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elephants in Sri Lanka!

Regular readers of this newsletter will recall that, a few weeks ago, we highlighted a story from Noema [[link removed]] in which the reporter — who quoted her subjects at length, that they might speak in their own words — shared Sri Lankan perspectives on human-elephant conflict.

This week, New Lines Magazine [[link removed]] has a piece of its own on the matter, focused less on farmers and more on conservation efforts. Zinara Rathnayake, a Sri Lanka-based writer, looked at how, historically, humans and elephants lived in harmony — and how that has been disrupted by deforestation and development. But the true focus of the piece is Prithiviraj Fernando, chairman of the Center for Conservation and Research. Fernando and his team are trying to mitigate human-elephant conflict through fencing initiatives. As Rathnayake writes, “They’ve been experimenting with different kinds of electric fences to be placed around farmland to protect human habitats, as opposed to national parks which limit elephants’ access to sites of food and water. These fences were removed after cultivation and animals were allowed to pass through the farmlands, which, Fernando said, reduced conflict and safeguarded crops.”

Rathnayake ultimately concludes that Fernando and conservationists like him can only show the way. It is the government that must follow the path. The government announces plans but does not follow through. But as is noted in the piece, it’s not as though elephants decide to wage war on humans. It’s government policy that puts pressure on them — and government policy that can reverse it.

Speech, speech!

Writing in The Nation [[link removed]], Dave Zirin lauds Jonathan Glazer’s speech, delivered while accepting the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, which he won for his “Zone of Interest,” a movie that looked at the life of SS officer Rudolf Höss and his family during the Holocaust, tending to their gardens, metaphorically and quite literally, next to Auschwitz.

In accepting the award, Glazer said, “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Some claimed that Glazer said he was refuting Jewishness. Zirin argues the opposite: “He is actually reclaiming his culture from the pampered pro-Israel media prizefighters who argue that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same … To call out this lie is a daring and dangerous act, and Glazer should be commended for standing in the tradition of debate — not of calumny and lies.” Zirin also notes that there are those who would end the Jewish tradition of debate, and laments that they would do so.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] A Different View

Todd Miller writes [[link removed]] in The Border Chronicle of a different way to look at the border.

Miller writes that in US politics, and especially in an election year, the border and immigration is often presented as a crisis, a problem that must be fixed, and that can only be fixed by enforcement. This is a view taken by not one but both political parties, Miller points out, citing former President Donald Trump’s invocations of invasion and President Biden’s challenge to Republicans to help him tighten border controls.

The focus of this piece takes a different view, and does so in its focus on a shelter in Nogales. “The shelter is run by its director, Alma Angélica Macías, but the effort was a community one, and a binational one. I was there with a small group of people from the Good Shepherd UCC church in Arizona who bring food to the Casa every Thursday. And given that the shelter allows people to stay as long as the asylum process takes, the Casa had a feel of a multinational hub where people of different nationalities had formed deep bonds,” Miller writes.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Right Turn

What, exactly, is behind the rise of support for populist radical right parties in Europe over the past several years? That is the question Oren Danieli, Noam Gidron, Shinnosuke Kikuchi, and Ro’ee Levy set out to answer in their new paper [[link removed]], “Decomposing the Rise of the Populist Radical Right.”

The authors considered the period from 2005 to 2020 and looked in particular at changes in party positions; changes in voter opinion and demographics; changes in voter priorities; and a residual (a component that “captures factors such as changes in unobserved party positions or valence, model misspecification, and new entrants”).

They then merged wide datasets on party position and voter attributes and used a probabilistic model to estimate voter priorities. This took in roughly 60,000 responses from 22 European countries, and was divided into three waves: 2005-2009; 2011-2013; and 2017-2020.

What they found is that change in party positions and voter attributes were actually less important than change in voter priorities: it was what voters decided to start caring most about that fueled these parties’ rise. It wasn’t the parties’ economic positions that voters cared about, the researchers found, so much as it was that voters — and especially men who were not in unions and were less educated — began prioritizing “nativist cultural positions.” (It is worth noting that this shift did not appear for college graduates, women, younger voters, union members, and voters who lived in urban areas; in fact, in some cases, they shifted to the political left.)

Over the past decade, voters have started to prioritize cultural issues specifically over economic ones. This, the research suggests, means that there is a well of sentiment in a part of the population into which populist politicians can easily tap.

The researchers used the same datasets to determine three things: that parties’ positions have changed, but not in a way that is consistent with “supply-side hypotheses for populist support”; that voters have not adopted populist rightwing views on aggregate; and that voters self-identify ideologically based on their cultural views, as opposed to economic opinions.

The authors explain that they are not trying to introduce yet another factor into explaining the rise of right-wing populist parties. Rather, they hope to introduce a framework for organizing how to think about the factors with which we are already familiar.

The researchers argue that their work contributes to the literature on populism. Additionally, the “decomposition method” that they used could be applied to other trends, too.

They also flag that there is an outstanding issue, one that was outside the scope of their research: why did cultural issues gain in importance for these voters, so much so that they were put ahead of economic considerations? There are reasons other researchers have suggested, ranging from rising incomes to smart phones and social media to trade shocks. But the reality is that there was indeed a change, one that reshaped the political face of Europe. Better understanding the source of that shift, the authors write, is a “promising path” for future work.

LEARN MORE [[link removed]]

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] SHOW US THE RECEIPTS

Bianca Hillier reported [[link removed]] on the Gaza paracycling team. They formed in 2020 and had dreamed of competing at this year’s Summer Paralympics. That changed on Oct. 7. “Overnight, the Gaza Sunbirds pivoted to helping those in desperate need of help,” Hillier wrote. “When a bomb hit the neighborhood of Khan Younis, in Gaza, cyclist Mohammed Abu Asfour used his bike to escape. Soon after, Asfour and his teammates used money they’d been raising for their Paralympics goal, and began buying bread and distributing it by bike to people in need.”

Alexander Langlois argued [[link removed]] that US withdrawal from Syria is “a win” for US interests, as well as those of America’s local partners. Though some in the United States argue that Washington cannot abandon its local partners — the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF — Laglois countered that “By encouraging Damascus-SDF/DAANES talks and working with friends and foes alike with an interest in suppressing ISIS, the Biden administration can withdraw from Syria rightly claiming victory against ISIS while ensuring the SDF’s long-term safety.” This is what Langlois described as “Washington’s out.” Langlois also wrote that the counterfactual is worse: “the alternative for US officials and their SDF partners is worse, asking US troops to risk their lives in a never-ending, illegal US military presence in Syria and all the poverty, instability, and hatred that comes with it. Worse, the longer Washington delays an inevitable withdrawal — and there will be one — the worse the outcome for the SDF.”

Heather Ashby wrote [[link removed]] about how artificial intelligence is changing war. “As the rules-based international order continues to endure strain and the ability of multilateral institutions to bring countries together to resolve complex issues weakens, we are not prepared for how to manage the role that AI will play in multifaceted conflicts. This will be a critical year for determining whether global governance and peace are achievable within the international system,” Ashby argued. Ashby also cautioned that though AI might bring military might, that advanced military strength will not bring a peaceful world or good governance — those will take real intelligence.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] WELL-PLAYED

One perfect shot [[link removed]].

Value add [[link removed]].

Tweeting the first draft of history [[link removed]].

They were busy [[link removed]]!

Relatable to many [[link removed]].

Why not [[link removed]]?

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Critical State is written by Emily Tamkin with Inkstick Media.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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