Brookings: Topics - Political Polarization

Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Organizational and Political Challenges

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 20, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

The Affordable Care Act is the single biggest domestic policy accomplishment of the Obama administration, but most Americans have yet to feel its impact, since many of the most far-reaching provisions do not take effect until 2014. Although the Supreme Court upheld the law, it continues to face political opposition and attempts to slow down its full implementation.

On May 20, the Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings hosted a forum on the organizational challenges of implementing the Affordable Care Act in a difficult political environment. A panel of experts discussed obstacles such as building the state exchanges, expanding Medicaid, the role of the IRS, enforcing the individual mandate, the reaction from the small business community and the effect on premium prices.

Video

The Affordable Care Act: From Hiccups to Repeal

Elaine Kamarck — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:34:00 -0400

Note: On Monday, May 20, Elaine Kamarck, director of the Management and Leadership Initiative at Brookings, will moderate a public forum on "Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Organizational and Political Challenges."

It's been a long time since the federal government had to implement a large, new, federal program. Ten years ago we saw the implementation of Medicare Part D and the creation of a new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. In each instance there were predictions of disaster and substantial growing pains. In the case of Medicare Part D implementation exceeded expectations and costs have not been nearly as high as feared. In the case of DHS, implementation was bumpier, nonetheless, ten years later both operate more or less smoothly and, in retrospect, the crisis now seems overblown.

This year, the Obama administration needs to finalize implementation of the Affordable Care Act—a historic piece of legislation and the most significant domestic policy achievement of the Obama administration to date. And the question of how it goes is front and center. Even the president has admitted that there will be “hiccups” along the way. Compared to earlier pieces of health care legislation, the ACA is incredibly complex, involving activity by fifty states, the jurisdiction of fifty state insurance regulators and changes in the entire health care industry. Added to the inherent complexity of the bill is the fact that it had no Republican support and is still adamantly opposed by the Republican party and by half of all those polled.

So the question is: how bad will it be? Imagine a continuum that goes from “hiccup” on one end to repeal on the other end. With plenty of points in the middle. What would that look like?

The hiccup scenario is the most optimistic. Hiccups are more or less normal. If the implementation is successful, the exchanges will be up and running. There will be glitches. Some people who qualify won’t get their subsidies; some who don’t will. The number of companies on the exchanges won’t be as big as hoped for but will grow. Premiums for health care will rise only modestly and the enhanced services in the new health care plans will make most people okay with the price increase.

The delay scenario is not really good nor is it fatal. A less successful outcome is one where the feds and states find they have to pull back from key provisions in the bill at least for a while. There may be delays in opening exchanges which would necessitate delays in enforcing the mandate that everyone buy insurance. The federal hub may not be able to interface with statewide data and eligibility could become a lengthy bureaucratic process. HHS might adopt a generous waiver policy while states work out their systems. Premiums may rise, leading to complaints from the public but no substantial drops in insurance buying.

The repeal scenario is fatal. Obviously Republicans, especially in the House, are rooting for this one. In fact they seem to like taking the repeal vote so much that they’ve done it 37 times in the past three years. So the question is: what would it take to move support for repeal beyond the Republican base? In 1989 Congress repealed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act a short sixteen months after it was passed. Why? It increased costs to seniors and offered them things that they didn’t want. In the context of ACA the repeal scenario is feasible if premium prices rise so high that people who don’t qualify for subsidies (there are more of them than those who do) decide that they really don’t want the enhanced packages envisioned in the law and then get really mad and let their representatives know it.

Where will we end up? Stay tuned.

Authors

Elaine Kamarck

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Free Trade Is Not Quite President Obama's Neglected Stepchild, But...

Bill Frenzel — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the first Obama term, trade was not quite a step-child, but neither was it a priority. Mostly, the Obama trade team concentrated on improving enforcement of trade laws. That is useful work, but it’s no fun for trade enthusiasts. They would rather play offense by opening markets instead of looking for ways to slow down trade.

The team did manage to complete 3 trade treaties handed to it by its predecessors. Only one of them, Korea, required significant renegotiation. The President’s most important trade action was the initiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, effectively managed by U. S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

Political polarization makes everything difficult, but the Administration faced other daunting trade problems, too. One of its principal constituencies, big labor, opposes most trade treaties. That labor position has been a powerful deterrent to trade expansion policies.

Most important treaties passed by other administrations in the post-war period were handled under the “fast track” process, now called Trade Promotion Authority, which guarantees an up or down vote in both houses. President Obama and his trade people have never had that authority.

The 2013 State of the Union address was the first sign of change. In it, the President served notice that he has moved trade up the priority ladder in his second term. He cited two major negotiations: the TPP which he hopes to complete this year; and a new initiative, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The Trans Pacific Partnership has been moving along through a dozen and a half negotiating sessions. Until a few months ago, it had a less than impressive list of participants. Then Canada decided to join. Japan followed shortly. Those new entrants, and others as yet unannounced, but known to be waiting in the wings, gave a dose of steroids to the TPP. It began to look more muscular, and therefore more attractive to American businesses.

Surprisingly, the push for TTIP originated in Europe. There, leaders tired of recession and austerity saw it as an economic booster shot. Apparently, President Obama thought so, too. He accepted the difficult challenge of negotiating a Trans-Atlantic agreement. This long-time dream of American and European trade expansionists will require extended and arduous negotiations with no assurance of completion in the next 3.5 years left in Obama’s term. But, it is a prize worth the effort. Europe amounts to about 20% of total US two-way trade.

Taken together, TPP and TTIP form an aggressive effort which, if successful, could be the needed substitute for the moribund WTO Doha Development Round. They could spark a growth spurt in world trade. They also might be the force which causes the WTO multinational Doha Round to arise from its sick-bed. This new Obama trade priority has escalated US trade policy from the minor leagues to the majors.

Last week came more good news on the trade front. Stories from the White House indicate that the President intends to nominate Michael Froman as his new US Trade Representative to replace Kirk, who returned to private life after 4 years on the job. Froman, is a White House insider who previously advised the President on international economic policy, and who is held in high regard by many business people.

The US has been fortunate to have a succession of great Trade Representatives over the 50 year history of the office. Some of the most effective have been those who enjoyed both the ear, and the confidence, of the President. Those who lacked ready access to the President found the job more difficult. If history is any guide, Froman would seem to possess a critical asset for his new trade job.

In the first Obama term, some trade observers were wont to say that the President was wasting the most pro-trade Congress in years. This term will test that assessment of both the President and Congress. Will Congress’ pro-trade proclivities allow it to overcome the polarization that has stalemated the legislative process? Or will the on-going fist-fight under the Capitol dome doom trade legislation that might otherwise claim majority votes?

Trade’s higher priority and increased visibility are assured, but its success is not. The Congress has the right inclinations. The President is showing leadership. The omens appear favorable. But, both branches of government have a long way to go before they can bring home the difficult treaty legislation needed to increase US and world trade.

Authors

Bill Frenzel

Publication: Forbes

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Why Congress is Failing Us

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:54:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. They are co-authors of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.” On April 26, 2013, Mann and Ornstein discussed why Congress is failing the American people in a Moyers & Company video interview:

Why Congress is Failing Us from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Veteran Congress-watchers Thomas Mann and Norman J. Ornstein spoke with Bill Moyers about the Senate’s failure to make progress on gun control in April despite 90% of the American public supporting background checks. Though leadership is contextual and there have been historically dysfunctional legislatures, today’s extreme political polarization is unique and the American people are those affected the most by partisan polarization.

In the interview, Thomas Mann explains that "sadly, divided party government, which we have because of the Republican House, in a time of extreme partisan polarization, is a formula for inaction and absolutist opposition politics, not for problem solving. It wasn’t that long ago when you could actually get something done under divided government.”

How do Mann and Ornstein reply when Bill Moyers asks who wins and who loses when we have this deadlock and dysfunction?

