon Asset short” too early during the market curity. Reduced labor force parti- Management, but it has left a bubble of the past few years, and cipation among millions of young legacy: the notion that there is no many sovereign wealth funds lost workers is problematic when the such thing as a skilled investor, money buying too early during the fertility rate is falling and the and no way to distinguish skill ensuing panic. baby boomers are retiring. De- from luck. Not true, Jaeger Although the stock market is layed students are delayed work- argues. unpredictable, efficient market ers who pay one year less into the Two strands of the theory theorists are wrong to claim that Social Security trust fund. challenge the notion of skill. One it is a “random walk,” Jaeger is the idea that “there are no free adds. Random events can’t be ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS lunches”: No market inefficien- explained even after the fact, but cies exist that might enable market events can. Beating the investors to make money without Theorists resort to the exam- taking risk. Risk, the argument ple of coin tosses to explain the Market goes, will always catch up with success of the few investors who

THE SOURCE: “The Elusiveness of Invest- successful investors, reducing do manage consistently to out- ment Skill” by Robert A. Jaeger, in The their returns to the norm. The pace the market. Just as it’s pos- Journal of Wealth Management, Fall 2008. second idea is that “nobody sible to get 20 straight “heads” knows anything”: Investors can’t when tossing a coin, so it’s possi- You’ve heard it a million predict the future. But, Jaeger ble by sheer luck to beat the mar- times: Nobody can beat the stock says, those who have skill as ket 20 years running. But there’s market, so just stash your invest- investors don’t exploit market another possibility, Jaeger points ment dollars in index mutual inefficiencies or use vatic powers out. Maybe the coin is biased— funds and settle for “the average to see tomorrow’s stock market. weighted in such a way that return.” Behind that nostrum is They make “intelligent judg- heads is more likely to turn up. A the so-called efficient market ments about risk and reward.” successful investor’s performance

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may likewise be “weighted” by that prowess is no more common all, even a 20-year record of out- skill. there than elsewhere. Hedge fund standing skilled performance is no None of this means you should managers have more freedom to guarantee of a good showing next rush to place bets on your favorite exploit unusual investment strate- year—winners can freeze up, over- stocks and mutual funds. Skill is gies than other managers do, but reach, or fail to adjust to changing rare, according to Jaeger. He is that also gives them more ways to conditions. As they warn in the himself a denizen of the hedge fund get into trouble. A bad stumble one mutual fund business, past per- world (and a former professor of year can erase several years of out- formance is no guarantee of future philosophy at Yale), and he says size returns. Most discouraging of results.

PRESS & MEDIA earthed those little gems by manu- ally flipping through the older issues on the bookshelf. Evans writes that his study “ironically Virtually Invisible intimates that one of the chief val- ues of print library research is

THE SOURCES: “Electronic Publication chives a journal makes electron- poor indexing.” Researching online and the Narrowing of Science and Scholar- ically available at no charge, the may be more efficient, but it nar- ship” by James A. Evans, in Science, July 18, 2008, and “Open Access Publishing, number of distinct articles cited rows the window scholars look Article Downloads, and Citations: Ran- in other journals falls by 14 per- through. domised Controlled Trial” by Philip M. cent on average. Moreover, the In a separate study, research- Davis, Bruce V. Lewenstein, Daniel H. Simon, James G. Booth, and Mathew J. L. articles that are cited tend to be ers at Cornell University exam- Connolly, in BMJ, Aug. 9, 2008. more recent. In other words, if a ined what happens when a jour- journal puts more of its older nal article is available for free to The arrival of the Internet issues online, the effect will be the public compared to when a ushered in a rapid expansion of that the newer articles receive subscription is necessary to view library holdings everywhere. Read- more citations—perhaps because it. Philip M. Davis and his team ers suddenly had access not only to scholars are less likely to thumb found that providing unfettered what rested on the shelves, but also through the shelved volumes access to an article does not in- to countless books and journals when a journal’s online archive is crease the quantity of citations it from all over the world. It seemed extensive. For every additional receives. However, they studied only a matter of time before schol- year a journal’s online archive not just how often an article was ars took this abundance of re- goes back, citations to that jour- cited but how often it was read, sources and translated it into nal will reference articles that are, and articles that are available for broader and more innovative re- on average, 10 months more free are read much more fre- search. But if you’re waiting for that recent. quently than those requiring a day, don’t hold your breath, advises Researchers looking at a jour- subscription. James A. Evans, a sociologist at the nal online may type in a search As citations converge on newer University of Chicago. term or two and find just the arti- and fewer articles, scholarly con- Unlikely as it may seem, cle they had in mind. But what sensus emerges much faster. But, Evans’s study of more than 30 they won’t find are the older arti- Evans warns, the haste may prove million articles found that as cles whose content, though per- costly. Articles and ideas that don’t journals go online, researchers haps not directly related, comple- become part of the consensus will actually see less of their contents. ments their research in surprising soon be lost in the never-ending

For every additional year of ar- ways. Scholars have typically un- flood of research. INDIGO password: Archive

76 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 IN ESSENCE

HISTORY dig canals to get coal to market. And the need to pay off investors spurred the coal barons to ramp up marketing. Colonial Warming At first, consumers balked. Anthracite’s high ignition tem-

THE SOURCE: “Warming the Poor and at the meritorious poor. The perature made it hard to burn in Growing Consumers: Fuel Philanthropy in Society for the Prevention of the fireplaces of the time. Jokes the Early Republic’s Urban North” by Sean Pauperism preached “sober, abounded about merchants pass- Patrick Adams, in The Journal of Ameri- can History, June 2008. industrious, and economical” ing off rocks as fuel when they behavior in return for aid. were fit only for paving roads and Think the energy crisis of Philadelphia’s Fuel Savings Soci- of anthracite being used to extin- the 1970s was America’s first? ety sold firewood at artificially guish a fire in Philadelphia in Think again. So lacking in home low prices to poor depositors who 1803. Using state-of-the-art tools heating fuel were settlers in planned ahead by contributing 12 that stoked wood fires—the Boston in 1637 that they consid- cents a week during the summer. poker and bellows—simply ered abandoning the city. The Pennsylvania Hospital quenched coal fires. Nor were the next decades almshouse used a fuel crisis near Once the industry infrastruc- well fueled. A century after the the turn of the 19th century to ture was in place, by the late Boston crisis, Benjamin Franklin demonstrate a new-fangled fur- 1820s, coal was cheaper than noted that “wood, our common nace that consumed only a third wood. But burning it required fewel . . . must now be fetch’d of the firewood required by the grates, which cost as much as $60. near 100 miles to some towns.” traditional open fireplace. Furthermore, coal worked best in And by the time the British But the scarcity of firewood furnaces, which cost up to $200. torched the White House in 1814, coincided with the development What better way to broaden the the want of wood during the win- of a new industry starting in the market for coal than to demon- ter constituted a real emergency early 1800s: coal. Coal had been strate how beneficial it would be as in many northern towns and trickling into American ports a heat source for the homes of the cities, especially for the poor, from Britain for some time, but poor? writes Sean Patrick Adams, a his- the discovery of deposits of Philanthropists once again torian at the University of anthracite coal relatively close to stepped up, offering subsidized Florida. some of the nation’s foremost grates and cheap stoves. Coal Firewood merchants shut cities brought new opportunities. took off in the 1840s, Adams down for weeks at a time when Huge capital expenditures were writes, when it became relatively heavy snowfall blocked the roads laid out to dredge waterways and cheap, plentiful, and easy to burn and frozen rivers halted barge in the heating units of ordinary traffic. Prosperous individuals houses. The energy crisis ended could stockpile fuel, but most America’s first energy not when the fancy new furnace urban residents bought wood on crisis was in 1637, when technology of the rich trickled the spot market, and it disap- a lack of wood almost down to the hearths of the work- peared when they needed it most. forced early Boston ers, but by the equally effective, Civic and religious leaders settlers to abandon but less dramatic, provision of founded fuel charities, but their the city. cheap loaner stoves to the poor by supplies were limited and their charities funded, in part, by the outreach was targeted primarily nation’s new energy magnates.

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HISTORY The copper-trading capital of merchants substantial clout in city Northern Europe, Lübeck began in affairs and thus ensured that Medieval 1607 to rigorously enforce a 12th- medieval guilds would not feel century imperial privilege that al- obliged to maintain a united front Protectionism lowed it to prohibit “transit” trade. against the aristocrats. Aspiring Commodities coming from Sweden merchants established the Ham- THE SOURCE: “The Rise of Hamburg as a Global Marketplace in the 17th Century: A had to be resold and reloaded for burg Exchange, a market that Comparative Political Economy Perspective” transport down the 40-odd miles of brought in foreign traders and by Erik Lindberg, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, July 2008. the Stecknitz Canal and connected opened up business opportunities. waterways to Hamburg for ship- The presence in Hamburg of Its ancient name means ment to the Atlantic, or inland along so many “merchant strangers” “lovely,” and the German port city the Elbe River. This “right of staple” with knowledge and important of Lübeck in 1400 was one of the medieval privilege was considered a contacts generated a commercial glories of Europe and a leading cornerstone of the city’s wealth. It infrastructure. With 17th-century merchant trading center. In that was rigorously guarded by the five or Europe convulsed by the Dutch distant era, as Europe recovered six aristocratic families who domin- revolt against Spain, Philip II’s from the devastation of the Black ated the ruling council and the annexation of Portugal (with its Plague, Lübeck and its neighbor, approximately 20 merchant families accompanying threats to the coun- Hamburg, had roughly similar try’s Jewish merchant families), and social, economic, and religious King Louis XIV’s expulsion of profiles, writes Erik Lindberg, a The fortunes of Lübeck Protestants from France, the rela- historian at Uppsala University in and Hamburg diverged, tive freedom of religion and com- Sweden. They could have been with the former fading merce Hamburg offered attracted twin cities: Lübeck connected to into near insignificance refugees and entrepreneurs. And the Baltic Sea via the Trave River and the latter becoming when the English parliament and Hamburg to the North Sea Europe’s third most im- passed the Navigation Acts in the via the Elbe. Their divergent fates portant trading center. mid-17th century to protect illustrate the perils of extreme England’s national shipping from protectionism. competition, Hamburg was given a At the dawn of the early mod- that controlled trade. Growth in the lucrative exemption—a payoff for ern period, the two cities veered number of burghers was severely its earlier open door to London. in opposite political directions. In restricted to protect the income of The fortunes of the two German the face of increasing Baltic Sea the incumbents. For nearly two cities diverged, with Lübeck fading competition from upstart traders centuries Lübeck’s social and politi- into near insignificance and Ham- from London and Amsterdam, cal structure remained frozen as burg becoming the third most im- Lübeck chose to protect its pow- cities elsewhere in Europe changed portant trading center on the conti- erful landowners and leading and grew. nent. In the absence of reliable trade merchant guild by prohibiting This was the period of the Re- statistics and other business data, importers from selling copper, formation, and as it swept through population serves as the best meas- furs, and grain to anybody other German cities such as Lübeck, the ure of relative economic devel- than a Lübeck merchant. Ham- elite managed to stay in power even opment, Lindberg says. In 1400 burg, by contrast, encouraged as Catholic institutions were abol- Lübeck and Hamburg were approxi- trade with Dutch, Flemish, and ished. In Hamburg, however, the mately the same size, and by 1700 English merchants, and even a religious upheaval led to the pas- Lübeck was still a city of around score of Portuguese Jews were sage of the “Long Ordinance” con- 25,000. Hamburg’s population was invited to move in. stitution in 1562, which guaranteed roughly 75,000.

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HISTORY search director at the Center for Remedies for some of European Policy Analysis in A Habsburg Plan the European Union’s Washington, is to seize the politi- cal playbook from an imperial growing pains may lie in for Brussels court more famous for its Lipiz- lessons learned from THE SOURCE:“Empire by Devolution: zaner horses than its achieve- What Today’s EU Can Learn From Franz the Habsburg Empire. ments in governance—the Josef I’s Empire” by A. Wess Mitchell, Habsburgs. The jigsaw Austro- in Orbis, Summer 2008. Hungarian Empire presided over Few modern political devel- The march toward unity, how- by Emperor-King Franz Josef I opments seem more counterintui- ever, has found more than a few of from 1867 to 1916 embraced 14 tive than the unification of 27 its 27 divisions downright muti- language groups and 11 nationali- states that not so long ago were nous. As the leaders of the EU ties. Of its 51 million inhabitants, fighting one another in two forge an “ever closer union,” mem- half were Slavs, a quarter Ger- savage world wars. The European ber states are fighting to preserve mans, and a quarter Magyars, Union now features a single cur- national vetoes and voters are with scattered Italians and Ro- rency, open borders, and an array demanding the right to hold refer- manians. It was a pseudo-demo- of common policies on everything endums on a multitude of issues. cratic monarchy that kept the from the proper size of tomatoes The answer for Europe, ac- peace for half a century, and it to noise pollution. cording to A. Wess Mitchell, re- worked by devolution.

German emperor Wilhelm II congratulates Austro-Hungarian emperor FranzJosef I (left) in 1914,watched by the potentates of a soon-to-vanish world of small domains and fiefdoms, including Anhalt, Lippe, Schaumburg-Lippe, Hamburg, Bayern, Mecklenburg-Schwerin,Württemberg, Baden, and Oldenburg.

