Foreign Aid

Last Friday, under a narrow and never-before-utilized clause of the Pakistani constitution, one focused on moral probity, Pakistan’s Supreme Court deemed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ineligible to be “an honest member of parliament,” and thereby ineligible to hold office as prime minister. He resigned. The decision emerged from processes unleashed by the Panama Papers, in which undisclosed assets held by Sharif’s family members came to light. The Supreme Court decision strangely cited the nondisclosure of income from a company his son owns in Dubai as the reason for the moral probity finding. (Sharif’s lawyers said he did not receive such income). On the surface any effort to rein in corruption in a land that suffers badly and widely from it should be a positive step; Transparency International gives Pakistan a 32 out of 100 (0 is “highly corrupt” and 100 is “very clean”) on their Corruption Perceptions Index, giving it a rank of 116 out of 176 countries. But this convoluted dismissal instead raises questions of why such a process took place at all, and what it means for the country’s still-weak democratic institutions. As former Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States Husain Haqqani tweeted, the decision kept the country “faithful to its 70-yr tradition: No PM ever removed by voters; only by judges, generals, bureaucrats or assassins.” It also raises questions about the selective pursuit of Sharif under this constitutional clause. And it further raises questions, given the relatively quick pace of this probe, about why the trials of the accused perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks remain in a state of constant prolongation for nearly nine years. Is justice never served for terrorists in Pakistan? As analysts within and outside of Pakistan sought to unpack what this unprecedented decision holds for the country, and indeed for U.S. relations with Pakistan, we ought to reflect on the larger picture here. The decision will not improve U.S.-Pakistan ties, so we are left with either a continued status quo of a very difficult, complex relationship, or a further deterioration. Against this backdrop, what should the United States do, if anything can be done, to help Pakistan strengthen its democratic institutions? As is well known, the United States and Pakistan have long had close bilateral ties, even if the relationship has been a roller coaster, including with periods of outright antagonism. Pakistan has been a U.S. ally and presently holds the status of a major non-NATO ally. The U.S. Agency for International Development has been active with Pakistan since the country’s founding, and has provided nearly $8 billion in development assistance alone in the past decade. (That figure does not include security assistance, a separate topic.) I have written previously about the counterintuitive finding that Pakistan now fares worse on most major development indicators than Bangladesh, a country that seceded from Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh remains poorer and with significant political turbulence, but still has managed to prioritize improving the lives of its citizens. It’s hard to say that Pakistan has placed the improving the lives of its citizens at the top of its agenda, compared with its overemphasis on the military. And despite decades of U.S. government funding to nudge it in a direction of development outcomes, it turns out that the outcomes aren’t that great in the governance and rule of law indicators. The data tool available on ForeignAssistance.gov allows an aggregation of these indicators over time, so there’s a real comparison to be made. To look at the question of corruption and rule of law, I selected three important indicators from the dataset for Pakistan: rule of law, control of corruption, and government effectiveness. I pulled the results from 1996 through 2014, the most recently available year. Here’s what I found: These indicators, drawn from World Bank data, represent a “scaled” score ranging from -2.5 to 2.5, with 2.5 as the “best.” On rule of law, Pakistan fares slightly worse in 2014 than it did in 1996, slipping from -0.67 to -0.78. On control of corruption, it has improved, with its score increasing from -1.15 to -0.81. On government effectiveness, things have grown worse, falling from -0.59 in 1996 to -0.75 in 2014. So over a nearly twenty-year period, Pakistan has fared better fighting corruption—although it still remains below the zero “even” point—and it has gotten worse on overall rule of law and governance issues. It’s harder to download the foreign assistance funding data for the same period, but we can explore on an annual basis the breakdown of foreign assistance funding from FY 2006 through FY 2017. The table below draws from the annual funding (planned) allocations to illustrate the dollar amounts and percentage of U.S. aid that has gone toward strengthening democracy, human rights, rule of law, and governance