Blog 2- Are there entities in the contemporary world that are not sovereign, but should be sovereign? Should sovereignty be the exclusive province of what Opello and Rosow call "nation-states"?

As a reference to the lesson today, it is crucial to understand that sovereignty is based on the four elements of power, autonomy, authority, and capacity, and although many institutions both social and governmental possess one or two of the aspects of sovereignty, that does not necessarily deem them as a sovereign body. Take the U.N. for example, which has massive capacity, and some authority as a part of sovereignty, but no autonomy and only a semblance of power. The U.N. cannot be considered sovereign because it fails to meet the criteria, however, should steps be taken to make it a sovereign body?

The U.N. should become sovereign because it is futile to have an institution of governance that is used merely as a theatre for discussion, treaty writing, and imposing sanctions. Of course the U.N. is slightly more sophisticated than that narrow description, but the idea is that it has no way to enforce it’s rulings because not only are there many nations outside of the U.N.’s sphere, but also it has no military coalition that has proven to be effective in international warfare.

Today the U.N. is reminiscent of the first U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation. There is a weak central government to which a group of nations is attached. However, like the first U.S. states or colonies, there is far more allegiance to the individual nation then there is to the U.N. as a whole. Proof of this lies in the Iraq War, because despite the hesitancy of the U.N. to approve and commit to violence in the Middle East, the U.S. still committed troops to the conflict, showing a more severe concern with the state of the nation rather then the state of the U.N.

If the U.N. were to have more aspects of sovereignty, modeling more of their institutions on the security council, and furthering that model to give them power, granted by the authority of the conglomerate of nations, the “governing body of our world” would have tangible and legitimate powers that would make it more than just a nice idea.

However, there are certainly bodies that are not nation-states, which, unlike the U.N., should not be recognized as, or allowed to be sovereign. It is undeniable that the Ku Klux Klan should not become a sovereign body, because the benefit of them being so would have no national or global merit. Any body that becomes more effective for the purpose it is intended to achieve should be encouraged to become sovereign by the global community. Therefore sovereignty should not be restricted to nation states, but the distribution of sovereignty should be wisely allocated.

Reflection (1)

What struck me most about Foer’s stories in How Soccer Explains the World was the impact the rise of soccer had on the academic culture of global societies.  In several of the countries Foer visited, he got to know many of the native soccer fans as more than just wild, uncivilized creatures.  Through interactions with Alan, Foer learned of his opinionated views on various topics including “deficiencies of authoritarian governments, the morality of the Anglo-American war against Iraq, the genius of Alexander the Great, and the earnest temperament of Californians.”  He learned of an English gang full of stockbrokers.  The Ultra Bad Boys, like Draza, were often college students receiving an education that could have been put to good use.  Foer spoke with Dummy, a loyal Rangers fan, who was able to poetically narrate the history of Scottish Protestantism, correctly reciting dates and names (even while in a “not-so-sober” state of mind).


If all of these men had so much potential for greatness, why did they resort to corruption and violence?? Instead of exploiting soccer to destroy lives, why not channel their drive and energy into more worthwhile feats?

  

Reflection 1

I feel that reading How Football (or Soccer) explains the World was a great way to start of the semester in this class. Many people, especially in the United States, fail to recognize how much football is engrained into the culture of, well, the entire world. So much so that, even though it may have been a stretch at times, it can tell the history of a country or a religion as if they were the game themselves.

It especially put the culture of my own country in perspective for me. My family is originally from Glasgow, Scotland, so I grew up around football, and from the age of three I knew about the rivalry between Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. It wasn't until I read this book that I actually understood how serious the rivalry was. I knew pretty much all the history of the Protestant and Catholic rivalry in Scotland, but it was only upon reading this book that I began to say to myself "Wow, that is really bad, but its completely true."

I do need to clarify some things though. I have never heard someone sing anything about Fenian blood, and I have never seen a Rangers fan wearing orange. Rangers wear dark blue and white, like the colors of the scottish flag, and Celtics wear green and white. Also, the hype around the Rangers and Celtics is not nearly as bad as it used to be. My mum told me stories of her going with her mum to visit her grandmother on the other side of Glasgow every weekend. She said that before they left, they always checked what Football games were on and where, because to come home from her grandmothers, they had to pass Ibrox stadium on the bus, and if there was a Rangers/Celtics game on, there would be fans from both teams on the bus, and there WOULD be fights. But today it is not nearly as violent as it was in the past. The last Rangers/Celtic game I went to was about four years ago, and there were no fights, and certainly no one talking about Fenian Blood. Today it is just a friendly rivalry, and it should be since those two teams are at the top of the Scottish Premier League. So this book gave me not only an insight into my own country's history, but into the history of the world.