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After failing to adopt a cen- common banking system, and when he rested his election cam- tralized constitution, Franz invest under the umbrella of uni- paign strategy on the notion that Josef’s imperial bureaucrats de- versally recognized laws. They let “it’s the economy, stupid.” Give cided to save the empire not by the two “halves” of their empire primacy to economic integration. tightening control over their frac- make their own domestic and fis- America, too, can learn a Hab- tious subjects but by loosening it. cal policies. The enterprise fell sburg lesson: Don’t push—or They gave Austria and Hungary apart only when the Czechs and appear to push—the European separate parliaments, with un- Slavs demanded similar political states toward more unification precedented political autonomy. power and the emperor tried than their own citizens are ready They established unique con- instead to tighten up. for, and cultivate countries ditions for economic success by Brussels should learn two les- willing to work with Washington setting up a vast single market sons from Vienna, Mitchell on a bilateral basis rather than that allowed people to buy and writes. First, “a multinational pursue a top-down strategy. The sell with a single currency, travel union’s chances of success in- new member states of Central on an unbroken network of roads crease in inverse proportion to its Europe have common interests and railways, conduct business determination to concentrate with the United States. A smart across a grid of telegraph and political power at the center.” Sec- superpower works with the little mail lines, draw credit from a ond, Bill Clinton had it right guys.

RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY ing Big Government and defeating communism on the one hand and ending entrenched and periodically brutal racial discrimination on the Conservative Complicity other wasn’t a close call: Discrimi- nation was regrettable, but govern-

THE SOURCE: “Civil Rights and the Con- bigot, commentators wrote upon his mental expansion was worse. Buck- servative Movement” by William Voegeli, death, but merely either blind or ley hoped that attitudes would in Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2008. indifferent to bigotry around him. change incrementally in response to Discrimination simply failed to social rather than political pres- William F. Buckley Jr., the engage him or many other conser- sures. “There is no way of knowing influential conservative thinker vatives in the 1950s and ’60s as a whether that train, running on who died in February at the age of struggle of “great moral urgency,” those tracks, would have ever come 82, opposed every milestone writes William Voegeli, a visiting into the station,” Voegeli writes. achievement of the civil rights scholar at Claremont-McKenna Buckley and the conservatives for movement. He denounced the College. The choice between shrink- whom he spoke wound up on the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in wrong side of history, and they Brown v. Board of Education allowed the conservative philosophy when it was handed down, Conservative William to be painted as a ruse designed to opposed the 1965 Voting Rights F. Buckley Jr. opposed perpetuate racial inequality. Conser- Act, and belittled the 1964 Civil every milestone vatives opposed to racial discrimin- Rights Act as a marginal federal achievement of the ation “had few obvious ways to act effort to “instruct small merchants civil rights movement, on that belief without abandoning in the Deep South on how they but he was no bigot. their long twilight struggle to recon- may conduct their business.” fine the federal government within Yet Buckley was not himself a its historically defined riverbanks

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after the New Deal had demolished shrugged their shoulders and pro- RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY all the levees,” Voegeli writes. But posed waiting until the segre- they didn’t look particularly hard for gationists got religion. By letting Will Evangelicals alternatives, either. Buckley eventu- the best be the enemy of the good, ally recanted, saying that his view Voegeli argues, conservatives Hail Mary? that America could evolve its way “squandered the opportunity to THE SOURCE: “Evangelicals and Mary” by Tim Perry, in , July 2008. out of Jim Crow was wrong. His own fashion a constitutionally prin- Theology Today opinion had changed over time, cipled argument in favor of either Starting with their opposi- however, and by 2004 he said flatly, augmenting the federal govern- tion to abortion access, Catholics “Federal intervention was necessary.” ment’s powers so they were equal and evangelical Christians have a Conservatives’ complicity in to the task of ending Jim Crow, or lot in common politically. But they segregation during the early years activating latent powers afforded still differ dramatically in their of the civil rights movement made by the Constitution that were not theology and everyday worship it easy for liberals to dismiss all being brought to bear against seg- practices, and that is nowhere their subsequent arguments regation.” more apparent than in their rever- against busing, affirmative action, By drawing the line in an inde- ence for Mary, the mother of Jesus. and hiring goals and timetables. fensible place, conservatives ceded Among Catholics, the role of the By drawing a line in the sand and the high ground to those who in- Virgin has traditionally been cen- then eventually conceding that it sisted there should be no lines tral, among evangelicals, almost had been politically and morally whatsoever—those willing to em- nonexistent. Now evangelicals are indefensible, conservatives lost brace any expansion of government rediscovering Mary, writes Tim standing to affect the course of the that might further racial justice. Perry, who teaches theology at debate. When faced with what “Liberals came to grief over civil Providence College and Seminary they saw as the constitutionally rights because they had no stopping in Manitoba, for reasons both reckless approach of the civil point,” Voegeli concludes, “while devotional and theological. rights movement to ending segre- conservatives came to grief because The near-universal veneration gation, these conservatives they had no starting point.” of Mary became a casualty of the

later generations would scorn as narrow sectarian EXCERPT debates. . . . Perhaps precisely because they were aimed inward, the Protestant churches were able to radiate outward, giving a characteristic shape to the End of the Mainline nation: the centrality of families, the pattern of marriages and funerals, the vague but widespread America was Methodist, once upon a time—Meth- patriotism, the strong localism, and the ongoing sense odist, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, of some providential purpose at work in the existence or Episcopalian. . . . In truth, all the talk, from the 18th of the United States. century on, of the United States as a religious nation was Which makes it all the stranger that, somewhere really just a make-nice way of saying it was a Christian around 1975, the main stream of Protestantism ran dry. nation—and even to call it a Christian nation was usually . . . The great confluence of Protestantism has dwindled just a soft and ecumenical attempt to gloss over the to a trickle over the past 30 years, and the Great Church obvious fact that the United States was, at its root, a of America has come to an end. Protestant nation. . . . The denominations were often engaged in what —JOSEPH BOTTUM, editor of First Things, Aug.–Sept. 2008

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Reformation. As Protestant lead- exemplary or symbolic for fear that of a new receptivity resulting from ers rebelled against the sacramen- they would be seen as too sympa- what has been called the “ecumen- tal and clerical system of the es- thetic to Catholicism, Perry writes. ism of the trenches,” Perry writes. tablished Catholic church, Mary Now that is beginning to change Shared concerns over Roe v. Wade was almost written out of their among writers and theologians. and “further ethical challenges posed version of Christianity, to be men- Some are responding to genuine by developments in biotechnology, tioned only at Christmas, if at all. Catholic ecumenical overtures, and embryology, and gerontology” have Even the Dutch reform-minded others have developed renewed fostered alliances that previously did humanist Desiderius Erasmus interest in studying early church not exist. Moreover, he contends, (1466–1536), no pushover for the- writings to understand the Bible evangelicals’ commitment to ecu- ological orthodoxy, thought that without drawing too heavily on the menism regarding Mary is not under the Reformation “not only “zeitgeist of contemporary Western optional, but rather “a gospel imper- have the abuses stopped, so has culture,” Perry says. ative.” Evangelicals must acknow- appropriate devotion.” Some of the emerging dialogue ledge a certain special status for Evangelical preachers have long between Catholics and evangelicals Mary because, quite simply, the been wary of upholding Mary as over Mary became possible because Bible does.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY special about time? Sean M. Car- roll, a senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, offers one possibility: The Arrow of Time Maybe, just maybe, ours is not the only universe there is. Maybe a big on in only one direction. One way of bang of the sort that is thought to THE SOURCE: “Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?” by Sean M. Carroll, in looking at this idea is that it is the have given birth to our universe Scientific American, June 2008. stuff of the Back to the Future happens every now and then. And movies: It’s fun to think about trav- maybe the arrow of time points in The mysteries of black eling to the past, but you can’t actu- our direction (that is, toward the holes and supernovas notwithstand- ally do it. And entropy—random- “future”) in half the universes and ing, the universe on the whole is a ness or disorder—tends to increase in the opposite direction (toward law-abiding place. From galaxies of with time. That’s the second law of the “past”) in the other half. What if stars to the tiny particles that con- thermodynamics. So the universe “we see only a tiny patch of the big stitute atoms, objects interact with has been steadily growing more dis- picture, and this larger arena is each other according to rules that orderly. When you add milk to your fully time symmetric?” Carroll asks. scientists think they understand. coffee, the milk spreads randomly Not to worry, he says. In a uni- But one aspect of the universe has throughout the cup; it doesn’t spon- verse in which the “past” was the them baffled. That component is taneously separate into a layer on “future,” people wouldn’t be born time. top. Humpty Dumpty didn’t sud- old and die as infants. In the con- There is a satisfying symmetry to denly reassemble himself; not even fines of their universe, everything the physical universe. For every all the king’s horses and all the would proceed as in ours. It is action there is an equal and oppo- king’s men could put him together only when they compared their site reaction; for every negatively again. universe to ours that anything charged electron there is (presum- But why should time go in only would seem unusual. And each ably, somewhere) a positively one direction? If the universe is universe would be entirely sepa- charged positron. But time marches otherwise symmetrical, what’s so rate and unknowable to denizens

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of the other. Carroll can probably and how aggressively to restore eco- living thing on the 155-acre volcan- never be proved right or wrong. logical “balance” when a newcomer ic rock had also arrived as an immi- Regardless, the fact that milk arrives and decimates the local habi- grant. “Eliminating the grasshop- spreads randomly through your tat. By the time the exterminators, per would presumably return coffee is another way of saying who also teach at the University of Nihoa to an earlier state,” Lock- that time is always going in one Wyoming, arrived, Nihoa was again wood and Latchininsky write, but direction, at least in this universe. “impressively verdant.” All the native which previous era was truly natu- In Carroll’s formulation, it takes herbivores appeared to be doing well ral? When Nihoa was a steaming the existence of a parallel uni- despite enduring a period of hunk of lifeless lava? verse to preserve the symmetry of scorched-earth conditions, and the Ecologists focus on maintaining time, and the evidence comes Nihoa millerbird, a species once on the integrity and stability of an envi- from something no more elabor- the edge of extinction, was thriving ronment, but the authors recognized ate than a cuppa joe. on a new grasshopper diet. an additional consideration that had Hawaiian conservationists still come into play on Nihoa. The gray SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY insisted on turning the clock back bird grasshopper was put on the hit to before 1977, when, they believed, list in part because it was considered What Is ‘Natural’? the grasshoppers had stowed away biological litter, “offensive trash on a freighter, ridden favorable because of its cultural, religious, and THE SOURCE: “Confessions of an Entomo- winds to Nihoa, and lain low for a literary associations with plagues and logical Hit Man” by Jeffrey A. Lockwood and quarter-century waiting for the per- starvation.” The decision to eliminate Alexandre V. Latchininsky, in Conservation Magazine, July–Sept. 2008. fect combination of drought and it had a subjective element—the heat to create the right conditions grasshopper was an odious species When master extermina- for them to multiply wildly and rav- and deserved to go. tors Jeffrey A. Lockwood and Alex- age their adopted paradise. But Lockwood and Latchininsky andre V. Latchininsky were sum- how far back should the clock be offered the grasshoppers poison-laced moned to the remote Hawaiian turned? At some point nearly every entrées of peanut butter and honey island of Nihoa in 2006 to with molasses, but the pests wipe out the invading gray rejected both; only inno- bird grasshopper, they cent ants succumbed. Una- expected a straight pest EXCERPT ble to come up with an management job. Two alternative without intoler- years earlier the insect had able collateral damage, the nearly denuded Nihoa, A Short Proposal authors declined the which lacks both fresh contract. water and topsoil. The We could solve virtually all of our environmental Back at the University grasshopper, an interloper problems through the simple expedient of genetically of Wyoming, where Lock- from Venezuela, had engineering human beings to be four inches tall. wood teaches writing and devoured 90 percent of Four-inch-tall people would consume fewer of the philosophy and Latchi- the tiny volcanic island’s world’s resources, ensuring sustainable develop- ninsky entomology, they vegetation in a matter of ment for the benefit of our tiny descendants living drew a moral from their months. thousands or even millions of years in the future. adventure: “The natural But Lockwood and world will, given enough Latchininsky landed —ERIC POSNER, University of Chicago law time, do just fine whether smack in the middle of professor, in Convictions, a blog on legal issues or not we tinker with all philosophical debates over published on Slate, June 1, 2008 this preserving, restoring, the meaning of “native” and reclaiming.”