Norman J. Ornstein: Well first of all the public and future generations really do lose. We have real problems, short and long term, in the country…

Thomas Mann: …We’ve been living through, now, years of stagnant wages, of high unemployment, of growing economic inequality. So the work of our legislature, our government, makes a big difference. And right now those issues are not being addressed in any substantial way because of the dysfunctional politics and because the Republican party has drifted so far from the mainstream of our politics.

Watch the full video on billmoyers.com »

Authors

Thomas E. Mann
Norman J. Ornstein

Publication: Moyers & Company

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Gridlock is No Way to Govern

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:47:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. They are co-authors of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.”

Larry Summers is a brilliant, award-winning economist. Monday, in his monthly op-ed column for The Post, he opined about politics and history [“Sometimes, gridlock is good for America,” April 15]. Our advice, as political scientists, is that Summers should stick to economics.

Summers painted a rosy scenario, saying that the frustration people feel at the slowness and gridlock of recent years is misplaced — that things were just as bad, if not worse, in the early 1960s; that the failures to enact health-care and welfare reform in the Nixon years were a good thing; and that more gridlock, not less, would have been helpful during the George W. Bush years. Summers also lauded the economic policies that have enabled the United States to avoid the double- or triple-dip recessions that have hit Europe, as well as passage of the Affordable Care Act and financial regulation, and advances in energy and the widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage.

We were left wondering what political system Summers has been living in the past several years. This level of partisan polarization, veering from ideological differences into tribalism, has not been seen in more than a century. The U.S. system has always moved slowly, but in times past major advances were achieved with some level of cooperation or restraint, if not consensus, between the parties. No more.

The progress on energy and the shift in public opinion on same-sex marriage have occurred with little or no relationship to Washington’s political pathologies. The policy triumphs that Summers trumpeted — stabilization and economic stimulus, health reform, financial regulation — were all achieved in the first two years of the Obama administration over the united, vociferous opposition of Republicans in Congress. The stimulus package passed in early 2009 was a major step to avert depression but was watered down and diverted into unproductive uses because of House Republicans’ strategic unwillingness to cooperate and the need to accommodate senators of both parties to get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster — one of countless episodes in the past five years when the filibuster has been used in unprecedented ways.

The Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank reforms were enacted despite GOP obduracy and promiscuous use of the filibuster, in part because Democrats for a short time had 60 votes in the Senate and kept their members together. But the quality of both laws was diminished by the unwillingness of members of the minority to vote for the final product on the floor after many concessions they requested had been agreed to during committee markups. More important, passing laws in this fashion left nearly half the polity viewing the legislation as illegitimate. Efforts followed to demonize and hamstring the laws as they moved toward implementation — including the unprecedented blockage for years of highly qualified nominees to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It is true that politicians of both parties came together in the fall of 2008 to save the financial system and economy from utter disaster — but only after House Republicans blocked the initial bailout plan and were chastened by a sharp drop in the stock market. That was followed in 2011 by congressional Republicans’ reprehensible use of the federal debt limit as a hostage, resulting in the first-ever downgrade in the United States’ credit rating. We are not confident that the result would be the same if there were an equally urgent need for action today to save the global economy.

To be sure, the United States has done better than Europe. But years after the initial crisis, and in significant part because of the shortcomings of our political system, we are still sputtering, having missed multiple opportunities to emerge from the financial crisis in a far better way.

Finally, Summers’s idea that climate change and inequality are issues not of gridlock but of vision forgets the fact that serious debates about policy avenues in these areas are impossible if half the political arena believes that climate change is a hoax, and if one political party is animated by the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge and the Mitt Romney vision of a nation of 53 percent makers and 47 percent takers.

Yes, there are signs of progress in our political system. The universe of problem-solvers in the Senate has increased since the 2012 elections. But the broader pathologies in our politics remain. For all the problems that existed in previous decades, in a system designed not to act with dispatch, there was a strong political center, with responsible bipartisan leadership. The same cannot be said today.

Authors

Thomas E. Mann
Norman J. Ornstein

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Defeat of Toomey-Manchin: Neither Cloture nor Closure for Victims of Gun Violence

John Hudak — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:21:00 -0400

Whither Representation? Yesterday’s failure to advance the Toomey-Manchin Amendment to expand background checks on gun purchases showed the American people that regardless of their preferences, regardless of what a majority of Senators want, regardless of the amount of compromise, some Senators refuse to represent their states.

Public polling is clear, and those who argue that polling is non-scientific, not truly capturing public opinion, are liberal machinations, or are biased in sampling and question wording remind us of those who expected a decisive Romney victory in November because all the polls were wrong. One poll could be off; two polls could fall victim to poor question wording. Yet, the reality of public opinion on background checks is well-established by a variety of sources including universities (here, here and here); in blue states, red states, and swing states; liberal sources and conservative sources; and the most well-regarded polling firms in the world (here and here).

Such support is not mixed. In almost every poll between 85%-91% of Americans support such reforms. Support is not regional, nor gendered, nor partisan, nor ideological, nor dependent on gun ownership. It is as broad-based as the reforms are moderate. It is as systematic as Toomey-Manchin is sensible.

Despite public opinion, 45 Senators failed to represent voters, and instead represented interest groups. (There were 46 Nay votes because Sen. Reid was required by Senate rules to switch his vote from Yea in order to reserve the right to recall the legislation at a later date—a common procedural move by Senate leaders.) They fell victim to pressure from a lobby who warned of national registries and criminalizing innocent behaviors. Chuck Grassley noted on the Senate floor yesterday that, “This is a slippery slope of compromising the Second Amendment, and if we go down that road, we are going to find it easier to compromise other things in the Bill of Rights.”

Senators failed to allow public opinion to get in the way of their voting. The same can be said for the facts. Fears about national registries arose because of interest group involvement and United States Senators constantly repeating talking points that diverged from reality. A quick reading of the Toomey-Manchin legislation shows that a national gun registry is explicitly banned in not one, not two, but three different places.

“Congress supports and reaffirms the existing prohibition on a national firearms registry.”

“Nothing in this title, or any amendment made by this title shall be construed to allow the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a Federal firearms registry.”

”Prohibition of National Gun Registry. – Section 923 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

"(m) The Attorney General may not consolidate or centralize the records of the-
(1)   Acquisition or disposition of firearms, or any portion thereof, maintained by-
    (A) a person with a valid, current license under this chapter;
    (B) an unlicensed transferor under section 922(t); or
(2)   Possession or ownership of a firearm, maintained by any medical or health insurance entity."

This language could not be clearer. Public support could not be stronger. And 45 Senators could not possibly have turned their back on their constituents in a more striking way.

Victims of gun violence—particularly families who suffered losses in the Newtown massacre—came to Capitol Hill not to promote their personal interests, not to promote their personal narrative above public will. They lobbied Senators to support something Americans overwhelmingly support.

Forty-five Senators worried that conducting background checks on gun buyers is a Constitutional violation and feared the wrath of interest groups who represent the views of 10% of the population on this issue. Now they must hope that when voters conduct their own background checks before going into the voting booth, that this vote is overlooked.

Authors

John Hudak

The Do-little House of Representatives: Why so Little legislating?

Sarah A. Binder — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:51:00 -0400

I noticed the other day that House lawmakers have cast relatively few recorded roll calls this year—voting just 89 times before leaving town for spring break. To put those roll calls into perspective, I gathered two decades or so of House “early voting” data—the total number of votes cast each year between the start of the session in January and the last day of voting before Easter. Granted, Easter jumps around the calendar like a (Peeps) bunny. But party leaders do target their floor agendas to approaching recesses, so it’s reasonable to use the Easter break (rather than a fixed calendar date) to mark the end of each session’s “early voting” period. With that caveat in mind, some brief thoughts on recent patterns in early voting

For starters, some notable patterns appear in the data. The 113th Congress is indeed off to a slow start—showing the least amount of roll call activity since 2006. More generally, the drop in House roll call voting runs counter to a broader trend of ever expanding legislative floor voting. Regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans hold the gavel, the House has increased its workload each winter over the past quarter century. That said, bursts in legislative voting take place only after a changing of the guard to a new majority. In 1995, 2007, and 2011, roll call voting jumped precipitously: New chamber majorities appear to follow through on their electoral promises to change the agenda in Washington, whether it’s Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America or Nancy Pelosi’s Six for ‘06. Coupled with new majorities’ frequent campaign promises to broaden participation on the chamber floor, such commitments likely drive the surge in legislative activity when party control changes hands.