Reflection-1

HIV AIDS is undoubtedly a massive worldly problem; thus the word pandemic. It certainly needs to be addressed and funds need to be allocated towards it in order to achieve a cure, but there is something wrong with the number 63 billion. Admittedly saving 5 million lives with that amount of money is admirable to say the least, but isn’t there a more affective use for that astronomical amount of capital, couldn’t one thousand dollars sustain an impoverished African family for a year? But the money is already designated, which means that the focus is on how it is being misused. I concede that I have but a fraction of the understanding of this problem than the AIDS experts at PEPFAR do, but I find their plan to be fundamentally backwards.

Despite the fact that they have already invested billions in the infrastructure of a sustainable AIDS relief effort, it seems as if the concentration is on treatment rather than prevention. The PEPFAR representative said herself that HIV is a completely preventable disease; nobody in the world has to have AIDS. Unlike another epidemic such as Malaria which is spread by mosquitoes (much harder to contain), HIV is completely based in human interaction, therefore the only way it can be spread is through lack of education, and uninformed decisions. So wouldn’t it be reasonable to concentrate the majority of funds on prevention rather than treatment? Last Monday in Macroeconomics we saw this surprisingly relevant clip from “Saving Private Ryan” where Tom Hanks rationalizes the sacrifice of losing one man in combat, with the belief that his sacrifice would save ten others. This idea is tangibly applicable to this situation, because for every treated person whose treatment costs hundreds or thousands of dollars annually, when they die after however many years their life was extended by, if there is a lack in prevention methods, their vacant spot will be filled by yet another victim of the disease.

PEPFAR chooses to spend their time and money on treatment when they already have the capital, facilities, and incentive. In my marginally informed opinion this anomaly is both agitating and baffling. Somebody please explain this to me…

Ignorance

Politics is the way people within a certain government interact with each other and make decisions on how to improve the state of their nation or community. World Politics is the way the governments of separate countries all over the globe interact to improve the state of the world and the lives of the people in it. Today, the most powerful countries in the world are becoming increasingly democratic, and these countries have more power over what happens in the world more than dozens of smaller and less powerful countries. Democratic systems allow each individual to have a say in the affairs of their country and ultimately the entire world, especially in countries like the United States and several countries in Western Europe. A single person living in one of these countries can change national and international affairs with one vote.

Yet, for some people, Politics is a subject just as interesting and enjoyable as a root canal. Most would rather watch reality shows as opposed to political shows, read magazines rather than newspapers, and talk about the lives of their friends and family instead of what is going on in their country and in the world. These people become very ignorant of national and international affairs, or even the basic history and culture of other countries. Many people in influential countries can not name the heads of state for the biggest superpowers in the world, like China, Germany, or Russia. In Florida, I was once asked by a seventeen year old boy, after telling him I was from England, if they spoke French there. If these people do not know simple facts about other countries, how can they possibly be properly informed on the affairs of these nations? or even their own?

Even so, everyone in a democratic country is entitled to vote, and just because that boy in Florida doesn't know what language they speak in England doesn't mean that he won't walk into the voting booth in three years and vote for his state senator, or the president. People go in and vote even if they don't know a thing about the person they are voting for. They say "I saw him helping army veterans on the TV, thats so nice, I'm going to vote for him," or "I saw a commercial saying this guy is going to make killing babies legal and that I should vote for the other guy, so I'm going to do it," or "He is a Democrat, I'm going to vote for him."

This is the biggest issue in World Politics by far, because if thousands of people in a country make a decision based on little or no factual information, it can change the course of an entire government. In the most powerful countries, this can be very dangerous, because the political actions of those countries effect the political actions of the world. If even just a few people make a misinformed decision, it can ruin the entire political system. A democracy is supposed to work in a way that people who have an opinion on a certain issue can have a say on what action should be taken to solve that issue. But if people with no opinion also vote on that issue, how do we know that the action taken was really what the people wanted?

