Social protest, political reform. Is Iran going to change?

Protesters have taken the streets of Iran ever since the last presidential elections of 12th June 2009. The turmoil started when the three opposition candidates accused the government of amending the election results, doubting that the not-so-popular incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could win two thirds of the votes – 63% of the total – while the Independent Reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, stronger candidate with the opposition, just got 33%. The pre-election environment in Iran was already tense and the increasing pressure of international society to uncover the many irregularities of the electoral process has just intensified the magnitude of the protest. A month on from the electoral day, Iran is still in political turmoil, with more than 2000 dissidents arrested – according to human rights groups – and with a political representative body still unable to quell or evade the accusations of political fraud.

The approach that the Western academia has towards the Iranian turmoil is interesting. Some are starting to talk about a pacific revolution – the ‘Iranian Velvet revolution’ – and its implicit future political changes. Western theorists tend to attribute the strength of the revolt to the disposition of Iranians for democracy and political change and – to certain extent – overemphasize the role that massive citizen participation will have in the outcome of the social protest. In the opinion article ‘Iran’s manufactured revolution’ written by Lionel Beehner, columnist of the Guardian, the author questions the real outcome of massive revolts and explains that Western analysts tend to overestimate the political pressure of a popular uprising.

Recent European political history has evolved and shaped up to our current welfare state partly because of protest movements and workers strikes. Popular movements have had a similar influence when Eastern European countries claimed their independence from the USSR; it even led – to certain extent – most of the European colonies to their independence during the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The effectiveness of social protest has been prominent in our culture and, partly because of this outcome, many political analysts tends to look at foreign political situations from the same perspective. However, as Beehner points out, this is not necessarily the case of Iran. The country seems to have a stable political system and as the time gap from the electoral day increases, lower are the chances of the protesters to get a real change out of this turmoil. The incident has not been as serious as to justify further intervention from the international community, nor does the position of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seem to be in danger. Then, why are political analysts talking about revolution in the case of Iran?

Following this argument, I am interested to know the relevance of popular protest and political turmoil in the reshaping of a country’s political system. My topic of study is open and allows a wide research on the topic, from case studies to comparative international panorama and from current issues like Iran’s electoral turmoil to a wider historical analysis on the topic. I decide to narrow my search to pure theoretical approach on the relation between social movements and political change. I go to IBSS database and I introduce the keywords ‘Revolution’, ‘political systems’ and ‘political movements’ and I get 54 results. I scanned quickly the list that the database offers me and I pick an interesting article written by J. A Geschwender [1968] ‘Explorations in the theory of social movements and revolutions’ which will be helpful for an initial introductory background. Looking at the same list of results, I note down Kathia Légaré’s [2007] ‘The influence of the international system on the evolution of semi-authoritarian regimes: four approaches to the colour revolutions (2003-2005)’; John Ginkel and Alastair Smith [1999] titled ‘So you say you want a revolution: a game theoretic explanation of revolution in repressive regimes’; Asef Bayat’s [1998] ‘Revolution without movement, movement without revolution: comparing Islamic activism in Iran and Egypt’ and Mark P. Thompson’s [2000] ‘Whatever happened to democratic revolutions?’.

I try to use different keywords this time. I understand that for my research I need a broad selection of books that will allow me to have a good theoretical insight on the topic. Again I introduce the keywords ‘revolution’, ‘democratization’, ‘political movements’ and ‘social movements’ into the search box. This time the database gives me a narrower list of 22 results, from which I pick Adam K. Webb’s article [2006] ‘The calm before the storm? Revolutionary pressures and global governance’. The article focus on how globalization has made the great social revolutions more unlikely. It is an interesting article on how the international community and globalization itself can interfere in the social and political movements that leads a country’s revolution.

I consider that this first selection of articles will give an introductory approach to my topic of discussion and will, once read, open the debate for new focus on the discussion.

Mobilising computer models for policy

Diego de la Hoz, a winner of the IBSS blog competition, explores the use of computer models in public policy making in his entry below. Starting with the painful memories of the foot-and-mouth crisis, he leads us to innovative solutions for environmental policy. Computer modelling may not be at the heart of politics yet, but Diego shows us that if the academic world is anything to go by, it will not be long until the bytes will start flying.

You may know that some of best farmers’ markets in the UK emerged out of the despair and tragedy of the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001. This is the case, for instance, of the popular farmers’ market in Edinburgh, the city where I live. You may also remember that the decisions made by the UK officials in the face of the crisis became the subject of fierce criticism. At the core of the controversy was the mass slaughter of farm animals to control the spread of the epidemic disease. Significantly enough, these culling strategies relied on the outputs of computer modelling designed by epidemiologists rather than on the advice from vets and virologists who understood the specific nature of the disease. With the benefit of hindsight, ten million animals slaughtered was a grotesque overreaction. The media and the farmers coined a very illustrative expression ‘carnage from a computer’.

