In the issue that comes out next week, Foreign Policy magazine will cover some work I did at the consulting firm Social Technologies on mapping the speed of change.
Foreign Policy writes:
How swiftly or slowly life changes in particular countries is the subject of the Speed of Change Index, which measures changes in urbanization, literacy, GDP per capita, civil liberties, and access to a telephone, TV, and the Internet in countries during the last 15 years…. The index reveals where citizens’ needs are rapidly changing, new markets are opening, and the risk of instability runs high.
Image courtesy Social Technologies.
An NPR reporter in Cuba suggests that change — at least of a kind — is underway.
Writes NPR, “There are signs in Cuba that Fidel Castro’s power is truly waning, despite that many Cubans have a hard time believing that his rule is really over.”
The reporter’s findings suggest a “Fidelismo without Fidel” scenario, but with hints of “The China Option.”
The Atlantic recently asked its panel of 40 foreign policy experts about prospects for democracy, publishing the results in March.
One question–do you believe the proliferation of democratic government is inevitable in the long run?–yielded these results:
Skeptics’ comments included these:
- “We seem to have forgotten that democracy is an organic phenomenon–that … it is the outcome of specific histories, cultures, ethnicities, and events.
- “New models quite far from Jeffersonian democracy (China’s ‘Market-Leninism’) could begin to catch the imaginations of transitional societies.”
Someone in the “yes” camp offered this remark:
- “Despite the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, people who are free to choose (as Mrs. Thatcher said) do choose to be free. And the information revolution enables more people to see lives in free countries.”
Image: Racoles (Flickr)
The Washington Post reports on how little will there is to deal with the causes of Japan’s projected demographic collapse.
The article notes that the country may lose 70% of its workforce by 2050, at the same time it is faced with supporting a massive population of seniors.
The oncoming problems could be alleviated with immigration and a higher birth rate, but these are impeded by social malfunction:
- Japan’s strong sense of ethnic unity makes immigration a non-starter: “the issue is too politically toxic for extensive public discussion.”
- The low birth rate has a lot to do with how women are treated in the workforce and at home, but Japan seems to lack the will to do much to change this. The article reports renewed calls for “enlightened government intervention” on the issue, but those have gone and gone before.
Japan does not seem to face a disastrous implosion, like some socially malfunctioning societies of the past — see the Greenland Norse in Diamond’s Collapse — but it may choose diminishing strength, relevance, and perhaps prosperity over change.
See Futureatlas for more on this issue.
Image: usable with link and credit to Futureatlas.com
NPR today offered a rare focus on Abkhazia, the region that broke away from Georgia in the 1990s.
It is a curious mirror image of Kosovo: Russia, adamantly opposed to independence for Kosovo, supports Abkhazia’s freedom (at least from Georgia), while the US favors subjecting the Abkhaz to Georgian rule, though they appear to have much the same case as the Kosovars for independence.
The parallel is not lost on the Abkhaz, who have poor relations with the Georgians:
Abkhazia’s leaders say the West has so far refused to listen to their arguments, but they cite the precedent set by Kosovo. One day, they say, the international community will have to realize the only way to avert war over Abkhazia is to recognize its independence.
Angus Reid polling explains why Bolivia’s constitutional troubles are “more likely to split the nation in two” than to bring it peace.
As the indigenous Andean majority assert their newfound political power, the wealthier, more Hispanic lowland areas such as Santa Cruz are growing restive, and there is talk of separation. Angus Reid reports that “General Luis Trigo Antelo, the Bolivian Armed Forces’ commander in chief, has warned Santa Cruz and other departments seeking to call similar referendums on autonomy that the army will ‘not allow separatism.’”
The article concludes with this warning: “the fragile stability could break in the following months, as the stand-off between the rich and poor departments heightens the possibility of military action.”
Image: Mabel Flores (Flickr)
The Post notes an indicator of deteriorating stability in Lebanon: the price of weapons is rising.
Many weapons that had been stowed away since the civil war ended in 1990 are going onto the market.
Writes the Post, “many people now worry more about the potential for conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Although few expect a conflagration on the scale of the last war, many are preparing for the worst.”
Vicki Huddleston of Brookings recently wrote a piece entitled “Cuba 2010: Worse-Case Scenario Could Become Reality.”
Curiously, it is basically a “present-trends-continue” scenario, with most conditions improving at the margins but the communist system remaining in place, buoyed by good economic conditions and a new revenue stream from ethanol.
Though their probability varies, there are clearly worse scenarios, including heightened repression by Cuba’s government or by a right-wing successor regime, or even invasion by the US.
Soldiers distributing rice in the Philippines, bread lines in Egypt, and food riots in Haiti all reinforce what some have been warning for years: the price of food may spike, and stay high, and this may drive future instability.
Current high prices are mostly due to short-term causes, but two factors could make expensive food a long-term fact:
- sustained increasing demand by China, India, and other developing countries
- high energy prices, especially if they were driven by peak oil
The upshot would be food too expensive for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people, who might simultaneously be hit by the pressures of global warming on agriculture.
The instability that could result is one of the possible triggers for some of the darker scenarios for the 21st century.
Image: Visualpanic (Flickr)
This week provided a clear example of dyschronicity, from Saudi Arabia.
The Washington Post reports that the kingdom’s “most revered cleric” has issued a fatwa demanding apostasy trials for two writers who questioned an aspect of hardline Saudi Islam in articles.
The cleric decreed that the writers should be tried and executed if they do not repent.
Hence the 400-plus year gap between Sweden and Saudi Arabia on the dyschronicity map: Western Europe gave up this conception of the role of religion around the 17th century.
(Image usable with credit and link to FutureAtlas.com)