Experts from fifteen countries, including Russia, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Monaco, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, met at the Ararat Park Hyatt hotel in Moscow and debated a broad range of topics related to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The participants discussed Chinese economic and social policies in the autonomous region, US strategic approach to China and the role of external forces in Uyghur politics. 

Anton Koslov's paper, entitled “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Conflicting Interests of Global Powers,” discussed the history of Uyghur nationalism, Islamism and American foreign policy in the region.

Professor Toker participated in the opening session, which focused on the democracy challenges related to institutional attempts to control or restrain cartoonists’ freedom of expression.

A journalist by training, Professor Toker teaches the courses on Global Communications, Media, and International Affairs at AGS. He is also a regular political consultant and commentator on TV (TV5 Monde, France 24, and others). In March he participated in a debate on the Chinese Global Television Network CGTN about perceptions within the EU regarding China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Photo: Cartoonistsrights.org

The much anticipated elections, the first since Mugabe was ousted in November 2017, saw a face-off between Mugabe’s former chief of security and acting interim president Emerson Mnangagwa, who had staged the November coup, and his main opponant Nelson Chamisa, who had inherited the leadership of the opposition MDC after the death of long-time regime opponent Mirgan Tsvangirai. The MDC had been a party unified ideologically by its opposition to 37-year dictator Mugabe, and politically by its support for the charismatic leader Tsvangirai.

Professor Yates explained that the disappearance of both men from the equation left the opposition MDC splintered, a weakness of which the ruling ZANU took advantage to win both the presidential and legislative elections.
On August 15-16, Prof. Yates will be travelling to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, for a panel on economic history at the annual conference of Africa Covening.

The Africa Board of Experts Conference is an annual event bringing together intelligence specialists with think tanks experts and university scholars in order to share academic expertise with federal government analysts working on African affairs in the diplomatic corps, defense department, and intelligence community. Other academic experts participating in the event included Nicolas Van de Walle from Cornell University, Ambassador David Shinn from George Washington University, Nic Cheeseman from the University of Birmingham, and Leo Arriola from UC Berkeley, among others.

The main themes of this year's gathering were the alarming decline of democracy across the African continent, the ongoing armed conflicts in the Horn of Africa, the effects of the emerging China-Africa relationship, the promotion of economic development in Africa through trade, and the direction of US African policy under the current administration.

Yates, who teaches contemporary African politics at AGS, presented his research on France’s political, economic, and security influence in Francophone Africa. Yates has authored numerous publications on this topic. Among the most recent this year are two chapters in edited volumes : “France and Africa,” in Dawn Nagar and Charles Mutasa, eds. Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), “French Military Interventions in Africa,” in Tony Karbo and Kudrat Virk, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Peacebuilding in Africa (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018), as well as an article in the International Journal of Political Economy: "Paradoxes of Predation in Francophone Africa" (vol. 48, no. 2 [2018]).

In his work on the topic, Yates shows that, despite denials by French scholars that France continues to play a dominant role in its former African colonial empire, there is a continuation of its military, economic, and political predominance. Yet he demonstrates a paradox in the French African policy, in that France is both too strong and too weak in its former empire.

One’s set of values should be the roadmap one uses to live by. This is true not only for individuals but Nations also. The notion of natural law with its corresponding natural rights was essential during the colonial period and certain values found their way into the Declaration of Independence such as the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. However, there are other values that Americans put importance on; creativity, efficiency, the spirit of adventure, honesty and so many, many more.

This piece will not attempt to demonstrate if these values are respected in today’s America. I will leave that up to the reader to judge. It rather would like to mention just one value that I hold dear and share with Francis Parkman; the value of education. Parkman, 19^th century historian, referred to formal higher education and its importance to a true democracy. [1]

I, on the contrary do not use the notion of education in the formal sense of the term but the importance of the responsibilty of citizens to educate themselves to make valid decisions be it through formal education or otherwise. I suggest that this essential value is not given the respect today that it merits and that ignorance is detrimental to a true democracy.

Parkman wrote about the harm that ignorance can cause:

“In a country where the ruling power is public opinion, it is above all things necessary that the best and maturest thought should have a fair share in forming it.”

He underlines the importance of “a class of strong thinkers” as the “palladium of democracy”. “They are the natural enemies of ignorant, ostantatious, and aggressive wealth, and the natural friends of all that is best in the heart”.

He envisioned the existing civilization of his time as “a creature with a small and feeble head, a large, muscular, and active body, and a tail growing at such a rate that it threatens to become unmanageable (…).

