Stanford University

North Korea in The Cold War International System

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North Korea has often been considered an aberration in the post-Cold War international system, a relic of a Stalinist past. In fact, a close examination of North Korean foreign relations during the Cold War period reveals that Pyongyang's behavior never fit neatly into the paradigm of a bipolar international order, and that the Cold War itself had a distinctive dynamic in the Korean context. This dynamic helps to explain the continued existence of a divided Korea to this day, long after the bipolar international system has ended. Based largely on formerly secret materials from North Korea's Cold War allies in Eastern Europe, this paper suggests that Pyongyang's "aberrent" behavior long pre-dates the 1990s. It argues that North Korea has exhibited more continuity than change in the way it has dealt with the outside world over the last several decades, focusing on three areas of foreign policy: economic extraction, political non-alignment, and the development of an independent nuclear weapons capability.

Charles K. Armstrong is The Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. In the fall semester of 2008 he was a Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University.

A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong is the author or editor of several books, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell, 2003), Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), and Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.  His current book projects include a study of North Korean foreign relations in the Cold War era and a history of modern East Asia.

Professor Armstrong holds a B.A. in Chinese Studies from Yale University, an M.A. in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 1996.

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Charles K. Armstrong Associate Professor, Director of the Center for Korean Research Speaker Columbia University
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Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Larry Diamond: How to save democracy

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Bush gave democracy promotion a bad name, Larry Diamond writes in Newsweek. The new administration needs to get it right.

The new U.S. President will face more than one kind of global recession. In addition to the economic downturn, the world is suffering a democratic contraction. In Russia, awash with oil money, Vladimir Putin and his KGB cronies have sharply restricted freedom. In Latin America, authoritarian (and anti-American) populism is on the rise. In Nigeria, the Philippines and once again in Pakistan, democracy is foundering amid massive corruption, weak government and a loss of public faith. In Thailand, the government is paralyzed by mass protests. In Africa, more than a dozen fragile democracies must face the economic storm unprepared. And in the Middle East—the Bush administration's great democratic showcase—the push for freedom lies in ruins.

In the past decade, the breathtaking democratic wave that swept the world during the final quarter of the 20th century reversed course. Making democracy work proved harder than bringing down authoritarian rule. And receptive peoples everywhere were alienated by the arrogance and unilateralism of President George W. Bush's approach, which associated "democracy promotion" with the use of force and squandered America's soft power. Advancing democracy abroad remains vital to the U.S. national interest. But the next president will have to craft a more modest, realistic and sustainable strategy.

It's easy today to forget how far freedom has advanced in the past 30 years. When the wave of liberation began in 1974 in Portugal, barely a quarter of the world's states met the minimal test of democracy: a place where the people are able, through universal suffrage, to choose and replace their leaders in regular, free and fair elections. Over the course of the next two decades, dictatorships gave way to freely elected governments first in Southern Europe, then in Latin America, then in East Asia. Finally, an explosion of freedom in the early '90s liberated Eastern Europe and spread democracy from Moscow to Pretoria. Old assumptions—that democracy required Western values, high levels of education and a large middle class—crumbled. Half of sub-Saharan Africa's 48 states became democracies, and of the world's poorest countries, about two in every five are democracies today.

This great shift coincided with an unprecedented moment of U.S. military, economic and cultural dominance. Not only was America the world's last remaining superpower, but U.S. values—individual freedom, popular sovereignty, limited government and the rule of law—were embraced by progressive leaders around the world. Opinion surveys showed democracy to be the ideal of most people as well.

In recent years, however, this mighty tide has receded. This democratic recession has coincided with Bush's presidency, and can be traced in no small measure to his administration's imperial overreach. But it actually started in 1999, with the military coup in Pakistan, an upheaval welcomed by a public weary of endemic corruption, economic mismanagement and ethnic and political violence. Pakistan's woes exposed more than the growing frailty of a nuclear-weapon state. They were also the harbinger of a more widespread malaise. Many emerging democracies were experiencing similar crises. In Latin America and the post-communist world, and in parts of Asia and Africa, trust in political parties and parliaments was sinking dramatically, as scandals mounted and elected governments defaulted on their vows to control corruption and improve the welfare of ordinary people.