I believe action should be taken to make sure people make an informed vote. Maybe little handouts or cards can be produced containing the facts about a certain issue and handed out to people as they go to vote. Maybe schools should strengthen their history programs in an effort to inform people of the basic facts of countries. Maybe adults should take a required course once a year on the current heads of state, geography, and language distribution of the world. Until people no longer vote while they are misinformed, I do not believe that the democratic system can work properly.

Got H2O?

Fresh water, an essential ingredient for the survival of life, and its fair and equitable availability for all, has become one of the most pressing global issues our nation currently faces. As the human population continues to grow and water consumption among humans continues to increase exponentially, the demand for this vital natural resource is extremely high. At the same time, water sources are being depleted, polluted, and exploited by various corporations just as fast, adding to the severity of water scarcity in the world.

The amount of safe drinking water has become more limited for several reasons. Climate change, which is causing rainfall patterns in usually dry areas to change, decreases the already insufficient amount of rainfall needed for sustainability. As technology and industry continue to grow, additional demands are placed on the available water supply to meet the needs of manufacturing and agriculture. The growing need for biofuels is also exhausting water supplies by increasing the use of crops once intended for food, such as corn, to be grown specifically for the manufacture of ethanol. Additional water is then needed to grow crops for food. To further complicate matters, our riverbeds and streams are being polluted by contaminated wastewater and sewage.


Powerful water, food, and energy companies are supporters of buying water rights, taking over the assets of publicly owned water systems, endorsing bottled water, and selling water in areas deprived of access to safe drinking water. In theory, this was to provide a fair distribution of water; however, due to different interests on the part of the private water industries, the privatization of water has not yet proven itself to be a viable solution. In many instances it has taken water out of the reach of the poor, negatively affected the environment, and turned water into a business for profit.


In underdeveloped countries, the absence of readily available drinking water is a serious health risk and an economic hardship. Those who cannot get access to clean water risk illness or death by drinking contaminated water which is known to cause diarrhea, typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery. Nearly two million children die each year from illnesses caused by dirty drinking water (http://www.pacinst.org/reports/water_related_deaths). With such a limited amount of safe drinking water available, and an increasingly growing population, the problem of water scarcity becomes even more urgent.

Blog 1- The most important issue in World Politics to me.

As the climate rapidly deteriorates it becomes evident that the old tribal customs in the remote and rural parts of our world can no longer sustain the people who have been dependant on them for generations. This environmental shift changes the way that tribes like the African Maasai in Kenya conduct their lives. In a culture based predominantly in livestock, drought becomes an even more menacing adversary than it is to an agriculturally centered culture. In America we rely on an omnivorous food supply which is subject to large amounts of technological enhancement. In juxtaposition to this is the solitary economic structure that is present in many primitive ways of life. The cultures that utilize these methods are in no way less rich than a modernized culture, and in many cases they have a more vibrant history and tradition. However, along with this extreme sophistication in beliefs and societal structure is the unavoidable fact that these simple economies lead to the highest rates of poverty, which is the most important issue in world politics.

When an individual or family find themselves in poverty, or extreme poverty (income of less than $1USD), they immediately become a liability to the state in which they reside. They rarely have voting power and in most cases live on land that has not been allocated to them by public or private means. Therefore, at any time the government can come through their slum or shantytown and essentially evict hundreds of thousands of residents. These places are not only unstable financially, but poverty, through its desperate nature, breeds crime. Disease is also rampant in the parts of the world where poverty has taken hold, almost without exception. The bottom line is that although these impoverished people provide mostly just a hassle for their governments, it is a matter of humanitarianism to assist as many as possible in throwing off the economic chains that are strangling them.

Ironically, the principle concern of world politics doesn’t involve war or sovereignty or natural resources or any type of conflict at all. Instead it is our duty to each other as human beings to assist those less fortunate than ourselves. Bickering over oil rights and installing democracy and even nuclear threats are secondary to the concern that should be had for the millions dying because they are stuck in a washing machine of violence, hunger, and disease. Would it not make sense to put not only the billions of dollars America is privy too, but also the vast amount of resources the rest of the western world possesses towards helping our fellow man rise up out of despair and become an entity that is productive and benefits the societal fabric of our world.