According to Parkman, what he refers to as “partial education” produces “a prodigious number of persons who think, and persuade others to think, that they know everything necessary to be known, and are fully competent to form opinions (…).”

These he proclaims are the “persons who make the most noise on the most momentous questions of the day, who have the most listeners and admirers, and who hold each other up as shining examples for imitation, their incompetence becomes a public evil of the first magnitude”.

The only solution for Parkman is to “infuse into the disordered system the sedative and tonic of a broad knowledge and a vigorous reason”.

This is of course assuming that the majority can be capable of a broad knowledge and a vigorous reason. Nevertheless, education in civic, social and political matters as early as possible can only permit and help public opinion to be as informed as each person can be.

One does not expect the great majority of the people to be what he refers to as “efficient thinkers”. However, it is only through education, formal or not, that one can hope to come close to this ideal.

Parkman blames the lack of increase in the number of what he refers to as “efficient thinkers” to the “ascendency of material interests among us (…) A prodigious number of persons think that money-making is the only serious business of life (…)”. He adds that the “drift towards material activity is so powerful among us that it is difficult for a young man to resist it”. Add to this today, “a young woman”. I could not agree more with him.

The public did not demand reason according to him but “elocution rather than reason (…) something to excite the feelings and captivate the fancy rather than something to instruct the understanding”. In other words the public want sensationalism and it is certainly receiving its share of it today.

As already mentioned Parkman referred mostly to higher education, a certain educated elite. However, this is not in my sense what one should be working towards. If taught as early as possible—most children and then adults can think for themselves. They do not need to “buy” what is given as facts but to constructively think through what they learn and take the time to question it and to discuss it and to keep their minds open. One does not have to be part of the educated elite to achieve this. But it takes work. Democracy is a gift. Democracy is not something that comes easy, it needs to be worked at; to be earned. I suggest that today we are far from earning it.

The JSA programs, which have been in existence for over 80 years, are aimed at outstanding high school students who have a strong interest in government and politics and demonstrate a capability to undertake a program tailored around the lines of an undergraduate seminar. Some of the most notable JSA alumni include former US Secretary of Defense and former Director of the CIA Leon Panetta, former Press Secretary Mike McCurry, and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, among many others.

“Teaching to these young motivated all-rounded students with a passion for international relations in an Ivy League setting is a perfect complement to teaching to slightly older but equally passionate AGS students during the rest of the year. I hope to welcome some of these JSA students at AGS in a few years for their graduate studies – or maybe even before then, for a short study abroad experience in Paris – one of the capitals of world politics!”

More information on the program on the

Starting with the foundations of ‘American Exceptionalism’, Graziano traces the patterns of the US foreign policies over the past centuries. He goes on to examine the country’s nationalist and isolationist foreign policy today, and its impact on the country’s long-term position and relations with the international community. The book incidentally challenges some of the commonplaces in the representation of the country’s domestic and international policies.

Manlio Graziano’s study concludes on a relative decline of the US hegemony, questioning the validity of President Trump’s 'great again' rhetoric. He writes: "Today, a shift in the relative strength of the poles is combining with the emergence of new poles: the lines of force are shifting and the field of international relations is changing at an extraordinarily rapid pace. The American ruling class still seems unable to measure the phenomena that will lead to the end of its global hegemony, and another “lost decade” looms on the horizon. To try to soften the inevitable consequences, they need to put aside the ideological mythologies of American Exceptionalism, to forget about being 'great again', and to practice more geopolitics instead."

Professor Graziano specializes in geopolitics and geopolitics of religion. He has authored several books on various geopolitical issues, including In Rome We Trust. The Rise of Catholics in American Political Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017), Holy Wars and Holy Alliance. The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), and What is a Border (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018). He is currently working on his next book on the relevance of geopolitics as a tool to understand the world.

This edited volume is an international relations textbook providing a comprehensive survey of Africa's relations with key bilateral actors (US, Britain, China, Russia, France, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, India) as well as multilateral actors (UN, ICC, BRICS, EU, WTO, World Bank, IMF) since the end of the Cold War.

In his chapter, which is the fruit of almost three decades of research on francophone Africa, Yates argues that France is paradoxically both too strong and too weak in its former African empire and that it now faces a risk of military overextension, which if not addressed, might leave it in a position so reduced that it will not be able to defend itself from emerging security threats in the international system.

"Bell wrote a paper on Brexit, which was published in Socialism and Democracy. While it made a number of telling points, it also contained a great deal with which I disagreed. I wrote to the editor criticizing her piece and he invited me to write a response. My central point was that while most young people voted against Brexit, there was also a huge Labour vote from the same age group in the general election, which wiped out the Tory majority. There is a contradiction in this, as much of what the newly-radicalised Labour Party under Corbyn includes in its political programme would be illegal under the Lisbon Treaty.