Before going too far here, rest assured that I recognize the limitations of such data. We can’t judge a Congress’s broader performance by its winter legislative season. Moreover, we might want to distinguish between first and second session winter voting records. (The former might be interesting; the latter, not so much.) In any case, output measures such as votes are better viewed in comparison to the array of demands faced by legislators. We want to know what Congress accomplished, relative to the big issues and problems of the day. In short, more roll calls do not necessarily mean a better legislature. Still, I think the relatively low level of House legislative activity at the start of the 113th Congress is worth pondering.

This year’s quiescent House floor likely reflects a few developments.

First, the steep drop off in early voting partially reflects Congress’s recent difficulty in making fiscal policy. The GOP’s willingness in 2011 to open up the appropriations process to nearly unlimited amendments by both Democrats and Republicans helped to drive up the number of early roll calls. This year, GOP leaders were unwilling to allow any rank and file members to take a crack at the mammoth CR: Opening up the bill to amendments would have threatened a carefully knit package of limited changes to the CR. Given bipartisan concerns about the impact of the sequester, allowing amendments could have derailed the bill before its must-pass deadline. Tentative majorities prefer limited legislative activity.

Second, welcome to the “Boehner Rule” House. By definition, the GOP leadership’s new practice of letting the Senate go first drives down early House floor activity. Boehner’s reluctance to have the House go first reflects the difficulty of cobbling a chamber majority without Democratic votes: The GOP’s thin margin and the threat of defection by rank and file GOP on measures deemed insufficiently conservative could keep House floor activity depressed for awhile. (Witness the sixteen GOP who voted against bringing the CR to the floor and the eight GOP who have voted “no” on each critical vote this year.)

Third, and related, letting the Senate go first may offer political dividends to the House leadership. The Senate might no longer be the world’s greatest deliberative body, but it’s still the most sluggish. The House leadership likely benefits from legislative delay, particularly on the big issues of the day that create electoral dilemmas for the GOP’s brand name (for starters, immigration reform and gun control). Delay offers opponents time to mobilize, allows public support to wane, and lets House Republicans blame Senate Democrats for congressional inaction. Win, win, win (at least for now) for a party leadership unable or reluctant to build a legislative majority for reform.

In short, these data are limited but potentially revealing. House leaders no doubt are using the time to devise and sell a legislative strategy going forward. Given the difficulties of squaring the party’s ideological and electoral ambitions with the demands of its rank and file, no surprise House leaders (men and women alike) have avoided leaning in.

Authors

Sarah A. Binder

Publication: The Monkey Cage

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

When India’s Foreign Policy Is Domestic

Teresita C. Schaffer and Howard Schaffer — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:06:00 -0400

Editor's note: Teresita Schaffer has started work on a book called India at the International High Table. The book, co-authored with Howard Schaffer, will examine how India sees its role in the world, and how this translates into India’s negotiating style. This article, co-authored as well, discusses the impact on Indian foreign policy decision-making when an international issue becomes a factor in domestic politics.

In the past six months, passionate domestic politics have twice taken over India’s foreign policy process, complicating its relations with neighboring countries. The most recent case involved a resolution on Sri Lanka adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which led an important coalition partner to leave the government. The earlier crisis, in September 2011, scuttled two major features of India’s proposed expansion of relations with Bangladesh. When India’s foreign policy becomes domestic, decisions tend to escalate, coalition politics intensify, and the fallout affects both politics and policy.

The Sri Lankan story began in 2012, when Washington sponsored a resolution intended to press for accountability for the anguishing events that took place at the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The text was very mild, recommending that Sri Lanka take a number of measures that it had already more or less pledged. India’s surprising “yes” vote reflected pressure not so much from the United States as from a handful of politicians from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, who were concerned about Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. Indian foreign policy professionals were unhappy over this departure from their normal practice of not voting for country-specific resolutions.

The second act took place at the March 2013 UNHRC meeting. The United States sponsored a somewhat sharper Sri Lanka resolution. “Requests” became “urgings” and the text called on Sri Lanka to heed not just the recommendations of its own government-appointed Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission but also reports from the United Nations.

The drama in India, however, was substantially greater than last year. The absence of any significant movement toward national reconciliation left Indian foreign policy professionals frustrated (like their U.S. counterparts), and the release of film footage reportedly showing the killing of the Tamil rebel leader’s twelve-year-old son, created widespread revulsion in India. But what really drove events was the rivalry between two Tamil parties that alternate in running the state government. The Sri Lanka conflict is deeply embedded in this contest, and both parties use their alliances and disputes with the party in power in Delhi to further their quest for state primacy. The DMK, allied with the central government but opposed to the state government, mounted a full-court press to demand that India not just vote for the resolution, but amend it to accuse the Sri Lankan government of “genocide and war crimes.” This fit in with the DMK’s traditional sympathy for the now-defeated spearhead of Sri Lanka’s Tamil uprising, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It also was an opportunity for the DMK to outdo its rival, the AIADMK, in support for their brothers in Sri Lanka.

The DMK took its campaign on the road. A debate in the national parliament produced no consensus, but drew public statements blasting Sri Lankan anti-Tamil “atrocities” from a parade of government ministers as well as Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress party. The Government of India cancelled the upcoming India-Sri Lanka defense dialogue. A DMK-led organization reportedly lobbied foreign embassies in Delhi to toughen the resolution. The DMK then pulled out of the government coalition, citing the U.N. resolution. This put the government’s existence in technical danger, though the DMK hinted that it would not bring the government down. Not to be outdone, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (from the other major Tamil party, the AIADMK), banned Sri Lankan cricket players from participating in an upcoming match in Chennai.

Unusually, India’s UNHRC representative was summoned to Delhi, and returned to Geneva with instructions – evidently from the top – to try to toughen the resolution. This last-minute effort went nowhere. On March 21, the resolution passed with 25 positive votes, 13 negative ones and 8 abstentions – compared to last year, one more yea, and two fewer nays. India had once again overridden its normal distaste for country-specific resolutions, and India and Sri Lanka were left with some difficult fences to mend. Last year’s Sri Lankan anger was mostly against the United States; this year, India was the principal target. There is every likelihood that the same issues will be back again at next year’s UNHRC meeting.

The Bangladesh case also involved a regional party and former ally of the Indian government, and was in some ways even more dramatic. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Bangladesh in September 2011. In preparation, the two governments had worked out a package of agreements to resolve many of their oldest and most complex disputes. These included settling a border that includes nearly 200 enclaves on both sides that are under the sovereignty of the other, division of the waters of one of their shared rivers, transit for India to areas east of Bangladesh, and expanding trade. The Indian government thought it had the acquiescence of the provincial government in West Bengal, headed by the feisty Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, mercurial former allies in the central government coalition.

They reckoned without Banerjee. A week before the prime ministerial visit, she denounced the water sharing agreement. The central government dispatched a star senior diplomat, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, to pour oil on the troubled waters in Kolkata. He failed. Among many competing explanations, two stand out: Menon had no authority to provide sweeteners for the financially strapped West Bengal; and he was not an elected politician, much less one Banerjee would consider her equal. In addition, it is not clear that he could help Banerjee address the local impact of the proposed agreement within West Bengal.

Banerjee’s opposition nearly scuttled the whole trip, to both sides’ great embarrassment. The overture to India was Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s signature foreign policy issue. She reluctantly agreed to implement the salvageable parts of the program. The two governments continued to work on the water issue and the transit agreement that Bangladesh had withheld in retaliation. In February, Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid visited Bangladesh and opined that the problems would be resolved. He was followed by President Pranab Mukherjee, India’s most senior Bengali politician.

