Whistleblowing for Equitable Geopolitics Part 2: Project Camelot

November 28, 2014

Camelot: Seat of Empire

Project Camelot was an ambitious study-project that almost came into existence in late 1964. However, on July 8th, 1965, the program was cancelled by the Secretary of Defense of the United States due to a 35-year-old whistleblower who had recently founded the first academic institute for peace research at the University of Oslo. The period between the introduction of Project Camelot and its ultimate demise raises interesting questions about the relationship between government, the military, and social sciences. It exposed many of the U.S. government’s assumptions about the U.S. role in Latin America and the world at large.

So what is Project Camelot exactly and why did Johan Galtung’s revelations lead to the official termination of that program? The Camelot initiative was housed in the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) at American University. The goals of the project were made explicit in the following testimony to the House Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs:

“The Research Office (SORO) at American University, the Army began to prepare a project, which sought to integrate many disparate research problems in pursuit of a single operational objective by attempting to develop a generalized model of a developing society. The purpose of this project was to produce a better understanding of how the processes of social change operate in the developing countries. On the one hand, Project Camelot was intended to assist in identifying the forerunners of social breakdown and the resultant opportunity for Communist penetration and possible takeover; on the other hand, it was also expected to produce basic information which would furnish some guidelines with respect to actions that might be taken by or with the indigenous governments to foster constructive change within a framework of relative order and stability.”[1](Emphasis added)

As stated more clearly elsewhere, the Army’s main purpose for creating Project Camelot was:

“Success in such tasks as equipping and training indigenous forces for an internal security mission, civic action, psychological warfare, or other counterinsurgency action depends on a thorough understanding of the indigenous social structure, upon the accuracy with which changes within the indigenous culture, particularly violent changes, are anticipated, and the effects of various courses of action available to the military and other agencies of government upon the indigenous process of change.”[2]

In summary, the project sought a better understanding of the dynamics and mechanisms of social change in any given “developing society” (read: Latin America, as the project never moved beyond this area) in order to analyze and predict and prevent social upheavals and breakdowns to ensure order and stability in the region as deemed necessary by the United States. The Project boasted one of the largest budgets of any social science research at the time, around $6 million over five years. This is equivalent to $45,225,333.33 in 2014 dollars.[3] The opportunity was therefore quite attractive to US social scientists that conducted studies in Latin America. Project Camelot was to employ both U.S. scientists as well as scientists in the countries under study, and then export the data back to the United States. Although many of the scientists involved in the project might have viewed it as a legitimate opportunity to reach a greater understanding of culture and society, the military-political goals implicit in the design ultimately led to the disintegration of the Project.

A Legacy of Imperial Geostrategy

Project Camelot reflected a new way of thinking about Security. At this stage in history, with the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the United States was not under direct threat in the sense that an opponent could directly attack the continental United States, but rather was facing what the security apparatus continues to label “insurgents” in other countries. Coinciding with the historic turning point at Dien Bien Phu, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower enunciated the “domino theory” on April 7th, 1954, and made it clear that U.S. foreign policy control would henceforth have to be exerted inside countries at risk of veering toward social-democratic, socialist, marxist or communist rule. The backdrop of the war in Vietnam, rising communist sentiment around the world, and the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement as a response to United States imperialism focused concern on maintaining a stable global system for U.S. economic control and the protection of its extraterritorial national interests. The goal of Project Camelot was to increase the utility of “software” (today euphemized as “soft power” in Joseph Nye’s terminology) as a tool of global counterinsurgency and move away from the “hardware” of direct military intervention.[4] The renewed focus on Latin America also seems a logical extension of the United State’s basing posture after WWII. JCS Plans 570/2, 570/40, and 570/83 divided the world into three regions under the assumption that the Allies would regulate their respective zones.; the U.S. responsibility was “the American Zone.”[5]