The handling of the Foot and Mouth is a good example of how computer models may matter for policy. They have an increasing role in the formulation of policies. At the same time, they also represent a common way of doing scientific work in the era of high processing power, enabling research in those areas where field experimentation cannot be considered. Computer models are all over the place! Therefore, I believe that they constitute an excellent tag for my first experience with IBSS. Moreover, it is interesting to test how IBSS responds to an entry that, while being a headliner within natural sciences and engineering, enjoys a mild popularity at best within the social and political sciences.

So here we go, I enter ‘computer model’ into the search engine and IBSS bounces back 66 results. Well, probably not an outstanding amount of hits but, definitely, enough informative material to get you started without feeling overwhelmed. For instance, I come across Vág (2005) ‘The short history and the plausible future of world modelling’. World modelling refers to any set of equations that attempts to capture some particular global dynamics. They became popular at the beginning of the 70s with the spread of IBM computers, particularly the model behind the Limits to Growth report. Published in 1972, it addressed the consequences that a world of finite resource supplies projected over its fast growing population. Policy informative models have continued to pervade public policy making, following the increase in computing power. However, to what extent are they used by policy makers? Interestingly, not to a great deal according to Måns et al. (2008) in their article ‘The use and non-use of policy appraisal tools in public policy making: an analysis of three European countries and the European Union’, also one of the results offered by IBSS.

At this point, while keeping the focus on public policy, I decide to refine my search by combining ‘computer model’ and ‘environmental policy’. This time IBSS returns only 4 hits, less than I would expect. Yet I am able to spot an interesting case study by Tuinstra et al. (1999) entitled ‘Using computer models in international negotiations: the case of acidification in Europe’. It provides insights of the key role of mediation played by a computer modelling in the context of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) in 1994. Meanwhile, another hit points to a promising volume called ‘Public participation in sustainability science: a handbook’ (2003).

In a final search I opt to combine the tags ‘computer model’ and ‘climate change’, one of the most pressing environmental problem of our days both for modelling and policy making. Again IBSS returns only 4 hits, which is surprising given that this is a popular area of scholarship and general interest. Nonetheless, some of the results are thought-provoking. Nielsen-Gammon (2007) in the paper ‘An inconvenient truth: the scientific argument’ tells us about the relatively poor use of model-based evidence in Al Gore’s famous documentary film. Meanwhile, in ‘Seductive simulations? Uncertainty distribution around climate models’ Lahsen (2005) discusses how climate change modellers are so charmed by their models that they are unable to see the full range of uncertainties and shortcomings in the same way that the users of those models sometimes can. The final article that I want to single out is ‘Computer models and public’s understanding of science: a case-study analysis’ by Yearley (1999), who brings in the analysis of the public responses to computer model. Contrary to the general belief that use of computer models in policy is a barrier for the lay citizens wanting to express an opinion, Yearley accounts for their valuable contributions for the case of a the computer-based air-quality monitoring in the city of Sheffield.

In sum, when it comes to computer models IBSS covers informative sources for anyone having a general interest in these tools from a social and political sciences perspective. At the same time, I believe that it is just a matter of time before IBSS will fully reflect the ubiquity and importance of computer models across a wide range of environmental policies. I will stay tuned.

Diego de la Hoz

In addition to Diego’s research, a helpful way of searching IBSS is to use truncated forms of keywords. For instance, a combination of ‘comput*’, ‘model*’ and ‘environmental policy’ brings up a substantial 83 records. Similarly, ‘policy making’, ‘computer’ and ‘model*’ with 23 hits, is a practical search counting both models and modelling amongst the results.

Gangs and violence

For months now there has been wide coverage of the number of murders of and knife attacks on young people in London. Only last weekend there was another murder in Hackney bringing the total for London to twenty-four during 2008. I learnt on the news last night that individual gangs control three areas of Hackney, and that one of these gangs has started encroaching on the others’ territory. This leads to a general sense of unease, an anxiety for young people in the area and a sense of helplessness about what to do about gang culture.

I thought I’d explore on IBSS to look at some of the issues related to gangs. I started by looking at the IBSS online thesaurus and using the keywords ‘gangs’ and ‘violence’ to do a search. I limited this to material produced between1995 to 2008 and this gave 102 results. What the results reveal is that there are of course numerous issues relating to the formation and role of gangs and the use of violence.