Bangladeshis of different backgrounds and politics tend to blame the Indian bureaucracy for their problems with India, and hope that politicians – especially Bengali ones, and especially Mukherjee – will provide solutions. The view from Delhi and Kolkata is more complicated. The personalities of the political leaders in Kolkata and in Dhaka emerge as a critical factor. The long-time Communist chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, had his state’s politics in the palm of his hand. Political observers in Kolkata told us that this enabled him to take a statesmanlike view, as he had in shaping the 1996 India-Bangladesh water agreement. Banerjee is less secure in her political hold on the state. She is also a “street fighter,” determined to eliminate any threat to her West Bengal power base, either from the communists or from her former allies in Congress. This makes for a natural tension with New Delhi.

Indian observers ruefully agree that the next move is up to New Delhi. The government faces an uphill task in obtaining parliamentary assent to the constitutional amendment it needs to implement the border agreement. Obtaining the support of the West Bengal government for the water and transit deals is probably becoming more difficult.

Despite their different dynamics, these cases have important features in common. Both featured high-octane local political leaders in India, and both had deep roots in state politicians’ volatile relations with the central government. Domestic politics swept aside the normal foreign policy process, making decisions and follow-up unpredictable. When foreign policy issues are taken up by party politics, decision-making rockets to the top of India’s power structure. Domestic deal-making becomes the primary requirement. India’s foreign policy machinery cannot control that – or the international bargaining that goes with it. India’s foreign policy institutions are starting to maintain stronger state level contacts in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. However, as we saw in both these cases, when there is a political dispute over policy toward Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, contacts between senior officials or ambassadors and the state government are mainly useful as an early warning system. They are unlikely to be able to resolve problems.

Some foreign policy issues get caught up in party politics without the direct local identification that marked these two cases. Recent examples include the U.S.-India nuclear deal, frozen for nearly a year because of the leftist parties’ objections, and the Indian government’s initial decision to permit foreign direct investment in retail trade. Such issues are less likely to revolve around one high profile opponent, like Tamil Nadu’s Karunanidhi or West Bengal’s Banerjee. But they share the other characteristics of the boundary between foreign and domestic politics, including escalating the locus of decisions. They will become more frequent as India’s economy grows and its integration with the global economy becomes more important.

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer
Howard Schaffer

Policy Leadership and the Blame Trap: Seven Strategies for Avoiding Policy Stalemate

R. Kent Weaver — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: This paper is part of the Governance Studies Management and Leadership Initiative.

Negative messages about political opponents increasingly dominate not just election campaigns in the United States, but the policymaking process as well. And politics dominated by negative messaging (also known as blame-generating) tends to result in policy stalemate. Negative messaging is attractive to politicians because people tend to pay more attention to negative information than positive information, and they are more sensitive to losses than equivalent gains. Political polarization, competitive, nationalized elections, increased fiscal stress and changes in campaign law and practice have all exacerbated pressures to engage in negative messaging in recent years. There are a number of strategies that allow politicians to maneuver around the “blame trap” and avoid policy deadlock in some circumstances, including passing the buck to non-elected bodies and putting in place triggering mechanisms that generate politically unpopular policy changes in the future. All of these strategies have limitations and disadvantages, however, so both blame-generating politics and policy stalemate are likely to be the “new normal” in American politics in the near future.

There are several strategic options for avoiding policy stalemate in a political environment dominated by negative messaging. Each of these options has distinctive advantages and limitations, and risks. None is suitable for all situations, but together they offer some important opportunities to avoid policy stalemate.

Passing the Buck: A first strategy that politicians can use to try to avoid the blame trap is to pass the buck to non-elected bodies—often temporary commissions—to reach deals behind closed doors without the pressure of staking out and defending partisan and ideological positions.
Grand Deals and Circling the Wagons: A related strategy to passing the buck is for Democratic and Republican leaders to negotiate behind closed doors to try to strike a grand deal on an issue like budgets and taxes or immigration, which they then sell jointly to the public and to rank-and-file legislators (“circling the wagons”) as the best deal that is achievable—and better than no deal at all.
Government by Autopilot: Another strategy for making difficult decisions is to set up a procedure under which reaching some trigger (e.g., deficit levels, or Social Security deficits) leads automatically to programmatic adjustments according to a formula set up in the original legislation unless Congress agrees to overturn it.
Feet to the Fire: This strategy starts with the same mechanism as policy by auto-pilot: policymakers set up an automatic mechanism that will trigger politically painful policy changes without politicians themselves pulling the trigger.
Experiment: On some policy issues where parties are divided, it may be possible to try out different approaches to policy before making a firm choice at the national level. This can be done in several different ways. One is to give more authority to states and localities to experiment with new policy options rather than having a uniform national policy.
Executive Action: If a hyper-partisan and divided Congress is unable to break policy stalemates, what about executive action as an alternative? There certainly are some opportunities for breaking stalemate through executive action, as President Obama showed in June 2012 when he suspended deportation of young illegal immigrants who had entered the country illegally.
Compromise: A final strategy for overcoming the blame trap is the oldest and simplest one: politicians can split the difference with their partisan foes and meet them halfway.

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Authors

R. Kent Weaver

Egypt's 'Spoilers' Threaten Democracy

Omar Ashour — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

“The street wars will continue to extreme levels. … We will force this regime to renounce power and succumb to the will of the Egyptian people,” said the man who was voted out by a majority of Egyptians, and earlier removed by popular revolutionary forces. Mubarak’s prime minister and chief henchman Ahmad Shafiq made these statements last December from Abu Dhabi. The statement proved to be true. Politically motivated violence on the streets of Cairo continued, including attacks on city councils, police stations, prisons, headquarters of political parties, and multiple attempts to shut down Egypt’s largest governmental complex in Tahrir Square. This is in addition to almost weekly attacks and arson attempts on the Presidential Palace, where Shafiq’s main rival, President Mohammed Morsi, resides.

The scene in Egypt is quite intricate. There are definitely more than two parties in the power struggle. In a July 2011BBC article, I expected a usual post-revolution power struggle between Islamist and non-Islamist forces to unfold, with the losing side reneging on democratization process and attempting to spoil it. I showed that the exclusionary behavior among Egypt’s political elite has been a historic trend since Nasser’s coup of 1952, and even before it. What I underestimated is the level of violence associated with the reneging process.

The political scene is not fully captured by the simple “Islamist versus secular” explanation. After all, not only the ultraconservative Salafi Nour Party supported the demands of the “secular” National Salvation Front, but also it altered an earlier fatwa (religious edict) forbidding alliances with non-Islamist parties. In political contexts, opportunism checks belief; and political Salafis are not always an exception.

Three factors may help explain major parts of the complex Egyptian political scene. High expectations of the Egyptian people in the aftermath of the popular revolution is one of those factors. With a shaky economy, limited security, conflicting interests, scarce resources, and chaos on the streets, the current conditions hardly meet any of the revolution’s slogans: “bread, freedom, social justice, and human dignity.”

Add to that another factor: the limited capacity and inexperience of the new political elite, whether the ones chosen by Egyptians in elections, or the ones who weren’t but were part of the revolution against Mubarak. Incompetence of the government and the opposition is a second factor. The ones who were victorious in the elections, the Muslim Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), were so far unsuccessful in containing polarization, in fulfilling some of their pre-election promises, and even in appeasing some of their political allies. Still, they managed to be on the winning side every time Egyptians got a chance to cast a ballot; that is four historic national elections/referendums in less than two years. And here lies the third factor.

In 1997, Stanford’s political scientist Stephen Stedman authored a seminal study entitled “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes.” He argued that when civil war ends, various “losers” from the peace process emerge. The “losers” are groups of leaders and parties who believe that the new transition will threaten their interests. And as a result, they will do their best to “spoil” the peace. His theory applies to various forms of transition, including democratic ones. In the latter, former elites who lost their positions of power and have limited chance for a quick comeback via elections are more interested in “spoiling” the democratic game, and coming back via alternative routes. Additionally, some of the groups and parties that took part in the revolution, but consistently lose in every electoral exercise, can have a similar behaviour.