Although Project Camelot was a new approach, it was the logical outgrowth of the history of U.S. foreign policy. Current scholars from all parts of the political spectrum, from Thomas Barnett and Ralph Peters (on the Pentagon/Defense side) to Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (from the Marxist camp) agree that the United States has historically played the role of enforcing and shaping the global capitalist order. The rhetoric of this policy changes slightly from administration to administration, but it has been a constant in the 20th century. Economic order was number three in President Wilson’s Fourteen Points: “3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.”[6] The Fourteen Points were presented as the United States’ objectives for world peace. This distinction is quite important: If the United States’ economic hegemony is threatened, there is not peace. That is to say, the definition of peace in this sense is reliant on the policy of the hegemon. Of course, this politicized & partial definition of “peace”, this Pax Americana, is impossible to accept for any peace scholar dedicated to the dispassionate sociological study of the phenomenon. As Barnett puts it, “We enforce the minimal rule sets for maintaining connectivity to the global economy.”[7] To this end, the objective of foreign policy in the 1960s was to prevent the spread of communist ideology that rejected both capitalism and global U.S. interests. In the testimony regarding Project Camelot, it is apparent that policy makers were thinking of these interests in the long-term:

“With respect to the objectives of our foreign policy undertakings, it seems to us that too little attention has been paid in the past to the long-range requirements of economic and social development in the developing countries. In the long run, the attainment of these objectives will depend in large part on the development of the social structures of these countries—on the proliferation and maturation of the many forms of group and social organization which can assure popular participation in the development of these countries and provide the means for bringing to bear on their respective national undertakings the talents, the aspirations, and the political convictions of their people. Too frequently, there has been a tendency for U.S.  economic, military, and related assistance to be programmed without regard to the degree of progress achieved in developing effective democratic institutions in the aided countries. Unless progress toward true self-government by the people accompanies economic development, a large part of our aid effort may not produce the desired results.”[8]

The contradictory nature of this type of policy is exemplified in this testimony and explains the outrage that flowed from Chile. The above excerpt ties national security to the social and economic developments outside of the United States. “Maturation” of society is measured by the creation of democratic institutions- the movement toward Western systems of governance. The path for the Other is set, and any “assistance” is to achieve this goal. How can there be “true self-government” when progress is guided externally? The proposition is oxymoronic. Once again, the democratic ideal clashes with the capitalist reality. Right is conflated with Might.

Scientific Colonialism Violates Human Rights

Galtung calls the above dynamic “Scientific Colonialism,” defined as the “process whereby the centre of gravity for the acquisition of knowledge about the nation is located outside the nation itself.”[9] In the case of Project Camelot, the main issue was not necessarily the military funding or impulse for the Project, but the research design that put the “center of gravity” outside of Latin and South America. The asymmetric production of knowledge and the exportation of data as a product  the scientifically powerful countries ultimately meant that most of the knowledge, political, economic, geological – and in this case sociological – about burgeoning countries was to be held outside of the country itself. And therefore, Galtung states: “Social science knowledge about a small nation in the hands of a big power is a potentially dangerous weapon. It contributes to the asymmetric patterns already existing in the world because it contributes to manipulation in the interests of big powers.”[10] Camelot’s intended utilization of social science would have supplanted self-determination in Latin American countries, thus violating three articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights– 21(3), 26(2), and 30.

Article 21(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 26(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

Article 30 Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.[11]

Under the logic of Project Camelot, social rupture and uprisings were not conceptualized as a social process leading to conflict resolution in a society. Communism, even if expressed as the will of the people, was not allowed to be the basis of authority for government. Leftist and left leaning leaders were often killed and Communist governments were secretly toppled and replaced with “democratic” leaders (read: anti-soviet) with U.S. backing. Project Camelot sought to curtail the right of the people to revolt and change governments. It was to do so by manipulating the social conditions that lead to revolt against regimes favored by the U.S administration. The greatest flaw in the research design was that the political aspects of the project eclipsed the potential for what is mentioned in article 26(2)- human development. Camelot was to be used as a tool to maintain structural violence, in this particular case to enforce political usurpation and heteronomy at the macropolitical level.