The UK government, unlike the power structures of the EU, is relatively easy to remove and replace. For the first time since 1983, a real social democratic party is challenging for power and the Tory government is ripe to be ousted. The Labour manifesto for last year's general election was arguably the party's most left wing ever. Although Labour failed to win on this platform, it deprived the Tories of their overall majority, forcing them into coalition with the far right (Northern Irish) Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose main aim is to preserve the protestant-unionist ascendancy in the North of Ireland.

In my paper I cite a number of instances where the Lisbon Treaty clashes with Labour commitments: on industrial policy and state aids; on the renationalisation of private rail operators and the Royal Mail; on the normative content of trade deals both for goods and services; on commercial aspects of intellectual property; on foreign direct investment; and on the Multilateral Investment Court, which in the Trade Union Council view, will 'undermine domestic legal systems, threaten workers’ rights and public services” and enable “corporate lawyers … to claim legitimate policies passed to protect workers and society are a form of ‘indirect expropriation’.'

The referendum 'debate' was a disgrace to the country, but lies and half-truths were told by both sides, which scarcely distinguishes it from general elections. Moreover, the referendum was at least democratic insofar as the side which got the most votes won. In general elections, the prize of government invariably goes to a party which most of the electorate did not vote for. No party has won more than 50% of the votes cast since the Second World War.

Bell fails to define some of her most important terms. Democracy is conceived rather narrowly in purely parliamentary terms. Democracy is not simply a matter of elections, however, and Britain’s undemocratic nature is not limited to its electoral system. It has an unelected head of state and an unelected upper house; successive governments have deprived local authorities of substantial powers and resources; and no attempt is made to ensure that the people are well-informed about the decisions they are electing people to make on their behalf.

Finally, Bell does not really ask, let alone attempt in any sustained way to answer the question of why the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, whose predecessor it joined over forty years ago. UKIP and the Conservative right, in inadvertent collaboration with the Guardian-reading liberal 'left', succeeded in transforming what should have been a debate about economics and politics into a culture war. A large slice of the electorate appeared to be voting on the basis of their beliefs about culture and identity, in relation to which EU membership is in reality scarcely relevant. By the day of the vote, the referendum question might as well have been 'Are you okay with foreigners?'"

Along with a counter-terrorist expert, a representative of the Nigerian government, and the president of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, AGS’s African politics expert Douglas Yates discussed questions about possible solutions to the on-going threat that the Boko Haram organization has represented in the Lake Chad region. Responding to the questions of France 24 anchor Mark Owen, Douglas Yates explained:

“This [mass kidnapping mode of operation] is part of a strategic negotiation that [Boko Haram] is using with the federal government. We know that in 2014 a deal was struck with Boko Haram to release Chibok girls for electoral purposes. Now Nigeria is coming up to election time and it looks like once again, Boko Haram is capturing busloads of girls to strategically negotiate more advantages, perhaps millions of dollars, which will feed into the cycle. It’s a successful modus operandi – like in the Niger Delta, the hijacking of oil workers is a successful strategy: it generates money, it gets attention, and it forces the government to negotiate.”

“The fact that we’re seeing exactly the same scenario repeat itself means the government needs to change strategy. […] This raises the big question in Nigeria: what are the causes of the Boko Haram insurgency. In Nigeria we have two very large examples of insurgencies. In one case the Nigerian government was successful: it was the Biafra secession. There, the approach was a very heavy-handed military solution. It resulted in a lot of deaths, but it was a preponderant military success. That is one way of trying to solve the crisis. If Nigeria is going that way, it’s going to have to commit itself whole-heartedly towards fighting a war like they fought in Biafra. (…) But it will mean a lot of killing and Nigeria will look bad. And it’s not going to be necessary to do that to win an election. So the other solution is what we saw in the Niger delta. How was it that under Goodluck Jonathan the Nigerian government was able to reduce the amount of violence of the insurgents in the Niger delta – which has now come back. That was by dealing with their grievances. Boko Haram is changing in response to the strategies used against it. The Boko Haram that took the Chibok girls was not the Boko Haram of its founder. The goals have changed and the strategies have changed. So the heavy-handed military use must change for a better counter-insurgency strategy. [However,] the only way you change that behavior is not by continually perpetrating human rights abuses, alienating the local population.”

Photos: courtesy of France 24 (screenshots)