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ARTS & LETTERS “painterly,” ending his career as the “wettest of artists,” dabbling in watercolors and applying “palette- knife slatherings of raw white” to What’s American About canvases of wild seascapes. He endeavored to paint the subjects of American Art? his work just as they lived in nature. A frothy wave would not become a Puritanism. The great preacher Jon- tame, thin coat of paint in Homer’s THE SOURCE: “The Clarity of Things” by John Updike, in The New York Review of athan Edwards had stressed “the hands, but a layer filled with im- Books, June 26, 2008. clarity of ‘things’ ” as “manifestations pasto scribbles, dashes, and loops. God makes of Himself in His works.” Updike sees this opposition When it comes to mapping The material world is a reflection of between “lininess” and painter- the visible world, American artists God himself, and, in the minds of liness throughout the history of tend to stay faithful in some essential Copley and other American painters, American art, down to Roy Licht- way to the concrete reality of the capturing its reality is their essential enstein, with his sharp-edged pop things they paint, says Pulitzer task. Lines deliver the facts of an art, and Andy Warhol, the devoted Prize–winning novelist John Updike. image and create a world that is not colorist. Yet all of these artists were He sees defining examples of this conceptual or illusory, but lavishly committed to the clarity of things, American “bias toward the empirical” literal. according to Updike. “All, it might in the work of the Boston-born titans By 1776, Copley was living in Lon- be said, employ highly personal John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) don, where he embraced the roman- techniques to confront the viewer and Winslow Homer (1836–1910). tic “theatricality” of the English style, with something vitally actual, Working in isolation from the illustrating the contrast between the beyond illusion.” European art world in colonial American and Boston, Copley developed a por- European visions. trait style that represented his sub- In his most famous jects plainly and without flattery picture from this while rendering their clothes and period, The Death other material objects with magi- of Major Peirson cal detail. In 1765, when Copley (1783), there is but submitted a portrait of his half- a single drop of brother Henry Pelham, Boy With a blood on the felled Squirrel, to the annual exhibition man. of the Society of Artists in London, Working a cen- Benjamin West, an American mas- tury after Copley, ter of the English style, wrote to Winslow Homer inform him that the London art sought to observe world recognized Copley’s raw tal- and imitate the ent but found his painting too world around him, “liney.” as surely as Copley Art critic Barbara Novak sug- did but through gested at a 1966 Copley retrospective different means. If that this liney sensibility stemmed Copley was “liney,” from a “conceptual bias” rooted in then Homer was Boy With a Squirrel (1765), by John Singleton Copley

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ARTS & LETTERS two reasons for the Paris height “knows that living well is the most restrictions, one physical, one effective business incentive and the Paris’s New Look cultural. The City of Light is “built reason everyone wants to come to atop a city of shadows . . . laid over a Paris.” THE SOURCE:“Looming Debate” by Véronique Vienne, in Metropolis, June subterranean limestone quarry, its 2008. huge system of ancient tunnels weak- ARTS & LETTERS Great cities don’t stay that ening the ground.” But Parisians are way by standing pat, and Paris is no “an unruly bunch,” and the city’s most Mesopotamian exception. But existing regulations typical architectural form is “not the limit building heights in the center of mansard roofline or the Haussmann Treasures the City of Light to 82 feet, and they façade but the barricade.” Parisians THE SOURCE: “Archaeological Sites in South relax to just 121 feet near the périph, like low structures. Iraq Have Not Been Looted, Say Experts” by Mar- the 22-mile-long concrete beltway Delanoë has also undertaken to tin Bailey, in The Art Newspaper, July 1, 2008. that, Véronique Vienne says, “chokes “blur the line separating affluent Rarely have so many people the 41-square-mile capital inside city Parisians from their often less priv- been so mistaken about a country as limits that have been set in stone for ileged neighbors,” most of whom live have been wrong on Iraq: Wrong more than 150 years.” With many of beyond the périph. As part of this about weapons of mass destruction. the six million people who live in the effort, the city is building a concrete Wrong about mobile weapons labs. Paris metropolitan area commuting canopy over sections of the beltway to Wrong about the plundering of the daily from homes beyond the périph, buffer noise and reduce pollution but National Museum. And now, wrong pressure has been growing on the city also to “create a series of attractive again about the ongoing destruction proper to provide more housing, and meeting grounds over the dividing of the nation’s most celebrated archae- at affordable prices. The only place to line.” The mayor has also enticed ological sites. go is up. prominent architects, such as Christ- An international team of archae- Since 2000, when architect Yves ian de Portzamparc, to design low- ologists helicoptered into eight of the Lion proposed building 20-to-40- income housing near the city’s edge. country’s ancient settlements this past story towers in a no man’s land at the Many aspects of Delanoë’s vision June to check out reports of illegal dig- edge of the beltway, a building height are not popular, especially among ging. They found exactly zero evidence debate has raged in the city. The most the more affluent, Vienne says. Some of looting, writes Martin Bailey, a cor- prominent figure in this debate, says sneer at innovations such as self- respondent for The Art Newspaper. Vienne, an author of many books on service citywide bike rentals and Touching down for visits of between art and architecture, is the city’s popu- dedicated bus lanes to ease com- 40 minutes and two hours per excava- lar mayor, Bertrand Delanoë. A muter congestion. Many would like tion, they failed to find “a single recent “prominent Socialist and a likely can- to see Paris undertake buildings on a dig hole.” The archaeologists picked didate in the next presidential elec- grander scale, as has become com- the sites to visit, surveyed the terrain, tion,” Delanoë has “imposed on mon practice in Barcelona, Berlin, and were allowed to move freely private developers the same time- and other European cities. But some around the areas under the armed consuming competition-and-jury local architects, such as Antoine protection of British guards. review procedure foisted on public Grumback, are “very happy that The threat of looting was no small projects.” In the city center, the meas- Paris is not a design museum” and one. Among the excavations, the Iraq ure has encouraged builders to reno- that Delanoë has, for the most part, experts visited Ur, reputed birthplace vate and recondition older buildings eschewed blockbuster public build- of the Biblical patriarch Abraham, site rather than replace them with new ings. As long as he is mayor, the city of the best-preserved ancient ziggurat ones, and the height restrictions have is likely to avoid the spectacular and and location of a royal graveyard re- remained in place. focus on creating a more livable plete with gold and silver. They According to Vienne, there are urbanity, Vienne says. Delanoë checked out Eridu, which contains 18

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levels of building, the first possibly sites. They did find some damage. The the British Museum’s Middle East antedating the great flood recounted worst instances were a dozen trenches department, told Bailey that greater in ancient religious texts, and the last dug in the mound at Ubaid by Sad- damage may have been forestalled by built a few years after the likely inven- dam Hussein’s forces in 2003 to dis- several watchtowers built with Italian tion of writing. And they landed in guise tanks and armored personnel assistance in 2003, roving police Ubaid, cradle of a culture that thrived carriers. The archaeologists also spied teams, and the continuing vigilance of from about 5000 to 4000 bc, and a few paper food wrappers that Amer- local guards. Perhaps equally impor- Lagash, the original abode of some of ican troops had left behind at Tell el tant was economics. With art dealers the most spectacular artifacts now in Lahm, and they found that the land- and customs inspectors around the the Louvre in Paris. scape of Ur had been marred by large world on the lookout for the contents The experts toured only in the numbers of troops tramping over the of the National Museum, the interna- south, and visited only a tiny fraction site in desert boots. tional market for Mesopotamian of Iraq’s thousands of archaeological The team leader, John Curtis of antiquities has almost dried up.

OTHER NATIONS Kazakhstan claiming the largest portion because of its longer coast- line. Russia and Iran, whose prede- cessor states agreed that the Cas- The Battle of the pian would be a Soviet-Iranian sea, no longer share that view. Russia— Caspian Sea worried about Western petroleum giants muscling in on its oil flanks— less than 16 feet deep in much of is looking out for itself and some of THE SOURCES: “The Caspian Sea: Rivalry and Cooperation” by Mahmoud Ghafouri, in its northern basin, the Caspian is its former Soviet republics. Iran, Middle East Policy, Summer 2008, and an icy, stormy body of water. De- with the shortest coastline, wants “The Iraq War, Turkey, and Renewed Caspian Energy Prospects” by Paul A. velopment has been hindered mineral resources to be prorated, Williams and Ali Tekin, in The Middle because the five riparian nations, like the costs in a condominium East Journal, Summer 2008. Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakh- building, or doled out equally, 20 The wellhead of the oil in- stan, and Turkmenistan, can’t percent to each state. dustry in 1900 was not the Middle agree, among other things, on Such differences are blocking East but the Caspian Sea. Half of whether it is a lake or a sea. the full development of oil re- the world’s oil came from Baku, As a sea, it would be subject to sources just as potential returns Azerbaijan, where “liquid black the United Nations Convention on are growing more lucrative. The gold” brought wealth in the 19th the Law of the Sea, which allows region now produces roughly 2.3 century and war in the 20th. In states to extend mineral claims to million barrels of oil a day, and it 1942, the German Army was lung- the edge of their continental shelves. has reserves that may be as great ing for Caspian oil when Hitler If the Caspian were a lake, the as 257 billion barrels. Develop- launched the Battle of Stalingrad, seabed could be divided up, with ment, however, will need unani- which cost as many as two million mous consent, asserts Mahmoud Soviet and German lives. Ghafouri, an assistant professor at The area still contains one of The wellhead of the oil Shahid Bahonar University in Ker- the world’s largest reservoirs of oil industry in 1900 was not man, Iran. And before the “Cas- and natural gas, most of it beneath the Middle East but the pian five” nations can truly capital- the 640-mile-long Caspian seabed. Caspian Sea. ize on their reserves, the poisonous About 90 feet below sea level and relationship between Iran and the

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United States must be repaired. OTHER NATIONS were more likely to attend school The “second oil rush in the Cas- than their less able brothers and pian” requires pipelines or other Ability Grouping sisters. Clearly, Bacolod and Ran- pathways to get the oil to market, jan say, some parents faced with and the Western firms with the THE SOURCE: “Why Children Work, paying the costs of education for Attend School, or Stay Idle: The Roles of easiest access to capital are denied Ability and Household Wealth” by Marigee P. children with low ability decide not some of the most viable routes— Bacolod and Priya Ranjan, in Economic to send them to work but to allow Development and Cultural Change, July through Iran—by U.S.-Iranian 2008. them to stay home. More than one enmity. in every 10 children in the study Iran’s loss has been Turkey’s The specter of a 10-year-old went to school and worked at the gain. The Iraq war, instead of hauling bricks or stirring a vat of same time. opening floodgates of Iraqi oil, boiling liquid is far from eradicated Richer families were more likely initially did the opposite, provid- in the developing world, where the than poor ones to send their ing an unforeseen boost to Cas- International Labor Organization children with lower IQs to school. pian oil. Pipeline projects that estimates that 218 million children And parents were also more likely skirt both Russia and Iran at- are working at least part time in- to dispatch their young of all ability tracted more interest with each stead of concentrating on school. levels to school if the facilities were uptick in oil’s price. Turkish oil But the reality of child labor is better—judged by the presence of and gas transport projects that much more nuanced than such electricity, running water, toilets, seemed far-fetched in the 1990s images suggest, according to new and a usable blackboard. have proven successful, and new research by Marigee P. Bacolod and An outright ban on child labor, ones have gotten increased impe- Priya Ranjan, economists at the which is often proposed as a tus, write Paul A. Williams and University of California, Irvine. solution to the horrors of the brick- Ali Tekin, professors at Bilkent Poor children are not always con- yards and tanning factories, may University in Ankara. As the three signed to work. New research from have a perverse effect, according to recently independent Caspian Cebu City in the Philippines shows the researchers. Parents who now states stand poised to become that a significant percentage of chil- send children to school while they major players in the world econ- dren who are not in school are sim- are also working may respond to omy because of their energy re- ply idle. such a ban by pulling them out of serves, Turkey, the area’s energy One of the main differences school entirely and choosing the have-not nation, has already ben- between children who go to school option of idleness. efited from increased energy tran- and those who don’t is academic sit fees and better access to oil for ability. Children with high IQs— OTHER NATIONS its own economy. but with parents in the bottom Ghafouri concludes that the third of the income scale—are India’s Sick lure of oil wealth can go a long way nearly as likely to attend school (88 toward promoting international percent) as those from the most Democracy cooperation in the Caspian. After affluent third (89 percent), accord- THE SOURCE: “India’s Parliament as a Rep- years of rivalry in the Persian Gulf ing to a study of 3,000 children in resentative Institution” by Jessica S. Wallack, in India Review, April–June 2008. region, the joint development of randomly selected Cebu City dis- offshore oil and natural gas re- tricts. Asked why their offspring The recent debate over the sources is under way. And if the were not in class, parents were Indian-American nuclear cooper- states in the volatile Persian Gulf most likely to respond that their ation agreement didn’t do a lot for the can swallow their differences in children had “no interest” (36 per- bottom-feeder image of the Indian the interest of making money, can cent). Even within the same poor parliament. Chanting, raging legisla- the Caspian be far behind? family, children with high ability tors heckled speakers and stormed

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the well, members of parliament who bles that is the Parliament of India, lack writes: “India’s parliamentary had been jailed for murder were let writes Jessica S. Wallack, the director procedures stand out among parlia- out to vote, and a hospitalized law- of the Center for Development ments around the world in the limita- maker was wheeled in on a gurney. Finance in Chennai, India. But the tions they place on most members’ Three members of the main opposi- dysfunction of the legislative branch ability to represent their constituents tion, the Bharatiya Janata Party goes deeper than the presence of a in the normal course of debate or pol- (BJP), interrupted a Communist few murderers and thugs. Some of icymaking.” Average members have opponent in midspeech, waving wads the problems are embedded in the little or no chance to ask questions, of rupees they said were a down pay- structure of the institution. introduce bills, propose amendments, ment on a $2.1 million bribe that the The symptoms of failure read like participate in meaningful debate, or BJP members said they had been a political-science disaster checkoff: disagree with their party. “Coalition offered by the camp of the ruling Con- Budgets pass in a flash; deliberations members’ powers to dissent are lim- gress party to vote for the deal. On barely occur. Absenteeism is rife, dis- ited to the ‘nuclear option’ of bringing July 22 the Lok Sabha, the lower ruptions frequent, and policy research down the government.” There is no house of parliament, finally ended rare. The bureaucracy must make intermediate way to work out months of suspense by handing the policy (because the parliament can’t disagreements. government a slender victory, 275 to agree) even as it is subject to the The main hope for change is the 256. Prime Minister Manmohan tyranny of being transferred around rise in political competition. With Singh squeaked out a vote of confi- the country by legislative fiat. Judicial small parties nipping at the heels of dence to keep him in power until he activism has kept the government the long-dominant Congress party can run again next May. functioning, but legislative failures and the BJP, Indian leaders may The Indian public blames the are so great that two Supreme Court eventually decide that if they don’t fix average parliamentarian—in 2004, justices recently wrote that the public the fundamental parliamentary rules, one-quarter of the legislators had is fast losing faith even in the courts. they may find themselves on the criminal backgrounds—for the sham- The problem is fundamental, Wal- outside looking in.

Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh (standing,center) tries to speak as members of the lower house of the Indian parliament shout bribery allegations.