Rejecting Academic Imperialism

President Johnson deals with a PR disaster. Source: Marc Johnson- http://manythingsconsidered.com/?p=5768

President Johnson deals with a PR disaster.
Source: Marc Johnson- http://manythingsconsidered.com/?p=5768

On April 8, 1965, many scientists, including Johan Galtung, received invitations from Director Rex Hopper to participate in an introductory conference for Project Camelot.[12] Deeply concerned with the research design and the implications for the project as a UNESCO funded social scientist in la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Galtung informed several of his colleagues about the Project. For a bit of background, FLACSO was created in March of 1956 and comprised of many Latin American scholars that were exiled by authoritarian regimes. FLACSO’s origins made it a center for independent knowledge production on matters of democracy and authoritarianism in Latin America. Around this time (1965), Hugo Nutini, “Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Pittsburgh, citizen of the United States and former citizen of Chile,”[13] was visiting Chile for another academic project and received permission from Hopper to informally introduce the Project to Chilean colleagues. However, Nutini took it upon himself to act as an official representative of Project Camelot and arranged official meetings with Vice Chancellor Alvaro Bunster of the University of Chile.[14] Nutini pitched the Project as a National Science Foundation project, concealing the military and political nature of the research. During a second meeting, Professor Eduardo Fuenzalida confronted Nutini with the invitation and materials provided by Galtung that exposed the true nature of the Project.[15] In July, the Chilean communist paper El Siglo published an exposé on Camelot that triggered national outrage and an international relations disaster for the Johnson administration. The U.S. State Department was unaware of the Army’s research, and the resulting clash between civilian government and the military for direction of foreign policy continues to hold implications for policy today, so how should we react as peace scholars?

A professional duty: Overcoming Structural Violence in Geopolitics

In “Scientific Colonialism,” Galtung puts forth several ideas for how this structural violence of Camelot’s ilk can be avoided: clarity and honesty about the sources of sponsorship of academic projects, keeping such work unclassified, ensuring equal distribution of the tools of social science (as measure of self-defense for the periphery of the world), and making sure this type of research isn’t handled by parties to a particular conflict.[16] His key point being that “social science has to be conducted by everyone, for everyone without secrecy.” Project Camelot exemplified the old adage “knowledge is power” and exposed the need for smaller nations to have the same knowledge at their disposal as larger nations as a measure of equity at the geopolitical level. When larger nations hold more knowledge about smaller nations than these nations possess about themselves, the asymmetry can potentially play itself out in a conflict detrimental to the self-determination of the latter. As with any sustainable conflict resolution, the remedy is to seek a balance based on mutual and equal benefits for all parties related by political, cultural and economic patterns of exchange, especially at the geopolitical level.

"Galtung, cerca 1965" Source: América Latina (Río de Janeiro), 1, 1, Janeiro - Marzo de 1966, pp. 59-94. http://www.schwartzman.org.br/simon/galtung.htm

“Galtung, cerca 1965”
Source: América Latina (Río de Janeiro), 1, 1, Janeiro – Marzo de 1966, pp. 59-94.
http://www.schwartzman.org.br/simon/galtung.htm

The resistance to Project Camelot should not just be considered a one-off act by a lone-wolf anti-American scholar. Rather, the reaction to the project was rooted in the ethical system of a professional peace scholar. Camelot provides us peace scholars with an interesting historical example of geopolitical dynamics, but perhaps more importantly a blueprint for an ethical praxis that we can apply in our own professional and scholarly lives. Part of professionalizing the conflict resolution field is for the practitioner to internalize an elaborate code of conduct. The professional Leitmotiv-system Galtung has developed in this regard can be described in these seven points:[17]

“1: Human Life – and life as such – ought to be sacred in all social patterns of interaction: Homo Homini Sacra Res as opposed to Homo Homini Lupus est.

2: Flowing from the first point: A hippocratic oath should be the measure of all socioeconomic and sociopolitical decision-making and interaction.

3: Solution Orientation is more constructive than Victory Orientation in all things societal and solutions emanate from empathic equitable nonviolent dialogues bridging legitimate respective aspirations.

4: Nonviolence Orientation rather than Violence Orientation -violence being understood as a sign of intelligence non- or under-utilized.

5: Equity is to be preferred to exploitative patterns of social interaction.

6: “Peace” is the quality of a specific pattern of social interaction based on “equal, mutual and legitimate benefits” for all involved. The further away from this pattern of interaction any social system at any level (international, national, communal, familial or what have you) strays, the more problematic & conflictual the relation under scrutiny and the more potential for violence it entails.

