Several contributors to CSI-Newcastle have previously argued that popular culture and world politics form a continuum. Each is implicated in the practices of the other. Recent events have once again shown how popular culture and world politics are inextricably intertwined as Harry Potter and the geopolitical imaginations of diplomats have been mobilised in tandem.

Media outlets around the world have been covering what is being referred to as the ‘Voldemort’ controversy in Sino-Japanese relations.  As reported in the New York Times:

Top diplomats from the two countries began invoking the fictional evil wizard after a visit on Dec. 26 by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan’s war dead, including Class A war criminals from World War II.

According to the Reuters News Agency,   Chinese ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, referred to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo as ‘a kind of horcrux’—a reference to an object in the Harry Potter-verse in which dark wizards hide a fragment of their soul in order to obtain immortality. In response, Keiichi Hayashi—Xiaoming’s Japanese counterpart—warned that, ‘China risks becoming Asia’s Voldemort’. As analysts of world politics, what can we make of this exchange?  

My response is radically different to that put forward by Steve Saideman at the Duck of Minerva. It is not enough to merely analyse the empirical validity of the Voldemort metaphor as an analogy for Sino-Japanese relations. As noted linguist George Lakoff has argued, the power of metaphors comes from their capacity to enable the understanding and experiencing of one thing—which may be unfamiliar—in terms of another that may be more familiar. The primary function of a metaphor is therefore not the mimetic transposition of an entire set of qualities but rather to promote a particular understanding through what are identified as the most important shared qualities. Metaphors may clarify—for example, by reducing a complex set of political behaviours to qualities associated with a well-known villain– but they also hide and conceal.

Thus, metaphors, in the terminology of Roland Bleiker, provide aesthetic readings of the world. This means that metaphors—like language, theories, concepts, narratives, and discourses— always involve a gap between how they represent reality and the specific properties of reality that we claim to have captured by using the metaphor itself. Moreover, they are performative: like language, metaphors do not merely reflect a pre-existing reality, they construct—and shape—what we take to be real.

I therefore respectfully disagree that our understanding of world politics can be enriched by determining how ‘accurately’ Voldemort—or the storyline of the Harry Potter series— matches onto the actions of China and Japan. Trying to map how popular culture reflects the dynamics of world politics through allegory provides no meaningful insight because it takes what world politics is and the dynamics of world politics as already determined. At best, it provides the opportunity for an interesting thought experiment. Rather, what the Voldemort controversy demonstrates is the world-making properties of popular culture. In other words, it enables us to see how select foreign-policy elites in China and Japan are using popular culture in attempts to shape the way that global audiences perceive and understand their ongoing dispute.

The question for me then becomes: what kind of politics does the turn to Voldemort enable in this case? In asking such a question, one may find that the politics here can found as much in the choice to turn to Harry Potter as a source of lingua franca as it does in the mutual invoking of ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’.

—

Dr Kyle Grayson is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Newcastle University, UK. Read more from Kyle, and others, on CSI-Newcastle.

India-Sri Lanka Relations

Over the past two decades, India has experienced a phenomenal rise in international politics related to its economic growth, its improved relations with the United States paired with its engagement in forums like BRICS, and its growing international recognition as a responsible actor and an emerging power. In its own regional backyard, however, India has been far less successful. Apart from its ongoing tensions with Pakistan, its problems in dealing with smaller neighbouring states like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are almost a textbook example of the difficulties of converting material power capabilities into actual influence.[1]

