Hitting Double Digit Support, the German Pirate Party Sets Sail For The Political Arena

Source

Following its landmark win in Berlin's recent state-level elections, where the German Pirate Party received 15 seats in State Parliament, the Pirates continue to gain support- reaching double-digit numbers in public opinion polls, for the first time.

Of particular significance is the fact that, since the 2009 federal elections, the German Pirate Party has nearly quintupled its voter base- going from 2% to about 10% of the total vote.

Here is an animation, made by Taiwan's Next Media Association, which I think is a neat little summary:



One way of looking at the success of the Pirate Party phenomenon has been suggested by Helen Pidd of The Guardian. She argues that the Pirates' increasing should not be considered simply a "Berlin anomaly." Rather, it should be considered part of a wider European trend towards support of radical leftist (or rightist) parties, which may ultimately disagree with one another on the particularities of policy- but who can agree that the traditional, customary method of politics is no longer working.

British Healthcare Issues

Lawrence Chu of the LA Times wrote an article detailing British citizen’s reactions to U.S politicians (particularly Sarah Palin) remarks of the National Health Service being the model of the failure of the “Welfare State”. British citizen’s cried out against the “American” style of healthcare stating that its “grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures that favor the rich”. The NHS provides all citizens of Great Britain regardless of income with healthcare and they believe that it’s hypocritical and tragic that the American system doesn’t do the same. This news comes on the heels of a proposed shake up of the NHS which will move hospitals out of the NHS to create a more vibrant industry of social enterprise. This will mean that GP’s (General Practitioner's)will be responsible for much of the new budgets. The result will be the abolition of all 10 of the strategic health authorities and 152 management bodies known as primary care trusts. The new structure that will be created will be held accountable by and independent NHS board which will be free from political interference; also responsibility for public health will be passed on to local authorities. The hope is to lower the management costs of the NHS which accounts for nearly $170 billion by half within the next four years.

These new measures have British citizens on edge as they fear “privatization by stealth” in their healthcare system if more power is put into the hands of doctors and competition is introduced into the NHS. Current British Prime Minister David Cameroon stated twice that Britain will not be selling off the NHS or moving towards an Americanized private style healthcare system. The NHS in Britain is widely regarded and considered by some to be the greatest triumph of the welfare state, and has continued to grow since its implementation in 1948; and it is currently the largest employer of British citizens. There have been numerous politicians who have proposed to streamline the NHS but they must be careful on who they tinker with the system. The NHS is an institution unto itself, the British have a love-hate relationship with it, and there are equal amounts of horror stories of the NHS from rude nurses and doctors to long wait lines for standard medical procedures. However the notion that the NHS could become more “Americanized” is something that is unfathomable to British citizens and they will do everything in their power to keep it from happening. Interestingly both British and America citizens are adamantly opposed to the restructuring of their healthcare systems. British fear more privatization and Americans fear more government intervention; it’s unrealistic to think that both systems can be changed overnight or even at all. The institutions have become so deeply entrenched in both countries that any kind of major overhaul has the possibility to cause more harm than good.

Article Links

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/13/world/la-fg-britain-health-care-20110613

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10557996

Research Resource

My research on Bolivian water politics and privatization started out fairly slow. While there is plenty of information on the water riots that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2000, finding critiques and further information on the situation concerning the water system as it is today, 11 years later is proving to be less fruitful.

However, I have discovered a resource through the St. John’s library that has been helpful in accessing books that are not available in either the St. John’s library or the New York public libraries. While I assume most people are familiar with the website WorldCat, an extremely useful and thorough catalog of library collections searchable by zip code, most of the books I have searched for have not been found in public libraries or the St. John’s libraries. However, the online library resource, ebrary, has had many of the books available as ebooks and it turns out that St. John’s has a trial account with ebrary. If you access ebrary through the library’s database on St. John’s central, similar to how one can access Ebscohost or Proquest, you can search and read many books that are not available at the St. John’s library or in the nearest public library.