88 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2008 Also in this issue:

James McGrath CURRENT Morris on Jacob Riis

Charles Barber on American therapy BOOKS reviews of new and noteworthy nonfiction Geoff Manaugh on philosophy and the city

Hew Strachan on The Great African Hope civilian deaths in Reviewed by G. Pascal Zachary war

Renuka Rayasam Even the most ardent advocate for countries. They openly on love in the democracy must admit that elections in admire the “soft authoritar- ATHOUSAND New India Africa are messy, prone to fraud, and often ian” leaders of Asia for HILLS: Rwanda’s Rebirth merely a prelude to violence. In January, combining nationalist feel- and the Man Who Evelin Sullivan on Kenya exploded after reports of vote ing and tight political con- Dreamed It. weighing our fears tampering cast doubt on the results of a trols with impressive By Stephen Kinzer. presidential election. Robert Mugabe, tyrant national economic growth. Wiley. 380 pp. $25.95 David Lindley on of Zimbabwe, has made a mockery of his In Africa, Rwandan presi- WHEN THINGS Einstein’s failings country’s elections. In Cameroon, Paul Biya, dent Paul Kagame is widely FELL APART: already in power for a quarter-century, regarded as the continent’s State Failure in T. R. Reid on the wants the chance to rig one more election. foremost enlightened auto- Late-CenturyAfrica. Mountain Mead- These are but three recent instances of crat. A former rebel leader By Robert H. Bates. ows Massacre electoral failure in sub-Saharan Africa. who helped to end the 1994 Cambridge Univ. Press. 216 pp. Though popular dissent and political mobili- genocide against his $60, $19.99 paper zation are increasing in much of the region, minority Tutsi ethnic national elections often embarrass liberal group, Kagame has, through equal measures democrats. Most informed observers remain of personal rectitude and political repression, persuaded that Africa suffers from too little brought stability to his mountainous country democracy. But on a continent where many in central Africa. His rule provides the clearest people are poor, might other forms of govern- test case in Africa of whether an enlightened ment promote the kind of development that authoritarianism can produce better results would lift more Africans out of poverty more than liberal democracy. quickly? Should international aid donors and That question animates an intelligent well-wishers re-examine their insistence on new book on Kagame and Rwanda, A Thou- liberal democracy? sand Hills, by Stephen Kinzer, a former New Many African leaders, of course, already York Times correspondent and distin- question the appropriateness of American- guished writer on international affairs. style democratic institutions for their Kinzer views Kagame as the embodiment of

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the new Rwanda, and his book is as much a biog- nic identity by insisting, “Never again.” Post- raphy of the president as an account of the coun- ethnicity is an effective tactic rather than a heart- try’s trials. Kagame is in many ways easy to felt ideal. admire. He is hard on government ministers who commit improprieties, and he drives his own he prime directive of the new Rwanda— children to school and attends their sports and Kagame’s strongman rule—is to events—unusual displays of attention by an T avoid another genocide. Tutsi security is African father. more important than justice or economic growth. But the inevitable weakness of Kinzer’s In this sense, Rwanda is following the path of approach is that Kagame is treated too sympa- , another nation founded in the aftermath thetically. Interspersed throughout the narrative of genocide. In Kagame’s mind, Rwanda is a kind are long quotes from Kinzer’s interviews with of African Israel that deserves the world’s sympa- Kagame, self-serving monologues that contain thy and support even while its political leaders no revelations and scant candor, at best merely repress critics at home—and tell carping out- repeating views siders to shove it as well. Because foreigners Kagame has expressed abandoned Rwanda’s Tutsis in 1994, Kagame The prime directive of elsewhere over the past feels justified in tuning them out today whenever the new Rwanda—and decade. he sees fit (notwithstanding the generous foreign Paul Kagame’s strongman Kinzer depicts aid flowing to Rwanda). He is especially dismis- rule—is to avoid another Kagame as a sober and sive of human rights critics and democracy advo- genocide. effective political cates who often accurately identify abuses in leader of unusual Rwandan society. Kagame’s position is accepted, vision and discipline, indeed admired in some quarters both at home but concedes that he is and abroad, for the simple reason that genocide controversial. Impatient with critics and unwill- lends moral credibility—and an outsized sense of ing to listen even to his supporters, Kagame is entitlement—to the guardians of the victims. effectively a dictator. He models himself after Lee Kinzer is strangely reticent on whether Kwan Yew, the stern leader whose uncanny grasp Kagame, the chief African beneficiary of what of economic affairs catapulted Singapore into might be called a “holocaust dividend,” is invest- global prominence and prosperity after he helped ing the proceeds wisely. A lot rides on the ques- the city-state achieve independence in 1959. tion. If Kagame can foster rapid economic Kagame hopes to lead Rwanda on a similar growth in Rwanda, then his brand of authoritar- path, though ethnic tensions remain a major ian politics may deserve wider support. But if he obstacle to progress. Only 51 years old, the Rwan- cannot, he risks becoming simply another geri- dan president plans to stand for reelection in atric African president willing to risk the ruin of 2010 and is likely to rule until at least 2017. his country rather than retire. When I visited last year, I found Kagame—and Kinzer seems unfamiliar with the main econ- the Tutsi elites who control the country’s govern- omic currents in sub-Saharan Africa, confining ment machinery—devoted to a convenient and most of his book to politicking. After decades of durable fiction. Ethnic groups, they say, no longer promoting industrialization as the means of eco- exist in Rwanda; to speak of ethnicity even in a nomic salvation, most forward-looking Africans constructive way is to invite government repres- today recognize that agriculture holds the key to sion and accusations of disloyalty. Kinzer himself poverty reduction and national wealth. Countries notes that ethnic consciousness is the “strongest” as diverse as Kenya and Nigeria, Uganda and of the “taboos in today’s Rwanda.” Yet in private, Zambia, depend heavily for their prosperity on Tutsi leaders implicitly keep alive their own eth- the growth of commercial agriculture, including

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President Paul Kagame used a strong hand to unite Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.Can that same hand guide Rwanda to economic success? both export-oriented agribusiness and energized quickly and dramatically increase the productiv- subsistence farmers who are growing additional ity of Rwanda’s farmers. As political scientist crops for the markets. Robert Paarlberg recently argued in Starved for Kagame, unfortunately, remains relatively Science (2008), African governments are losing uninterested in farming. He prefers the deli- big by not doing so. They have caved in to pres- cious dream of jump-starting a world-class sure, exerted chiefly by European environ- Rwandan knowledge industry built on services mentalists, to ban genetically modified organ- such as consulting, telephone call centers, and isms—plants that are engineered to produce information technology. Working against him higher yields or to resist pests and diseases. are Rwanda’s lack of skilled labor, a weak edu- Kagame’s near-total authority in Rwanda makes cational system, and paltry investment by possible radical shifts in policy—the sort of stuff world-class corporations. Kagame also en- made legendary in Mahathir Mohamad’s Ma- thuses about processing and packaging local laysia and Lee’s Singapore. Rwanda’s small farm- farm products for shipment to Europe and the ers—80 percent of the population—would bene- Middle East. The problem is that Rwanda fit enormously. His failure to pursue biotech casts doesn’t have adequate production volumes to doubt on his flair for economic improvisation. compete with much larger African neighbors that grow the same crops, hold better geo- obert Bates’s When Things Fell Apart graphic positions, and have a substantial lead raises more serious doubts. Bates, a pro- in the marketplace. If you factor out large aid R fessor of government at Harvard, flows and remittances by Rwandans living out- reviews the failures of African governments over side Africa, it’s arguable whether the country’s the past few decades, demonstrating a strong link economy is even growing. between the push for democratization and the In need of a breakthrough, Kagame might do failure of governments to deliver the goods. “Elec- better to embrace biotechnology in order to toral competition and state failure go together,” he

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shrewdly observes, noting that in numerous Afri- Kinzer writes: “The reason Africa remains so far can countries—Rwanda among them—where behind the developed world is not simply bad democratic reforms threatened established re- leadership. It is also because the challenges fac- gimes, political disorder resulted. Certainly in ing African countries are overwhelming. Uniting Kagame’s view, three and a half decades of major- deeply divided societies and radically changing ity rule appear to have led inexorably to genocide. the mentality of entire populations are im- Bates’s argument, however, is nuanced. He sug- mensely difficult. Rwanda is an indigent society, gests that repression may prevent disorder—and crippled by generations of misrule. Turning it thus deliver Africans physical security—but with- into a happy, stable, prosperous place is a task of out delivering prosperity. “Poverty,” he concludes, Herculean dimensions.” “becomes the price of security.” That task is not Kagame’s alone. The saga of Kinzer breathlessly presents Kagame as capa- his country—and of Africa—is a staggering work ble of leading an economic transformation, and in progress. of being the one great hope of Africa. Pulling Rwanda out of poverty, he says, is Kagame’s G. Pascal Zachary frequently writes about African affairs and is a former foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. His “obsession.” But good intentions are not enough. memoir, Married to Africa, is forthcoming in January.

Married to the Muse Reviewed by Kate Christensen

The library of art history is rife with husbands’ paintings and HIDDEN IN THE biographies of The Artist—whomever he might sculptures, beyond these evo- SHADOWOFTHE be—as a young, middle-aged, old, and immortal cations of their changing MASTER: man. But rarely does a book deal primarily with expressions, modes of dress, The Model-Wives the woman he painted over and over, the ordin- settings, and periods of life, of Cézanne, ary model-wife whose face an artist immortalized little of substance was known Monet,and Rodin. in paint or bronze. Rarer still is the book that about any of them before now. By Ruth Butler. focuses on three such women and reveals them Butler argues convincingly Yale Univ. Press. 354 pp. $35 as biographical subjects in their own right. that her subjects are impor- Hidden in the Shadow of the Master is Ruth tant to the history of art, and not for their faces Butler’s masterfully researched examination of and figures alone. At the turn of the 20th cen- the lives of Hortense Fiquet, Camille Doncieux, tury, traditional artistic subjects, taken from and Rose Beuret, the three women who mod- myth, the Bible, and history, were giving way to eled for, bore sons to, lived in poverty with, and a more quotidian, social, realistic mode. That eventually married three of the towering artis- Cézanne, Monet, and Rodin chose as their tic geniuses of their time: Paul Cézanne, models the women they lived with was a revo- Claude Monet, and Auguste Rodin, respec- lutionary shift: The domestic and aesthetic tively. All were ordinary girls plucked from the became connected in an entirely new way. streets of Paris by their future husbands, hand- “These women,” Butler writes, “weren’t just picked, apparently, with an eye toward muse- models; they brought a whole spectrum of feel- dom. Though they figure prominently in their ings with them, giving their husbands’ art emo-

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tional texture and substance, contributing ele- was also talkative and opinionated, and she ments for art as important as the light in which spent too much money. The “blunt, graceless, a scene is bathed, the space where an object balding” Cézanne, who generally feared sits, or movements that provide real character women and disliked being touched, was fond in a scene or to a figure.” enough of the young Fiquet to risk his in- Butler, a professor emerita at the University of come, which he received from his father and Massachusetts, Boston, and the author of a biog- which was contingent on his remaining sin- raphy of Rodin, re-creates these muses from a gle, to live with her in secrecy. He also female, modern-day standpoint, so that we can concealed the birth of their son Paul, but it feel, viscerally, looking at the paintings and sculp- wasn’t long before his parents discovered the tures of them, what it must have been like to keep existence of his household and reduced his house for their men, to live with them day in and allowance by half, thus creating a life of peri- patetic poverty for the small family. (One advantage of using Fiquet as a model must have been that her services cost Cézanne nothing.) Most of Cézanne’s friends disliked Fiquet. She was apparently frank to the point of insulting regarding his work. Matisse recounted to a friend that Fiquet once told him, “You know Cézanne did not really know what he was doing. He didn’t know how to finish his paintings. Renoir, Monet, they really knew their métier as painters.” Art critic Roger Fry described her, in 1925, as a “sour- looking bitch.” Butler does not join that chorus. “Everyone who knew Hortense spoke of her gregarious nature, her love of conversation,” Butler writes, and sitting for at least 27 portraits, having to be still and quiet for so many hours on end, must have been difficult work, even if Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory (1891), by Paul Cézanne she could not always adequately appreciate the results. “Having invested so much of her- day out, to contend with their moods, egos, and self in these images, it’s worthwhile wonder- great gifts. The lives of both husband and wife ing how Hortense saw them,” Butler adds. were, in each case, inextricably intertwined and “From what little we know, she did not see yet fraught with inequality. them very well. But then, there was only a small coterie of people who could really ‘see’ he odd, curiously detached alliance Cézanne’s work in the 19th century.” between Hortense Fiquet and Paul In spite of Butler’s efforts to round out her T Cézanne began sometime in 1869 and subject, Fiquet “remains a puzzle.” There is lasted until his death in 1906. Cézanne’s not enough information recorded about her model-wife, “a sometimes handsome, some- for a biographer or reader to feel a strong, times plain, brunette with large dark eyes,” clear, complex sense of who she was apart was of lowly birth and 11 years his junior. She from her husband. In lieu of her own defin-

