Tag Archives: Elite

The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No93, 28 March 2013

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Are political authorities back? Many high-tech and cyber related signals emerged this week, from the massive DDoS attack to digital arm trade, right to kill hackers, DNA computing, quantum technology or space entrepreneurs, besides the possibility of renewed attacks by “climato-skeptics,” when scientists wonder if the frozen spring could be linked to a slower gulf stream, and when political impacts of natural catastrophes start being studies more consistently. Meanwhile, the Syrian quagmire deepens, progressively dragging the region in, and tensions in Northeast Asia heighten. And at the core, because strong political authorities are crucial to deal with those multiple challenges, Cyprus as a potential signal of finally awakened “rulers,” taking income where it is rather than impoverishing further their capabilities and support base, a new episode in the age-old struggle of the fight between rulers and wealthy, liquidity awash elite.

Click on image to read on Paper.li.

horizon scanning, national security, weak signal, risk

2012 EVT – Scenario 2 – Panglossy: Same Old, Same Old

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Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. Everstate is plagued by a deepening budget deficit and an increasing need for liquidity, with a related creeping appropriation of resources while the strength of central public power weakens to the profit of various elite groups. An outdated world-view that promotes misunderstanding, disconnect and thus inadequate actions presides to its destiny. Henceforth, the political authorities are increasingly unable to deliver the security citizens seek. Risks to the legitimacy of the whole system increases. Alarmed by the rising difficulties and widespread discontent, the governing authorities decide to do something. Of the three potential scenarios or stories that follow, we now start the second, “Panglossy: Same Old, Same Old,”* after having seen the end of “Mamominarch: Off with the State.”

(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab - a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading).

In 2012 EVT, as Everstate’s governing authorities and more specifically national representatives start thinking they should do something to face the various difficulties they meet and notably the rising discontent, a new period of elections opens up. Thus, what matters to the national representatives now is to win the elections for a new term. It is not anymore a fear of losing power because their legitimacy as efficient rulers (being able to deliver what they have been elected for) is questioned. They need now to convince citizens that they are the best to represent the nation and govern it and that they are better than their usual competitors.

As political parties are built around a programme and according to specific lines of thoughts, the rationale of the electoral competition asks them to follow the core of those programmes to demarcate themselves from their adversaries. When each party was formed, this formation led to the construction of a unique program upon which various national representatives and parliamentary groupings agreed. This program was also built to allow for the mobilization of electors needed to see the representatives elected. However, as with the way ideological and normative belief systems and socio-political models are constructed, this mobilisation was done in the past. The problems it sought to answer are past challenges. Furthermore, it could only be built according to the socio-political model and normative framework of that time. Over time, with each election, each of the two programmes has evolved but could do so only within relatively tight boundaries. Hence, the two main parties about to dispute the elections in Everstate are both abiding by the modernizing norm, constructed around materialistic improvement, each representing, as in most of the liberal world, two ends of the same spectrum, one of social-democrat inspiration, the other with a more conservative stance.

Thus, now, if the real severe problems faced by the nation must be considered, solutions can nevertheless only be envisioned within the framework of those existing programmes, as well as within the existing socio-political model and norms. For the two major classical parties, trying to change their framework and their programme in a very substantial way would mean risking changing the existing mobilisation forces and upsetting existing parliamentary groupings, thus risking losing the elections, which, ultimately would imply not being in power.

Battles are thus pitched on relatively minor points, when seen from the point of view of the huge challenges the nation must face. From the point of view of many people who are not only electors, but also those very people who seek security, experience pressures in their everyday life and are increasingly dissatisfied, such battles contribute to further de-legitimise whoever will become the nation’s representatives, thus the government, and indeed the existing parties’ system.