Research: Intelligence and Covert Action

I have begin researching my topic, Intelligence and Covert Action in Iran and Afghanistan, and I have noticed that the history of foreign intelligence in these countries is documented well and is accessible to the general public. Some of the documents that I have reviewed have recently become declassified; meaning, that the covert actions of specific agencies throughout history has started to unfold as a result of an increase in transparency and accountability. This availability of information regarding intelligence has afforded me the opportunity to use history as a starting point for my research. furthermore, the chronological history of events in Iran and Afghanistan serves as basis in which to begin the exploration of how foreign powers are able to disrupt the social order of a country; this question will be developed through a rational choice model. The rational choice model will serve as the main method in which to explain how covert action and intelligence is successful and also, why it occurs. There is a potential problem that exists within the research itself; the availability of recent information regarding intelligence may be minimal because of the nature of the intelligence community and the need for secrecy within action.

Researching the current affairs of intelligence in Iran and Afghanistan is difficult because it is still unfolding; some of the documents regarding operations in these countries were not declassified for decades later. As events unfold throughout the world, government leaders are the only ones who have access to information regarding issues of high sensitivity; it becomes difficult to get the most recent information regarding the intelligence community, without actually being a part of it. There are intelligence patterns that have existed throughout history that can provide guidance in current international affairs but in order to write a comparative study on Intelligence, one must use history as a tool in which to understand. These agencies have their countries best interest in mind and they are willing to disrupt the order of another to accomplish their goals. In order to be successful in this study, historical analysis must be avoided at all costs; I would instead like to gain more information on the methods used by these agencies and how those methods were decided upon through rational decision making.

More Violence in Yemen

It is starting to look like Yemen is on the verge of becoming as violent as Syria or even Libya.

Yemenis of Sana'a were once again awoken by gunfire at dawn, which killed one person and wounded six others. Once again, anti-government protesters are accusing snipers of targeting a camp where protesters have been residing. It seems that the new, violent face of Saleh's reaction to protesters can also be the response of the changing face of the Arab Spring. In light of the brutal and equally mysterious death of Moammar Gadhafi has only raised the stakes not just for Saleh, but for the other leaders "next in line" in the drama of the Arab spring (Just look at has come to the men in the above picture taken just one year ago).



The day after streetfighting between troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and soldiers and armed tribesmen who defected to the opposition, tens of thousands of demonstrators set off on a protest march on Sunday from Change Square. Protesters said it had been government snipers shooting at them.

Government officials said the total death toll from Saturday's fighting had risen to 20, including four civilians and five soldiers in the nine months of confrontation. It seems that the fighting has gotten more drastic after Tawwakul Karman won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, and a United Nations Security Council resolution, passed on Friday, calling on Saleh to immediately sign a deal under which he would quit.

Karman criticised the resolution for not opposing a proposal by the Gulf C-ooperation Council (GCC) that would give Saleh immunity from prosecution if he signs the deal. Saleh has backed away three times from a transition plan brokered by the GCC and says he will only hand over power to "safe hands".

The next Russian Elections-The beginning of the end for true Russian democracy.

In conducting my research I came across a recent article about the upcoming elections in Russia. The article pertains to my research because Russian P.M Putin declared that the presidential term will be extended from four to six years. P.M Putin also declared that he would be running for office again, with current President Medvedev becoming Prime Minister. The consensus is that Putin will hands-down win the election. It seems that there is no person capable of running against Mr. Putin, while some people hoped that President Medvedev would defend his position, he seems to be fine with taking a back-seat to Putin. This comes as no surprise however, since Medvedev rose to power with the backing of Putin, and remains merely a puppet.

Looking at this scenario we can assume that President Putin...I mean Prime Minister Putin will win the next two elections essentially changing the Russian government from a democracy to the rule of the few.

Why has the issue of file-sharing become of increasing importance (in Sweden)?

One quick answer may be that traditional political parties and governments, faced with significant complications, usually take to enacting new laws and regulation to, effectively, criminalize all forms of file-sharing of copyrighted media. This approach is highlighted by the Swedish police’s 2006 raid on the web hosting provider of the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay.

This move was highly controversial—servers belonging to organizations not affiliated with The Pirate Bay were seized; rumors abounded that the raid was forced by the U.S. government and movie companies; there were also whispers that the Swedish government had a hand in launching the raid by police—which would be a violation of Swedish law.

It was Sweden’s Social-Democratic government, which created a law making downloading of copyrighted material on the Internet illegal, that literally, overnight, transformed an entire generation into criminals.

