Category Archives: Politics

Review: The J Curve

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The J Curve - A new way to understand why nations rise and fall, by Ian Bremmer

Ahhh…economics. I’ve done a bit of economics at uni. You know the one – more graphs without units on their axes than you can poke a stick at (and of course, as anyone with an engineering/physics/maths background will tell you, this is “really bad” TM). Eco101 is actually quite valuable in a degree – I don’t know why more courses don’t insist on it. If you haven’t done it then I’ll present you the first three weeks of the course through the next graph.

The curve can move up or down depending on some country-specific factors. If the price of oil rises, for example, a country that is a large exporter of oil will receive more money which enables the government to increase the stability of the country without having to increase its openness.

Supply and demand!

Ok, got that? Note the lack of units? Note how the graph isn’t defined for all values of price? Ok – that’s all you need to know.

Welll…I tell a lie, actually. It’s not all you need to know, it’s all my economics lecturers implied I needed to know. The thing is, the most important factor in a market is consumers. Consumers are not rational. Therefore, whilst drawing up silly graphs might be fine in theory, in practise observations of consumer behaviour don’t fit to the pretty lines.

(At this point, if you’re still reading you’re probably vaguely interested in the subject matter. Good on you! Here’s a reward. Jessica Hagy’s website contains more graphs without units on their axes but they’re really funny/thoughtful graphs and Venn diagrams. It’s a like a social mathematician’s ultimate comic.)

But wait, isn’t this review filed under ‘Politics’? Yes it is. Bremmer’s book discusses the stability of nations being a function of how open they are to the outside world. If you were to plot stability versus openness the graph would look a bit like the letter ‘J’, hence the title.

The magic J Curve

So just looking at the J Curve graphically what can we imply? Nations that are closed (left side countries) can be more stable than slightly more open countries but cannot ever be as stable as the most open countries (right side countries). We can also see that for a country to progress from a very open system to a very closed one (or vice versa) it must, at some point, suffer a period of instability (the depths of the J curve) as it transitions.

The curve can also move up or down depending on some country-specific factors. For a large exporter of oil, a rise in the price of oil gives the government more money which it can use to increase the stability of the country without making it more open. Hence, the entire J curve rises upwards.

Finally, notice the slope of the graph. It is easy for a left side nation to fall into the depths of the curve quite quickly but it will take a right side state a lot more effort to do so. Likewise, little effort is required for a close state to reach stability but an open state has to work much harder to achieve the same level.

That, in a nutshell, is the gist of chapter 1. The remainder of the book discusses three far left side nations (North Korea, Cuba and Iraq under Saddam), three borderline left side nations (Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia), two nations in (at the time) the depths of the curve (South Africa and Yugoslavia) and three right side nations (Turkey, Israel and India). The penultimate chapter is devoted entirely to China, such is the importance Bremmer places on it.

In each of these country dossiers Bremmer gives the reader a brief history of the country in question, then justifies why it resides on the given point of the J curve. Although on the whole I found these parts fascinating, as I ploughed through I began to find Bremmer’s language to be somewhat repetitive – I felt that it went beyond hammering home his message.

In the end I found myself agreeing with Bremmer’s central concept. The model holds up well, although as he notes, China is attempting to cross from the left to the right of the curve without bottoming out into chaos so time will tell as to whether the model is broken by the worlds most populous nation.

Having said all of that I would hesitate to recommend this book to someone with only a passing interest in world politics and/or history. As I mentioned, I didn’t find the pages slipping away under my fingers. It certainly is a book for thinking. It is not, as the cover jacket suggests, the Freakonomics of world political books. This will not bring a whole new group of people who have never cared about politics before to the field. It will most likely only interest people with an existing affection for global politics.

So…to buy or not to buy? I’d suggest getting it if you’re a die hard fan of global politics, but you could also watch one of the lectures Bremmer gave to Google which would probably satisfy most people.

Popular Politics and an Australian Republic

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2007 has been, and will continue to present, an interesting year in Australian politics. It has signified the 11th year of John Howard’s Prime Ministership and Coalition governance. It has also seen the emergence of an intelligent, charismatic Labor leader in Queensland’s Kevin Rudd, who, at this point in time, presents the most viable option for a future Labor Prime Minister since Keating. The leadership conundrum between Howard and Rudd poses to be an interesting example of how and where Australian politics is in the early 21st Century. However, the leadership conundrum position as the front runner of examples has been under constant attack over the last month. First, through Burkegate, and now through, what can only be described as a complete lack of diligence and forethought a member of Howard’s Cabinet, in Santo Santoro Affair. Both Burkegate and the Santoro Affair have shown, at last, the presence and influence lobbyist have in Australian politics. Sure, any worldly person would understand that lobbyist exists, but before the events of the last month, it would have been thought that this was an issue that doesn’t affect Australia like it does the U.S. or the U.K. and E.U. We now see that is view isn’t correct and presents a worrying outlook on Australian politics. It poses questions to where the validity and responsibility of our elected officials lays. Is our Federal and State government, which is voted for by the entire population, the voice of a select few? And, subsequently, how “representative” is our representative of government?