7: Conflict is not the same as Violence. Conflict is the Fire and violence is but the smoke resulting from it. Extinguishing the fire = Identifying the underlying conflicts and dialogically eliciting proposals from all parties involved toward resolving the contradictions triggering them.”

Understanding Camelot requires more than an understanding of the historical circumstances that influenced its development. We can benefit from what was an ill-conceived blunder by reflecting on the proper reactions to similar projects in the present day. Camelot’s legacy lives on; we might as well make the best of it.

Peace,
Keil                                                         Twitter: @kleggers

This blog is also featured on the website of the Galtung Institut. Be sure to register for the Galtung Community to participate in conversations with other conflict resolution scholars and give you input to the further development of the blog! The Institut has a wealth of academic resources also, so don’t miss out. www.galtung-institut.de          https://www.galtung-institut.de/network/register/

Works Cited

[1] No authorship indicated, “Testimony before House Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.,” American Psychologist 21, no. 5 (1966): 455–70, doi:10.1037/h0021153.

[2] Shawn Helton, “Pentagon Funds ‘Cold War-Style’ Science Study To Track and Steer Mass Civil Unrest,” 21st Century Wire, June 18, 2014, http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/06/18/pentagon-funds-cold-war-style-science-study-to-track-mass-civil-unrest/.

[3] “Inflation Calculator: Bureau of Labor Statistics,” accessed November 23, 2014, http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

[4] Irving Louis Horowitz, “The Life and Death of Project Camelot.,” American Psychologist 21, no. 5 (1966): 445–54, doi:10.1037/h0021152. 446.

[5] Stacie L. Pettyjohn, U.S. Global Defense Posture, 1783/2011 (Santa Monica, California: RAND, 2012).

[6] Woodrow Wilson, “Fourteen Points,” Wikisource, accessed November 23, 2014, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points_Speech.

[7] Thomas Barnett, “Thomas Barnett: Let’s Rethink America’s Military Strategy,” TED, February 2005, http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace?language=en#.

[8] No authorship indicated, “Testimony before House Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.”

[9] Johan Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism,” Transition, no. 30 (April 1, 1967): 11–15, doi:10.2307/2934342.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” accessed November 23, 2014, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/.

[12] Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism.”

[13] Horowitz, “The Life and Death of Project Camelot.”

[14] Ibid. 445.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Galtung, “Scientific Colonialism.”

[17] Thanks to Naakow Grant-Hayford for this elaboration.

On Transition: An Introduction

November 10, 2014

“Take an average student revolutionary, high on education and knowledge, low on power and age. He lashes out against the powers that be for engaging in policies benefiting themselves, impoverishing others, and rightly so. She lashes out against men in power, pointing out how they engage in policies strengthening patriarchy with all its direct, structural and cultural violence, and rightly so.

Catching up on age comes automatically to all; catching up on power only to some. And then they may find many of their ideas known, tried out and found wanting, in a more complex reality. And join the conservative quietude of balance; never being heard from ever since.

But then there are those who persevere. Better informed, lifting the veils of conservative “wisdom”? Driven not only by the drive for balance and power, but by values so deeply internalized that they last the whole life. Some slide into the pigheaded if reality gets remote.”

-Johan Galtung. “BRIC(K)S for a New World Economic Order!” July 28, 2014.      .

This is my first blog post as a Junior Research Fellow here at the Galtung-Institut, and I would like it to be a welcome, both from me and to me, but primarily to you, the reader. This first post should give you a taste of who I am and what I will be writing about. So, why did I begin with this lengthy quote from Prof. Galtung’s piece about a new world economic order?  TL;DR: I am in this very state of transition he describes.