The spoiler problem and its implications are extremely dangerous for democratic transitions; equally dangerous for both national and human security. If successful, usually the country in question either descends into a vicious civil war or the process ends in a brutal military coup. In other words, spoiler behavior can turn a democratic dream into a bloody nightmare.

But the spoiler problem is not without a solution. Key in the solution is to properly identify the spoilers, their types/goals, actual weights on the ground, actual capacity to spoil, and the appropriate strategy to deal with them. Stedman identified spoilers based on their intentions/goals: limited, greedy, and total. He advised a range of strategies for managing or ending political violence, the key feature of spoiler behaviour.

Limited spoilers are those who seek a share of power within a constitutional framework, seek basic security and protection of themselves or their followers, or suffer from specific economic- or justice-related grievances. For those an inducement-based strategy to abandon political violence is advised. Greedy spoilers are the ones who expand or contract their goals based on calculations of cost and risk. Those may commit to democratic institutions and non-violent politics, but renege on it whenever faced with low costs and risks. A socialization-based strategy is advised to deal with those, including the establishment of a set of norms for acceptable behavior. These norms then become the basis for judging the demands of the parties (are they legitimate or not?) and the behaviours of the parties (are they acceptable in the normative framework or not?). Finally, total spoilers are usually led by individuals who see the world in all-or-nothing terms and often suffer from pathological tendencies that prevent the pragmatism necessary for compromise settlements. For those, a coercion strategy is advised by Stedman; a strategy that relies on the use or the threat of punishment to deter or alter unacceptable spoiler behavior or reduce the capability of the spoiler to disrupt democratic transition.

All three types of spoilers exist and operate currently in Egypt. The categories are never set in stone, though. In Egypt, the reliance on street violence to attain political goals is on the rise, and proved to be effective and useful. Whereas those tactics were justified by revolutionary forces and political groups operating under brutal dictatorships, they cannot be justified in a nascent democratization process where alternation of power is guaranteed by ballots, not bullets.

Authors

Omar Ashour

Publication: Al Monitor

The Libyan Revolution at Two

Ibrahim Sharqieh — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Arriving in the Libyan capital Tripoli, it is immediately (and dispiritingly) clear just how much needs to be done before the country can experience any sort of secure and just order. During my January research trip to Libya, the city seemed to have been overtaken by a paramilitary culture. The streets of Tripoli are thronged with Libyans in military uniform; not members of a national army, but rather of an expanding constellation of independent revolutionary and military councils. The city regularly rings out with automatic gunfire, particularly at night. Its walls, meanwhile, are papered with posters of the 2011 revolution's "martyrs," some of which couple a professional studio portrait with a later, amateur picture of the same man's corpse. Surrounded on all sides by headshots of the Libyan revolution's dead, it can sometimes be difficult to imagine how Libya can achieve national reconciliation and become a stable, functioning country.

Post-revolutionary Libya's accomplishments to date, of course, should not be minimized. The country saw a smooth handover of power in August 2012 from the National Transitional Council to an elected and representative parliament, the General National Congress. The previous month's parliamentary elections to the National Congress, held in a country with no history of electoral politics, were considered generally free and fair by local and international observers. This is a very strong start for Libya's transition process. Libya has witnessed political party formation, another novelty. The country now has functioning political parties -- with offices, staff, and publications -- that work to represent their respective constituencies and took part in last year's elections. Political parties were banned under the ousted ruler Muammar al-Qaddafi. The parliament has also passed a law that governs the drafting of the new Libyan constitution. It sets out how the constitutional committee's 60 members, split evenly among Libya's three districts, will be elected.

Outside the realm of formal politics, Libya has seen a proliferation of civil society organizations, including women's and youth organizations. The women's organizations include those pushing for greater political empowerment and participation for women; in particular, they are advocating the application of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325, which emphasizes the importance of women's political participation in post-conflict societies. And in a reflection of Libyans' hunger to speak freely (and to criticize their government), the country has also seen a flood of new media voices. The blossoming of private television channels and newspapers has created a vibrant media scene you might think has existed for decades, not just two years.

Libya also has some cultural factors working in its favor as it struggles to rebuild. It has managed to avoid some of the issues that have dominated transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, notably the ideological divide between Islamists and liberals. There is an irony in the fact that many pointed to the National Congress elections as a success for liberals. "Liberals'" majority share of the vote can be explained in that the Islamist and non-Islamist divide essentially does not exist in Libya, thanks to the deep religious and social conservatism of almost all Libyans. Supposedly liberal factions like that of former Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril are closer to Islamism than to the sort of "West-leaning liberalism" on display in Egypt. As some like to put it, Libya's liberals are the equivalent of Tunisia's Islamists. Insofar as this neutralizes the electoral advantage Islamists have enjoyed in other Arab countries, it has also helped to avoid the majority-minority and Islamist-secular dynamics that have proven so divisive and poisonous elsewhere.

Still, it is clear that other basic questions of Libyan identity remain disputed and unanswered, and, in the aftermath of its 2011 revolution, the country has in many ways become a blank slate. Libyans reject the Qaddafi-era system and its legacy, and symbols of the old regime have been removed or defaced. There is little certainty, however, on what should take their place, particularly among symbols of the country's past. Omar al-Mokhtar, a hero of the resistance to Italian colonialism, has become a sort of new unifying figure for the Libyan people. (Former King Idris barely figures into the country's political narrative.) Al-Mokhtar, though, is probably the only personality in the country's past and present on whom there is a Libyan consensus; everyone else in Libya today is the subject of disagreement.

These issues are part of a broader effort by Libyans to deal with their national past, reconstructing their history and piecing together a shared narrative of their experience under Qaddafi's rule. Among the problems they face is ambiguity and disagreement over how far they should look back. How much history must be exhumed before the new Libya can move forward? Some argue that it is only necessary to go as far back as the beginning of Qaddafi's "Popular Revolution" in 1973. A consensus seems to be forming, however, on the need to begin from Qaddafi's arrival to power in 1969. This effort to deal with the past is not simply a philosophical exercise. It is crucial to the functioning of the state and the prospects for reconciling different Libyan factions. Qaddafi's Ownership Laws of 1978, under which all properties not in use by their owner were confiscated, present one problematic example. Libyans have been drawn into complicated -- and often violent -- struggles for ownership as some try to reclaim properties taken under these large-scale redistribution policies. The Libyan state must struggle to fairly adjudicate these disputes, which have their roots in decades-old practices of the Qaddafi regime.

The issue of how to deal with members of the former regime is one of the most high-stakes and controversial challenges to realizing Libyan national reconciliation. The National Congress has agreed in principle to a Law of Political Exclusion that will prohibit old-regime figures from participating in politics or occupying leadership roles in the new Libya. The criteria for defining a "member of the former regime," however, have yet to be determined -- and raise difficult questions. There seems to be overwhelming support from revolutionaries and militia members for the exclusion of anyone who was part of the Qaddafi regime. That could include up to 80 percent of the current National Congress, however, if the law is implemented in the broadest sense. There is not even consensus on whether regime defectors should be integrated into the new order. Some say only those who defected in the first four days of the revolution should qualify, others that it should be anyone who joined the rebels before NATO strikes began.

Many are pushing for purging the judiciary in particular of all Qaddafi-era authorities. If such a step is taken, however, there will be almost no remaining judges to try members of the former regime. (Some have advocated bringing in other Arab or Muslim judges from abroad.) Former dissident Saami al-Saadi, a prominent Salafi figure, demonstrates the thorniness of this issue when he notes that the judge who had ordered his execution in a Qaddafi-era court is still working today. "How can I accept him as a valid authority?" he asks.