Let’s leave that question there for the time being and take a closer look at Australia’s leadership conundrum. I say conundrum because of the precarious position of Australian Politics has in 2007. Howard is our second longest serving Prime Minister and while that is something to celebrate as a country it is also a worrying sign. It is fair to say that the previous elections have provided Australia with the choice between the classic saying of “the devil we know or the devil we don’t.” The Howard-Latham campaign was a classic (remember the L-Plate adverts). I’m not saying that the Coalition won just because the alternative wasn’t any better, but the campaign’s promises definitely liked to point this fact out to the electorate (Well Managed Economy and Interest Rates as one example). Anyway, back to the conundrum, and Howard’s and the Coalition’s time in power now presents a liability as opposed to a strength in the 2007 election battle. Western Democracy has shown that the people, and I use that phrase loosely, inherently swing their votes in 15-20 year cycles and Australia is coming towards the end of its current cycle. Combine this with Howard’s age and length in office and the liability can be seen. Also though, the recent resignation/sacking of Santos Santoro and Ian Campbell has shown that holes are starting to appear in the Coalition. For the past 10 years the wholes have been relatively small and patched up quickly. Sure, the AWB scandal had some big names involved and allowed the newspapers to fill the pages but, seriously, Labor’s disarray at the time allowed the government to escape relatively unsaved. We digress. The resignations of Santoro and Campbell not only show the holes, but, when combined with the recent Cabinet reshuffle in which long-time scapegoat Amanda Vanstone was dumped, present a Cabinet almost as inexperienced as that of Labor. Costello, Downer and Rudd’s experience is quickly counteracted by the presence of freshman MP’s such as Malcolm Turnbull and Christopher Pyne at the table, while previously important portfolios like immigration now have the face of the unions’ dartboards, Kevin Andrews, attached to it. All in all, the Coalition no longer presents an ultra-experienced government that has guided Australia down a path of stable economic prosperity. It does, however, present Labor with its greatest opportunity to govern since 1996.
These events of 2007 and the constant talk about the coming election and Howard v Rudd has made my thoughts turn back towards my passion for an Australian Republic. My idea of an Australian Republic is somewhat different to that presented in the 1999 Referendum. Unlike the ’99 vote, I don’t believe Australia should simply replace our Governor General with a ceremonial President. Rather, Australia should change our form of government from the Westminster system to one that incorporates a more direct form of representation. My arguments’ for this are as follows:

1) Frequently, Federal and State elections have presented the electorate with a choice between the “lesser of two evils.” The votes received by Nick Xenophon in South Australia’s last election indicate this. Through a more direct representation, where candidates go through a nominating process rather than a small party vote or discussion in a smoke filled room, would allow voters a legitimate vote for who they want to represent them.

2) Following on from the first point, currently our form of government allows us to choose which party will represent us better. This means if you think the leader of one party will run Australia well but you think your local candidate, from a different party, will represent your area better you currently cannot vote for both. By introducing a form of representation this would be a viable option and will provide Australia politics with a greater diversity and independence.

3) As the corruption and influence scandals of the last month have shown, the amount of accountability ministers and elected members have is being questioned. Sure they will get sacked from the Cabinet position, but in the current form of representation they are accountable to their party who may or may not refuse to remove them from running. With direct representation, they will be accountable to the voters in their electorate. If they stuff up the voters will decide if they are worthy enough to be a candidate, let alone a member of parliament.

4) The end of the last century and the beginning of this century has seen the presence of popular politics in society flourish as technology and alternative media sources grows. The internet has allowed culture and society to move and evolve, the natural progression of this is for politics to evolve too. It is already happened in the United States, the Bush family has its own private internet portal to allow its many friends and relatives to keep in touch, while every candidate in the 2008 Presidential race invests heavily in using the internet to promote their cause. As popular politics continues to flourish, Australia as a society faces the possibility of being left behind if it continues to use its current form of governance. If a direct form of governance is not introduced, generations x, y and z with our mySpaces, blogs and YouTube video’s, may begin to feel alienated and disconnected from the political process which runs this country. If the people don’t care who runs the country, who will?

Thus, for Australia to remain a competitive, flourishing, proud nation, it is imperative that it allows the people who make this country great to have a direct voice in who leads them.