The case that best illuminates this dilemma is that of India-Sri Lanka relations. The geographical proximity to the island state, and especially the cultural proximity between Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils, has traditionally made India the most influential external power in Sri Lankan politics. However, the numerous inconsistencies in India’s approach have seriously undermined its influence on Sri Lanka. Those inconsistencies began in the 1980s, when India supported Tamil rebel groups from Sri Lanka to put pressure on the Sri Lankan government, later imposed a settlement in the civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and ultimately got entangled itself in the armed conflict with its peacekeeping troops. The dismal failure of its peacekeeping mission and the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in an LTTE suicide attack induced India to adopt a hands-off policy towards the war-torn island state in the 1990s and 2000s. After a period of relative calm that followed a mediated ceasefire in 2003, the armed conflict in Sri Lanka escalated again in 2006.[2] The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa started a massive military offensive that ultimately led to the defeat and total elimination of the LTTE in May 2009. The final phase of the war was marked by massive human rights violations and war crimes, with government forces firing on so-called ‘no-fire zones’ in which thousands of Tamil civilians had sought shelter.[3] During this final phase of the war, particularly from 2007 onwards, the Indian government tacitly supported Rajapaksa’s military effort (albeit without supplying offensive weapons or intervening directly),[4] and reportedly even ‘played a key role in warding off international pressure on Sri Lanka’.[5] This support for the government was an attempt on the part of New Delhi to not lose its leverage in Sri Lanka against the backdrop of China’s growing influence. At the same time, India put ‘modest pressure on the Sri Lankan government to minimise the humanitarian cost of their offensive’.[6] After the end of the war, New Delhi went so far as to support the Sri Lankan government in a special session at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 28 May 2009, voting against a motion that called for an investigation of war crimes. Since 2009, the Indian government has tried to further improve relations with Colombo through the provision of financial assistance for infrastructure projects and humanitarian assistance for the displaced population.

Shifts in India’s Approach

At the same time, domestic pressure from the state of Tamil Nadu has forced the Indian government to join international calls for an investigation of human rights violations and war crimes. In a significant departure from its previous approach, in March 2012 and March 2013, New Delhi voted in favour of U.S.-sponsored UNHRC resolutions that asked the Sri Lankan government to fulfil its commitments and take actions to ensure justice, accountability and reconciliation (2012) and to carry out an independent investigation into alleged human rights law and humanitarian law violations (2013), respectively. This was a substantial shift in New Delhi’s approach, which had always been opposed to country-specific resolutions and to interference with the internal affairs of third countries.

New Delhi also put substantial pressure on the Sri Lankan government to induce it to hold provincial council elections in the north of the island in a first and long-delayed step towards the devolution of power and the implementation of the 13^th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which provides for the establishment of a system of provincial councils.[7] The elections were ultimately held on 21 September 2013, leading to an overwhelming victory for the Tamil National Alliance. It still remains to be seen, however, to what extent the increasingly authoritarian[8] and staunchly centralistic Sri Lankan government will be willing to allow the provincial government to exercise its powers.

The CHOGM

The most recent development in India-Sri Lanka relations concerned the 23rd Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which was held in Colombo in November 2013. The Sri Lankan government had hoped to use this event to regain international visibility and legitimacy after the UNHRC votes and the repeated debates on its human rights record. However, in the lead up of the summit, the Canadian and the Mauritian prime ministers announced they would boycott the CHOGM due to the Sri Lankan government’s human rights violations. After huge domestic debates, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ultimately decided not to participate in the CHOGM, downgrading representation to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. However, the fact that Singh refused to call his absence a boycott indicates the uneasiness of the central government with this outcome.

The heated political debate that preceded Manmohan Singh’s decision illustrates very well some of the dynamics of foreign-policy making in India and their implications for regional affairs. The two main political parties from the state of Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which have been alternating in power at the state government and have served as important coalition partners at the centre over the past decades, have played a major role in shaping India’s recent Sri Lanka policy. Their limited impact on the central government in 2009, during the military offensive that cost the lives of so many Sri Lankan Tamils, reveals the extent of their opportunism and the coalition compulsions they are subjected to themselves at the state level. In recent years, however, Tamil parties’ pressures on the central government – and their actual room to manoeuvre – have grown. India’s UNHRC votes in 2012 and 2013 can be traced back to the massive protests that took place in Tamil Nadu and to the DMK’s (ultimately substantiated) threat of withdrawal from the UPA coalition.