I began my academic career at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as a Government and International Politics major. I was part of the debate team in high school, founded my own youth organization called the Kansas Consortium for Youth Voice, and was quite involved politically. Coming out of high school, it was difficult to see any other path of study that would fit my interests. However, after my first semester of several boring and abstract International Relations courses, I was ready to search for something new. Fortunately, George Mason is also home to S-CAR, the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. After my introductory class, I was hooked. Conflict analysis is my true calling. But as with any discovery, it led to new questions. What branch of conflict analysis and resolution was I interested in? Mediation? Interstate conflict? Community organizing? Critical conflict resolution? Something else? The way that I answered this question, at least until now, was heavily influenced by my participation in the International Socialist Organization and Students Against Israeli Apartheid. In short: I was a student revolutionary. I worked long and hard in these organizations to fight for justice and change the conversation in campus in order to win the struggle for the oppressed. This is what Galtung explains in the first paragraph.

In the second, he speaks of transition. This transition is not just of a political position, but a transition of identity. In the past months, I have seen the logical extension of some of my beliefs fail. I have witnessed rhetoric recycled again, and again, and again. I hear a lot of talk, but I don’t see any organization, and concrete movement toward the achievement of political objectives. And, perhaps most importantly, I have seen the “pigheaded” in the form of overgeneralizations and condemnation of people with good intentions. So now, I seek some balance. Does this mean that I give up the principles that I held? No. Does this mean that I regret what I was doing? No. Does this mean that I look down upon those who continue to work as student revolutionaries? Absolutely not, I still believe in you, root for you, and will help you if possible. Everybody has a role to play. I am able to make this analysis now because my semester in Buenos Aires has allowed me to take a step back and examine while detached from the political reality that I was living. This being said, I refuse to join the “conservative quietude of balance.” This is why I am interested in conflict resolution, and this is why I am thrilled to be a new Junior Fellow at the Galtung-Institut.

I am just ten days into the junior fellowship, but I feel I have reconnected with the values that drove my student activist work in the first place: the sacredness of human life – the axiology of the Galtung-Institute is based on the Homo Homini Sacra Res principle–, and nonviolence from a technical (many times tactical) perspective in all situations, exempting violence for self-defense understood as defensive defense – if life is sacred, it ought to be preserved and protected. While I think a longer post about nonviolence and theory is in order, I include this point to highlight that conflict resolution as a field of academic study is not reducible to its deep moral perspective. I think part of being a conflict resolution practitioner is moving beyond the moral, but justified, outrage at every infraction of human rights, and utilizing this energy into action for constructive conflict transformation. Being outraged is tiring and impossible to maintain. Stepping back and thinking about practical solutions, playing the political games that are a part of our reality, and working with power that already has legitimacy (or at least vying for it) need not be a betrayal of our ideals. After all, what are our ideals without results? This is not a platitude, I believe in putting things in context. Conflicts in our world are understood as ubiquitous social phenomena that trigger the exceptional or occasional escalation of a given set of problems into destructive eruptions and violence, either direct, cultural, or structural. It is imperative that we resolve these conflicts, in any manner necessary.

Now, with this basic introduction out of the way, let’s get to why I am really here: the intellectual discussion. Each week I will be reading a set of articles and additional materials as part of my work on the Global Domestic Politics and Octagon Project. This blog will be a place where I will try to draw connections between different aspects of Prof. Galtung’s work, pulling out general themes and patterns and comparing these findings to those of peers in the larger field of social sciences. Working under the assumption that his method for prognosis and conflict resolution is coherent, I will do my best to figure out the general scheme and note incoherences where I find any. As we progress, I hope to also begin discussions about special topics in Latin America.

Formulating Peace

Preliminary Observations:

For those of you interested in following along and taking advantage of the amazing TRANSCEND Media Service, that features weekly articles by Prof. Galtung since August 2008 and a wide range of multi-media related to peace journalism, here is what I covered this week:

01: Galtung-Editorial: An Octagonal World

An introduction to the formation of the geopolitical octagon, consisting of “Eight big states or  regions: clockwise USA, Russia, India, China, OIC-Organization of Islamic Cooperation (the 57 Muslim countries), EU-European Union (28), Africa (AU, African Union, 54) and CELAC (Comunidade de Estados Latino-Americanos e Caribenhos), Latin America and the Caribbean (33).” A starting point for understanding how the world will be without singular hegemons.

