Nightcap

What a tough question! First, though, I stated that it was my hope that deeper trading ties would lead to more states, not my prediction. My hope is based on current trends around the world: stronger economic ties have led to more states (and more aspirations for statehood within existing states).

The best academic treatment on this topic comes from Giacomo Ponzetto, an economist currently at CREI in Barcelona (he’s been mentioned at NOL on more than one occasion, too), and especially the Introduction and Section 5 of his working paper titled “Globalization and Political Structure.” Here:

As globalization proceeds, localities remove borders by increasing the size of countries. The number of countries declines and the mismatch between each locality is ideal and actual provision of public services grows. Eventually, this mismatch is large enough to justify a move to a two-level governance structure. The world political structure shifts from a few large countries to many small countries within a world economic union. The two-level structure is more expensive, but it is nonetheless desirable because it facilitates trade and improves preference-matching in the provision of public services.

By “two-level governance structure” Ponzetto means one level, a locality, that’s focused on delivering public goods to that specific locality, and another level, a world economic union, that’s focused on protecting property rights and eliminating border costs.

You can see this concept play out in a few different federative structures, especially the EU, the US, India, and China. In the European Union, multiple localities have tried to separate from countries (Catalonia from Spain, Scotland from UK) while still remaining part of the international economic union in place. Deeper trade ties, more states.

Three new states were created in India in 2000, and China is currently grappling with federalism as a way to keep up with its predictable economic success. The US hasn’t seen any new states added since 1959, but that’s because its system does a good enough job overall to keep all its member states content (happy, even).

The free trade zone in Africa will be interesting to watch because there are so many different variables at play than in China, the EU, India, or the US. India was governed by one overseas empire; the EU has been able to maintain stability because of American military power and the security umbrella it provides; China has been unified on and off again for centuries; and the US is, for all intents and purposes, a polity underscored by British cultural, economic, and political mores. Africa has none of these traits, yet its various leaders recognize that free trade leads to prosperity and often (not always) to better diplomatic ties.

If all goes well, and current trends elsewhere are any indication, Africa would see more states come into being to go along with its deeper economic ties. (This might be a major factor why Nigeria refused to join; Abuja fought a vicious civil war in the 1970s against separatists in Biafra and its leaders are probably tacitly aware of current global trends.) If all doesn’t go well, then violence and poverty will be just around the corner.

Who are the protectionists in Africa?

03/24/201803/24/2018 Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics free trade, Nigeria, rent seeking, Rwanda

Rwanda, a country that thankfully avoided “humanitarian” military intervention by Western powers during a nasty killing spree in the 90s, is leading the charge on free trade in Africa. Of the 54 countries on the African continent, 44 have signed the agreement, but the traditional economic giants of the continent – Nigeria and South Africa – have not. Surprisingly, Botswana, an example often cited by economists as an African success story, has not signed it either.

CNBC reports on why Nigeria has so far refused to join the agreement, citing a consultant who specializes in global trade:

There is a general sentiment among (labor unions and industry bodies) that Nigeria’s export capacity in non-oil sectors isn’t sufficiently robust yet to expose itself to external competition.

Unions and “buy local” capitalists: The scourge of prosperity and progress worldwide, but also not much of a surprise.

What will be interesting to see is where this bold experiment leads. How can 44 countries with poor institutions come together to form a free trade pact? I am hoping this will lead to more states in Africa. My logic goes something like this: stronger economic ties will hasten the demise of current African states’ superficial institutions, while allowing informal institutions to flourish. Because these informal institutions are better at solving coordination problems, they’ll eventually be recognized as states. Here’s how I put it back in 2012:

A better way of looking at it, and one that I have pointed out before, is to look at Europe realize that it shares roughly the same amount of polities as does Africa (50-ish) despite being four times smaller. I bring up the comparison with Europe because in the Old World things like ethnicity still have a strong hold on how individuals identify themselves with their various social spheres. Rather than the 50-ish number of polities in Africa that we have today, a better way of solving Africa’s problems would be to let the polities currently in place dissolve into 400 polities. Or 500. Then, I think, Africans would know peace and prosperity.

I’d add, today, that this would only be possible if the links built by this free trade pact endure. Economic integration is vital to the dissolution of Africa’s despotic states. (h/t Barry)

BC’s weekend reads

06/30/2016 Brandon Christensen Links 1843 Magazine, architecture, Arthur House, Comparative Education Review, globalization, Irfan Khawaja, Leon Hadar, Manu Bhagavan, Naomi Moland, nationalism, Nigeria, Palestine, Policy of Truth, QZ, the National Interest

Kidnapped Girls: a Victory for Twitters and for Ms Obama!