Ahead of the CHOGM, both main Tamil parties called for Manmohan Singh to boycott the summit[9] and large protests were staged in the south Indian state.[10] Several ministers in Singh’s cabinet who hail from Tamil Nadu – among them Finance Minister P. Chidambaram – were opposed to the prime minister’s participation in the CHOGM.[11] A broad coalition of actors from Tamil Nadu therefore forced the weakened Manmohan Singh to boycott the meeting. On the contrary, the central government itself, and especially the foreign policy establishment, would have preferred the prime minister to participate. The need to keep some leverage on the Rajapaksa regime and to not alienate Sri Lanka and ‘lose’ it to the Chinese were among the main arguments in this debate. Moreover, some argued that only by cultivating the relationship with the Sri Lankan government would India be able to induce it to proceed with the devolution of powers to the Tamil minority.

Conclusion

On normative grounds, India’s attitude since the 2012 UNHRC vote is certainly to be welcomed. The problem is that this shift towards a support for international initiatives that seek to enforce human rights law and humanitarian law has mainly been driven by political calculations at the state-centre nexus. The principles of non-intervention and sovereignty continue to play a major role in India’s foreign policy approach – also due to concerns about external interference with India’s own human rights violations in Kashmir and the Northeast. The main driving force in India’s shift has therefore not been a change in normative attitudes but the growing role of regional parties in decision-making. This is part of a broader trend in India’s foreign policy making that has had its main repercussions on New Delhi’s policies vis-à-vis neighbouring South Asian countries. In 2011, for example, the chief minister of West Bengal undermined a potentially ground-breaking agreement with Bangladesh and, thereby, the opportunity of achieving better relations with one of India’s most difficult neighbours. This has further limited India’s ability to reach its goals in its troublesome neighbourhood – its huge power capabilities notwithstanding.

As for the Sri Lankan case, Manmohan Singh’s absence at the CHOGM has certainly had a negative impact on bilateral relations and on India’s ability to influence the devolution of powers for Sri Lankan Tamils. And, of course, it would have been wiser for Manmohan Singh to travel to Sri Lanka and send a strong signal by visiting Jaffna, as the British prime minister did. However, the negative implications of the CHOGM episode should not be exaggerated and New Delhi should pay attention not to give in to the balancing threats voiced by the Rajapaksa regime.[12] Shortly after the CHOGM episode, bilateral naval talks were held between the two countries, revealing that India remains an essential partner for Colombo.[13] As for the Chinese influence on Sri Lanka, India’s (limited) support for Rajapaksa’s war efforts was certainly not sufficient to keep the Chinese out of the island – and support for Sri Lanka in the UNHRC or Manmohan Singh’s participation in the CHOGM would certainly not have induced the Sri Lankan government to expel the Chinese from their huge port project at Hambantota. New Delhi should also pay attention not to associate itself too closely to the Rajapaksa regime – not just because of its increasingly authoritarian character, but also, quite pragmatically, because of the reported ‘growing restiveness among Sinhalese at government abuses, corruption and economic mismanagement’ by the Rajapaksa government.[14]

What India needs in order to keep its leverage on Sri Lanka and to increase its influence in its South Asian backyard is a coherent and credible policy of regional leadership. This would imply developing a ‘vision’ for the region, making disproportionate concessions to smaller states for the achievement of common goals, and taking a clear and consistent normative stand on issues like human rights violations and war crimes. It would also imply a better coordination between the centre and the states to develop a consistent foreign policy line. All this will hardly be possible ahead of the 2014 general elections. In the case of a BJP victory, one can only hope that Narendra Modi’s plans about a future broader role of states in foreign policy making were just one of his one-off remarks – or that some serious work on the coordination between centre and states in foreign policy would be done. And if a coalition of regional parties emerges as the winner of the 2014 elections, one has to hope for checks and balances dictated by coalition dynamics.

Securitization and the Iraq War: The rules of engagement in world politics
By: Faye Donnelly
London: Routledge, 2013

In Securitization and the Iraq War by Faye Donnelly, readers will find a European theoretical and methodological treatment of the Iraq war and one that is deeply embedded in debates over the role of language in the study of security. While the book is filled with intriguing analytical nuggets, many of which merit at least article length treatment, I will discuss two very important ideas on the processes that shape security outcomes that I believe are central to the analytical contributions of the book.