02: Galtung-Editorial: BRIC(K)S for a New World Economic Order

Explains what the BRIC(K)S countries bring to the world in terms of economic alternatives, and what the rise of these countries  means for the current hegemons who have tried to prevent them from controlling global economic institutions.

03: Galtung-Editorial: Structural Violence Re-Explored

Responds to Philip Leech’s criticism concerning structural violence in Sierra Leone; Galtung elaborates that structural violence is part of a discourse and should be used to understand one aspect of conflict, that it constitutes violence “of omission,” that structural violence “keeps people in their place” and thus spawns forces of revolution and counterrevolution, and finally critiques the use of law (punishment) instead of fulfilling basic human needs.

04: Galtung-Editorial: Methodological Macrohistory

Analysis of John B. Sparks 1931 histomap. Societies and empires follow a life-cycle, but India and China have continued for much longer than others. Galtung offers an empire-dynasty dichotomy, in which empire expands spatially and dynasty expands through time, creating a dialectic externally (empire) or internally (dynasty). Learning and cooperating with others is key to maintaining these formations, or else a fall will result.

05: Galtung-Editorial: Criminalizing Aggressive War

Galtung makes the case for criminalizing aggressive war. He points out  a disconnect between law applied to individuals and that of states creating room for impunity at the macropolitical  level, so a solution would be to universalize law- “crimes against humanity punishable everywhere.” War must be viewed as an institution like slavery or colonialism, social evils with which the world has already made codified progress in criminalization.

06: Galtung-Editorial: Mono Multi Cross Disciplinary Peace Studies

The East-West divide viewed in the context of academic intellectual modes. While Western thought divides problems and breaks them into parts for detailed analysis (based on Descartes), Eastern thought looks at holism, dialectics (entirely different from Hegelian or Marxist dialectics), and counterforces. Mono-disciplines can result in the abstraction from values, and so we need more cross-disciplinary academics that make human needs and universal values more explicit in both their research-design and understanding as a whole.

07: Galtung-Editorial: The Art of Prognosis: Why Does the West Fail to Understand Reality

West vs. Rest framed through the analysis of economic, social, cultural, military, and political power. West fails to understand rise and patterns of resistance of Rest because of the style of analysis (explained more  extensively in the previous article) that doesn’t view the world as a series of holons with internal counterforces. Must search for balance points with the Rest to ensure peace with the coming necessarily multipolar global order.

08: Galtung-Editorial: The Art of Prognosis: Change happens but how, why, when, where?

Discusses technological changes, primarily the transition to the automobile, in cultural context: the west solves problems with technology, losing the holistic vision of Eastern epistemology. Technology, in a variety of forms, changes the positionality of humans, from participants and drivers to riders, which is essentially is an alienation from agency – a transformation with profound socio-cultural implications.

09: Galtung-Editorial: Slavery Colonialism and the Church

Reflects on slavery and colonialism into the Abrahamic logic of Christianity. Analogy of African slaves being the “sons” that must suffer on the cross for the betterment of all, and the inversion of Christian logic.

10: Galtung-Editorial: Partyocracy-Technocracy-Autocracy-Bankocracy

Describes the decline of democracy and the transition to technocracy, autocracy, and bankocracy. Again, Western mainstream logic will not solve the problems that it has created. To solve this crisis of democracy, Galtung suggests the economic solution of selling local production directly to consumers, taking “unfair commissions” out of the logic of society and government.

The Octagon Model: The octagonal model of the world is a way of understanding the current and future dynamics of geopolitics and globalization. Here is a partial graphic representation of the model:

Much of this is explained in the first reading, but you can see that the octagon consists of the great powers like USA, Russia, and China, then India and several regional organizations. The octagon model indicates that the world is less dominated by singularly outstanding hegemons, a process Barry Buzan calls de-centered globalism (comparative analysis to come).

The trend toward a world without towering superpowers is part of the outcome of the “West vs. Rest” battle. In reading number 07, Galtung analyzes this struggle for hegemony through economic, military, political, social (this is one quite similar to Buzan’s prognosis) and cultural lenses. The West is being outpaced in economic growth, cultural ideas are being challenged through non-Western development, and politically the West has lost credibility, especially in regard to policy in the Middle East (all from the article).