Meanwhile, a combination of apparent renewed optimism, notably expressed through better statistics, for example a slightly rising consumers’ spending, especially abroad, through bullish financial markets  and stock exchanges worldwide, a slow down of protests both within Everstate and worldwide, with a fear that those protests could start again, tends to comfort the potential nation’s representatives in the validity of their old aims and programmes and in their wish to come back to the situation ante, i.e. before everything started to unravel. Chief among those aims, Everstate must obtain economic growth again. The crisis is severe, indeed, but it is certainly temporary as those optimistic signs show. Unfavourable, negative trends are still at work, and those must be faced and stopped. But the goal is clear and the framework for doing so is pristine, and it may only work, as it has always worked since the parties were created.

The rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), prompted by the current modernising and materialistic paradigm, only fuels this vision. Be they upheld as a threat against which one must struggle or as new partners with whom one must cooperate, their recent success is one more evidence of the correctness of the existing system. As a result, the awareness of the new pressures that had started to emerge recedes and those are considered as not really important or, if they are, their timing is uncertain, thus, if ever such threats materialise, it will be later.**

Hence, nothing fundamentally changes. On the contrary, habits and the existing system, once the new national representatives are elected and the new government starts ruling are even more entrenched, almost ossified. 

Yet, something unexpected, dismissed by observers, is also happening during the months leading to the election. To be continued…

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* The name for this scenario, Panglossy, comes from the famous character Pangloss in Voltaire‘s work Candide ou l’Optimisme (Candid : or, All for the Best – 1759). Candide is an attack on Leibniz’s optimism, seen as absurd in the light of the many ills of the world. The absurdity of optimism is notably conveyed through the explanations for the series of  catastrophes met that Pangloss, Candide’s preceptor, gives and that always emphasise that “all is for the best.”

** Note that the absence of interest existing on timing and the sparse research on this factor may only ease the ability to deny reality.

Images

A frontispiece of Voltaire’s Candide (Paris : Sirène, 1759). It reads, “Candide, or the Optimism. Translated from the German by Dr. Ralph.” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This file comes from the website of the President of the Russian Federation. Kremlin.ru [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

2018 – 2023 EVT – A Polity in Shambles (Mamominarch)

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Post updated 10 May 2012. Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. To face the various difficulties and widespread discontent, in a first scenario, Everstate’s governing bodies implement the Mamominarch programme of drastic reduction of state’s spending over five years through devolution, privatisation and outsourcing. By 2018 EVT, besides a generalised rising insecurity for most Everstatans, the now fragile state cannot efficiently manage the complex catastrophes that start hitting Everstate in May. Further pressures and perceptions of the way they are answered lead to radicalisation and polarisation along three lines: local independence with direct membership to the Regional Union – with now a battle over Trueland – renewal of a strong central Everstate, and, finally, continuing support to the Mamominarch system.

(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab – a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading – Research note at the bottom of the post, including assessed global impact of scenario on development).

As the Renewers ask for the resignation of Everstate’s government and the end of the Mamominarch system, the government is almost ready to give in. It is, indeed, confronted to an intractable situation, without hardly any means of action and thus completely overwhelmed. However, the traditional elite groups cannot accept to see the end of the Mamominarch system, which would also mean the end of their power. As their coercive power is, actually, now truly in the hands of Novstate, they thus start a series of discussions with Novstate’s CEO and its board of directors. The process is eased by the fact that many of the most powerful people in Everstate are also part of Novstate’s board of directors. Their objective of the elite is to convince Novstate to repress as harshly as necessary the Movement for the Renewal of Everstate. The various movements for independence are seen as less of a threat as they are not united and could probably be handled through some measures of autonomy. The international situation seems to be as favourable as possible to endeavour any kind of represssion as the international society is busy with other pressing matters.

The Renewers, strong of the support the IT world grants them, and wary of the old elite groups’ responses, manage to enter the communication’s and IT systems of Novstate and of the old classical parties. They almost instantaneously start spreading records of the discussions held between Novstate and the elite, underlying the violence of the elite groups, which does not fit well with the still pregnant norms of peace, democracy and respect of human rights. Novstate becomes worried to lose its international standing and thus its lucrative contracts. Furthermore, Novstate reflects that it will still sell the same contracts and services to the Renewers, if those are coming to power, as they will have no other choice. Novstate, thus, abandons the old elite groups that brought it to power, and changes its board of directors.