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itive appraisal of Fiquet, Butler cites their costumes, coiffures, and gestures of the long artistic collaboration as proof of the “contemporary woman” were bracingly mod- strong feelings they had for each other. “These ern subjects in painting. This was what Monet two people counted for each other.” wanted to capture in his Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1865–66), in which five beautifully dressed amille Doncieux and Claude Monet women—three of whom Doncieux modeled likely met in Batignolles, a Paris for, Butler posits—enjoy an idyll in the woods C neighborhood where many young with six young men and a servant. (This work artists lived, when Doncieux was a teenager. should not to be confused with Édouard “It’s not hard to imagine the slender, dark- Manet’s 1863 painting of the same name, in haired Camille Doncieux doing her errands which the principal female model is nude.) in these streets, catching the eye of Claude The grace of Doncieux’s elegantly draped Monet on one of his forays to the café,” Butler body, not her face, is the focus of Monet’s por- conjectures. “He would surely have noted traits of her. her bearing, the way she walked, the way Unlike Fiquet and Cézanne, Doncieux and she made every item of dress look stylish Monet were happy together, despite severe and fine.” money troubles. She bore him a son, Jean, at 20. During their time in Bennecourt, a placid hamlet on the Seine, Monet painted Don- cieux’s portrait as she sat on the riverbank. Butler, scrutinizing the painting, delivers a beautiful description of the artist-muse rela- tionship when she asks “whether Camille sensed that her own place in the scene was less that of an actress, as before, and more that of observer and anchor.” When Doncieux was 23, they married. Rumor has it that Monet wed her for her dowry of 12,000 francs. But what part did love play? “From all evidence Camille Doncieux was a lovable charmer—a favorite amongst Monet’s friends,” Butler writes. Her husband “both used and ill-used” her, but “he adored his son, and he certainly loved her.” For Doncieux, “the marriage was the ultimate promise. No matter how frequent his ab- Camille Monet (1872), by Claude Monet sences, she would not be abandoned.” But neither was she to enjoy a stable or predictable existence. The very next year, Where Fiquet “brought solidity and 1871, found her posing for a painting called patience” to Cézanne’s work, “young Camille Repose, clearly depressed and lonely in a Doncieux brought a sense of style and an dreary London flat, slumped on a chaise instinctive taste for feminine elegance to the longue. Less than four years later, however, painting of Claude Monet.” In his review of the Monets were the owners of a house in the Salon of 1859 art exhibition, Butler Paris, thanks to an upswing in Claude’s paint- observes, Charles Baudelaire urged that the ing career. After her terrible death in 1879 fol-

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lowing a protracted illness, Monet painted personality. She remained devoted to Rodin, one of his most beautiful portraits of her, even during their separations and his love Camille on Her Deathbed. In her shroud, she affairs. At the end of their lives, they lived in a looks almost like a bride asleep. villa in Meudon, southwest of Paris. Rodin was a celebrated genius, and Beuret was a utler’s empathetic imagination is espe- furtive, strange old woman who organized cially incisive in her treatment of dinners and lurked about the property in old BRose Beuret, an uneducated clothes. girl from the hinterlands who was Rodin and Beuret finally married working as a seamstress in a factory in 1917, when Beuret was 72. Butler’s when Rodin hired her to sit for account of the period leading up to him. She was tiny and strong, and, their wedding is the most as the model for the bust Mignon touching passage in the book. (c. 1864–65), fiercely beautiful, Rose was sick; Rodin was ex- with high cheekbones, her hausted. They had no money. The gaze direct and alive. villa was in a shambles. The coun- Rodin admired her “phys- try was at war. They wrote their ical vigor and her firm flesh wills. In the cold winter of 1916–17, of a peasant’s daughter, she Rodin borrowed the money to had that lively, frank, definite, buy her a gold ring. About two masculine charm that augments weeks after their January 29 the beauty of a woman’s body.” wedding, Beuret died of pneu- She quickly bore him a son, monia; when Rodin died later after which the family moved to that year, he was buried next to Montmartre, where Beuret posed her in their garden. The image of and oversaw Rodin’s studio. their two bodies lying forever side by Both of them worked extremely side is a fitting metaphor for the hard. Nothing is known of her complex partnerships this inner life; she could barely unusual book lays bare. write. But the letters Rodin Hidden in the Shadow of wrote her whenever they were the Master illuminates without Bellona (1879), by Auguste Rodin separated were passionate, tender, softening or mitigation the (model, Rose Beuret) and filled with longing. By the similar ways in which all three time she was in her late twenties women suffered immensely she had aged a good deal, or so we can sur- because of their affiliations with men of artis- mise from a portrait Rodin painted of her; it tic genius. So many of the things women has always been known as The Mother of the hoped to gain in those days by marrying were Artist. However, Butler’s case that the model closed off to them: legitimacy, security, social was his wife is vividly convincing. Butler status. But as this book makes amply evident, chronicles the physical changes the painting these women’s lives, no matter how difficult, illustrated, then adds that Rodin “focused on painful, or uncertain, were never boring. But- a singular quality of Rose that remained part ler has shown that the silent muse is a com- of her character all her life—her intensity and pelling subject in her own right. her passion.” Beuret in her early old age had a famously Kate Christensen is the author of four novels, the most recent of which, The Great Man (2007), won the PEN/Faulkner Award bad temper, failing health, and a morbidly shy for Fiction.

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HISTORY and gathering dust in the New York Public Library, Tom Buk-Swienty amply portrays Riis’s storybook Poverty of the life and his role in publicizing the horrors of Gilded Age poverty. Imagination Born in a small town in Denmark in 1849, Riis Reviewed by James McGrath Morris made his way to the United States in 1870 after fail- More than a century has ing to win the hand of a local beauty. Remarkably, THE OTHER HALF: passed since the publication of and Hollywood-like, Riis found financial success in The Life of Jacob How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis and the World of the United States, after much hardship, and got the Riis’s portrait of poverty that Immigrant America. girl six years later. shamed America. The effect of By Tom Buk-Swienty. It was as a New York City police reporter that the book, which is still in print, Translated by Annette Riis began the work for which he would become was as profound as that of Har- Buk-Swienty. Norton. known. Few, if any, reporters possessed the temerity 331 pp. $27.95 riet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s of Riis, who made it a habit to wander the streets Cabin. Yet until now, Riis has been without a and alleys of the Lower East Side, especially at decent biography. night. It was almost as if a new and dangerous fron- The Other Half is a comprehensive account of tier were opening in the burgeoning urban land- the Danish immigrant who became the Tocqueville scape of America just as the fabled one in the West of America’s underclass. Using material passed over was closing. And, like an industrial-age Meriwether by others, such as Riis’s diaries, written in Danish Lewis, Riis explored it.

As a young man, Jacob Riis left his native Denmark to escape a broken heart, and found his calling as a journalist who published exposés of the horrific conditions in which NewYorkCity’s poor lived.He tookthis photograph around 1889 in a LudlowStreet sweatshop.

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For a decade, he worked to awaken his readers his death in 1914 were productive: Riis wrote a to the privation that lay in the dozen square miles of dozen more books and finally possessed the power dilapidated tenements only a few blocks from the and influence—with friends such as Theodore city’s prosperous avenues. Riis wrote about children Roosevelt—to make headway in ending the poverty dying from epidemic outbreaks of diptheria, sleep- he recorded. ing men falling to their deaths from roofs where This part of Riis’s saga is as important as his rise, they had sought refuge at night from the stifling for it reveals the limits of muckraking. Riis man- summer heat, blind beggars living in hovels, and aged to change some housing laws and raze some armies of tramps moving through the streets. But of the worst tenements, but beyond those small vic- his dramatic newspaper accounts failed to stir the tories, he found it was one thing to provoke shame public to act. in his adopted land but another to bring about true In the late 1880s, technology offered Riis a new and lasting social change. way to reach his audience. Armed with a hand-held James McGrath Morris, the author of The Rose Man of Sing camera and a revolutionary flash powder, he Sing (2003) and Jailhouse Journalism (1998), is at work on a biog- raphy of Joseph Pulitzer. He edits the monthly newsletter The Biog- retraced his journeys through the Lower East Side. rapher’s Craft. The photographs with which he returned have since become iconic images known to all, from America on the Couch schoolchildren thumbing through textbooks to Reviewed by Charles Barber scholars of American history. By combining graphic representations of poverty with anecdotal tales that Psychotherapy has been a humanized the victims and were buttressed with series of generally well-intentioned AMERICAN “scientific” statistics, Riis established a new kind of attempts to throw mud against a THERAPY: The Rise of American journalism. The emotionally powerful wall to see what sticks. Over the Psychotherapy in formula, well suited to the emerging mass media, past century, that method has told the United States. stoked newspaper circulations and fanned the us this: Psychotherapy works. Two- By Jonathan Engel. flames of reform. thirds of patients improve within Gotham. 352 pp. $27.50 At the time, permanent poverty was an unthink- six months of starting treatment able social ill in the United States. Many in the com- (longer treatment yields few further results). The fortable classes believed that the worst poverty was therapist’s training and the school or philosophy of confined to a few newcomers who would eventually therapy in use make little difference. What does join the middle class through hard work and frugal- matter is the empathy level the patient perceives in ity, as generations before had done. Those who the therapist, the patient’s willingness to engage in remained poor did so because of their own failings. therapy, the severity of the patient’s illness to begin Riis’s work brought this Jericho Wall of smug with, and the appropriateness of match, or treat- reasoning tumbling down. After the publication of ment alliance, between patient and practitioner. How the Other Half Lives in 1890, it became broadly The pursuit of therapy—if not happiness—is a accepted that the poor were victims of circum- largely American phenomenon, Jonathan Engel tells stances, an idea that laid the groundwork for 20th- us in American Therapy. By the 1960s, the United century efforts to combat poverty. States had more clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, In this biography, Buk-Swienty, a Danish jour- and psychiatric social workers than the rest of the nalist, chronicles Riis’s rise from poor immigrant to world combined. “The history of psychotherapy in famous muckraker. But in doing so, the author con- the United States . . . is a classic American tale of dis- denses the remaining third of his subject’s life to a covery, entrepreneurship, and self-promotion,” writes scant 40 pages, implying that Riis rode off into the Engel, a professor of health care policy and man- sunset like a Lone Ranger of social justice whose agement at Baruch College. work was done. In fact, the remaining years until For it was in America, in the early 1900s, that

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Freudianism and psychoanalysis took hold as therapeutic technique. Today, such excesses have nowhere else (despite Sigmund Freud’s personal diminished. In recent decades, the profession for antipathy toward the United States). A therapeu- the first time has exposed itself to the light of day tic parade has followed: behaviorism (which by objectively examining its actual clinical views human beings as stimulus-response outcomes, producing what could be called a machines in which only observable, measurable rational approach to psychotherapy. Good thera- behavior matters); humanistic approaches pists these days are schooled in a variety of tech- (which focus on social relationships as the key to niques and can deploy, with a fair degree of cer- wellness); cognitive therapy (which posits that tainty, the appropriate approach for the thinking and beliefs individual patient. drive our behavior and American Therapy is a thoroughly researched There appears to be some emotions); populist and elegantly organized survey of therapy on truth to the notion that sick self-help programs America’s historical landscape. It is a commendable souls have a particular such as Alcoholics effort and would make a fine ancillary text for intro- insight into what can make Anonymous and Nar- ductory psychology courses. But therein lies the us well. cotics Anonymous; the problem. Engel’s assertion that the rise of psycho- largely 1960s-vintage therapy is a uniquely American story—one that therapies such as elec- suits our nation’s varying sensibilities of optimism, troshock, transcendental meditation, and primal pragmatism, and reinvention—is absolutely true. scream (the latter favored, briefly, by John Each school of therapy has reflected the particular Lennon and Yoko Ono); and so on. preoccupations of the era in which it was invented: Engel writes, but does not write enough, Behaviorism and cognitive approaches came of age about the characters who invented these various in the rational 1950s, self-help and self-exploratory approaches. These doctors and visionaries were journeys in the trippy ’60s, self-esteem inter- typically brilliant—and many were famously ventions in the battered ’70s. Since the ’80s, we troubled. The humanist Harry Stack Sullivan have seen the rise of approaches (and psychiatric (whom novelist Walker Percy called perhaps medications, that new adjunct of—or replacement America’s greatest psychiatrist), for example, for—psychotherapy) designed to help us function championed the importance of social relations, in increasingly competitive economic times. Engel’s but was alcoholic, depressed, and misanthropic. narrative does not do justice to the fascinating There does appear to be some truth to the notion dialectic (or the stimulus-response, if you will) that sick souls, such as the great early psycholo- between our exterior and interior landscapes. gist William James, have a particular insight into But Engel does show that throughout this long, what can make us well. (Among the exceptions is strange trip, psychotherapy has truly mattered in midwesterner William Menninger, hugely influ- America. Has it served as an antidote to American ential in raising psychiatry’s profile and credibil- individualism? Have we used it to refute F. Scott ity during and after World War II, who appears Fitzgerald’s assertion that there are no second acts to have been a particularly sanguine character.) in American lives? Who knows. What we can con- Psychotherapy’s progress did not come with- clude from American Therapy is a truth more uni- out much confusion and excess, and even versal than it is American: There has always been cruelty—lobotomies, excessive use of electro- something unutterably and mysteriously healing shock therapy, and charlatanry. A 1970s study by about the unburdening of one’s soul to another the California State Psychological Association person.

found that more than five percent of male Charles Barber, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University psychologists had had sex with female patients, School of Medicine, is the author of Comfortably Numb: How Psy- chiatry Is Medicating a Nation, published earlier this year, and some claiming that intercourse was a bona fide Songs From the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors (2005).