From what I have read so far, I am also beginning to see how the idea of movement toward a West vs. Rest balance is guided by Galtung’s interest in analyzing civilization as a guiding logic that is imprinted geographically, and evolutionarily derived. In the few articles that I read, Galtung links Western civilization to the inner workings of the Christianity-Secularism tension and compares it to “the Rest” and Islam though he points to the common Abrahamic genesis of Islam and Christianity. These religious roots come into play because the logic for the West is more missionary, singularist (our truth is the ONLY truth) and universalist (our truth is valid for everybody, everywhere ad eternam), while Eastern religions offer a more holistic login, often with a more idealized communitarian vision to be reified. Singularism and universalism combines, forming missionary logic.  And there is a notion of countercyclicity (from another article- Spanish translation forthcoming) that relates these two abrahamisms through space-geography and time-history; the idea that as Christianity rises, Islam falls, or vice versa. One thing that I find extremely interesting and refreshing about this approach to civilization and religion is that it avoids the racism and awful analysis of Huntington – a former colleague of Galtung’s in Columbia – for example, and conceptualizes these vital aspects of humanity as conditional (N.B: not essential) collective logics that societies develop and apply. The conflict between Islam and Christianity, from this view, is not just “religious differences,” but because theology results in different political strategies and claims to power: the social and cultural imprint of religion has a visible impact on how societies engage with others. In future posts, I hope to make connections between Galtung’s analysis of civilization with some of the analysis about the logic of neoliberalism (Wendy Brown). I think that the same analysis can be applied to homo economicus.  How do differences in economic strategies clash, and is there a notion of balance of countercyclicity there? I think the answer to the second part of the question is probably no, but I will develop this idea in a future post.

There are two final points that I would like to consider in relation to economics.

First, in the 10th article, Galtung writes the following, “Because corruption in the political system, converting money into decisions, has a close relative in the economic system, a commission.” This subtle change in labeling makes a world of difference conceptually. In the article he goes on to describe the economy as a series of people skimming commissions off that never get paid to the people who produce basic materials. The idea is that many of the political problems we have, such as “technocracy” and “partyocracy” are actually rooted in the economic system that concentrates wealth at the top. He goes on to  suggest that the solution is more democracy. I sent the article to my friend and colleague Jonas Upman at Evergreen University, and he replied with the following comment, “Arguably, the concept of the nation-state is coming to an end. Multinational conglomerates have proven more adaptable and coercive, and democracy has long been dead. Is democracy, as contemplated under the nation-state apparatus, really what we need? If we are being pushed to globalization by these conglomerates, would a more regional or bioregional movement be a more appropriate response?” His response brings this post full circle. In the spirit of the Galtung-Institut, we must attempt to connect the micro-meso-macro levels, often broken apart for analytical ease, to understand the full picture – especially when designing policy. From the angle that corporations (the private sector) actually hold much of the power on the global stage, what arrangements are necessary to balance this power? If we fit the private sector into our analysis of geopolitics, what are the methods for comparison? How can the impact corporations have on policy be balanced through state apparatuses? Or people power for that matter. Will there be more 99% and occupy movements or “springs”? Will they have agency? I believe that democracy is certainly a good goal, but there is a paradox: to reach democracy, there has to be a powerful challenge to the largest economic institutions and the international system of capitalism carefully constructed by American policy makers and carried out by the G8 since WWII. But from a geopolitical perspective, Galtung roots for the Rest to challenge some of the damaging ideas imposed by the West in its relatively young history of global dominance. Contrary to a superficial reading, this is in no way barring the meliorative contributions to the human condition provided by the West. Galtung’s point is to integrate the best practice contributions of all civilizations in addition to those of the West and disseminate them species-wide.

At this point I would like to emphasize that this blog is part of the G-I Network/Community. I don’t want to just be writing into the void here. So: make yourself an account and let’s have a conversation. I am open to suggestions for topics, readings, criticism, anything really, that will advance the work of the Institut (which is now my work too). One thing that I love about the conflict field is that it is centered on working together to build new ideas and implement action. I look forward to working with you!

Peace,

Keil

Twitter: @kleggers