James Crabtree
The ancient dilemma: good coup, bad coup
Amidst all the nationalisation and money printing, fiscal policy now regularly sees previously unthinkable measures. Might the same become true of foreign policy? Two seemingly out-of-bounds ideas peek through our opinions section this month, from Harvard’s Monica Toft and from Oxford’s Paul Collier.
Toft is one of the world’s leading experts on civil wars. In the aftermath of the minor resurgence of violence in Northern Ireland—and the current rumblings in Sri Lanka, Sudan and Iraq—we asked her to go over what made civil wars stop and start. Her conclusion is challenging: in the post-cold war era, identity-driven civil wars are much nastier than those of the 1945-1989 era. This in in part because squeemish international powers refuse either to weigh in and help one side win, or to stand aside as one is allowed to win by force. What tends to happen, instead, is just as one side looks like winning (and thus wiping the other side out) the international community steps in and forces a negotiated solution, which in turn is more likely to break down. The nasty, long-term solution? Let one side win.
Paul Collier’s idea isn’t much more palatable to mainstream thought. His new book, Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, lays out the failure of African countries in particular to democratise, with corrupt dictators taking much of the blame. His solution? The west should develop a new mechanism for “green lighting” coup attempts, especially in clear cut cases like Zimbabwe, in which the army could take power without threat of any liberal intervention in response. More coups and bloodshed, but in the cause of longterm peace and harmony. Realpolitik at its best.
James Crabtree
Generally intellectual
Noam Chomsky. Francis Fukuyama. Anthony Giddens. Christopher Hitchens. Slavoj Zizek. All names that didn’t even make the top 10 in Prospect’s contest to crown 2008’s public intellectual of the year. So who did? Moving on from previous attempts to list the world’s 100 greatest living public intellectuals, this year we decided to name those who had the most impact in 2008 alone. We took soundings—from friends, here on First Drafts and on our Facebook group—to bring up a shortlist. From there it was down to our panel of judges. A three-way contest emerged, between economist Nouriel Roubini, social scientists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and General David Petraeus. Our judges voted according to type: the wonks liked the Nudge duo, the more economically minded wanted a thinker linked to the credit crunch, while foreign policy watchers thought the soldier-philosopher deserving of the nod. On our website we provide details of all our judges’ votes, and their reasons, along with short bios of all those we considered. Ultimately, though, there could only be one winner. As in Iraq, so in Prospect: Petraeus surged to victory.
James Crabtree
but who is 2008's biggest public brain?
We just put the Christmas edition of the magazine to bed, at 3am on Wednesday morning. If you join up for our Facebook group you can see the new cover, and get an overview of the contents. If you aren’t on Facebook, like David Goodhart, our hold-out editor, I’ll put it up here in a day or two. The magazine, meanwhile, arrives at a train station near you in the middle of next week.
Personally, I’m most excited about the results of our public intellectual of 2008 poll. This is different from our previous public vote poll, run with Foreign Policy, to find the greatest living public intellectual. This one is just about the figure who did best in 2008 – and is picked by us, and a team of all-star judges. Thanks to any of you who threw names into the hat for consideration, when we announced it here on First Drafts a month or so ago.
I can’t put the winner on here just yet, but will put the shortlist up shortly. In the meantime, below, are the people who just missed out on the top 10 – those we liked a lot, but didn’t make the cut. More on who actually won in due course – along with the judges’ decisions, and the eventual winner. If this lot didn’t win, who would you have given it to? And what do you make of this longlist – just the same old group of old white English-speaking men? Click the more button to see the list…….
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