Libya's new institutions, meanwhile, are hamstrung by the strength of revolutionary groups and militias. It is these groups that represent the real centers of power in the country today. At least two Libyan states, but arguably many more, exist in parallel. The "official state," led by civil authorities and represented by the General National Congress and the government, is relatively weak. The "unofficial state," led by the Supreme Security Committee (SSC, al-Lajna al-Amniya al-Ulia) and other military councils in the country, hold the real power. While the SSC receives funding from the state, it is still outside the official structure of the state. Beyond this body, there is an array of revolutionary unions and organizations in each town that effectively run their own mini-states. Qaddafi's son Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi is, for example, being held in a Zintan prison and will likely be tried in a Zintan court. Libya has repeatedly refused to surrender him to the ICC for trial in The Hague. These rebels' arsenals are one source of their strength -- of a declared 200,000 rebels, only 10,000 have signed up for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs and surrendered their arms to state control.

The revolutionaries, meanwhile, are themselves divided. Mr. Haidar, a prominent leader in the Misurata rebels, is keen to point out that the real anti-Qaddafi rebel forces are only about 40,000-strong in all of Libya. The remaining 160,000 "rebels" are in fact just power-seeking opportunists, he says.

What unites the revolutionaries, though, is a "culture of the victor" that poses a real obstacle to post-conflict reconciliation. This culture has divided Libya into victorious towns and cities like Misurata, Zintan, and Benghazi and defeated ones like Bani Walid and Sirte. The victorious have taken ownership of the revolution and indulge in self-glorification, while the defeated undergo a process of shaming and marginalization. As resentment grows among the revolution's "losers," there is no real sign of the deep divisions between the two camps being bridged.

One former "Qaddafi town," Tawergha, has been entirely emptied of its citizens. When Tawerghan men attacked Misurata during the war, Misuratans say, they systematically raped Misurata's women. Now Tawergha's 35,000 residents are either refugees or internally displaced. The majority of Tawergha is now being housed in three camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from where most young men have fled. The Libyan judiciary is at a loss for how to deal with a "town accused of rape," and no one has the weight or nerve to convince the rebels of Misurata to allow these people to return to their homes. "We do not have, in our legal system or in our tradition, a way to deal with systematic rape," says Minister of Justice Salah Margani. "We just look at it, acknowledge the suffering of the victims of rape and the IDP camps, and feel powerless about doing anything about it, simply because we don't know how."

The debate over transitional justice has become a central feature of the Libyan transition. A formal transitional justice mechanism is seen by almost all revolutionary factions as a prerequisite to any form of national reconciliation. There is currently no forum in which rival Libyan factions can sit down together, making clear the need for a national dialogue of sorts. There is a general unwillingness, however, to meet with any members of the former regime, foreclosing the possibility of an inclusive transition that could actually resolve the country's security challenges.

Libyans have begun to establish some processes of national reconciliation, but little has actually been achieved thus far. They have set up an independent truth and reconciliation commission led by a judge who served in Qaddafi's Supreme Court but defected before the revolution. Almost a year after its launch, however, the commission has yet to begin its work. A major part of the problem is a lack of technical expertise. The commission's members have sought external advice, but, in the absence of more hands-on cooperation and assistance, they are struggling to make use of it.

If the Libyan people are to restore order to the country and begin to build the modern society Qaddafi denied them, they have a number of key priorities. First and foremost, the establishment of security is an absolute necessity. The lack of security can be seen and felt throughout Libya, whether in raids on Benghazi police stations in the East or the brazen and aggressive smuggling enterprise in Southern city of Sebha. Libya has no future without the return of security and the end of the parallel security-militia state that effectively governs much of the country.

The reintegration of militants into society will require an effective DDR process. Ex-combatants have legitimate grievances and concerns that the state must listen to and address. This will require a state-revolutionary dialogue that, as of now, does not exist. There must also be an end to the culture of victor and vanquished. To whatever extent possible, the state must try to resist the classification of whole tribes and towns as defeated elements of the old regime. As towns like Bani Walid and Sirte and tribes like the Warfella are excluded from the process of rebuilding the country, divisions within society are being deepened. IDPs and refugees have likewise been ignored, which threatens to produce a generation that feels excluded, frustrated, and angry. To the extent that all these segments of Libyan society feel marginalized and abandoned, this situation has dangerous implications for the country's stability. They must be included in the country's rebuilding to avoid the return of violence and civil conflict. For the state to absorb these actors, of course, this process must be coupled with the reform of Libyan state institutions. Libya has made very slow progress in institutional reform, but it can start with its judiciary.

The international community also has a role in the rebuilding of Libya. On border security and the care of refugees (of whom there are approximately one million), Egypt and Tunisia are seen as key partners. Technical support is needed, meanwhile, in initiating a national dialogue, starting the work of the truth commission, and rehabilitating revolutionaries. While the European Union is widely cited as a natural partner for this sort of support, many Libyans have concerns about blurring the line between assistance and intervention. The only real international presence in the country at the moment is the United Nations, which has limitations to what it can achieve. One key message stressed by Margani, moreover, is that whatever assistance is given to the country should not come with conditions that might conflict with "Libyan sovereignty and cultural sensitivities."

Libyans face a long process of rebuilding their country -- or in some respects, building it for the first time. The impoverished state in which Qaddafi left Libyan society has only made Libyans' accomplishments to date all the more impressive. Now is the time, though, to push even harder for a real and comprehensive political transition and to realize Libyan national reconciliation. If not, the forces of revenge and militia violence threaten to overtake everything else.

Authors

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters

An Ill-Advised Purge in Libya

Ibrahim Sharqieh — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

At the January national conference of the Association of the Families of the Abu Salim Prison Massacre in Tripoli, I saw the Libyan legislator Abdel Wahab Mohamed Qaid lead a chant in support of the country’s proposed “Political Exclusion Law.”

The law, which Parliament has accepted in principle, will disqualify anyone associated with the regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi from holding public office in Libya — not just senior regime officials, but potentially the country’s upper- and mid-level bureaucracy as well.

In the expansive auditorium in Tripoli, victims’ families responded in unison, cheering Qaid and calling on him to push the law.

I had heard similar sentiments two days earlier when speaking with former revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament. They told me that the Political Exclusion Law must be approved and strictly enforced if Libya is to protect the revolution and head off corruption in the country’s new government.

Libya’s revolutionaries and the families of victims of the Abu Salim massacre are sincere and well-intentioned in their efforts to both build a new Libya and keep those who contributed to Qaddafi’s rule away from any form of authority.

The emotions at the People’s Auditorium in central Tripoli were high; victims’ mothers and sisters cried, while men chanted “Allahu akbar” (God is great). They had come to the conference for answers — to find out what really happened to their 1,270 loved ones, executed without trial by Qaddafi’s secret police.

Qaid himself spent 16 years in Abu Salim prison; “I grew up in prison,” he told The New York Times last October. He is the brother of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was described in the article as Al Qaeda’s “brightest star and second in command” and was later killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan. Qaid is now a moderate member of the Libyan Parliament, advocating tolerance and pluralism. Part of his mission is championing the Abu Salim families.

For their part, the revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament underwent their share of suffering under Qaddafi. In addition to serving long years in prisons, many were either wounded or lost loved ones during the fighting to oust Qaddafi. Now the revolutionaries believe their mission is to defend their victory. They must protect Libya from a counterrevolution they see as beginning with the penetration of state institutions by Qaddafi loyalists.

These impulses to hold former regime figures accountable and build a Libyan state based on good governance are what motivate calls for the Political Exclusion Law. The law’s advocates should be careful, however: Societal division, instability and the regrouping of Qaddafi loyalists could be among the unintended consequences of the law as written.

The advocates must be mindful not to repeat the Iraqi experience of “de-Baathification.” In attempting to strike all members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from public life, the Coalition Provisional Authority essentially wrecked Iraqi reconstruction, marginalizing large segments of society and fueling sectarianism.

The first, direct outcome of enforcing the Libyan Political Exclusion Law would be pushing smart, influential former officials — some with access to key resources — toward a not insignificant segment of Libyan society unhappy with the revolution’s outcome.

There are currently around one million Libyan refugees in neighboring countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, in addition to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons all throughout Libya.