What the government did, for all intents and purposes, was to whack the proverbial hornet’s nest with a stick. The government gave the appearance of seeking to take away a significant slice of the younger generation’s way of life—by proscribing actions that many, if not most, participated in on nearly a day-to-day basis. This issue, unlike many others, happened to directly affect not only the lives of many young people—but also their beliefs and values.

Many members of the younger generation—those who have grown up using the Internet, relish the ease with which one can obtain, essentially, any form of information or media. Having grown up with this freedom and access, many of them take it to be an essential aspect of their lifestyle. The freedom of information and media—and the freedom to receive said information and media, is taken to be of paramount importance. Intense value and significance is placed on not only the freedom to “know” but also the right to “know.” Thus, organizations and communities, such as The Pirate Bay, emerge. Their purpose is to foster and support, as well as facilitate, this one absolutely necessary aspect of life in a modern society.

Habermas (1996) and Benhabib (1996) suggest that citizenship is described with regards to agreed-upon standards of social behavior and shared values. From this we can see that the Swedish government’s raid on The Pirate Bay stimulated a new arena of political conflict—that is, the young Swedes’ view of the traditional political system and its justifications suffered a significant shift, as certain aspects of their cultural system came into serious disagreement with peremptory requests of current socio-political institutions. That is, this “clash of values” may expose some of the “cracks” in the foundations of contemporary government—the inability of the government to appear legitimate in the eyes of a large portion of society.

The Piratepartiet (Pirate Party) can be taken as a response to this state of affairs—an attempt to rectify, or influence and infuse contemporary government with some of the values that a certain segment of society holds close. Thus, we can see that one way of understanding the Piratpartiet is through the lens of culture, values, and legitimacy. The Piratpartiet began as a “bottom-up” movement, commencing with the actions and values of the younger generation—which then became of political importance, once they were taken to be incompatible with what larger society demanded.

Vietnam’s Dong Has Worst Week Since August as Fixing Weakened

Many people snicker when they discover that the Vietnamese currency is called the Dong. First of all, the pronunciation of đồng is different from the English which literally translates to bronze or brass. More importantly in the context of global economics the Vietnamese dong is the 2nd least valued currency in the world falling short the Somali Schilling. It is consistently rated one of the least valued currencies in the world since its existence in 1978 when the currency was unified with the transitional dong in the south. As of this week the dong is valued 20,950.00 for every dollar. In other words, a traveler could bring about 50 USD and be considered a millionaire in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government is concerned about the "black market" where the currency is traded as low as 21,410. This is done not in the back alleys but at local jewelry stores. The government has devalued the currency three times over the last two years. When there is less confidence in the currency, the people will look towards gold or the US dollar for better stability. A tael of gold (37.5 grams) in Vietnam is worth 44 million dong.

Vietnam is still a one party state with the communist party in power. Every year the party sets a goal of GDP growth. Over the past few years the the GDP growth rate was around 8 percent. However beginning in 2009 it dropped to 5.3 percent. This year the government has set a lower goal of 5.8 percent. Vietnam’s real-estate market has stalled, by soaring inflation, sky-high interest rates and sharp lending curbs. Developers are halting projects or delaying new ones. The uneasiness is relfected in Vietnamese businessmen. Doan Nguyen Duc, chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint Stock Co said, “The real estate market is at its ugliest ever. I expect the market to continue to fall much deeper.” Inflation has been rising to very high levels affecting the price commodities and more importantly food. Standard and Poor, a financial company that evaluates credit ratings around the world, lowered Vietnam's foreign currency rating to BB- from BB and the local currency rating to BB from BB+ last year.When Vietnam somewhat opened its doors for foreign investment, it was labeled as the "New Asian Tiger." Is this situation now simply a part of the downturn in the economy across of the world and how will it last?