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ARTS & LETTERS reconceived as a public event subject to political regulation, even to historic preservation. What Mind and Matter would it mean to preserve somehow an era’s Reviewed by Geoff Manaugh prevailing mode of thought—and is this perhaps what architecture has been doing all along? Rather That each city might have than pursue these questions, which are seemingly a particular psychological effect CONCRETE the ultimate example of how difficult it can be to REVERIES: on its inhabitants, or that the draw clean lines between inside and out, Kingwell Consciousness very act of living in cities might and the City. steps away into a discussion of Descartes’ 17th- entail its own brand of cogni- century ideas about individual self-perception. By Mark Kingwell. tion, is not an original claim. Viking. 292 pp. $24.95 As this example shows, Kingwell’s citations— Such lines of thinking have the texts with which he aligns himself—often get formed a thriving undercurrent in European in the way of the book’s promise. In fact, David thought for at least the past two centuries. Where Hume, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Paul Mark Kingwell tries to break new ground in Con- Virilio—all of the thinkers Kingwell calls upon— crete Reveries, however, is in applying historical overshadow important questions at the heart of texts, from Walter Benjamin and René Descartes to Concrete Reveries. Still, it is these questions that Sigmund Freud and the novels of J. G. Ballard, to make the book worthwhile. problems of contemporary city planning, including How does the built environment affect what Chinese Olympic architecture and skyscraper Kingwell calls consciousness? In his examination of design. In a book heavy on philosophy, Kingwell New York City’s Grand Central Station, for instance, discusses boundaries, thresholds, and the multiva- he finds the possibility of an “expansive individual- lent borders that divide inside from out. He looks at ism” that exceeds the promises of more explicitly how spatialization affects—and is affected by— political monuments such as the Statue of Liberty. historically specific styles of thinking. In Grand Central, Kingwell writes, “movement is Can a city be the material realization of an era everything”; it is a Romantic space that both of thought—and can cities retroactively inspire cer- inspires and enables a particularly American way of tain states of what Kingwell, a professor of philoso- being. Nodes such as these within cities—New York, phy at the University of Toronto, calls “conscious- Shanghai, Berlin, Vancouver—deserve their own ness”? The word choice here is not ideal; whereas a psychological catalog, their own social narrative, term such as “subjectivity” might have better com- their own historical accounting. Pursued rigorously, municated the changing, socially defined nature of this approach could offer revolutionary insights. thought, “consciousness” carries far too much bag- The irony, though, is that a book striving gage for use in a rigorous analysis. It becomes toward analytic radicalism comes across as merely another word for the soul, and is, ironically, remarkably well behaved. At moments it is a holdover from another era of thought. tempting to pull Kingwell aside and assure him Kingwell’s basic line of inquiry is nonetheless that many of the historical texts he trots out are exciting. When a building is added to—or, as in the relevant only insofar as scholars continue, unnec- case of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, essarily, to quote them. Kingwell would have violently removed from—the urban landscape, done himself a favor by sticking to the thoughts “how is your experience, and mine, altered by this of Mark Kingwell—an original thinker with new place”? Kingwell proposes a radical possibility provocative ideas that, in the future, we must here: that urban experience, as the “shared horizon” hope he will have the courage to explore. of humanity, can itself be politicized. In other words, what could be considered a private, internal Geoff Manaugh is senior editor of Dwell magazine; his blog, BLDGBLOG, can be found at bldgblog.blogspot.com. The experience—Kingwell’s “consciousness”—can be BLDGBLOG Book is forthcoming next spring.

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pondence. The first meeting, in 1870, evidently Bulletins from left Higginson so drained that he confessed to his Immortality disapproving wife, “I am glad not to live near Reviewed by Stephanie E. Schlaifer her.” They had been discussing poetry when Dickinson declared, “If I feel physically as if the It was Emily Dickinson top of my head were taken off, I know that is who initiated the correspon- WHITE HEAT: poetry. . . . Is there any other way.” dence, in 1862, sending Thomas The Friendship of Dickinson pressed Higginson many times to Emily Dickinson and Wentworth Higginson four Thomas Wentworth visit her again after a second meeting three years poems and a brief query, “Are Higginson. later, but he acquiesced only at her passing, when you too deeply occupied to say if he attended her funeral. He once wrote to her, “I By Brenda Wineapple. my Verse is alive?” In White Knopf. 416 pp. $27.95 have the greatest desire to see you, always feeling Heat, Brenda Wineapple ex- that if I could once take you by the hand I might plores the quarter-century relationship of Dickin- be something to you; but till then you only son, the prolific and famously eccentric poet, and enshroud yourself in this fiery mist & I cannot Higginson, a minister, political activist, and reach you, but only rejoice in the rare sparkles of gentleman-of-all-trades. The book, Wineapple light.” declares, is neither biography nor literary criticism, Without explanation, Wineapple gives us only but an effort “to throw a brief excerpts from the two’s small, considered beam epistolary exchange, and onto the lifework of this is a disappoint- these two unusual, ment. Most of Hig- seemingly incompat- ginson’s letters to ible friends.” Dickinson were Wineapple illu- destroyed or lost. minates the oft- But many of Dick- neglected life of Hig- inson’s letters sur- ginson (1823–1911), vive. (What is most who served during the remarkable about them Civil War as a colonel Gentleman-of-all-trades Thomas Wentworth Higginson and poet Emily is how similar the in the first Union regi- Dickinson corresponded for 25 years, but met in person only twice. prose is to her poems— ment composed she seems not to have entirely of former slaves, was an avid contributor been able to keep from expressing herself in to The Atlantic Monthly (which published his meter and rhyme.) Still, through the bits of corre- article of advice to writers, “Letter to a Young spondence we are afforded, Wineapple shows us Contributor,” prompting Dickinson’s first letter), a central conceit of this complicated relationship: and oversaw the posthumous publication of Dickinson often presented herself as pupil to Dickinson’s poems. But a greater portion of the Higginson’s master or “preceptor”—a flirtatious book is devoted to Dickinson (1830–86), known ruse they both seemed tacitly to acknowledge as much for her reclusive behavior and her pen- and enjoy. If Dickinson habitually ignored chant for all-white garb as for her pithy verse Higginson’s suggestions for her verse, he certainly with its signature long dashes and hymnal rhyme influenced her. Wineapple includes a number of and meter. About her, there will likely always be poems clearly prompted by essays, stories, and more questions than answers. poems Higginson was publishing. Though they both lived in New England, the Dickinson’s impassioned exchanges were not pair met only twice during their 25-year corres- restricted to Higginson, and the book is most

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engaging when exploring the handful of other batant” and “civilian” interchangeably, though a close relationships Dickinson maintained—with few military personnel, such as doctors, are non- her sister Lavinia (Vinnie), the exuberant writer combatants, and many civilians are combatants. Helen Hunt Jackson, and her sister-in-law Sue, Neither point contradicts the basic premise of the only person with whom Dickinson shared Downes’s book, that civilians have been targeted more of her poems than Higginson. Each of her in modern interstate wars, and that this has been carefully chosen companions served a distinct a problem of increasing international concern. function in her life and after. Downes, a political scientist at Duke, argues that Dickinson instructed Vinnie to burn her the pressure to target civilians has arisen in two papers upon her death, which she did. Emily evi- types of war: those of territorial annexation, in dently had said nothing about her poems, which which enemy civilians are displaced or killed to were kept separately from the papers. Upon dis- make way for settlers, and wars of attrition, in covering these, Vinnie, Higginson, and the devil- which desperation drives even (or particularly) may-care socialite and writer Mabel Loomis democracies to target civilians in order to coerce Todd set about publishing Dickinson’s poems at the enemy to surrender. In Downes’s view, the last. It appears that Todd was responsible for the types of regime engaged in the war are not signif- transcription of Dickinson’s poems and the icant, nor is either military culture or the racial unforgivable liberties taken in editing them. identity of the enemy. Todd is also remembered for her not-so- Downes is a reduction- clandestine affair with Austin Dickinson, Emily’s ist, anxious to seek a Desperation drives even brother. Most of the book’s true heat derives from single set of explan- democracies to target civil- the account of this affair—a juicy respite from ations for a complex ians in order to coerce the White Heat’s more serious literary thrust—one I phenomenon. enemy to surrender. admit I enjoyed. He develops four

Stephanie E. Schlaifer is a poet and editor based in St. principal case studies: Louis. Her work has appeared in Fence, Delmar, elevenbulls, and the blockade of Germany in World War I, the elsewhere. strategic bombing of Japan (but not of Germany) in World War II, the conflict of 1947–49

CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS associated with the founding of Israel, and the South African War of 1899–1902. In the latter Victims of War conflict, the British decision to collect Boer fami- lies in “concentration” camps was less innovative Reviewed by Hew Strachan than first appearances suggest. Though colonial During the 20th century, annexation relied on assimilation more than Alexander B. Downes tells us, TARGETING ethnic cleansing, these wars still targeted the CIVILIANS IN WAR. between 43 and 54 million indigenous populations, because these popula- noncombatants died as a result By Alexander B. tions sustained their warriors in the field. When Downes. Cornell Univ. of war. However shocking, it is Press. 315 pp. $29.95 the British invaded Zululand in 1879, they a statement without precision. destroyed its agricultural base and sacked its cap- As he acknowledges, we have no firm bead on the ital, Ulundi: Women and children were not ex- civilian death toll in Iraq, let alone in the many empt from the consequences of that offensive, conflicts of sub-Saharan Africa. The military though Downes appears to believe they were. losses of World War I are known to the nearest The legacy of colonial warfare is an important million, the civilian losses not even to so general strand in the argument about the origins of 20th- an estimate. And how are we to define a combat- century “total war.” The British again waged eco- ant? Downes decides to treat the terms “noncom- nomic warfare when they blockaded the Central

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Powers in World War I. Downes is forgiving if Finally, Downes needs to consider what civilian deaths were caused unintentionally, for makes a democracy fight a protracted war. As he example by the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the rightly observes, no sensible democratic leader 1990s. Though he does not acknowledge it, many will knowingly undertake a long, bloody, and of the consequences of Britain’s blockade were indecisive conflict. In the first half of the 20th also indirect and unanticipated. Downes attrib- century, democracies fought long wars because utes the fall in German food production solely to they saw themselves as defending core values, the effects of the blockade, overlooking the role and so both military and moral imperatives justi- the Germans themselves played in diverting agri- fied breaching the principle of noncombatant cultural labor to wartime mobilization efforts, immunity.

mismanaging food distribution, and failing to Hew Strachan is Chichele Professor of the History of War and a understand the market. He ascribes all German fellow of All Souls College at the , where he directs the Leverhulme Program on the Changing Character of War. His most excess civilian deaths, due especially to tubercu- recent book is Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (2007). losis, to malnutrition. Finally, Downes concludes that the blockade contributed to the German decision to seek an armistice in 1918, though the Labors of Love choice was made by the German high command Reviewed by Darcy Courteau in response to the military situation. Fortunately, most will read this book not for Ask anyone who has done VOLUNTEERS: what it has to say about Germany, but for its argu- much volunteering and you are ASocial Profile. ment that, at least until 1970, a democracy was as bound to hear—along with By Marc A. Musick and likely to target civilians as was any other type of heartwarming stories of teach- John Wilson. regime (including the Nazis’), particularly in pro- ing a kid to read or saving a Indiana Univ. Press. tracted wars. Downes is on surer ground when he church slated for demolition— 663 pp. $39.95 examines the U.S. bombing of Japan during tales of abuse. A friend recalls the Saturday she 1944–45 and the wars fought in 1947–49 during sacrificed to help build a playground at a New Israel’s founding, both of which buttress his Orleans community center. She arrived to find conclusion that domestic norms against the killing the well-heeled volunteers who had donated the of civilians are, at best, secondary considerations in space standing around complaining into their explaining how democracies choose to fight. cell phones about the heat; she was handed a But there is a case for saying that—at least in shovel. Six palm-blistering hours later, she “acci- the two world wars—regime type was a more dentally” tossed mulch on a slacker and left. “I important factor than Downes allows. British just thought if we’re all in this together, let’s be in propaganda in World War I drew a distinction this together,” she said. between the German people and the Kaiser. The But it is our very self-reliance (and a distrust logic of the blockade was that starvation might of government), sociologists Marc A. Musick and provoke revolution, and so effect a change in John Wilson write in Volunteers, that spurs government. Believing that this was what had Americans to donate their time. Bootstraps happened in 1918, the Allies hoped for the same firmly in hand, we have the highest volunteer rate effects when they bombed Germany in 1944. in the world—one study estimates that nearly Hitler proved them wrong. Nonetheless, similar two-thirds of Americans volunteer. Because such arguments were voiced in advance of the labor is motivated by ideals rather than cash, tap- invasion of Iraq in 2003. Democracies have tar- ping this resource can be a delicate challenge. In geted civilians at least in part because they be- a giant compendium—of other social scientists’ lieve in the power of the people to overthrow studies as well as analyses of survey data col- tyrannical governments. lected over two decades—Musick and Wilson set

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out to paint an exhaustive portrait of modern vol- bluntly: “Voluntarism is clearly exploitative—in unteers, and “help practitioners better recruit, its implication that social justice for all classes train, motivate, and retain volunteers.” can be achieved through the moral ‘service’ of The book examines volunteers’ motivations some who are expendable, albeit out of choice.” and backgrounds—including race, gender, and From this perspective, our nation of do-it- socioeconomic resources—and addresses sub- yourselfers is a place where we are emphatically jects such as recruitment and types of service not all in this together. various groups favor. But the authors’ sweeping Reading Volunteers, I wondered what would approach encounters a not-uncommon prob- happen if Americans stopped being quite so lem: Many of the studies mentioned contradict gung-ho about signing up to help out. What if one another. So we are left with forehead slap- women took a break from the “dirty work,” and pers such as “In the opinion of many scholars, instead people were paid to do it? The warm- organizations will recruit volunteers only if fuzzies sector might shrink, but the resulting jobs they appeal to their values and beliefs” and would allow those who couldn’t afford to volun- “There is quite convincing evidence that volun- teer to have a bigger role in helping others, even teers are more empathic people than non- as—per the American way—they helped volunteers.” You don’t say. themselves.