One of the grimmer aspects of the Libyan revolution was that it labeled entire towns (including Sirte and Bani Walid) and entire tribes (including the Warfalla) as pro-Qaddafi, thus excluding them from Libya’s rebuilding process. These marginalized communities — refugees, displaced people and ostracized tribes and towns — are a ticking bomb. The Political Exclusion Law will push a new group of powerful former officials to join these excluded communities. Together, they can regroup to mount a challenge to the revolution and the stability of the country.

The officials targeted by the Political Exclusion Law are also the ones with governing experience and the knowledge of how to actually run the country, including the state’s education, economy and oil bureaucracies. Libya has a shortage of judges, for example, and almost every working judge had some role in the former regime. So the Political Exclusion Law would leave Libya with a paralyzed judiciary, with devastating consequences.

Equally important, the Political Exclusion Law is an arbitrary and ineffective defense against corruption. Corrupt bureaucrats who were not part of the Qaddafi regime would be able to occupy senior positions in the new government, while honest individuals forced to work in the old system for lack of an alternative would be ousted.

The frustration of victims’ families and revolutionaries is understandable and must be addressed. The solution to their grievances is a transitional justice law that targets individuals — not communities — based on their actions under the old regime. The law should hold accountable individuals who are guilty of real crimes, not guilty by association.

Instead of the Political Exclusion Law, Libyans should be investing their efforts in building a thorough and transparent transitional justice law. It would provide a real, fair accounting for those guilty of offenses under the previous regime while allowing victims’ wounds to heal. At the same time, it would avoid further dividing Libya, and spare the country from another wrenching conflict.

Authors

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Publication: New York Times

Political Islam in Tunisia: A Discussion with Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In an interview with Tunisia Live, Shadi Hamid talks about the rise of Tunisia's ruling Islamist Ennahdha party since the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Hamid's analysis addresses challenges facing Ennahdha two years after the revolution, tensions within the ruling party, and more generally the socio-political landscape of Tunisia.

Hamid says the role of Ennahdha in Tunisia is unique to the role of equivalent Islamist parties in the transitioning Middle East for multiple reasons. First, the changing role of Ennahdha in Tunisia over the last two years is much more striking than the changing role of Islamist parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which already had a significant foothold in Egyptian society. Second, Ennahdha’s movement and political party are one in the same. Hamid says a lack of distinction between the two renders Ennahdha’s experience more problematic than if Ennahdha's movement and party were separated. If Ennahdha fails politically, Hamid suggests the failure could potentially undermine the entire Islamic movement of Tunisia. Third, Hamid says Ennahdha is unique in that the gap between the movement’s liberal, centrist, and conservative wings is quite large.

Outside of the Ennahdha movement, Hamid said Tunisia as a country is also unique from other transitioning countries, due to a relatively homogeneous population and clear secular influence. Hamid says this secular influence puts a limit on how far Ennahdha can take its policies, given the fact that the government’s opposition is vibrant and organized. Hamid concludes that stark differences between positions held by the opposition, Ennahdha, and the Salafis about the role of religion in public life assured political polarization in Tunisia was inevitable.

Watch the interview by Tunisia Live »

On February 19, Tunisia Live published a previously unreleased portion of its interview with Shadi Hamid. In contrast to the first video, this clip focuses on the differences between Islamism in Egypt and Tunisia. As Hamid notes in the interview, this topic is the focus of his ongoing book project on the evolution of Islamist parties before and after the Arab Uprising.

Watch the second video released by Tunisia Live »

Authors

Shadi Hamid

Publication: Tunisia Live

Prospects for the 113th Congress

Sarah A. Binder — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) nailed it as the 112th Congress drew to a close: "Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is the American Congress." The new year's battle over the fiscal cliff drove home how dysfunctional our nation's political system has become. To be sure, a deal was reached that averted tax increases for over 99 percent of the nation's taxpayers -- but only under the threat that stalemate would throw the economy back into a recession. And the deal did not address the nation's long-term debt and deficit problems. Instead, Congress and the president kicked the can down the road into the hands of the 113th Congress.

Why is Congress so prone to gridlock, and what hopes should we have for a turnaround in the new Congress? Numerous Washington observers have charged that the 112th Congress was the most dysfunctional Congress ever. Brinkmanship and last-minute deals prevailed. Lawmakers nearly caused a governmental shutdown and came perilously close to forcing the government to default on its obligations. Along the way, legislators stalemated over long-term solutions on perennial issues of transportation, agriculture, education, climate change and others. Although we lack a metric to know whether this was the worst Congress ever, judging by the public's reaction, Congress' performance was abysmal. At times only 10 percent of the public was willing to admit to pollsters that they approved of Congress's on-the-job performance.

Three forces fuel today's gridlock. First, divided party control of government raises the bar against major policy change. Parties are the only glue for bridging policy and electoral differences between the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, meaning that more can be done in periods of unified party control. Just compare President Obama's first two years in office (with Democrats controlling both branches) with the second two years (after Republicans captured the House). Congress was remarkably productive under unified control, enacting numerous landmark accomplishments, from health care reform to Wall Street reform. Under divided government, only do-or-die deadlines brought the parties to the table. Divided government continues in the 113th Congress, handicapping Congress even before it gets underway.

Second, legislative parties have polarized over the past half-century, even though Americans remain centrist in their policy views. Polarization increases deadlock, because our political system requires large coalitions to adopt major policy change. Such coalitions are harder to build when few legislators occupy the ideological center. Increased polarization reflects the parties' ideological differences over the proper role of government, plus a strong dose of sheer partisan team play. As a result, much of congressional disagreement is strategic: The parties hold out for a full loaf rather than compromise on a half. Not surprisingly, when deadlines forced parties to the table in the 112th Congress, they often kicked the can down the road. As a result, the 113th Congress starts with a huge plate of leftovers, leaving little room for new issues.

Third, stalemate is fueled by bicameral disagreement. Even when a single party controls both the House and Senate, disagreements arise that reflect electoral and institutional differences between the chambers. Bicameral differences are compounded when the parties split control of the chambers, as Congress's recent record attests. Bicameral obstacles remain high this year, with a smaller and more conservative Republican House facing off against a larger and more liberal Democratic Senate.

What do these trends portend for the new Congress?

In many ways, the new Congress should look like the old one. Some of the incessant partisan fighting might lessen now that the president no longer faces the challenge of reelection, but elections always loom large for members of the House and a third of the Senate, so pressures from the parties' activist bases will continue to pull legislators to the extremes. Democrats will resist major changes to government entitlement programs, preferring to resolve the country's fiscal mess by raising new revenues through the tax code. Republicans will continue to push for spending cuts on discretionary and mandatory programs, rejecting moves to tax the wealthy to reduce the deficit. In other words, prospects for a grand bargain over taxes and spending remain dim.

I also expect that congressional power will remain concentrated in the hands of party leaders, and that rank-and-file legislators will continue to grumble about it. This is a natural outgrowth of polarized parties that legislate on the brink. Because the parties resist compromise until the 11th hour, it's no wonder that leaders take up the reins of power. Given continued polarization and deadlines in early 2013 to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling, it will likely be déjà vu all over again. Deadlines will force the parties to the table at the last minute, allowing leaders to claim for their partisans that they secured the best and only deal possible under the circumstances.

What role can the president play in generating politically acceptable solutions to vexing public problems? Some say that the president should use his electoral leverage to take his battles to the public, generating pressures on lawmakers to support his solutions on immigration, gun control and so forth. Perhaps going public will make it harder for lawmakers to resist proposals advanced by the president. But as the fiscal cliff episode showed, even a full-court presidential press on the top issue of his campaign -- raising taxes on the top 2 percent of the wealthiest taxpayers -- faced rough sledding. On many issues the public is nearly equally as divided as the lawmakers they send to Washington. Although voters tell pollsters that they prefer compromise to stalemate, finding acceptable solutions in a period of polarization often proves difficult. The power of the president to short circuit gridlock in today's political environment is limited.