Thanks to bad governance and popular disaffection, democracy has lost ground. Since the start of the democratic wave, 24 states have reverted to authoritarian rule. Two thirds of these reversals have occurred in the past nine years—and included some big and important states such as Russia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Thailand and (if one takes seriously the definition of democracy) Nigeria and the Philippines as well. Pakistan and Thailand have recently returned to rule by elected civilians, and Bangladesh is about to do so, but ongoing crises keep public confidence low. Democracy is also threatened in Bolivia and Ecuador, which confront rising levels of political polarization. And other strategically important democracies once thought to be doing well—Turkey, South Africa and Ukraine—face serious strains.

This isn't to say there haven't been a few heartening successes in recent years. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has become a robust democracy nearly a decade after its turbulent transition from authoritarian rule. Brazil, under the left-leaning Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has also strengthened its democratic institutions while maintaining fiscal discipline and a market orientation and reducing poverty. In Africa, Ghana has maintained a quite liberal democracy while generating significant economic growth, and several smaller African countries have moved in this direction.

But the combination of tough economic times, diminished U.S. power and the renewed energy of major authoritarian states will pose a stiff challenge to some 60 insecure democracies in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc. If they don't strengthen their political institutions, reduce corruption and figure out how to govern more effectively, many of these democracies could fail in the coming years.

Part of the tragedy is that Washington has made things worse, not better. The Bush administration was right that spreading democracy would advance the U.S. national interest—that truly democratic states would be more responsible, peaceful and law-abiding and so become better contributors to international security. But the administration's unilateral and self-righteous approach led it to overestimate U.S. power and rush the dynamics of change, while exposing itself to charges of hypocrisy with its use of torture and the abuse of due process in the war on terror. Instead of advancing freedom and democracy in the Middle East, 2005 and 2006 witnessed a series of embarrassing shocks: Hamas winning in the Palestinian territories and Islamist parties winning in Iraq; Hizbullah surging in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood surging in Egypt. After a brief moment of optimism, the United States backed away and Middle Eastern democrats grew embittered.

The new American administration will have to fashion a fresh approach—and fast. That will mean setting clear priorities and bringing objectives into alignment with means. The United States does not have the power, resources or moral standing to quickly transform the world's entrenched dictatorships. Besides, isolating and confronting them never seems to work: in Cuba, for example, this policy has been a total failure. This does not mean that the United States should not support democratic change in places like Cuba, Burma, Iran and Syria. But it needs a more subtle and sophisticated approach.

The best strategy would be to open up such places to the freer flow of people, goods, ideas and information. The next administration should therefore start by immediately lifting the self-defeating embargo on Cuba. It should offer to establish full diplomatic ties with Havana and free flows of trade and investment in exchange for a Cuban commitment to improve human rights. Washington should also work with Tehran to hammer out a comprehensive deal that would lift economic sanctions, renounce the use of force to effect regime change and incorporate Iran into the WTO, in exchange for a verifiable halt to nuclear-weapons development, more responsible behavior on Iraq and terrorism, and improved human-rights protection and monitoring. Critics will charge that talking to such odious governments only legitimizes them. In fact, engaging closed societies is the best way to foster democratic change.

At the same time, the United States should continue to support diaspora groups that seek peaceful democratic change back home, and should expand international radio broadcasting, through the Voice of America and more specialized efforts, that transmits independent news and information as well as democratic values and ideas.

In the near term, however, Washington must focus on shoring up existing democracies. Fragile states need assistance to help them adjust to the shocks of the current economic crisis. But they also need deep reforms to strengthen their democratic institutions and improve governance. This will require coordinated help from America and its Western allies to do three things.

