United States-Nigeria partnership over Boko Haram

The United States has moved closer to the Nigerian government, seeing common ground in the Nigerian governments struggle against Boko Haram.

 Boko Haram is an Islamic terrorist organization that is seeking to replace Nigeria’s secular democracy with Islamic sharia government. Indeed Boko Haram means “Western Education is a sin.” The group has been disgustingly effective—staging more than two hundred attacks since the start of the year.

Although, the U.S. military has stepped up efforts to train African militaries in intelligence, counter-insurgency and joint exercises, these efforts do little to solve the institutional weakness of many African governments that often exacerbate terrorism in Africa.

 Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2012/0221/Islamist-attacks-draw-Nigeria-and-US-military-closer

I think there is a real danger in militarizing all problems of terrorism. Nigeria does not have the institutonal capabilities to fight a conventional counter-terrorist operations. Western governments have the luxary of stable governments with secure borders

 So, Nigeria needs an institutional approach that endeavors to strengthen Nigeria’s institutions and wider African borders that will allow more traditional counter-terrorist operations to have effect. One cannot meaningfully fight terror if militants can just slip back across the border to attack again.

The Iron Law of Oligarchy

The Iron Law of Oligarchy was proposed by German sociologist Robert Michaels and the essential argument is that oligarchies (and really all hierarchical organizations) will reproduce themselves not only when the same group is in power, but even when an entirely new group takes control.

The democracy crisis outlined in my previous post may provide a perfect test for the Iron Law of Oligarchy.

Africa is notorious for having backward political and economic institutions that benefit the elite and their highly connected friends. All of the leaders outlined in my previous posts threw off oligarch rulers with promises of reforms, but once they took control of the country, they engaged in many of the same behaviors of their predecessors.

Much of the blame for this behavior, I feel lies with the weak political and economic institutions. Fixing broken institutions requires an “iron will.” There’s virtually no political will to engage in the building stronger institutions because that would mean sharing the wealth and inciting a rebellion from elites who benefited from the old system.

Even I must lament sadly: “Why risk a potentially deadly coup attempt when you can just sit back and grow fantastically wealthy”? At least until your deposed by your military or the people in a popular uprising.

 I’m not sure whether Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Wade in Senegal, or Kabila in the Congo were ever interested in instituting reforms. I’ll leave that to more seasoned Africa experts.

But the hope of reform these men once embodied is often swallowed by the materialist greed of the law of oligarchy particularly in Africa.

Problem with Democracy: People Not Institutions

This past week, I had to read a bunch of articles, which painted a very bleak picture for democratic governance throughout the Western world. Voter turnouts are decreasing, trust in political parties is in the toilet, and political parties are viewed as unresponsive to the needs of the population…etc.

Yet there’s a basic problem in much of the literature on satisfaction with democracy. The problem is that paper after paper actually measures citizen satisfaction with the running of democratic institutions within various countries rather than the idea of democracy itself.

It would be more apt to say that democratic institutions are in decline. And the reason they are in decline is because we foolishly let ourselves inside of the institutions. It’s not the institutions, but what men do inside of the democratic institutions that has given democracy its’ bad name.

For example, an election is one of the most basic tenets of democratic governance. If the voters elect a candidate that vows to run on a platform of slashing deficits and ending government corruption and he ends up indicted for handing out government contracts to his brother in law, while drinking fine wine and traveling on a fleet of private jets, what does the voter do? They blame the individual candidate or party… not the electoral institution itself.

If, democracy is on the decline, we have no one to blame but our foolish selves.