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CRITICAL STATE
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Your weekly foreign policy fix.
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If you read just one thing …
read about China, Russia, and the cost of combating climate change!
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Nathan Gardels, editor in chief of Noema, points to February 2022 as the point at which Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping crossed the proverbial Rubicon in their battle against the US-led world order, which the two men deem “hostile.”
In a summit earlier this month, the two “defiantly deepened the relationship on both the economic and military fronts.”
“Analogously speaking,” Gardels, writes, “they are now halfway to Rome where Julius Caesar, in the historical reference, provoked civil war and established a dictatorship on his return from conquering the peoples of Gaul.”
Gardels predicts that geopolitical blocs are hardening — and that, once they have done so, they will not be easily thawed.
Gardels is particularly concerned with what this will mean for climate change — or, more specifically, the global effort to combat it. In fact, he writes, “constructive planetary cooperation” may be “the most consequential casualty of where we are headed.” What should be an international effort has now “become the province of a renewed nationalism.”
What is the way off of this path? Gardels suggests “global localism,” which is to say getting around blocs through “subnational cooperation of willing networks among cities and regions across the world.” China and Russia, in Gardels’s view, have set a divergent path, and the West has reaffirmed it. If we are to step back over the Rubicon for the good of the planet, it will be up to those who see themselves not as part of one bloc or the other, but residents of their communities and citizens of the wider world.
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Song of Struggle
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In Africa Is a Country, Palesa Nqambaza considers what an amapiano song has to say about post-apartheid South Africa.
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Nqambaza first tells the tale of “Enoch Sontonga’s ‘Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrica,’ which was written as a Black plea to a white God amid colonization.” The song “made its way to the South African Native National Congress (later ANC), which then adopted it officially as its anthem in 1925.” It became a fixture at political rallies and funerals alike: anywhere Black people found themselves speaking to a higher power, bargaining with God to end their suffering. Eventually, it became the South African national anthem, but “never left Black parched wagging tongues.”
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Today, “the prayer has crossed tracks and made its way into DJ Kabza the Small’s amapiano soundtrack, which serenades the drinking rituals that South Africa’s Black youth observe devoutly.” Young Black people in South Africa are still, after all, singing along in agony, offering a kind of prayer, albeit this time with drinks in hand and a catchy melody.
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There Goes the Neighborhood
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In The Nation, Kate Wagner writes of how luxury conglomerates like LVMH, the force behind brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, have purchased real estate holdings in key cities.
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A recent Wall Street Journal report on the subject “revealed acquisitions to the tune of €3.5 billion since 2007. LVMH, funded mostly by its private-equity arm, has become a major developer, buying up coveted buildings on Fifth Avenue in New York and the Champs-Élysées in Paris — as well as vast swaths of land for its new luxury communities in Miami and Montreal, for which the firm sees itself as an urban planner.”
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Wagner argues that though luxury shopping districts are themselves a kind of recognizable brand, setting aside aesthetics, the idea of a neighborhood designed around luxury shopping is “grim,” and that “campaigns like this claim that “creative” industries like fashion and tech are inherently better suited to spatial practice (and therefore, private enrichment) than to the public sector. Describing a brandscape that is defined by the status symbols of the wealthy in such terms is especially cynical.” “The only way to avoid the vacillation of rent and neighborhood change is to own,” Wagner explains. But that’s why cities should be looking at rent stabilization, not peeking into pricey windows.
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Divorce (and Marriage, and Rights) Italian Style
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In Italian Political Science, Francesco Barilà Ciocca, and Massimo Prearo look at the evolution of LGBTQ policies in Italy — and their evolution within the European Union and the framework it provides. The authors look at three major policy programs to examine the interplay between national and European influences; the impact of LGBTQ groups; and the impact of “policy paradigms,” or frameworks for ideas and standards that guide both the goals for policies and the tools that can be used to achieve those goals.
The authors explain that, existing within the European context, Italy is beholden to certain legal responsibilities and standards with respect to anti-discrimination regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, the latter being a more recent development than the former in all areas of life, though, originally, the focus was on the workplace.
The authors hold that, when one looks at changes in European law and standards from 2000 to 2020, one can see a paradigm shift, which, they argue, had a direct impact on the context of relevant policies in Italy. To take one example, in 2003, Italy incorporated an EU directive from 2000 into a law introducing sexual discrimination as a workforce discrimination category; to take another, in 2014, Italy launched a widespread poverty reduction program, and in 2016, that program got funding for measures to improve marketplace inclusion of LGBTQ people. And the 2022-2025 National LGBT+ Strategy “is unequivocally a byproduct of a European policy reference. Not only is the 2020-2025 European LGBT+ Strategy taken as a model and referenced, but its structure is also directly mirrored.”
The questions the authors applied to the policy programs were: “What is the problem represented to be in a specific policy or policies? (Articulated in terms of diagnosis and prognosis); In what national and transnational conditions was the policy produced?; What institutional arrangement birthed the policy? What role did LGBT+ groups play?; and Was the policy operational until its due term?”
They looked at each policy separately across the four questions.
The authors conclude that two factors emerge: involvement of LGBTQ groups makes a difference in idea and concept formation, and a higher degree of involvement from these groups helps policies better fit the EU framework; and European influence was an “equally decisive factor.”
The findings suggest that there is a coexistence between external and internal pressures: that is, those from the European Union and those from Italian LGBTQ groups. But they feel further research could be broader in its analysis to “capture how LGBT+ issues are addressed by social, political, and institutional actors, for instance during legislative or parliamentary debates,” for example. They also suggest comparative research within the European context, which could help enhance understanding of how paradigm shifts in LGBTQ policy do — and don’t — occur.
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Victoras Antonopoulos asked whether Greece will improve conditions for undocumented workers. Greece has long tried to crack down on undocumented immigrants — but also faces a labor shortage of tens of thousands of people. The government reached agreements with six countries (India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova) to “replenish the depleted workforce” with 40,000 workers from those countries. However, Antonopoulos warned, “the density of these agreements as well as the complexity of the bureaucratic process, could easily stand in the way of their enforcement.” Rights groups also offer that there are people currently in the country who could be used to fill the labor
shortage, improving the conditions in which they’re living and working in the process.
James Chabin argued that the US Senate fundamentally misunderstands the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Members of Congress appear to agree that the United States cannot afford to do all of the humanitarian work it would like to, wrote Chabin, who countered, “This may be true, but the limited nature of the US reach is largely unrelated to discussions around funding an agency that makes up 0.21% of the federal budget.” There is a difference between “can the United States end poverty” and “is USAID requesting too much money,” argued Chabin; the answer first may be no, but the answer to the second certainly is.
Ashish Valentine wrote that Taiwan’s new president, William Lai Ching-te, is facing a political minefield. Lai, per Valentine, represents a more “defensive approach to China,” but his ability to actually take that approach “is hampered by a rocky relationship with opposition politicians at home.” Meanwhile, while the two sides spar, China is conducting military drills, encircling Taiwan and outlying islands and carrying out mock strikes. China’s military has described this as “strong punishment” for “separatist acts.” Valentine warned that “President Lai will not have a honeymoon as tensions rise within Taiwan and across the strait.”
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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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