in Pakistan. For most of these fiscal years, the peace and security category constitutes around half of all U.S. aid to Pakistan. As the table above illustrates, over the last decade, support for democracy and governance at best constituted 10 percent of U.S. funding, but most years it hovers around 6 to 7 percent. It raises the question: how best should the United States allocate its assistance dollars to shape better outcomes in Pakistan? Would a greater degree of support for democracy, human rights, and governance—rather than the heavily peace-and-security-sector focused patterns of the past—help nudge Pakistan toward more improvements where it needs to strengthen its governance and rule of law? There isn’t enough information here to suggest any causation between how Washington allocates assistance dollars and indicator outcomes in Pakistan, but the discussion is worth opening. I would argue that it is high time for Washington to dial up its attention toward these pressing governance problems in Pakistan, since there is plenty of room to dial down the heavily security-centric relationship that has dominated U.S.-Pakistan ties. I base this recommendation on the fact that what we have tried over the years has not succeeded on the security front, nor obviously on the governance front, so ought to be revisited. The Donald J. Trump administration’s initial FY 2018 budget proposed to hold steady the foreign assistance levels for Pakistan. With that in mind, the United States should have a more active debate on the allocation of that foreign assistance funding and the prioritization of programs on which it is spent. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

A poll conducted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) shows that only about 15 percent of Americans are aware of the famines in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Known as the “four famines,” these disasters put more than twenty million people at risk. When Americans are informed about the crises, however, 73 percent say that it must be a major global concern. According to David Miliband, the CEO of the IRC and a former British foreign secretary, millennials, those born between 1981 and 1997, recognize the severity of the crisis more than any other group. The IRC finding is yet more evidence of the need to educate Americans on the four famines. A campaign by the recently-formed Global Emergency Response Coalition—comprising eight of the largest foreign assistance and humanitarian organizations in America—seeks to do just that. Together, these organizations hope to more effectively raise awareness and money. (George Clooney is supporting the effort.) It boasts a host of corporate funders, including the PepsiCo Foundation and BlackRock, which have each promised $1 million in matching donations, as well as Google and Twitter. Similar efforts have had some success in the past. The Bring Back Our Girls campaign in response to the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in 2014, and the Lost Boys of Sudan campaign in response to boys displaced and orphaned by the Second Sudanese Civil War, were largely successful in their efforts to educate the international public on these disasters. It is to be hoped that this one will be as well.  

China has become Africa’s largest trade partner and has greatly expanded its economic ties to the continent, but its growing activities there have raised questions about its noninterference policy. 

This is the sixth blog post in this series. The previous five were published in February, July, and October 2015, and January and May 2016, and highlight earlier academic findings. This post was coauthored with my research associate, Jennifer Wilson.  Melissa Dell, Pablo Querubin, “Nation Building Through Foreign Intervention: Evidence from Discontinuities in Military Strategies” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 22395, July 2016, pp. 1-26. This study identifies the causal impacts of bombing South Vietnamese population centers by exploiting discontinuities in an algorithm used to target air strikes. Bombing increased Viet Cong military and political activity, weakened local government administration, and lowered non-communist civic engagement. Consistent with this, evidence suggests that the Army’s reliance on overwhelming firepower led to worse outcomes than the USMC’s more hearts and minds oriented approach. This study illustrates that the top down force strategy can backfire when targets are embedded amongst civilian populations. (p. 26) Instrumental variables estimates document that the bombing of South Vietnamese population centers backfired, leading more Vietnamese to participate in VC military and political activities … Specifically, moving from no strikes during the sample period—a relatively rare event—to the sample average increased the probability that there was a local VC guerrilla squad by 27 percentage points, relative to a sample mean of 0.38. It also increased the probability