First, they must ramp up technical assistance and training programs to help the machinery of government—parliaments, local authorities, courts, executive agencies and regulatory institutions—work more transparently and deliver what people want: the rule of law, less corruption, fair elections and a government that responds to their economic and social needs. This also means strengthening democratic oversight.

Second, we know from experience that these kinds of assistance don't work unless the political leaders on the receiving end are willing to let them. So we need to generate strong incentives for rulers to opt for a different logic of governance, one that defines success as delivering development and reducing poverty rather than skimming public resources and buying support or rigging elections. This will mean setting clear conditions that will have to be met before economic and political aid is doled out to governments.

The third priority is to expand assistance to independent organizations, mass media and think tanks in these fragile states that will increase public demand for better governance and monitor what governments do. This means aiding democratic professional associations, trade unions, chambers of commerce, student groups and organizations devoted to human rights, women's rights, transparency, civic education, election monitoring and countless other democratic activities. Ordinary people must be educated to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens—and be ready to defend them.

While Western countries have provided this kind of aid for more than two decades, economic assistance handed out at the same time has often undermined democracy efforts by subsidizing corrupt, abusive governments. Aid donors should thus strike a new bargain with recipients, telling them: if you get serious about containing corruption, building a rule of law and improving people's lives, we will get serious about helping you. Those that show a real commitment should get significant new rewards of aid and freer trade. Those unwilling to reform should get little, though the West should continue to fight disease and directly help people in dire need wherever they are.

Finally, the new president should keep in mind the power of example. Washington can't promote democracy abroad if it erodes it at home. The contradictions between the rhetoric of Bush's "freedom agenda" and the realities of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, torture, warrantless surveillance and boundless executive privilege have led even many of the United States' natural allies to dismiss U.S. efforts as hypocritical. Thus the new president must immediately shut down Guantánamo and unequivocally renounce the use of torture; few gestures would restore American credibility more quickly. The United States should also reduce the power of lobbyists, enhance executive and legislative transparency and reform campaign-finance rules—both for its own good and for the message it would send.

Make no mistake: thanks to the global economic crisis and antidemocratic trends, things may get worse before they get better. But supporting democracy abroad advances U.S. national interests and engages universal human aspirations. A more consistent, realistic and multilateral approach will help to secure at-risk democracies and plant the seeds of freedom in oppressed countries. Patience, persistence and savvy diplomacy will serve the next president far better than moralistic rhetoric that divides the world into good and evil. We've seen where that got us.

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Wolfram Schlenker

School of International and Public Affairs
Department of Economics
420 West 118th St
New York, NY, 10027

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Visiting Scholar
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Wolfram Schlenker was a former Cargill Visiting Fellow at FSE. His research interests include the economics of climate change, water rights, and their impact on agricultural output, as well as models of exhaustible resources with endogenous discoveries.

Schlenker is currently Professor ineconomics at Columbia University.  He holds a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley (2003) and a Master of engineering and management sciences from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany (2000), as well as a Master of environmental management from Duke University (1998).

Writing Migration in Contemporary Galicia

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This seminar proposes readings of texts by migrants to and from Galicia as a means of mapping the cultural consequences, in Galicia, of the shifting relations between territory and citizenship, language and identity that have resulted from the massive population movements of the last century. While an important body of work already exists on migration between Galicia and the Americas, I argue here that the full implications of questions of migration and diaspora in Galicia can only be uncovered by relocating our discussion of diaspora and migration outside the colonial framework and the inevitably tangled linguistic, racial, cultural and historical ties within which Galician migration to Latin America has taken place. To this end, the paper focuses on writers connected with the Anglophone and Germanic diasporas for whom Galician is or has been a creative language.