The first—and by far the most significant idea in my opinion— is the identification and exploration of the idea that securitizing actors are always operating within systems of rules. Drawing on Wittgenstein, Donnelly conceives of securitization not as rule breaking, but rather as an attempt to replace one system of rules with another. Donnelly rightly identifies this as a significant contribution to securitization theory, taking the approach away from the dichotomous conception of rule following (normal politics) and rule breaking (security politics) that was present in the Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde’s field defining 1998 text Security: A New Framework for Analysis. The rules governing political behaviour in a securitized state emerge from a number of places including, the domestic, international, social and legal context within which securitizing actors operate. This is an issue I have addressed in my own work, although admittedly without the focus on rules that Donnelly brings to the table. Sporadically, Donnelly mentions the role of identity in shaping the rules securitizing actors operate by, a notion I found particularly intriguing. Systems of rules can also emerge from the very way that the security claim is constructed. If, as in the case of the Iraq War, a securitizing actor builds a security claim on the premise that democracies do not pose threats to others and that only democracies can be trusted to uphold international peace and order, that creates both an opportunity to exercise agency (i.e. invade Iraq), as well as a system of rules that the securitizing actor must abide by in order to maintain the legitimacy of the securitizing process.

Rules, however, can be tricky things analytically speaking. Like other social structures (e.g. identity), they can be difficult to observe. As a consequence, scholars either marginalize them or reify them, imparting a level of permanence and institutionalization that could lead to a highly structural and deterministic interpretation of securitization. Donnelly avoids this trap, however, through her basis in Wittgensteinian theory—emphasizing the inter-subjective agreement of various audiences as to: what system of rules is applicable; what system the securitizing actor is seeking to invoke and the meaning of the rules. In this way, Donnelly stays true to the constructed nature of security set out in Securitization theory, by emphasizing the importance of interpretation and argumentation in establishing security, as well as contributing to the conceptual development of the role of the audience in the securitizing process.

The second key idea Donnelly raises, is that security is not the product of a single-point-in-time act, but is rather an ongoing process of reiterated, reinforced and sometimes reconstructed security narratives that are linked and interwoven in time and constrained both by past security claims, but also by the structures within which they are formulated (what she calls multiplicity). Multiple narratives interact with each other to shape the securitizing process and that process can only be understood through how these multiple narratives interweave and change in prominence over time. Donnelly does this well through her engagement with the discourses used by the Bush Administration to construct Iraq as a threat as well as her analysis of two ‘defining moments’—the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the mistreatment/torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib—that challenged the original security construction. The point that securitization is a process rather than a moment has been raised by other—as Donnelly calls them—second generation securitization scholars (myself included), but Donnelly stands out in her attention to the interweaving and multiplicity of discourses.

These two points do not however comprise the totality of Donnelly’s intellectual contributions. I heartily agree with Donnelly’s contention that scholars should ‘look and see’ what security discourses are doing. Sprinkled throughout the book are eye catching analytical points that could, and probably will, serve as the basis for article length or longer stand-alone research projects. For example, Donnelly notes that the Bush Administration claimed to be upholding the international law, rather than arguing that the nature of the threat justified a break with international law. This is an intriguing and important point of exploration regarding the interaction between social order, rules, and the enactment of security. The intellectual richness of the book speaks highly of Donnelly and the work she is undertaking. Like any good work of scholarship, Donnelly’s book raises a number of interesting questions, and introduces new avenues of inquiry and analysis.