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Hard+lessons+Vietnam+property+slumps/5482964/story.html

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-21/vietnam-s-dong-has-worst-week-since-august-as-fixing-weakened.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704278404576037061744755264.html
http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/business/gold-shoots-up-over-vnd44-million-mark-1.48843

Democratization and Occupy Wall Street

Last Friday evening St. John's Department of Government and Politics hosted a talk on democratization and Morocco as part of its regular series of graduate program colloquium. Our speaker was Dr. Driss Maghraoui, from Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. Dr. Maghraoui's talk focused primarily on the structural constraints that were limiting the impact of the democratic reform movement in Morocco. As a semi-authoritarian state, with at least some of the institutions of democracy, such as a parliament, political parties, and organized labor, the February 20th Movement, as the democracy movement is known in Morocco, finds itself pushing for reform, rather than regime change as their counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya had. The colloquium was held on our Manhattan campus in the Financial District, just blocks away from the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, and since we had some time before the talk was set to begin, I suggested a quick walk down to see how the protests were progressing. Dr. Maghraoui, Dr. Azzedine Layachi, another faculty member from our department, and myself headed down. It was a rainy evening, but there was still plenty of activity in the park. In addition to drumming, there was a costumed group of "billionaires" holding a "tea party", a protester dressed in the traditional Depression era barrel and suspenders, and a vibrant buzz of conversation and debate. For the three of us, all professionally interested in the practice of democracy, the park was a fascinating example of popular participation and mobilization. Back on campus, listening to Dr. Maghraoui discuss the challenges of reform in Morocco, I couldn't help but think about parallels and contradictions with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Research So Far...

The research for my paper on the English Healthcare system has been going well so far. There’s a lot of information pertaining to England’s healthcare system and it’s very interesting to track the systems development and implementation. I would like to have a few more books as a reference. What I found that was interesting was that in England there are private healthcare options available for those citizens wishing to pay for it. The English private healthcare options are normally specialist referrals and in other instances are parts of employer benefit packages from large companies. However most English citizens use their NHS (National Health Service) Sometimes patients may be subcontracted out to private healthcare by the NHS for certain treatment options. Primary care as their first option. Also another interesting note is that non-residents of the UK always receive free treatment at the time of emergencies.

One issue that I have found pertaining to the English healthcare system is that the quality of care varies depending on the region that you’re in. Supposedly Scotland has exceptional healthcare services due to the fact that their healthcare system is composed of 14 health boards and is not handled by the NHS. There are also complaints that the quality of service that the NHS provides for citizens is subpar in some instances. These are all issues that I will address in more depth in my paper. There is a lot of information on the English healthcare system the only real trouble I have run into so far is wading through material to find what’s relevant to my article and what isn’t but I expected that much.

Applying current developments to research of Pakistan

My paper is primarily focused on the nationalism within Pakistan and how it has led to the instability of its border with Afghanistan and the relative rigidity of its border with India. The research that I have conducted thus far has mostly been about the partition between India and Pakistan and how the division of the once united British colony into separate states formed around two religions has created tensions.

After the recent developments in the relationship between Afghanistan and India, I may want to do more research into how their relationship has affected Pakistan, or how it could in the future. I might look into how Pakistan’s relationship and its border have played into the developing alliance between its neighbors and if the sense of nationalism within Pakistan has contributed to these conditions in any way. Initially I was planning on examining how Afghanistan and India have contributed to Pakistan’s security concerns but I’ve realized that it may be advantageous to look at the reversal as well.

Indian-Afghani relations and concerns about Pakistan

Recently, relations between Afghanistan and India have taken a turn in a positive direction, which, for Pakistan, could have negative repercussions. India, which has long been a rival to Pakistan, signed a strategic partnership with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the beginning of October, paving the way for Indian training for the Afghan army.

In the past decade India has invested over $2 billion in Afghanistan, focusing largely on infrastructure and social programs. The motives of India have continuously been questioned by Pakistan, which lies in between the two nations. With the continued withdrawal of American led NATO forces, the vacuum created could be filled by the Indian government seeking to create an ally to Pakistan’s west.

Both India and Afghanistan have alleged corruption and have accused Pakistan of being weak on the terrorist cells operating within its borders. More recently Afghan officials have claimed that Pakistan had fostered the executors of a suicide attack that left former Afghan President and current head of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, dead.

The alliance between India and Afghanistan could lead to increasing pressure on Pakistan to gain control of militant insurgents currently taking up refuge along the border near Afghanistan. With opposition along its two major borders, Pakistan could be put in an increasingly difficult position and may be forced to work more diligently to shore up its borders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/world/asia/afghanistan-curries-favor-with-india-and-denigrates-pakistan.html?_r=2&scp=6&sq=pakistan&st=cse

Research Update: The Origins of the anti-copyright movement in Sweden

Source

One way to understand the rise of the contemporary anti-copyright movement in Sweden is to understand one website, which, in conjunction with the Piratpartiet (Swedish Pirate Party) have been vocal and conspicuous in the sorts of policies they would like to see implemented. Analyzing websites is a particularly useful method of inquiry, for two main reasons. First, the movement finds the internet as its natural environment. Second, the internet-driven nature of the movement lends itself particularly well to this, somewhat unconventional procedure.