Synopsis

Prof. Hooper begins by aiming to address the question of how to understand Galicia in a contemporary world where literature goes beyond state boundaries. She explains of Galicia’s complicated relationship with the world; while seen as a major literary force, it is still part of Spain and often disputes its nationhood. Prof. Hooper reveals, however, that Galicia’s self-image and image in the rest of the world has long been shaped by emigration. However, to Prof. Hooper, the traditional narrative of Galicia is no longer adequate. The overwhelming focus of this narrative on Galicia’s relationship with Spain and Latin America further perpetuates the notions of colonialism and Galicia as a minority. On the other hand, Prof. Hooper explains how decolonization and globalization have made artists and writers changed their approach to representing Galicia. Emigration is crucial to this reimagining because it is such a central part of Galician identity.

The 2005 Galician elections, decided by voters abroad, raised key questions about voting rights and Galician identity, according to Prof. Hooper. She discusses how conservatives and nationalists alike have promoted artificially stabling coordinates of identity in the region. Prof. Hooper illustrates such uncertainty about identity in Galicia through the example of the literary community. Those who are fervent supports of Galicia but write in Spanish are excluded, while foreigners writing in Galician are welcomed.

Another key aspect which Prof. Hooper raises is the emphasis on 'process over essences' in moving Galicia’s identity past state boundaries. However, Prof. Hooper reveals how this emigrant identity is characterized by various tensions. The intergenerational clash between what may be seen as the romantic notion of exile and economically driven emigration figures prominently in literature. Another significant tension is between nationalism and displacement, according to Prof. Hooper. She also argues that romanticizing emigration could lead dangerously to reinforcing conservative models. Finally, Prof. Hooper makes the point that immigration back into Galicia is changing identity in ways that the region does not yet know how to cope with.

Prof. Hooper finishes by taking questions on a range of topics from linguistic standardization to Galician literary work in Latin America. One of the issues particularly explored is the role of Galician electorate abroad, both in terms of voters and candidates. In addition, Prof. Hooper explores of notion of Galician identity abroad as a brand.

About the speaker

Kirsty Hooper teaches Spanish and Galician at the University of Liverpool, UK, where she is a founding editor of the journal Migrations & Identities and an assistant editor of the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. She has published widely on modern and contemporary Spanish and Galician culture and literature, and is an active translator of Galician, Polish and Spanish literature.

This event is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Stanford University.
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Kirsty Hooper Lecturer in Spanish and Galician Speaker University of Liverpool
Seminars

Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: Can Scholars Make a Difference?

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Over the past century, national elites have used proprietary narratives to justify the breakup of multiethnic societies and legitimize the nation-states that replaced them. Can scholars now redeploy history as a vehicle for promoting mutual recognition and reconciliation? Over the past decade a consortium of historians and social scientists has endeavored to do just that across the newly erected political and cultural frontiers of the former Yugoslavia.

Professor Charles Ingrao discusses the efforts of his organization, the Scholars' Initiative, in trying to provide a common platform for the media and politicians to move forward in dealing with the Yugoslav controversies. Prof. Ingrao emphasizes the need for a long term approach that employs irreproachable scholarly methodology and moves past the 'myths' created with the narratives of newly created nations. He also examines the problems that arise when trying the put together such an inclusive and multinational endeavor.

Synopsis

Professor Ingrao explains that there are several central issues that arise when multi-ethnic nation states are created. He discusses this particularly in reference to the Yugoslavian crisis of the 1990s, the main area of focus for his organization, the Scholars' Initiative. Prof. Ingrao argues that when creating new multi-ethnic nation states in the areas of the former Ottoman and Habsburg empires new narratives are created for the countries. Along with these narratives, certain myths are created that become engrained in the national psyche. The combination of these both, to Prof. Ingrao, tends to cleave these societies and create mutual incompatibility between them. In addition, democratization raises the problem that politicians are compelled, in order to receive voter support, in their respective countries to appeal to national emotions by leaning on such myths which further pits societies against each other. It also creates the sense that one ethnic majority is establishing its superiority of over ethnicities in the region.