There are however, I would argue, a few shortcomings to the work. Perhaps the largest is the structure of the narrative. As is relatively common in European IR, Donnelly’s argument and analytical frame emerge in stages through engagement with the cases. There is nothing wrong with this approach. However, it does clash with intellectual traditions in American IR, where the argument and analytical frame are usually presented up front. This in the end could mean that her book gets far less traction amongst US scholars than it should. Of secondary significance, are some points of possible contention in the analytical framework. For example, while Wittgenstein’s language games approach leads Donnelly to explore the importance of rules in securitization, the book remains somewhat ambiguous as to the value added both to the analysis within the book and to the broader field of securitization studies of using the language games concept as a central mode of analysis (as opposed to providing some analytical direction). As a consequence, Donnelly’s own contributions to understanding and analyzing securitization can at times be obscured. I also felt that Donnelly could have paid more attention to linking the language games to security outcomes, which in turn would have reinforced her argument that language matters for the conduct of security in international relations. But these are minor points and should not distract from the importance of Donnelly’s insights, particularly on the significance of rules throughout the securitizing process.

 —

Jarrod Hayes is an assistant professor of international relations in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His book, Constructing National Security: US Relations with India and China, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

YeniDiplomasi.com CO-FOUNDER İBRAHİM İZGİ

ANLAMAK İÇİN from İbrahim izgi on Vimeo.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

YeniDiplomasi.com CO-FOUNDER İBRAHİM İZGİ

ANLAMAK İÇİN from İbrahim izgi on Vimeo.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

As Michael Goodman and I tried to whimsically note in the sub-title of our edited collection on intelligence and the media – media needs intelligence and intelligence needs the media. The symbiosis of this relationship can be partly found in common expertise and practices (investigative zeal and tradecraft around weeding out hidden empirical detail), but also in the political or normative function of intelligence agencies, namely to constrain and repel certain forms of political discourse and activity deemed to be abhorrent to the majority, but more particularly which is abhorrent to the established political elites. So, at a very basic level media outlets learn much from the activities of intelligence agencies and the business they engage in. Similarly the agencies have both used mainstream media to shape debates (the Cold War and the War on Terror were notable examples), and to position adversaries in a particular way (and this might apply to every conflict since the printing press was invented). But what I want to rehearse here are the particular ways in which mainstream and parallel media sources – with a particular emphasis on the UK – have coalesced and acted within the NSA/Snowden furore, and the lessons we can learn from this.

My first lesson privileges the position of the mainstream press. Put simply, without the mainstream paid-for press there would have been no Snowden-NSA scandal. There is an important pre-caveat when referring to the ‘Snowden material’, which is that virtually none of the stated cache has been made publicly available, much of what we know has passed through the filter of media organisations and as such has been précised or synthesised, and that which has still to make it into the open will not do so in raw form. So, there is an important distinction to be drawn between Wikileaks – for example – which has published redacted raw material, and overlaid analysis with it – and the Snowden material which has almost exclusively been published in synthesised form. Snowden has stated that he did not seek to do damage to US national interests, nor to cause revolution, but instead to provide the framework or opportunity through which the public could make judgements about how this important area of government activity should be framed, or limited. This perhaps helps us to understand his dissemination strategy, but either way it is clear that Snowden would not have been able to achieve his ends without the mainstream media to position stories in the way they have.

It is, however, both ironic and curious that a dissemination strategy premised on withholding the raw material has arguably had a greater impact on the political discourse than the various and transparent Wikileaks stories have had, Cablegate  included. Part of the causal explanation for this is ‘our’ connection to the story: Cablegate was concerned with diplomatic cables between elites remote from ‘us’. Snowden’s revelations were about ‘our’ electronic communications and signals being interfered with. The other part of the equation sits in the way that this story existed in a reinforcing ecosystem between the print, visual and audio medias, governments (and note the strong use of media messaging by Latin American and European governments, save for the UK) and international organisations such as the EU, along with extensive commentary in independent and social media outlets. A vortex of opinion was created in a way that never happened with similar revelations around Cablegate, or in the late 90s and early 2000s around the antecedent ECHELON programme. Traditional print media was the trigger movement for the spontaneous formation of this ecosystem.