In the meantime, taking advantage of the situation, both domestic and international, the leaders of the Movement for the Independence of Trueland declare independence unilaterally, if a referendum to be organised soon confirms this wish. A few cities follow immediately. The Renewers are taken by surprise and can only bow to the future results of the referendum. Only the Movement for the Independence of the Whole Trueland – the  Continental South-East – not only strongly protests, but also refuses to acknowledge what it considers as treachery and spoliation. Knowing that it cannot count on Novstate, it ends all its contracts with the company and its friends businesses, and decides to start creating its own army and police forces. In the meantime, groups of hastily created militia carry small incursions in the New Trueland territory, burning a house here, stealing weapons from understaffed small police stations there, and declaring each time that they fight for the Whole Trueland and against traitors.

The international society cannot do anything, as it is involved elsewhere. Moreover, it does not want to handle the problem, as its members meet problems that are very similar to those faced by Everstate, although under different guises and at different stages according to the path each country has chosen. The Regional Union, so dependent upon the power of its members on the one hand, having seen its own resources dwindle with the repeated crises, cannot either afford to get involved. It merely acknowledges the decisions taken and hopes for the best.

A low-level intensity conflict settles in the South-East of Everstate, while, elsewhere, the situation of ordinary citizens has not improved, on the contrary. All energies and power had to be used to start reconfiguring the political system, condition sine qua non for a stabilizing situation, as the old system and its offspring, Mamominarch, repeatedly showed their inability to ensure security.

Thus ends the Mamominarch system, while the potential new model of socio-political order that should follow is still only potentially emerging and, hence, unclear. This new system will not only have to tackle the problems that existed in 2012 EVT, but also cope with the aftermath of Mamominarch. The heightened tension, and the uncertainty generated by the political upheaval first, and, second, the novelty, have frightened most economic agents, notably foreigners, and economy is at its worst. Everstate has also to face the loss of part of its territory, related income and resources, while it has to accommodate those Western refugees that were still in the South-East when the latest political turmoil exploded and were thus expelled, as well as all those who did not want to live under the new Independences. In summary, security needs have multiplied and now must be tackled anew.

Compared with what could have happened had other decisions been taken in 2012 EVT, is the aftermath of Mamominarch a too heavy liability that will delay, if not obliterate, any chance to create and implement a new functioning system, or an opportunity, as the old has already been partly discarded?

To start answering this question, let us now examine the second scenario that could have taken place in 2012 EVT, Panglossy.

To be continued….

Further Research

It would be particularly interesting to construct many similar models for other real and ideal-type countries, to map their interactions and assess impacts for the International Society and for any type of Regional Union. The evolution of each country would also influence the international and systemic level. This would allow us anticipating much better various scenarios including variables related to international pressures on the country analysed (here Everstate) and consequences, thus identifying better the cone of plausibility, or assessing other futures on issues of interest.

For example, if we use the Chronicles of Everstate and Mamominarch to evaluate impacts in terms of International Development, then we can deduce what follows. If, in the current and foreseeable global conditions, donour countries embark on a “programme of drastic reduction of state’s spending over five years,” then, in the medium term,

  • Those states will fragilise;
  • A large part of their population will become increasingly vulnerable, with rising malnutrition and generalised adverse impacts on the Human Development Indices, swelling progressively the mass of the global poor.
  • Those countries’ aid and cooperation programmes and related contributions will dwindle, if not disappear, according to cases.
  • In turn, assuming the current system is not changed, all international organisations will be impacted and see a drastic lowering of their budget. More particularly, it will be impossible for affected donour countries to respect pledges; IDA money risks to plummet, as member states contributions will be lowered.
  • All MDGs will consequently be adversely affected.