Let me digest your links before commenting–it looks like it could make good material for a separate post.

As for me. Sorry to say but the terms of settlement preclude my return to my former job, and hence the gym (although I do try to use it when visiting NZ). Formal reinstatement does not mean de facto reinstatement in this instance, and given the lack of job prospects in NZ, I continue to live, reluctantly, in SE Asia (although it does offer another perspective on comparative politics and IR).

I did not want things to work out that way, but management was adamant that my presence was inimical to the institution’s reputation and I did not have the financial means to continue the ER dispute through the courts. Thus the settlement on (largely) their terms.

Complex systems approach to the study of politics

Here is a good introduction on the subject.

Causality, Emergence, Self-Organisation

CST is still predominantly a research domain in physics and mathematics, but now researchers from other social science disciplines have started adopting it, since they recognize that it applies in economics, politics, etc,…

PS: Paul, I haven’t seen you in the (Uni Rec Center) gym (if you’re back to NZ already). The last time I saw you, was outside Radio Live building waiting to go in for a live interview with John Tamihere and I think, it was a year or two ago.

I significantly agree with Pablo’s post any points I could add are just quibbles around the edges that add no value. But everyone else – what value are you adding saying the world sucks today.

Yes there are problems in the world, its a bit messy, not everyone has a good life. But more people today than ever before have higher life expectancies, more people are enfranchised to vote and participant in civil society. And we have more ability to address issues.

Maybe the problem with most commentators (myself included) is an irreconcilable debate that is essentially between optimists and pessimists (the world peaked at age 17 and high school – since then its all been downhill). I tend to see the pessimist problenm as being one of situation transferance. They see something bad happen in the world (child mugged in german park) and go I have a child, we have a park the world is becoming a dangerous place, ignoring the fact they live in NZ and the risks are completely different.

On transitions – as a world we haven’t had a lot of experience with them in general – historically its been through ruling class revolutions and/or defensetration of kings/dukes (I like the word defensetrate, has a certain gastly but cool factor to it). Maybe what really is amazing about 1989 is that on that occassion defensetration was needed for authoritarian change – this leaves something to be hopeful about ourselves.

That the global economy operates on a competitive basis and thus diminishes protection for jobs of workers has caused as much costly socio-economic change as global warming is forecast to.

The inability of the state to protect jobs in this environment leads governments to divest itself of ownership in industries subject to global market competititon. This speeds up the job dislocations.

Here we adjusted painfully – and the approbrium falling on both Labour and National led to MMP.

All a political transition requires is

1. an executive accountable to some group in a public guardianship role (in lieu of an elected party contesting parliament).
2. an independent judiciary
3. a free media

The problem is trying to do any more than this while a national economy is being brought into the global economy.

And let’s be blunt the global economy involves wealth transfer to China – which is growing at the expense of the rest of the world because of its undervalued yuan. Of course the end result of this is the greater economic wealth in the world, but it is a cost on the rest of the nations of the world in the meantime.

PS There is some irony in the globalisation being seen as a victory for capitalism – when China, which is the great winner of the past 20 year process, retains so much state sector ownership and control of its economy. But capitalism has triumphed in the declining West, this despite the fact the people of the West and the new democracies are not so enamoured with it. No wonder authoritarianism is on the rise amongst us – a new security imperative to declare surveillance of society to deter dissent (under cover of the declared war against terrorism and or crime).

I don’t disagree. I was insinuating that many political analysts think they are being “objective” when they are really being “sympathetic”. I’m not including you among them, but a hell of a lot that has been written in the last couple of weeks fails in that way. Democracy for many of us is a matter of religious faith. I wish it weren’t.

I do not see the post-Soviet picture as grimly as you do. As I mentioned in the post, a host of countries have benefitted from the demise of Stalinism.

They’re about the only people who did. We certainly didn’t. I accept your point, since not many people are as grim as me about anything. Maybe I listened to the Cure too much when I was younger. ;-)

I wonder if there is a connection between the end of the Cold War and the increasing unreality of western democratic politics. That’s not to say that Cold War politics weren’t full of the usual BS. However, the genuine and terrifying prospect of nuclear war tended to drag things back to reality when push came to shove.

Now we have a hyperindividualist faith-based politics based on the tried and tested principle of having one’s cake and eating it. I’ve been trying to work out why this has led to an increase in authoritarianism. I’m a mild fan of the political compass site, which maps people onto left/right and authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axes. It’s not hard to see from that site that politics has undergone a sharp tilt towards right wing authoritarianism in the last 25 years, even if the voters tend to be somewhat less authoritarian than their leaders (I guess that is to be expected and that political scientists have a name for that particular phenomenon). I’ve noticed this myself as a teacher (at various times I have had to teach ethics, and the issues come up in other things I do). While students are more tolerant of homosexuals and minorities, support for harsh retributive justice and social policies is much much higher than it used to be. I thought it was pretty bad when I got to college in the early 90s, but it has gotten worse since.

I’m at a loss to see why what was trumpeted as a victory for the freedom of the individual has produced a world political climate that is in large part increasingly inimical to it (with the obvious exceptions of gay rights and suchlike). New Zealand has fared better than other countries (for what reason I do not know), but some, like Britain, are much more authoritarian than they were 20 years ago.

That, for me, is the puzzle of 1989. I’m afraid solving this problem is beyond my competence. Any ideas, anyone?

Bueller?

PS. Apologies for the poor structure of this post. I am in a hurry.

I do not see the post-Soviet picture as grimly as you do. As I mentioned in the post, a host of countries have benefitted from the demise of Stalinism. The trouble is that a majority have not, and you are right to note that mature democracies, in their present form, provide little in the way of “role models” for their nascent cousins in the former Eastern bloc.

So does studying them from a sympathetic viewpoint. The same people can’t seem to see that democracy looks like collapsing because it seems incapable of dealing with climate change and other long term problems.

We can add to that the increasing authoritarianism in Western Society over the last 25 years, and it makes me think that everybody lost the Cold War.

Apart from the Germans and a few others, most of those people were better off under the communists. They were told that capitalism meant that they would be living like Americans when the truth was it meant that most of them would be living like the poor in Latin America.

The people may not like it.

In such a transition, contacts, banking and the black market become the new means to power – who has access to money can buy up assets when they are cheap and join the new oligarchy.

Many of the people who know of this will not like it.

A free media would hold those involved in running the transition to account, which is why it remains in the hand of the state throughout the process, or is given over to the new oligarchy.

But does a transition from socialism state economy to a “capitalist” economy have to occur in such a way?

There is a democratic problem with such a capitalist transition whenever the economy is struggling – because making some of the people richer while others are less provided for will result in inequality. Such a change would not be popular.

There are alternatives.

The problem in Russia was that the transition occured while oil prices were low – under duress. At a later stage, the rising oil revenues would have enabled the state to continue to make social provision and for the shares given to the people to remain with them (rather than being sold under duress of poverty). Then the outcome could have been more on the Scandinavian model, rather than a failed democracy and an oligarchic economy.

After all Russia’s economic recovery has little to do with its new “capitalism”, but the rise of energy prices.

The flawed presumption is that socialist economies are all failures and that for economic success to occur capitalist leadership and command of the market and workers is required.

But whether an economy is successful, or not, often has little to do with socialism or capitalism, but how well the economy fits in with the wider world – the failure of socialist economies has more to do with nationalist self sufficiency separating them from globalisation (growing markets and investment and technology). Many of the strengths of state socialism – such as a focus on the development of an industry, were copied by Asian tigers before they succeeded in the global market.