that the VC Infrastructure—the VC’s political branch—was active by 25 percentage points and increased the probability of a VC-initiated attack on local security forces, government officials, or civilians by 9 percentage points. (p. 2) Finally, bombing increases attacks on local security forces, government officials, and civilians by 9 percentage points, relative to a sample mean of 16 percent of hamlet-months witnesses an attack… bombing increases the probability that the VC extorted residents by 23 percentage points, relative to a sample mean of 0.27. (p. 16) Respondents in Corps I were 16 percentage points more likely to state that they liked Americans and significantly less likely to respond that they hated Americans. Moreover, respondents were 39 percentage points more likely to state that there was no hostility towards the U.S. in their community, 11 percentage points more likely to state that there is harmony between Americans and Vietnamese, and 38 percentage points more likely to state that the American presence was beneficial. (p. 26) [The] comparisons of nearby hamlets on either side of the corps boundary suggest potential pitfalls of the top down approach that are quite consistent with the bombing results. Specifically, regression discontinuity estimates document that public goods provision was higher on the USMC side of the boundary for targeted public goods. Moreover, hamlets just to the USMC side of the boundary were attacked less by the VC and were less likely to have a VC presence … Our estimates highlight ways in which an intensive focus on top-down strategies could pose challenges to achieving U.S. objectives, particularly when insurgents are embedded amongst civilians as they are in the Middle East today. (p. 3)   Justin George, “State Failure and Transnational Terrorism: An Empirical Analysis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, August 16, 2016, pp. 1-25. Based on a country panel from 1995 to 2013, this study examines the relationship between state failure and transnational terrorism with respect to perpetrator’s proximity to the target and logistical complexity of attacks. [The] study shows that failed states experience significantly more transnational terrorism when the perpetrators are from the home country. But these states do not produce terrorists who cross borders and carry out attacks in other countries, neither do they attract foreign perpetrators. The latter suggests that conditions in failed states present major operational challenges to foreign terrorists. State failure also causes more logistically complex attacks due to lack of effective counterterrorism measures by failed states. (p. 1) These results suggest that terrorists prefer carrying out complex attacks like hostage taking, assassinations, and armed attacks, in failed states. Such states provide perpetrators greater territorial control, easy accessibility to arms and weapons, and decreased surveillance, which are important facilitators for logistically complex attacks. (p. 20) The first 20 percent of the stronger states account for 35 percent of the noncontiguous attacks and 17 percent of contiguous attacks, whereas they experience only 9 percent of within attacks. On the other hand, the 20 percent most fragile states account for 17 percent of the noncontiguous attacks, 26 percent of the contiguous attacks, and 48 percent of total within attacks. (p. 11) The first 50 percent of countries, which are stronger states, experience just 16 percent of total logistically difficult attacks, while they account for 43 percent of logistically simple attacks. But, the 20 percent most fragile countries contribute to 55 percent of logistically difficult attacks and just 22 percent of the logistically simple attacks. (p. 12) Finally, the study has two important implications on counterterrorism measures and associated foreign aid policies for countries. First, as shown in the study, foreign terrorists face similar challenges that any other foreigner faces, while traveling to failed states. One of the major impediments that foreign perpetrators confront is the hostility by local tribes and clans. Thus, any effective counterterrorism measures by developed countries in failed states should accommodate the local power structures and institutions along with the respective central governments. Second, the transition from a failed state to a capable state will take some time and it is possible that this transition period could be the ideal time frame for terrorist organizations to strengthen themselves. Hence, foreign aids aimed at building state capacities in these states should be contingent on effective counterterrorism initiatives by failed states. (p. 22)   Dov H. Levin, “Partisan Electoral Interventions by the Great Powers: Introducing the PEIG Dataset,” Conflict Management and Peace Science, September 19, 2016, pp. 1-19 Between 1946 and 2000, the US and the Soviet Union/Russia have intervened in about one of every nine competitive nation-level