Many recruiters won’t be surprised to learn Darcy Courteau, a writer living in New Orleans, has spent that their best volunteer prospects are affluent, thousands of hours volunteering in education programs in the United States and India. white, churchgoing women. (While women do not contribute more hours than men, they volun- teer at a higher rate.) To be fair, people in each of Spouse Hunt these categories are the most likely to be asked— Reviewed by Renuka Rayasam 41 percent of white Americans, for instance, have been asked to volunteer, compared with 33 per- Recently, I described West- cent of blacks, and nearly two-thirds of Amer- ern dating to an uncle in India MARRYING ANITA: AQuest for Love in icans with household incomes over $75,000 are who is trying to arrange mar- the New India. asked compared with one-third of those earning riages for his two daughters. After By Anita Jain. Blooms- less than $25,000. Being asked is a strong sharing his own troubles finding bury. 307 pp. $24.99 predictor of who volunteers. suitable young men, he ruefully From amid the obvious conclusions and the concluded, “Getting married here is one type of sociological jargon, however, an engaging narra- hell, but getting married there is another.” tive begins to emerge, of Americans’—especially Anita Jain has suffered the worst of both American women’s—relationship to labor. “In worlds. Fed up with the “emotionally excruciating capitalist societies,” the authors write, “volunteers uphill battle” of dating in New York City, Jain, a are often admired as people, but their work is world-traveled financial journalist, returned to the devalued. We tend to assume that if a job is really country of her parents’ upbringing and her own worth doing, it will be paid for.” Often, the volun- birth. Marrying Anita chronicles her search for a teer work that women do is “society’s ‘dirty husband when she moved to Delhi at the age of 32. work,’ ” similar to household duties—caring for Jain, who grew up in the United States, children and the elderly, preparing meals, book- figured that focusing her search for a year in In- keeping. Men tend to have “more desirable” lead- dia, where she believed men were more marriage ership roles in the public domain: coach, oriented, would improve her odds of finding a firefighter, board member. This imbalance led husband. Besides meeting potential husbands in many in the feminist movement of the 1970s to flashy Delhi bars and on Indian dating websites, resist volunteering. Activist Doris Gold put it Jain took a second stab at arranging a marriage

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through an ad her father placed in The Times of describing modern India falters when she focuses India. (She wrote in a 2005 New York Magazine inward. Often, she blames her romantic failures article about the first attempt, which failed but on the overused emigrant’s complaint of neither left her more appreciative of the traditional fitting in here nor there—too liberated for Indian Indian way of finding a mate, who is selected by men, but not free enough for American ones. To one’s family.) Western ears, she says, her urge to settle down Unfortunately, Jain seems more interested sounds “atavistic in nature, a throwback to a time in stringing together amusing dating anecdotes when women couldn’t financially support them- than in making a sincere attempt at cross- selves.” Yet her own view of partnership is pretty cultural understanding. Many of the people she dismal: She looks down on female friends who encounters in America and India read like cari- married right after college and disdains women catures. British journalists are “rapacious con- who choose marriage over a career. versationalists”; men from Ohio are too Jain decided to leave New York for Delhi after earnest. Indian mothers care only about marry- attending a Central Park picnic at which she was ing off their daughters, while every unattached the only person not part of a couple. Fleeing in female New York professional spends her tears, she vowed not to become “that proverbial evenings poring over the “disturbing minutiae” single thirtysomething female propped up at the of dating. bar waiting for her ship to come in.” But then she Jain’s sharply trained reporter’s eye is best landed in India, only to find that the “razzle- used when she describes the rapid changes jux- dazzle” new country had created waves of the taposed with the traditionalism encrusting “young cads” she had hoped to escape. Same bar, Indian cities. She had been to Delhi before, but different scenery.

when she returned in 2005, “it was different.” Renuka Rayasam is a Washington, D.C.-based writer. Her work Young, educated, tech-savvy professionals were has appeared in Condé Nast Portfolio, INC Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and Fortune. transforming the ancient city through their demand for Western luxuries. Upscale coffee

shops, Italian restaurants, nightclubs, and SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY malls abutted centuries-old forts and open-air bazaars. Fear Itself Searching for an apartment, Jain was shocked Reviewed by Evelin Sullivan to find that many Delhi landlords didn’t like rent- ing to single women, fearing they might be prosti- In the last chapter of THE SCIENCE tutes or at least would entertain males. She finally his eminently readable explo- OFFEAR: moved into a renovated flat with a view of the city’s ration of our allegedly danger- WhyWe Fear ancient landmarks, and herself became another ous world, Daniel Gardner the Things We dissonant element of the landscape. “I now marvel describes a cemetery in Ontar- Shouldn’t—and at the incongruities and ironies that abound in this io where a headstone com- Put Ourselves in country each day,” she writes. “I’m able to install memorates the six children of Greater Danger. Wi-Fi, allowing me to check e-mail from bed, but one couple, all killed by diph- By Daniel Gardner. Dutton. 339 pp. $24.95 my cook, Amma—a small dumpling of a 70-year- theria within less than a week old woman—who prepares fresh sabzi, dal, chap- in 1902. Far from marking a freakish occurrence, atis, and rice each day, extracts the utterly baffling the headstone is a reminder of the vast toll conta- third world rate of $18.20 a month.” Cheap labor gious illnesses took on children in the dark days makes cooks and cleaners commonplace even in before vaccines all but eradicated such diseases in India’s lower-middle-class households. the industrialized world. It is the final proof of It’s too bad the insight Jain exhibits when what Gardner argues throughout The Science of

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Fear: The world we have inherited is in many ronment where information is local, the example ways the safest—least risky to the individual and of one member of the tribe being eaten by a lion the species—that has ever existed. plants in the other members a vivid—hence, easy So why, he asks, are we afraid of so many to recall—memory of the very real danger of lions things? Why do homicides, abductions, and and places frequented by lions. In an environ- other statistically unlikely threats (Gardner ment where information propagates rapidly, and includes terrorism among these) occupy an inor- a hundred million of us find out, through the dinate amount of our attention and consume media, about one gruesome homicide, the exam- resources that could be spent protecting us from ple, processed by Gut in the same way, does little statistically far more significant threats, such as or nothing to make us safer. But it does raise the preventable illnesses? Gardner’s answer is that national anxiety level and make us more easily evolution has equipped us with a brain superbly persuaded to allocate funds for more prisons or suited to tell us what to do when we spot a large to support the death penalty. brown thing in the long grass: recognize it for a Gardner puts into context half a dozen other lion, get scared, and run like hell; once safe, tell such rules. All of them share their immense everybody about what happened to the slowest usefulness for the survival of hunters and gath- one. But our brains are ill equipped to process— erers. And all of them share the unfortunate at that same speed, and based on the same need- potential to make us bark up the wrong light to-know premise—the more subtle dangers com- pole in environments where light poles out- ing our way. number trees. The brain Homo sapiens possessed as early as His analysis suggests that for the sake of our 200,000 years ago has remained unchanged in survival, one fear ought to become stronger: that the blink of an eye that constitutes the span of of being afraid of the wrong things. He may not modern history. This brain consists of subcon- succeed in shutting up Gut when it says “Lock scious and conscious, or what Gardner calls “Gut” the doors or risk being murdered,” but he pre- and “Head.” Once, Gut (feeling) kept people alive sents compelling evidence that unfounded fears by rapidly, intuitively differentiating between safe pose real dangers. Only by recognizing these dan- and dangerous, and by prompting life-saving gers will we be ready to give Head a chance and actions based on its split-second verdict. Head to fight wasteful and foolish measures proposed (reason)—the ability to use logic, analyze, do the to keep us safe from what we needn’t fear. math—was not useful, given the conditions. Evelin Sullivan, a lecturer at Stanford University, is the author Gut brought the species far, by instinctively fol- of The Concise Book of Lying (2001) and four novels. She is at work on a book about the natural history of fear. lowing a set of rules. Gardner, a Canadian journal- ist, draws on a wealth of academic research to cata- log these rules and show how necessary they were for making the world intelligible and survivable for Einstein, Relatively prehistoric humankind. And he convincingly Speaking argues that they can thoroughly mislead us—and Reviewed by David Lindley are used by manipulators of all stripes to do so. (What better way to sell us software X or burglar Physicists sometimes alarm Y than by frightening us with inflated num- indulge in an entertaining but EINSTEIN’S MISTAKES: bers of Internet predators or crimes we’re unlikely largely pointless debate about The Human to become victims of?) which of their two preeminent Failings of Genius. Take, for instance, “the Example Rule”: Gut geniuses, Isaac Newton or Albert By Hans C. Ohanian. tells us that the more easily we recall an event, Einstein, deserves the all-time Norton. 394 pp. $24.95 the more likely it is to happen again. In an envi- number one ranking. Hans

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Ohanian has no doubts on the matter. Newton is There is, to be sure, the germ of an interesting worth several Einsteins, he tells us, although it story here. Einstein’s arguments were often would have been more in keeping with the makeshift and occasionally shoddy, but most of frequently pedantic spirit of his book if he had let the time he knew where he wanted to go and us know exactly how many Einsteins—three? found a way to get there. That, as Ohanian four and a quarter?—stack up to one Newton. At admits, is one definition of genius, but he shows one point, Ohanian even suggests that Einstein little interest in pursuing the thought. Instead, wasn’t quite up to the level of Max Planck, the facing up to the evident truth that Einstein re- founder of quantum theory, but by the end of peatedly hit on answers to difficult puzzles before Einstein’s Mistakes he has restored Einstein to he could figure out a convincing justification for the number two position. Putting Einstein in his them, Ohanian can only throw up his hands and place seems, at any rate, to be Ohanian’s main declare that Einstein was “a mystic in the throes purpose. of a revelation.” In his minute analysis of Ein- Though recent biographies have largely stein’s works, Ohanian reveals himself to be the dispelled the cherished myth that Einstein was a kind of strictly logical, step-by-step physicist that dunce at school, it is true that the great physicist Einstein plainly was not, and Ohanian’s inability was not a natural mathematician. After making to cope with that difference almost seems to have the enormous conceptual leap that connected the turned into a personal animosity. phenomenon of gravitation to the fact that space- This is a scientific rather than a personal time is curved, it took Einstein many excruci- study, but still, Ohanian finds time to mention ating years to find the appropriate mathematical the less attractive aspects of Einstein’s character: expression for this idea and thereby create the his shabby treatment of his first wife, his neglect theory of general relativity. Einstein’s earlier of his children, his tendency to slight his col- attempts, some published, some abandoned, con- leagues’ scientific contributions, his dreadful sar- tained deep flaws. In his other revolutionary torial sense, his love of certain disgustingly heavy achievements too, Einstein’s first pronounce- German foods. Only in the later chapters, when ments were rarely the last word. Over the years, the aging Einstein has come to America to spend those original insights were painstakingly his final years working fruitlessly on a “theory of polished to become the scientific theories we everything,” does the tone soften. An eccentric, know today, and often it was other physicists— rather lonely figure, Einstein turns at last into a more rigorous than Einstein, if less imaginative— dotty old uncle whom Ohanian can regard with who filled in the gaps and supplied the finishing pity instead of scorn.

touches. David Lindley is the author, most recently, of Uncertainty: Ein- This, by and large, is nothing more than how stein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science (2007). science ordinarily progresses, but Ohanian, a for- mer editor at the American Journal of Physics and Fuller’s Earth author of several textbooks, seems intent on find- Reviewed by Edward Tenner ing in the missteps and fudges of Einstein’s papers a new and shocking portrait of the man. Einstein’s When he died in 1983, pre-1905 efforts “have faded into the obscurity they Buckminster Fuller was the BUCKMINSTER FULLER: richly deserve.” He made blunders in his great world’s most beloved de- Starting With the works of 1905 because he “was not thinking like a signer, a pioneer of bold new Universe. physicist, but like a patent clerk.” A mistake in the geometric concepts in trans- Edited by K. Michael first attempt to prove that E = mc2 “is the sort of portation (the streamlined Hays and Dana Miller. thing every amateur mathematician knows to Dymaxion Car), housing (the Yale Univ. Press. 258 pp. $50 watch out for.” And so on. geodesic dome, a lightweight

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open and close his introduction to this catalog by underscoring that Fuller was not an architect. So what was he, then? Hays shows how Fuller’s “lightful” plans of the 1920s and ’30s for new housing suspended from vertical masts were part of a Modernist reaction against the values of weight and solidity that had prevailed from antiquity to World War I. Fuller’s designs reflected the propagandistic architecture of the Soviet avant-garde before Socialist Realism’s triumph, as well as the expansive vision of the Swiss master of self- invention and self-promotion, Le Corbusier. What distinguished Fuller from these contemporaries, Hays says, were a lack of “reflexivity” (conscious references in design to architecture’s heritage), de-emphasis of stability in favor of dynamic relationships, and a denial that nature, humanity, and Among those whom the visionary R. Buckminster Fuller in- technology are dis- spired was Boris Artzybasheff,creator of this 1964 Time cover. Buckminster Fuller was a tinct entities. While a preppy nerd and buttoned- hemisphere of connected polygons), and ur- massive challenge to down bohemian, green guru banism (a supersized dome proposed to cover the uninitiated, Hays’s central Manhattan), a best-selling author and chapter clarifies and globe-trotting jet fuel mesmerizing speaker, and a prophet of envi- Fuller’s complex sym- consumer; he proclaimed a ronmental stewardship. Two years later, in- biosis with Establish- new cosmos of structural vestigators named a newly discovered spheri- ment architects and lightness and left a personal cal carbon molecule, with a structure like the critics. archive of 45 tons about it. dome’s, the “Buckminsterfullerene” in his An essay on Fuller honor. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry they as scientist-artist, by received for this work in 1996 helped create a Whitney associate curator Dana Miller, is new generation of Fuller admirers. But their more illuminating about the man himself, prolific hero is hard to know. showing how much of Fuller’s secret was his Preppy nerd and buttoned-down bohem- gift for friendship. This magnetism helped ian, green guru and globe-trotting jet fuel make Fuller exceptionally resilient, and a cat- consumer, a college expellee who relished alyst of colleagues’ work. The chairs he honorary degrees, Buckminster Fuller designed for an avant-garde Greenwich Vil- (b. 1895) proclaimed a new cosmos of struc- lage bar collapsed on opening night in 1929 tural lightness and left a personal archive of and were replaced by benches built by a 45 tons about it. It is indicative of Fuller’s carpenter. But his renown among the tavern’s paradoxes that the cocurator of the Whitney bohemian customers suffered not a bit; one Museum’s exhibition of his work that closed patron, Isamu Noguchi, painted his studio sil- earlier this fall, Harvard Graduate School of ver following Fuller’s plans, and created a Design professor K. Michael Hays, should chrome-plated bronze portrait head of Fuller