05/14/201405/14/2014 Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics, Religion Barack Obama, Boko Haram, China, international relations, kidnapped girls, Nigeria, Russia

The Twitters campaign and Mrs Michele Obama won a huge victory in the matter of the 300 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Islamist terrorists that the Obama administration does not want to call “Islamist” or “terrorists.”

No, none of the school girls has been returned to her family. In fact, it looks today like some or many of the girls will never be returned to their Kaffir (infidel) families because they have converted to Islam. There is an impious part of me that thinks that it would not take two weeks to convert me to anything if I had a gun pointed at my head. I would even convert to global warmism.

Some other girls, Christian girls, will be “married” by force to good Muslims. That’s rape, in my book. I keep asking Muslims and people who are better informed than I to contradict me and to affirm that the rape of non-Muslims girls is haram under Islam. Still waiting.

The Twitter campaign and the First Lady’s speech have succeeded in enlarging beyond their wildest dreams the reputation of the religious Nazis that is Boko Haram. Its leaders are now in a good position to negotiate anything they want with a Nigerian government softened by an indignant world public opinion. They will ask for the release of their fellow criminals and for money to buy even more and better weapons to kidnap even more school girls, to massacre even more civilians.

“We can’t be the policemen of the world” is a favorite of cliché today. I hear it from all sides. Nobody is stepping in to replace the US as sheriff yet. Perhaps Putin’s Russia or the People ‘s Republic of China will make a move soon. In the meantime, looking forward to that day, terrorism is spreading.

I keep wondering where are Reverend Jesse Jackson and President Carter, our normal hostage negotiators. Are they secretly afraid that Boko Haram would cut off their heads at the earliest opportunity if they meddled ? I wonder why.

Changing the subject, here is a quiz:

There is a largish country where more than thirty people are currently either on death row or serving a life sentence for blasphemy. The country is:

a Pakistan;

b Brazil;

c Russia;

d South Africa.

(The correct answer is in the Wall Street Journal 5/9/14 but don’t cheat.)

Around the Web

01/13/201412/13/2014 Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links Baghdadi, Dan Drezner, Elizabeth Anderson, F.A. Hayek, feminism, Golani, Levant Emirate, Megan McArdle, Nigeria, Nollywood, oh Africa!, postcolonialism, war on poverty

President Obama Wins War on Terror

05/27/201312/02/2014 Jacques Delacroix Current Events Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia

President Obama chooses to give an important speech on peace the week before the day when Americans remember those who died to save their freedom-loving society, and to save many others (including me). President Obama declares in a recent speech that the war on terror, like all wars, must end. Then he ends it by declaring it ended. This happens about a month after two terrorists who happen to be Muslims blow up a bomb killing children at a public even in Boston. (The act was denounced by representatives of the Boston Muslim community.)

President Obama’s announcement also takes place one day after two men shouting something in Arabic comprising the word “Allah” assassinate a young man in full daylight in London. They use knives and ask passers-by to film the event. The speech happens also one or two days before a similar assassination attempt is carried out in Paris on a French soldier. (The attempt fails because French -grown terrorists are not a so competent.) London Muslim authorities condemn the first attack loudly and clearly. I am awaiting the French Muslim response as I write.

(In the same speech, President Obama also orders restrictions on the use of killer drones. I welcome some of the announced changes. The president is no always wrong, just most of the time.) Continue reading →

Systematic Evil and our Insensitivity to Evil

09/27/201208/11/2012 Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics Iran, Nigeria, Rwanda

Conservative circles are celebrating a new, fairly courageous movie about fanatical, primitive Islamist Iran, “The Stoning of Soraya M.” It’s after the true story of the public execution by stoning of a young mother accused of adultery in a backward Iranian village. The movie sounds well made, affecting, but the story is a cop-out.

It turns out the young woman was framed. She was not guilty of adultery but the victim of machination by her evil husband and weak officials. No commentator or critic I have read has asked what are to me obvious questions:

First, I want to know what is the fate in backward areas of Iran of women who are correctly convicted of adultery. Is Iran a society where the penalty for a woman who has sex with a man not her husband is an especially barbarous form of capital punishment?

Second, I want to know whether or not the same could happen in Tehran or in some other of Iran’s major cities. Even the most civilized societies experience occasional barbarous acts in their backward areas. The question is this: Is the Islamic Republic an uncivilized society?

Third, I want to know how the kind of Islamic law that prevails in Iran defines adultery. I ask, because several years ago, in Muslim Nigeria, a young woman was sentenced to death by stoning for becoming pregnant after divorcing her husband. (Her sentence was eventually commuted and the rest of the world lost track of her.) Continue reading →