My second lesson demonstrates the power of the geographically bound nature of intelligence and law, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Snowden and those who helped him with dissemination had understood the lessons of Wikileaks well: multi-jurisdictional and synchronised release of information. This is a risk-mitigation strategy, and one that has worked flawlessly well on the occasions it has been used. It removes the problem of a single point of failure and exposes a flaw and tension in globalised communications: that it is virtually impossible to stop communication in another territory. So, if Snowden has chosen only to publish in the UK, it would have been relatively easy to place an injunction on The Guardian preventing publication, and then presumably D-Notice to prevent other UK-based outlets commenting upon it. By releasing across multiple jurisdictions the genie was out of the bottle before any single or multiple interested governments could intercede. Geographical binding was not just a problem for those who sought to contain or suppress this story (and to be clear: suppression was legally justified because the core documents were classified), but is a wider problem for intelligence activity and the oversight and control of it. The stories around rendition and torture, on the one hand, and around surveillance of foreign nationals (and how one can receive information about a foreign national from a foreign agency, which turns out to be a home national, but a legal leap of faith renders this acceptable) are good evidence of how globalisation has presented unparalleled opportunities and threats to the business of intelligence.

My final lesson is that of the media as a regulator. In an exchange of correspondence in the New York Review of Books, The Guardian newspaper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger and the chair of the UK oversight committee, Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, sparred over the role of intelligence regulators. Rifkind’s core argument was that Rusbridger was not sufficiently au fait with the material (and its context) to know whether release was safe or desirable. The sad truth for Sir Malcolm and Parliament is that the Intelligence and Security Committee and the laws governing intelligence activity in the UK, in particular, have failed to keep up with the radical reorientation of intelligence activity in an area of ubiquitous electronic communication, and cheap storage and electronic analytical capability. As such the ‘regulation by revelation’ motif is one that will remain visible in the UK (and to some degree the US) as a check and balance on relatively unrestrained intelligence activity. We might reframe this in the following way: does the public response indicate that this issue is in the ‘public interest’? Almost certainly yes.  Was this issue raised and analysed by official oversight mechanisms? No.  So, we are left with competing and yet potentially complementary propositions that the official oversight mechanisms are not fit for purpose, that they did not deem this activity to be worthy of attention, or that they were unaware of the activity.

Parliament, backed separately by the courts, should be the appropriate institutions for oversight and check and balance. The media should be a soft-balancer for those exceptional moments of abuse or acts which are ultra vires. This particular balance went out of kilter with Snowden’s revelations, and it will be important for it to return quickly, there having been appropriate actions taken by the UK Parliament. As a footnote to this section it is worth mentioning that the British government has stood obdurately by the US Administration, and senior British figures have made bellicose noises about the impact that the revelations will have on the security of the US and UK. Senior intelligence figures (current and retired) have repeatedly condemned The Guardian in increasingly intemperate terms for publishing what appears to be – to most lay and expert readers – a set of practices that are deserving of public and political scrutiny, and which had been allowed to run loose from the intention of legislators. For reform to occur in the UK there will only need to be one conceptual shift and realisation: the weakening of communications security (by design) potentially makes London a less desirable location as a global finance hub. If finance firms cannot guarantee their communications they will find locations where they can – Germany would look like a good location for this, going forward – and the pattern of British politics is such that only this kind of spur will generate transformative change.

The traditional forms of media have historically been critical friends (but good friends nevertheless) to the intelligence agencies. Since June 2013, this relationship has become a little antagonistic because of the Snowden materials and the rapid (and temporary) formation of the self-perpetuating ecosystem as described above. No matter where one sits on the detailing of the privacy and intervention issues, it should be relatively uncontested that the traditional media has played an essential role in the oversight of this area of government activity, and in positioning the Snowden materials in such a way for international impact. It is a rare corrective to the dominant discourse of the ubiquity of social media.

—

Dr. Robert Dover is Associate Dean (Enterprise) and Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Loughborough University. Along with Michael Goodman and Claudia Hillebrand he is the editor of the new Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies (2013). 

March 19: Digital Diplomacy, Social Media, and Crisis Communication

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Digital Diplomacy Coalition’s One Year Anniversary Celebration!

The Digital Diplomacy Coalition, in partnership with the UN Foundation, is celebrating its one year anniversary on Thursday, 13 June 2013 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at 1776 in Washington DC.

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