The Pirate Bay: "The world's most resilient BitTorrent site"

The Pirate Bay was founded by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratebyran in late 2003, but by October 2004 it had splintered off from that group and was independently run. In 2006, the organization once again switched ownership, and is now run as a non-profit organization. As of October 2011, according to Alexa Traffic Ranks the Pirate Bay is the 84th most visited site in the world.

The Pirate Bay hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users the opportunity to share all sorts of electronic media (video games, movies, music) with the broader Pirate Bay community through peer-to-peer file sharing software- think BitTorrent or uTorrent, for example.

Those running The Pirate Bay hold that they cannot be held legally responsible for copyrighted material that is being distributed among the community, as the website only holds torrent files and not copyrighted material. Further, The Pirate Bay has somewhat of a humorous approach to dealing with protestors: "Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site."

Though political debates on "internet politics" largely fall within the realm of responsibility of the Piratepartiet, The Pirate bay plays an active role in the lively legal and political debate on copyright, filesharing, and other internet-related issues- although, in its own unique way.

The Pirate Bay allows its users to participate in the debate by hosting a forum, where users can participate in discussions related to legal and political implications of file sharing. There is also a News & Announcements section, where users can be updated with recent developments.

Additionally, the Pirate Bay lists various complaints and legal threats they have received- as well as their often ironic and mocking replies, underneath a section on their website titled "Legal Threats." Some companies which have complained are Microsoft, Dreamworks, EA Games, Sega, and Apple.

In sum, the Swedish file sharing website, The Pirate Bay, provides a unique and in-depth glance into the world of contemporary file sharing, as well as some of the legal and political concerns surrounding the debate. I plan on continuing to examine the website and mining it for useful information.

GLBT Identity and Contemporary Southeast Asian Politics

My paper is a gender exploration on the idea of “we build who we are” vs. the social construction of gender identity. Day-to-day laws will become the main focus instead of military laws as I want the paper to analysis how the former affects people on a daily basis. Transgender people will be the main subject that will be focused on this paper. The reason is that compared to straight men and women, transgender are transition into a different identity than the one that they were born into. For countries in South-East Asia, like Malaysia and Indonesia, it is criminal for a person to step outside of the public realm. The criminalization of identity is what affecting Transgenders, but it is not only limited to them. It is also affecting those who do not identity their social orientation as being heterosexual. Exploring these ideas, I will look into the legal analysis the modern laws that dictate the limitations placed on those part of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender as well as the laws that came before.

From this paper, I want to be able to gain an understanding where prejudices concerning gender come from. This paper is going to explore how these laws influence people’s limited understanding of community consisting of minorities such as the LGBT community. The idea of the “public realm” is an idea that has interest me, and will most like be the focus for this paper. Even though I come from a country that promotes individual rights, compared to countries where membership matters, I’m finding that a person stepping out of the norm is not receiving different kind of response from either area.

My starting point for the paper is the examination of Transgenders and their role in society. As move along in the paper to the GLBT community to women, my plan is present an examination of the views of masculinity and femininity. As a transgender is a person who transitions from one gender to the other, the lack of knowledge that the average person has is able to reveal their views on the different genders. Even though it will be a hard task to achieve, I want this paper to showcase an understanding towards how those who differ from heterosexual males somehow threaten their masculinity. I hope that from this paper this new information will be able to change the perspective on what we do not understand.

Bibliography

• Paris is Buring and The Celluiod Closest -> documentaries that gave me the basic idea for the paper
• Peletz, Michael G. 2009. Gender pluralism: southeast Asia since early modern times. New York: Routledge.
• Peletz, Michael G. 1996. Reason and passion representations of gender in a Malay society. Berkeley: University of California Press
• Spiegel, Anna. 2010. Contested public spheres: female activism and identity politics in Malaysia. Wiesbaden: VS Research.