How does one solve this? Prof. Ingrao reveals that politicians cannot be relied upon because they are ‘slaves to the ballot box.’ He also indicated that because of the two to three year cycles that U.S. State Department officials operate, they cannot be relied upon to provide long term solutions either. However, to Prof. Ingrao, scholars are supposed to see the ‘bigger picture’ and be able to analyze the causative roots as well as look to the future. Prof. Ingrao discusses how the Scholars’ Initiative brings together scholars from 28 different countries together to form a single, unified narrative of what happened that both exposes the myths and injects what Prof. Ingrao calls inconvenient facts. Prof. Ingrao explains that the revolutionary second aspect is public outreach. Such a narrative can be employed by the media, as well as political leaders who can use this narrative as a common platform to advance in dealing with these issues. Prof. Ingrao highlighted the need for such a report to be transparent, accessible, and inclusive of all scholars who could bring something to the table to satisfy both the scholarly methodology and public demand for the truth. As Prof Ingrao declared, “If we all can fess up...maybe we can start building bridges.”

About the speaker

Charles Ingrao is Professor of History at Purdue University. He has published extensively on early modern and contemporary central European history, and was formerly editor of The Austrian History Yearbook (1997-2006). Since 1995 his work has focused on the destruction of multiethnic central Europe, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. He has been a regular commentator for news media in Europe and North America, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Over the past decade he has directed the Scholars’ Initiative, an international consortium of scholars that has just published Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies, a common narrative of the wars of the 1990s that will serve as the basis for his talk.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

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Charles Ingrao Professor of History Speaker Purdue University
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The Trajectory of Perpetrator's Trauma

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This study proposes a theoretical framework to understand how nations deal with collective memories of perpetration of severe human rights violations, which do not fit comfortably in any national master narrative but have become increasingly difficult to ignore. Building on studies of collective memory, the framework explicates how initial historical conditions of the nation, domestic social movements, and the degree of international pressures move the national discourse along two key dimensions – (a) acceptance of guilt and (b) international orientation of the discourse – which map out seven possible responses to collective trauma of perpetration. Through examination of the history of post-war Japan and content analyses of newspaper editorials and prime ministers’ speeches from 1945 to 2004, the empirical analysis applies the framework to the Japanese case and reveals

  1. that arguments for apologies to Asian victims have gained ground due to the intensification of domestic social movements, international pressures from neighboring countries, and global human rights influence; and
  2. that arguments that evade the ugly past have persisted because of the initial conditions immediately after 1945, overwhelming emphasis on Japanese victims in the first few decades, and recent appropriation of human rights language by proponents of the defensive arguments.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan. His research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. He has conducted cross-national statistical analyses on how human rights ideas and instruments have expanded globally and impacted local politics and qualitative case studies of the impact of global human rights on Japanese politics. His current projects examine (a) the evolution of transnational social movement organizations, (b) global expansion of corporate social responsibility, (c) changing conceptions of nationhood and minority rights in national constitutions, (d) dynamics of political identities in contemporary Europe, (e) global human rights and three ethnic minority social movements in Japan, and (f) changing discourse around the Asia-Pacific War in Japan.

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Kiyoteru Tsutsui Assistant Professor of Sociology Speaker University of Michigan
Seminars
Reckoning with the Past: Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Asia
Divided Memories and Reconciliation

On the Soap Box: Heroes and Villains in Asian Television Drama

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While representations of history are very common in Western film and television, in East Asia we find the perhaps unique genre of history ‘soap operas’ that portray influential political figures of the past rather than fictitious characters, describing their lives in intimate personal detail in the format of a lengthy ‘soap’, often broadcast daily. Some use their heroes and heroines/villains and villainesses simply as a set on which to stage romantic or other interesting stories (historic settings are extremely popular in East Asia); others claim to present ‘authentic’ history, and may lead to considerable controversy, especially in authoritarian states, such as the People’s Republic of China, where history is an extremely sensitive subject. In recent years in particular, some of these soaps have drastically revised official verdicts on a number of historical figures, stirring intense public debate and triggering government interference and censorship.