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echoed 35 years later in Boris Artzybasheff’s RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY illustration for a 1964 Time cover. Elizabeth Smith, a curator at the Museum of Contempo- Saints and Sinners rary Art in Chicago, brings the story of Ful- Reviewed by T. R. Reid ler’s legacy in contemporary art up to date, seeing his influence in the work of artists such If history is written by as Olafur Eliasson and Irit Batsry. the victors, church history MASSACRE AT MOUNTAIN Antoine Picon, also of Harvard, makes the is usually written by the MEADOWS. case for Fuller as a prophet of today’s digital vicars. Naturally, these cap- By Ronald W. Walker, utopianism, as a brilliant innovator in the visual tive chronicles—generally Richard E. Turley Jr., presentation of data (especially his geodesic pro- churned out by priests, bish- and Glen M. Leonard. Oxford Univ. Press. jection of the globe), and as a progenitor of gen- ops, and in-house archi- 430 pp. $29.95 eral-systems approaches to resource manage- vists—tend to accentuate ment. But Picon also rightly observes that Fuller the positive and gloss over errors and was “at heart a traditional humanist.” Mega- excesses. structures such as the planned Manhattan So it is both surprising and admirable that dome, in Fuller’s view, were not opposed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day human scale but a means of liberation from “the Saints provided extensive official support to a mechanical enslavement of the industrial era.” new warts-and-all history of the Mountain The great attraction of this book is the 175 Meadows Massacre, one of the darkest plates and the other illustrations, superbly moments in the 180-year history of the Mor- reproduced, that show the many sides of mon Church. The church opened century-old Fuller: geometric visionary, practical archives for this account of the infamous designer, and super salesman. But Fuller’s mass murder in a high Utah meadow in 1857. contradictions remain unresolved, and some The church was not always so helpful. For of his greatest predecessors and successors nearly a century after some 120 California- are absent from the book. For example, bound emigrants were killed by local Mor- Walther Bauersfeld, developer of the Zeiss mons, church leaders relied on the stonewall. projection planetarium, patented a geo- As late as 1990, when a memorial was un- desic dome for it three decades before Fuller veiled at the massacre site—at the foot of the received his own dome patent in 1954. Mormon Range, in the desert corner where Hays reprints a 1928 photograph by László Utah, Nevada, and Arizona meet—descen- Moholy-Nagy of a Zeiss dome under con- dants of the victims complained that the struction, without citing Bauersfeld. church was still concealing basic information As chronological documentation and visual about the crime. inspiration, Starting With the Universe will Massacre at Mountain Meadows is not a be an entry point for the study of this most formal Mormon publication, but its authors unusual man. But the successors of the include an assistant church historian publics that responded so warmly to Fuller’s (Richard E. Turley Jr.) and a former director many sides during his lifetime, from Pentagon of the church’s Museum of Church History technocrats to Haight-Ashbury hippies, will and Art (Glen M. Leonard). Ronald W. have to wait for a work that sets the real man Walker is an independent historian and a in his own time. writer of Mormon history.

Edward Tenner, a contributing editor of The Wilson Quarterly, Their unparalleled archival access has not is the author of Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge produced any major new conclusions. But in of Unintended Consequences (1996) and Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity (2003). addition to a thorough account of the state of

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the Mormon Church and the Utah Terri- York farmer named Joseph Smith, and its tory in 1857, this volume contains the most scripture places the Garden of Eden in Mis- information yet published on the individual souri and relates how a resurrected Jesus militiamen, the individual victims, and the 17 appeared and preached to American Indians. babies and children whose lives were spared When the Mormon pioneers settled in Utah, in the melee. Young himself was appointed the territory’s In the summer of 1857, the Mormons in first governor. the Salt Lake valley were celebrating the 10th By 1857, though, the Mormons wanted anniversary of their arrival in Utah after an nothing to do with the arduous westward trek to escape religious U.S.A., while most persecution. But their leader, Brigham Young, Americans saw the was terrified by the news that a U.S. Army polygamous sect as a Mutual fear and loathing expedition was making its way toward Utah. dangerous cult. The occasionally flared into Unless the Mormons and their Indian neigh- mutual fear and battles between Mormon bors were willing to fight, Young said, “the loathing occasionally settlers and “overlanders” United States will kill us both.” flared into battles who crossed their lands The Mormons’ sense that “the United between Mormon set- heading for California. States” was their bitter enemy is one of the tlers and the thou- most striking facts illuminated by this history. sands of “overlanders” The Mormon Church is an intensely Ameri- who crossed the Great can religion. It was founded in 1830 by a New Basin trails each summer in wagon trains headed for California. In late summer, nearly 140 emigrants from Arkansas and Missouri—two states where Mor- mons had faced particularly bit- ter enmity—encamped at the Mountain Meadows. The local Mormon militia devised a plan to annihilate the whole party—men, women, and children—and place the blame on Indians. The local Paiutes trusted the Mormons (they referred to church presi- dent Brigham Young as “Big Um”), and some Indians did take part in the killing. But the authors make it clear that the Mormons designed the “improba- bly sinister” plan of attack: Under flag of truce, the white men con- vinced the emigrants to put away their weapons, then led them down the trail to a bloody An 1882 newspaper cartoon warns immigrants of the dangers awaiting them in ambush. Utah,where 25 years earlier,Mormons had led a massacre of 120 westward travelers. The authors conclude that

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Young did not know about the planned attack counts. “ ‘We have now made a controversial in advance, but he did know the truth after- film.’ ” Scorsese replied, “I know, I know, but I ward, while his church pointed fingers at didn’t think it would be this controversial.” everybody else. In their view, Young and other Hollywood Under Siege is Thomas R. church leaders were responsible for the gen- Lindlof’s detailed account of that controversy eral climate of fear and open hostility to emi- and how it dug the trenches for two decades grants that drove the local militia to “set aside of social battles between Christian conserva- principles of their faith to commit an atrocity.” tives and left-wing artists. Lindlof, a journal- Except for Mountain Meadows addicts ism professor at the University of Kentucky, (and there are a lot of them, both Mormon observes that Last Temptation was released and otherwise), this history is likely to disap- before the phrase “culture wars” had ap- point. Other than a sketchy “epilogue” about peared much in print. The movie helped to the execution of one militia leader, John D. make it part of the American vocabulary. Lee, the book says nothing about the after- In a sense, then, the story of how Last math of the murders. A reader who cares to Temptation came to be made is from a more know how news of the massacre became pub- innocent time. A prestigious director could lic, how the church managed its long cover- make a movie featuring Jesus Christ fantasiz- up, and what happened to the perpetrators ing about having sex with Mary Magdalene, other than Lee will be left high and dry. and a powerful studio, Universal Pictures, For those who are new to this historical would green-light the project. Both parties episode, Juanita Brooks’s well-known 1950 thought nobody would mind—or that they chronicle The Mountain Meadows Massacre would mind just enough to make the film or Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets (2002) notorious, and profitable. might be more satisfying. But for people The book plays as a bleak comedy of already familiar with the sordid tale, or for naiveté lost. During the summer of 1988, readers who like their history awash in care- Last Temptation “survived the denunciations fully documented detail, this history may be a of preachers and politicians, mountains of useful addition to the library. mail delivered to Universal City, death

T. R. Reid has covered the Rocky Mountain West and the Church threats to executives, demonstrations at- of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for and tended by thousands of citizens, and assaults National Public Radio. He is the author of several books, including We’re Number 37! which is forthcoming next year. on theaters and moviegoers.” As both Univer- sal Pictures and Christian groups such as Focus on the Family congratulated them- Hollywood’s Crucifixion selves for standing firm, they created a tem- Reviewed by Aaron Mesh plate for unending hostility: Evangelicals believe that Hollywood is constantly plotting When Martin Scorsese’s new blasphemies, while studios fear that any HOLLYWOOD The Last Temptation of UNDER SIEGE: treatment of religious content will draw an Christ was released in 1988, Martin Scorsese,the outcry. it met with thunderous out- Religious Right,and Lindlof documents absurdities on both rage. Paul Schrader, the the Culture Wars. sides. Conservative newsletters, for example, film’s screenwriter, recalls By Thomas R. Lindlof. had long circulated rumors of a movie in the walking into Scorsese’s office Univ. Press of Kentucky. works that would portray Jesus as a homo- 394 pp. $32.50 to find the director bemoan- sexual, and many Christians’ fears about Last ing the furor. “I said, ‘Marty, we wanted to Temptation were intensified when they con- make a controversial film,’ ” Schrader re- fused the two projects. Evangelical activists

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first threatened pickets when Last Tempta- studio politics and crisis management than tion wasn’t screened for them—and when he is on evangelicalism. His case that funda- Universal belatedly arranged a showing, they mentalist leaders seized on Last Temptation refused to attend. The most outrageous to rebound from the sex scandals of Jimmy preachers relied on anti-Semitism—blaming Swaggart and Jim Bakker is purely circum- Jewish studio heads for attacking Jesus— stantial, and he never displays a firm under- even though the movie was directed by a standing of the average protester’s mindset. Roman Catholic, written by a Dutch Calvin- But Hollywood Under Siege correctly identi- ist, and based on a novel by the Greek Ortho- fies the movie’s release as a cultural water- dox writer Nikos Kazantzakis. shed. It made $8 million at the box office and But Hollywood made its blunders, too. broke even, but studios would never again Scorsese, a lapsed Catholic whose faith was assume that evangelicals were an extremist informed by existential doubt and struggle, fringe, and grew shy of even mild religious failed to anticipate how violently evangelicals material. would react to a movie that was, as one exec- Nearly two decades after Scorsese’s film, utive said, basically It’s a Wonderful Life with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ—“a Jesus as George Bailey, conjuring an alterna- reverse image of Last Temptation in almost tive world in which he sired children with every respect,” Lindlof writes—raked in $370 several women instead of dying on the cross. million and proved that fundamentalists Studio bosses were equally clueless, even would embrace a cinematic Jesus, so long as when they thought they were taking pains to he was portrayed as a sacrificial lamb. It be sensitive: Young Paramount Pictures exec- didn’t even matter if that sacrifice was reen- utive Jeffrey Katzenberg asked Scorsese to acted with ceaseless sadism. Hollywood had “pay special attention to not make Jesus learned its lesson: If you can’t beat ’em, join unlikable” in a scene in which he rejects his ’em in beating him. mother. Aaron Mesh is the chief movie critic and a culture editor for Lindlof is better on the inner workings of Willamette Week, an alternative weekly in Portland, Oregon.

Credits: Cover, p. 43, Illustration by Jon Reinfurt, www.reinfurt.com; p. 2, © Patti McCon- ville/Getty Images; p. 12, The Kobal Collection, pp. 13, 100 (right), 109, The Granger Collection, New York; p. 15, The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.; p. 17, Reproduced by per- mission to the Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press; p. 19, Courtesy, Oxford University Press; p. 23, AFP Photo Belga Jacques Collet; p. 27, Cartoon by Petar Pismestrovic, www.pismestrovic.com; p. 29, AP Photo/Advocate-Messenger, Clay Jackson; pp. 36–37, © Jesper Albrechtsen, Albrechtsen Foto; p. 39, Joshua Kucera; pp. 40–41, © Rudy Brueggemann pp. 44–45, Getty Images/Peter Bono; p. 49, Courtesy of Tony Little, www.alittlelab.com; p. 51, Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images; p. 53, AP Photo/PA; p. 57, Chris Fitzger- ald/CandidatePhotos; p. 61, © 2008 Mick Stevens from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved; p. 63, istockphoto.com; p. 70, Matt Stone, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal; p. 73, Marko Georgiev/Rapport; p. 79, © Bettmann/CORBIS; p. 84, Photograph © 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, John Singleton Copley, American, 1738–1815, Henry Pelham (Boy With a Squirrel), 1765, oil on canvas, 77.15 63.82 cm (30 3/8 x 25 1/8 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of the artist’s great granddaughter, 1978.297; p. 88, HO/AFP/Getty Images; p. 91, Matthew Cavanaugh- Pool/Getty images; p. 93, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, N.Y.; p. 94, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, N.Y.; p. 95, Vanni/Art Resource, N.Y.; pp. 96, 100 (left), Reproduced from the Collections of the Library of Congress; p. 107, R. Buckminster Fuller by Boris Artzybasheff, tempera on board, 1963, Frame: 74.9 x 59.7 x 3.2cm (29 1/2 x 23 1/2 x 1 1/4") National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Time Magazine, NPG.78.TC394; p. 112, Bohumil Dobrovolsky,´ 1968.

Autumn 2008 ■ Wilson Quarterly 111 PORTRAIT

Prague, 1968

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 ended the reform moment called the Prague Spring. This photograph by Bohumil Dobrovolsky´ of soldiers battling a tank fire in Prague is part of a 40th-anniversary exhibit at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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