An article which caught my eye was ‘Gang-related gun violence: socialization, identity, and self.’ Paul Stretesky and Mark Pogrebin (2007). The article describes a study using interviews with twenty-two inmates convicted of gang-related gun violence. The findings show that gangs are ”important agents of socialization that help shape a gang member’s sense of self and identity.” In addition, those interviewed said that guns offered them protection, and also helped them “to project and protect a tough reputation”. The study goes on to look at “the way gang socialization leads to gun-related violence and has implications for policies aimed at reducing that violence.” The article emphasizes the role of the gang in giving young people a sense of belonging and status amongst their peers.

Another article, ‘Gang membership as a risk factor for adolescent violent victimization’ by Terrance Taylor, Dana Peterson, Finn-Aage Esbensen and Adrienne Freng (2007) looks not at gangs’ violent behaviour but at “the link between gang membership and violent victimization”. The findings “suggest that gang members are more likely to experience violent victimization, as well as greater frequency of victimization, than do non-gang members”. It is ironic that young people feel safe in a gang, in terms of status and belonging, but that in fact membership of the gang threatens their safety.

Another interesting angle is raised in a review of the book ‘Gangs in the global city: alternatives to traditional criminology’ edited by J Hagedorn and reviewed by Irving Spergel (2007). The book mentions the factors usually considered important for high gang crime rates, such as drugs, and for the lowering of crime rates, such as zero-tolerance policing. However the book puts forward and examines a different issue – the role of housing in gang formation. The review mentions the 2005 riots in Paris and that “the concentration of economically disadvantaged ethnic minorities in high-rise housing projects has created conditions for violence even in Europe, where violence is historically very low” and goes on to say that “within cities and regions, certain factors such as slum clearance, gentrification, or other aspects of a city’s housing policy may have an effect on social behaviors, including violence.” This would certainly be an area I’d like to investigate further with regard to our Hackney example. Over the past five years there has been a lot of re-development of notoriously bad areas of high rise housing into new mixed low-rise housing. On the surface this appears to be a vast improvement with a nice square at the centre of the development meant to give a community feel. But rumour has it – and a large police presence in the area seems to back this up – that drug pushers and gangs are still prevalent and that gentrification of the area has not solved the problems but pushed them into smaller areas.

I found it interesting to dip into IBSS and explore a couple of different aspects of this vast topic: the impact of issues like housing, the role of gangs in giving young people a sense of identity, and the irony that although being in a gang makes young people feel safer it actually makes them more prone to attack.

Marriage, same-sex marriage. What is all the fuss about?

marriage, n.
The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony. The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex. (Oxford English Dictionary online)

The Californian Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of the legalization of same-sex marriage has sparked much media debate. Will the social and cultural meaning of marriage be changed forever? If so will it be for better or for worse? By granting homosexual couples the right to marry the court goes against the argument that marriage should be reserved for the union of a man and a women, as per ‘tradition’.

What is the ‘tradition’ of marriage? Is it the same as a traditional wedding? Surely not, the latter could almost be said to have morphed into marketing jargon to be used by wedding planners keen to keep the lucrative ‘fairytale wedding’ dream alive. The very nature of marriage has changed, and will continue to do so, in line with the evolution of society. What is deemed socially acceptable today is a far cry from that of recent decades. I searched for articles on same-sex marriage in IBSS to better understand the controversy surrounding gay marriage. Here I found a surprisingly vast array of articles and books on homosexual marriage in regions ranging from the USA, Latin America, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and South Africa to name but a few, with articles dating back as far as the early 1950s (covering societal issues concerning marriage), and the early 1970s (with a focus on same-sex marriage).

In the swinging ‘60s marriage was often deemed to be old fashioned. This mood is aptly captured in Nina Simone’s song, Marriage is for Old Folks, in which she sings “One husband, one wife, what do you got? Two people sentenced for life”. Along with social change the meaning embedded in the term ‘marriage’ inevitably changed too. As divorce became more common the tradition of being married ‘till death do us part’ lost much of its meaning. In a similar way the term ‘family’ no longer signifies what it once did. The nuclear family continues to change shape. Divorce, while perhaps not favoured, is now socially accepted. If society can radically redefine the core meaning of ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ than why is it so hard to include those in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community?

Same-sex marriage has become such a hot topic that it has even found its way on to the American presidential election campaign. On one hand a rather uncomfortable looking John McCain can be seen voicing his opposition to gay marriage on the Ellen DeGeneres show. DeGeneres, one of the most famous lesbians in the United States, plans to marry her long-term partner in the coming months. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is in favour same-sex marriage. Public opinion on this issue in the coming months may greatly contribute to the outcome of the presidential elections. Can the social meaning of one little word really be weighted with such importance?