Matthias Niedenführ analyzes East Asian history soap operas, especially those from China, both in light of recent political and social changes and in comparison with “histotainment” (history entertainment) on German television, where historical dramas tend to come in the form of miniseries and to be paired with documentary broadcasts. While there is clearly less official scrutiny in the case of German television productions than in those of China, it is shown that revisiting hitherto accepted ‘truths’ or problematizing the personalities and actions of history’s ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ may be highly contested in both totalitarian states and multi-party democracies.

Matthias Niedenführ is the Director of the European Centre for Chinese Studies, a consortium of four German and Danish universities based at Peking University. Prior to his move to Beijing, he was the co-ordinator for the Confucius Institute in Nuremberg and a research fellow at the University of Erlangen, working on a major international project on national identities and historical revisionism in East Asia. He has degrees in Asian Studies and Economics, with a particular interest in the Chinese and Japanese media. His current research projects focus on the representation of history in the mass media, and on the internationalization of the Chinese economy.

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Matthias Niedenführ Director Speaker European Centre for Chinese Studies, Peking University
Seminars
Reckoning with the Past: Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Asia

Stefan Hedlund

Department of East European Studies
Uppsala University
Gamla Torget 3, III
Box 514, 751 20 UPPSALA
Sweden

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Professor of East European Studies, Uppsala University
Visiting Scholar, Forum on Contemporary Europe (December 2008)
Hedlund_photo.JPG PhD

Stefan Hedlund is Professor of East European Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. A long-standing specialist on Russia, and on the Former Soviet Union more broadly, his current research interest is aimed at economic theories of institutional change. He also has a devouring interest in Russian history, which he has sought to blend with more standard theories of economic change. He has been a frequent contributor to the media, and has published extensively on matters relating to Russian economic reform and to the attempted transition to democracy and market economy more generally. His scholarly publications include some 20 books and close to 200 journal and magazine articles. His most recent monographs are Russian Path Dependence (Routledge, 2005), and Russia since 1980: Wrestling with Westernization (Cambridge University Press, 2008), the latter co-authored with Steven Rosefielde.

 

The big winner is coal

Authors
David G. Victor
Varun Rai
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Coal is looking like the energy winner in the current economic crisis, David Victor and Varun Rai say in Newsweek.

"2009 was shaping up to be the year the world got its environmental act together. Now it's looking like the global environment may be one of the biggest losers in the current financial crisis."

Saving the planet was never going to be easy. Avoiding the most catastrophic effects of climate changes will require cutting carbon emissions by 50 to 80 percent over the next four decades, scientists say. After years of deadlock, 2009 was shaping up to be the year the world got its environmental act together. Now it's looking like the global environment may be one of the biggest losers in the current financial crisis.

Lower prices for oil-which some analysts predict will hit $25 a barrel-is bad news for investors in green energy. But the big winner is likely to be dirty coal. It already accounts for about 40 percent of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming. The fuel is plentiful, and its price has fallen about one third since last summer's peak to $80 per ton. In China, the world's largest coal burner, prices have fallen by half and are likely to plummet further. All the top emitters of greenhouse gases depend mainly on coal for electric power. Dirty coal is now getting cheaper relative to other fossil fuels, such as natural gas and oil.