Legislative stalemate creates few winners and comes at high cost. By delaying action on the nation's long-term fiscal needs and policy priorities, Congress undermines public confidence and threatens the nation's economic health and public welfare now and into the future.

Authors

Sarah A. Binder

Publication: The Huffington Post

Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel and the Republican Party

Strobe Talbott — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:33:00 -0500

In an exchange with David Gregory on Meet the Press Sunday, Colin Powell gave a full-throated defense of Chuck Hagel’s qualifications to be secretary of defense, rebutting forcefully attacks on Hagel from fellow Republicans. That led Gregory to "challenge" Powell on whether he was still a Republican himself. The exchange is worth noting in its entirety.

GREGORY: To mix in foreign policy with some politics, I’m struck when you talk about Republicans as they. I know you insist despite voting for President Obama twice now that you’re still a Republican. But as-- as I go through your record on some social issues and even foreign policy issues, I challenge you a little bit to say on what basis are you still a Republican? Do you feel like this Republican Party has left you or have you left it?

GEN. POWELL: I think the Republican Party right now is having an identity problem. And I’m still a Republican. I’m a Republican who grew up along with George Bush XLI. I grew up with Ronald Reagan, Cap Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, that Republican Party, the Republican Party of Dick Lugar and John Tower. But in recent years, there’s been a significant shift to the right and we have seen what that shift has produced, two losing presidential campaigns. I think what the Republican Party needs to do now is take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed. The country is changing demographically. And if the Republican Party does not change along with that demographic, they’re going to be in trouble. And so, when we see that in one more generation, the minorities of America, African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans will be the majority of the country, you can’t go around saying we don’t want to have a solid immigration policy. We’re going to dismiss the 47 percent. We are going to make it hard for these minorities to vote as they did in the last election. What did that produce? The court struck most of that down and most importantly, it caused people to turn out and stand in line because these Republicans were trying to keep us from voting. There’s also a dark-- a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the Party. What I do mean by that? I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that? When I see a former governor say that the president is shuckin’ and jivin’, that’s a racial era slave term. When I see another former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, says that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow, he was tired, he didn’t do well, he said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans but to those of us who are African-Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with it Birther, the whole Birther Movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the Party? I think the Party has to take a look at itself. It has to take a look at its responsibilities for health care. It has to take a look at immigration. It has to take a look at those less fortunate than us. The Party has gathered unto itself a reputation that it is the party of the rich. It is the party of lower taxes. But there are a lot of people who are lower down the food chain, the economic chain, who are also paying lots of taxes relative to their income and they need help. We need more education work being done in this country. We need a solid immigration policy. We have to look at climate change. There are a lot of things that the American people are expecting and the Republican Party, as they get ready for the next election, really has to focus on some of these issues and not ignore them. Everybody wants to talk about who’s going to be the candidate. You better think first about what’s the party they’re actually going to represent. If it’s just going to represent the far right-wing of the political spectrum, I think the Party is in difficulty. I’m a moderate but I’m still a Republican, that’s how I was raised. And until I voted for Mister Obama twice, I had voted for seven straight Republican presidents.

In the two days since the interview aired, much of the reaction has been anger and denunciation of Powell from precisely those in the party whom he was criticizing. Let’s hope that initial counterattack will prod Powell’s fellow moderates to speak out as well. This experienced soldier knows that the important political battles in the U.S. are won in the center, not on the fringes. He wants to see his party move in that direction. All Americans should hope for the same for the sake of the country, which needs a healthy two-party system.

Authors

Strobe Talbott

Image Source: Jason Reed / Reuters

The Centrists Cannot Hold

Kemal Derviş — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:27:00 -0500

In most advanced democracies, a large center-right party competes with a large center-left party. Of course, the extent to which an electoral system favors large parties – by having high popular-vote thresholds to enter parliament, or through winner-take-all constituencies – affects the degree of political fragmentation. But, by and large, the developed democracies are characterized by competition between large parties on the center left and center right. What, then, are true centrists like Mario Monti, Italy’s respected technocratic prime minister, to do?

To be sure, regional and ethnic allegiances play a greater role in some places in Europe – for example, Scotland, Belgium, and Catalonia – but far more so in emerging countries, where political cleavages also reflect specific post-colonial circumstances and often the legacy of single-party rule. Nonetheless, even in “emerging market” democracies, such as Chile, Mexico, South Korea, and India, a left-right cleavage plays an important role – while those who claim the political center generally remain weak.

The British Liberal Democrats, for example, have tried for decades to become a strong centrist third party, without success. While the political vocabulary in the United States is different, the Democratic Party, since Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, is indeed a center-left force, the Republican Party occupies the right, and no other significant party exists.

In France and Germany, there is more fragmentation. Politics is still dominated by a large center-left party and a large center-right party, but smaller groups – some claiming the center and others the right and left extremes – challenge them to various degrees.

In France and Germany, there is more fragmentation. Politics is still dominated by a large center-left party and a large center-right party, but smaller groups – some claiming the center and others the right and left extremes – challenge them to various degrees. In some countries, the “Greens” have their own identity, close to the left; but, despite remarkable progress in Germany, they remain unable to reach the electoral size of the large center-right and center-left parties.

Variations of this basic structure exist in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and the Nordic countries. The situation is particularly interesting in Italy, where Monti, having decided to contest the upcoming general election, has had to position himself on the right (which he signaled by attending a gathering of the leaders of Europe’s center-right parties). He and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are now fighting for space on the right, with the center-left Democrats leading in the polls.

There are at least four differences between center-right and center-left approaches to social and economic challenges. The right has greater confidence in markets to allocate resources and provide appropriate incentives; favors private consumption over public goods; is minimally concerned with economic inequality; and tends to be more nationalistic and less optimistic about international cooperation.

The left, by contrast, believes that markets, particularly financial markets, need considerable government regulation and supervision to function well; gives greater weight to public goods (for example, parks, a clean environment, and mass-transit systems); seeks to reduce economic inequality, believing that it undermines democracy and the sense of fairness that is important to well-being; and is more willing to pursue international cooperation as a means to secure peace and provide global public goods, such as climate protection.

When looking at actual economic policies as they have evolved over decades, we see that they always combine center-right and center-left elements. Repeated financial crises have tempered even the right’s faith in unregulated markets, while the left has become more realistic and cautious about state planning and bureaucratic processes. Likewise, the choice between privately consumed and publicly consumed “goods” is often blurred, as politicians tend to reinforce citizens’ understandable tendency to demand public goods while rejecting the taxes needed to pay for them.

As income inequality has increased – dramatically in some countries, such as the US – it is moving to the forefront of the debate, reinforcing the traditional political divide.

As income inequality has increased – dramatically in some countries, such as the US – it is moving to the forefront of the debate, reinforcing the traditional political divide. Nonetheless, the center right and the center left are arguing about the degree of redistribution, not about the need for some progressivity in taxes and transfers. Both also agree on the need for international cooperation in an increasingly interdependent world, with differences mainly concerning how much effort to spend on it.

So, given that differences in policies as they are implemented have become largely a matter of degree, why do centrist parties remain weak? Why have they failed to unite moderates on both sides of the ideological divide?

One reason is that only a minority of any population is active politically. Active party members hold more ideologically consistent views – and hold them more strongly – than most of those who are politically less engaged, giving activists disproportionate influence in the political process. After all, more nuanced ideas and policy proposals are relatively difficult to propagate effectively enough to generate broad and enthusiastic popular support.

But there also really are fundamental differences in values and economic philosophies, as well as in economic interests, leading to a fairly consistent positioning of voters on the right or left. Disagreement may lead to compromises, but that does not change the underlying differences in starting positions.

It is probably a good thing that structured competition between large center-right and center-left parties persists. Such parties can help to integrate the extremes into the political mainstream, while facilitating alternation in power, which is essential to any democracy’s dynamism; a system in which a large centrist party remained permanently in power would be far less desirable. Those, like Monti, who want to mount a challenge from the center, however personally impressive they may be, have steep obstacles to overcome, and for good reasons.

Authors

Kemal Derviş

Publication: Project Syndicate