If marriage had failed to evolve over time I doubt it would continue to prove so popular today. The first steps toward legalizing same-sex marriage in many countries has been to grant homosexual couples the right to a civil partnership whereby they have similar, if not the same, legal rights as married couples. While a positive first step in the quest for equal rights, such partnerships fail to capture the essence of marriage. To take a simplistic view of marriage, not everyone who weds does so purely to get their paperwork in order. Where is the romance in that? As declared by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 2003, denying same-sex couples the right to marry “violated constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality” (Pinello, Daniel R., 2006. America’s struggle for same-sex marriage ). The “fight for same-sex marriage is about honouring the feelings that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) individuals have for their partners” (Alderson, Kevin G., 2004. A phenomenological investigation of same-sex marriage ).

Why is marriage so complicated? Should it not be available to all couples who wish to be wed in the eyes of the law? Or should religious beliefs govern ones right to marry? The recent Church of England wedding-style blessing service carried out for two gay clergymen has proved highly controversial in the religious community. (Hammond-Sharlot, Rhonda and Booth, Penny, 2008. Talking shop: same-sex marriage and the Church of England ). Attitudes towards same-sex marriage vary greatly across religious denominations (Olson, Laura R., Cadge, Wendy and Harrison, James T., 2006. Religion and public opinion about same-sex marriage ). Do we marry because we are religious or because we are in love?

I have been engaged to the love of my life for just over a year. I am by no means a religious person nor would I consider myself to be traditionalist or old fashioned in anyway but for some reason, a reason I cannot explain, I long to be married to my beloved. I like to think it’s the romantic in me that wishes to wed. In much of the media coverage I have read on this hot topic there has been little or no mention of romance. Should love and marriage go hand in hand? For me at least, marriage should be available to all couples who chose to enter into a(n ideally) life-long union. Rather than hearing Nina Simone’s views on marriage I prefer to listen to the more sentimental and romantic words of Sinatra as he sings “love and marriage…you can’t have one without the other”.

Civil liberties vs. national security

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ These words, or some to that effect, must have been in the forefront of David Davis’s mind when the ex-shadow Home Secretary decided to resign his post as an MP last Thursday. The high-profile Conservative front-bencher’s decision was taken hours after the Government’s narrow victory in the vote over the detention of terror suspects for 42 days without trial and Mr Davis vowed to fight the ensuing by-election on the issue of the Government’s steady and unacceptable erosion of civil liberties. To uphold the values of democracy and protect the civil liberties of the people is, for sure, a noble position to take and, especially when one notes the prevalence in the media of such issues as the US treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the intimidation and anti-democratic practices of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and the heavy censorship and suppression of the Communist regime in China.

And yet, one still has to question whether Mr Davis’s decision was the correct one. After all, one man’s principled stand for democracy is another man’s politically-motivated stunt to gain partisan support and personal notoriety. The fact that the majority of popular opinion is actually in favour of strengthening the powers of the police in matters of national security surely lends weight to the latter argument, although since neither of the other two main political parties intend to field by-election candidates may render this point moot as Mr Davis’s re-election is all but assured…

I turn to the IBSS database, and search for ‘civil liberties’ and ‘freedom’ in the ‘United Kingdom’. This brings up an easily-manageable 26 results, and straight away my eye is caught by an article called ‘What Limits for Government Control? Civil Liberties and Anti-Terror Measures after the Heathrow Bomb Plot’ (Parkes, Roderick, 2007). By linking through to the complete article (provided via my institution’s subscription to the full text), I can see that the author is rigorous in his defence of civil liberties and highlights the importance of limiting the power of the Government to impose illiberal counterterrorist measures.

Seeking some balance to the argument, I amend my search to include the terms ‘national security’ and ‘terrorism’ in the ‘United Kingdom’. A return of 57 results and I am already scanning the abstract to an article by Jessica Stern and Jonathan B. Wiener (2006), called ‘Precaution Against Terrorism’. Although the aspect of civil liberties is not ignored in this article, the authors seem to focus more on the issue of national security and propose ways in which the Government might seek to minimise the risk of terrorism and better protect the people from the threat of violence.

The argument over civil liberties and national security is a complex one and, thanks to David Davis, one that will surely remain in the public domain for the foreseeable future. The range of views held by politicians and the public is obviously mirrored by both academics and political commentators and, whether you believe in the sanctity of personal freedoms or you believe that it is the Government’s responsibility first and foremost to protect the people’s right to life, it is surely the absence of such a debate that will lead to the triumph of evil…