New "clean coal" plants would capture carbon and store it away underground, or at least to extract as much energy as possible for each kilogram of carbon pollution. The problem is that clean-coal plants are a lot more expensive than conventional "dirty coal" technology, and the financial crisis is obliterating schemes that would have paid the extra cost. Before the crisis, a team at Stanford University found that the world was investing only about 1 percent of what's needed on advanced coal technologies to meet carbon-emissions targets. Now a spate of canceled projects darkens the picture. There are lots of ways, in theory, to build low-emission power plants. One option is to turn coal into a gas and burn it in an ultra-efficient turbine. This "gasification" approach is not only highly efficient but it also produces nearly all of its carbon dioxide pollution in a concentrated stream that could be pumped safely underground, where it won't warm the atmosphere. So far, few investors are building plants that offer a model for how the technology would be deployed at scale. Before the crisis, a few power companies tried to build just the efficient gasification units, which are cheaper than the whole integrated plant, but most of those plans have evaporated in the last month. Only one large plant is still going forward in the United States, and that one won't include carbon storage.

Another route is to burn coal in pure oxygen without gasification, which also yields pure waste that can be pumped underground. A 30-megawatt demonstration plant is operating in Germany. A consortium of utilities is also testing a technology to remove CO2 from plant emissions, but no investor is willing yet to build a full-scale project. These options could double or triple the cost of a power plant.

A 300-megawatt plant that cut emissions nearly 90 percent would cost $1 billion to $2.5 billion, and the United States would need about 1,000 such plants to match its current coal-power output. China would need another 1,000. Since the 1960s, when U.S. utilities last made major investments in new plants, their average bond rating has fallen from AA to BBB, and now the credit crisis has made it all but impossible to finance any new plant, much less an expensive, clean one. The European Union has no money for its plan to build a dozen "zero-emission plants." The price of CO2 in Europe is too low to attract investors to this technology. The latest scheme to fix the problem—a giveaway of emission credits to investors who build clean-coal plants—is falling victim to the financial crisis, which has halved the price of emission permits, and thus the value of emission credits. The U.K. has been holding a contest for public funds to jump-start clean-coal technology. In November 2008 BP pulled out of the competition, citing its inability to form a successful consortium. Early in 2008 the U.S. government killed its investment in advanced coal due to exploding costs.

Environmentalists, in their opposition to coal of any kind, may provide the coup de grâce. Greenpeace, riffing on James Bond, is hawking a "Coalfinger" spoof on the Internet and is deep in a campaign to stop all new coal plants. U.S. environmental groups recently announced a campaign to expose clean coal as a chimera. Thanks to such efforts, in the United States it's now nearly impossible to build any kind of coal plant, including tests of clean technology. As the world economy recovers, nations will once again turn to their old stalwart, dirty coal.

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The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty

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In the aftermath of a terrorist attack political stakes are high: legislators fear being seen as lenient or indifferent and often grant the executive broader authorities without thorough debate. The judiciary's role, too, is restricted: constitutional structure and cultural norms narrow the courts' ability to check the executive at all but the margins. The dominant "Security or Freedom" framework for evaluating counterterrorist law thus fails to capture an important characteristic: increased executive power that shifts the balance between branches of government. This book re-calculates the cost of counterterrorist law to the United Kingdom and the United States, arguing that the damage caused is significantly greater than first appears. Donohue warns that the proliferation of biological and nuclear materials, together with willingness on the part of extremists to sacrifice themselves, may drive each country to take increasingly drastic measures with a resultant shift in the basic structure of both states.

“Laura Donohue’s sophisticated and complex analysis of counterterrorism law in Britain and the United States warns of the risks to fundamental individual rights when democracies establish counterterrorist regimes. Although governments frame their initiatives in terms of a choice between security and freedom, Donohue challenges this logic. Loss of liberty is not necessarily balanced by gain in safety. Compromises intended to be temporary turn out to be permanent. Leaders and citizens of democracies would be well advised to heed this pointed and timely warning.”

- Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University

An ambitious argument against the "Security or Freedom" framework, which is the dominant paradigm for thinking about counterterrorist law. The first book to compare the history of both British and American counterterrorist law. Argues that counterterrorist law is a danger to the rights central to liberal democracy: life, liberty, property, privacy and free speech.

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Publication Type
Books
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Cambridge University Press
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ISBN-13: 9780521605878
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