executive elections. Partisan electoral interventions have been found to have had significant effects on election results, frequently determining the identity of the winner. (p. 2) Overall, 117 partisan electoral interventions were made by the US and the USSR/Russia between January 1, 1946 and December 31, 2000. Eighty-one (or 69 percent) of these interventions were done by the US while the other thirty-six cases (or 31 percent) were conducted by the USSR/Russia. (p. 7) Approximately 44.4 percent of all intervention cases … are repeat interventions, in other words, cases in which the same great power after intervening once in a particular country’s elections decided to intervene again in (one or more) subsequent elections. (p. 9) When publicly justifying their partisan electoral interventions long after they took place, policymakers and “on the ground” operatives frequently claim that they did those electoral interventions largely because the “other side” was intervening in this manner as well. However, … only seven (or 6.3 percent) of the intervened elections in [the dataset] are cases of a double electoral intervention—i.e. that the US was backing one side while the USSR/Russia was backing another side during the same election. (p. 11) The relative dearth of such double interventions seems to indicate that this factor (the decision of the other superpower to electorally intervene) was usually a relatively minor part of the decision process which led or did not lead to an electoral intervention. (p. 12). No evidence exists that countries with fragile democratic institutions are more likely to be the targets of such interventions than “full” democracies … Indeed in forty-three cases (or 38.4 percent of all interventions) in which an intervention had occurred, the target had a combined Polity2 maximum score of ten—a score usually reserved to countries whose democratic credentials are beyond doubt (such as Sweden or the US). (p. 12). An electoral intervention in favor of one of the sides contesting the election has a statistically significant effect, increasing its vote share by about 3 percent. (p. 13).   Francesco Trebbi, Eric Weese, Austin L. Wright, Andrew Shaver, “Insurgent Learning,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 23475, June 2017 We provide historical evidence of nuanced learning by insurgents regarding bomb making and emplacing techniques … We examine insurgent learning using newly declassified microdata on improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during the ongoing Afghanistan conflict. These data allow us to track the effectiveness of insurgents and counterinsurgents over time. (pp. 1-2) We find little evidence of any substantial changes in the detonation rate. IEDs were just as likely to explode in 2014 as they were in 2006. (p. 2) IEDs at the end of the coalition occupation were just as damaging as at the beginning. We find no evidence of net changes in casualty rates for coalition forces. On the other hand, Afghan forces who currently carry out nearly all domestic security operations experienced a marginally increasing casualty rate over the course of the counterinsurgency campaign. These results indicate insurgent learning kept pace with changes in the technological investments made by counterinsurgents. (p. 2) If anything, IEDs have gotten deadlier over time, with about a 75 percent casualty rate for recent years. However, this could be due to reductions in coalition troop levels: in recent years, more of the IED attacks have been against Afghan government targets, which in general travel in standard pickup trucks, rather than armored vehicles. (p. 17) The fact that casualty rates for coalition forces do not change or even increase slightly is a surprising result. Armored vehicles were becoming increasingly prevalent during this period, and there were a wide variety of new anti-IED technologies being deployed by [the Joint IED Defeat Organization] … either this new equipment and technology was actually useless, or there was also substantial improvement in the quality of IEDs during that period. (p. 19)   Andrew Boutton, “Of Terrorism and Revenue: Why Foreign Aid Exacerbates Terrorism in Personalist Regimes,” Conflict Management and Peace Science, December 21, 2016, pp. 1-26. These findings suggest that the provision by the U.S. of counterterrorism aid has the potential to generate perverse incentives for recipient governments to perpetuate a terrorist threat rather than reduce it, as doing so may endanger future U.S. aid levels. My argument is … personalist regimes will view a worsening terrorist threat as a source of leverage which can ensure continued assistance (p. 3). The study specifically examines whether [terrorist] groups based in states governed by personalist regimes will be less likely to fail in a given year as U.S. foreign aid increases as well as whether personalist regimes will experience more terrorist attacks in a given year as the amount of U.S. foreign aid increases (p. 9). Using data from Jones and Libicki (2008) as well as from the Global Terrorism Database, this study finds that higher average U.S. aid levels lead to longer-lasting terrorist campaigns in personalist regimes. Similarly, increasing aid levels to personalist regimes leads to more terrorist attacks—especially anti-U.S. attacks—in a given year (p. 21). As U.S. security assistance increases … in non-personalist regimes the probability of group failure increases slightly, but the effect is nowhere near statistical significance. Thus, aid to non-personalist regimes makes little difference for the duration of terrorist groups in those states. However, [the data] shows that increases in security-related aid to personalist regimes are associated with a steep monotonic decrease in probability of failure. This translates into longer-lasting terrorist campaigns in these states (p.12). Non-aid recipient personalist regimes are less susceptible to terrorism relative to other regime types. However, increases in U.S. aid reverse this effect, leading to higher levels of terrorist activity. Furthermore, across the board, the marginal effects in the ‘‘anti-U.S. attacks’’ models are much larger than for non-U.S. attacks, suggesting that the effect is more pronounced for attacks against U.S. interests. This is evidence in favor of the argument that personalist dictators strategically cultivate terrorism against certain targets (p. 15). The findings indicate that if the United States wishes to continue using economic and military assistance to combat terrorism, it needs to be more vigilant about how aid is used by recipient governments, and to carry out threats to withdraw aid if certain benchmarks are not met (pp 21-22).   Mary Beth Altier, Emma Leonard Boyle, Neil D. Shortland & John G. Horgan, “Why They Leave: An Analysis of Terrorist Disengagement Events from Eighty-seven Autobiographical Accounts,” Security Studies, March 2, 2017, pp. 305-332 Our findings suggest that the experience of push rather than pull factors—especially disillusionment with the group’s strategy or actions, disagreements with group leaders or members, disappointment with day-to-day tasks, and burnout—increase the likelihood terrorists will choose to leave and are more frequently reported as playing a large role in their exit decisions. Further, our findings indicate that a loss of faith in the ideology underpinning terrorist behavior (or “de-radicalization”) is not one of the most commonly cited causes for disengagement, nor a prerequisite. (p. 307) In more than half (59 percent) of all cases of individual voluntary disengagement, the person was experiencing [disillusionment with the strategy or actions of the group] at the time of his or her disengagement compared with just 24 percent of individuals in the control group. Further, in more than half (55 percent) of all cases of individual voluntary disengagement, this disillusionment is reported as playing a large (37 percent) or small (18 percent) role in leaving. (p. 320) In more than half (55 percent) of all cases of individual voluntary disengagement, individuals reported experiencing disillusionment with group leaders, compared to just 17 percent of those in the control group. For those whose disengagement was voluntary, disillusionment was reported as playing a role in the decision to leave in 45 percent of all cases. (p. 320) For only a select few, the decision to disengage centers around family demands or desires. The desire to dedicate more time to one's family or the feeling that being involved in terrorism was too hard to balance with family life … played a large role in explaining just 6.1 percent and 4.1 percent of all exit decisions, respectively. (pp. 322-323) Positive interactions with moderates, including family and friends, are thought to be another important pull factor out of terrorist life … Yet, friends and/or family were reported as playing a role in convincing the individual to leave in just 14 percent of cases, and their role was usually secondary. (pp. 323-324) Our results suggest that counterterrorism policies focused on influencing the most prevalent push factors may be more effective in persuading terrorists to disengage than those that rely solely on influencing pull factors. (p. 332)   Burcu Savun, Daniel C. Tirone, “Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool: More Liberty, Less Terror?,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, May 5, 2017, pp. 1-29 We find that good governance and civil society aid is associated with lower rates of terrorist attacks, particularly in countries where terrorism is not a part of a broader civil war. (p. 3). A US$10 million increase in government and civil society aid reduces the incidence of terrorist attacks by 1.6 percent, ceteris paribus, while the mean aid allocation (around US$60 million) would reduce the threat by approximately 9.6 percent. (p. 12) U.S. military aid … reduces the number of terror incidents when there is no active civil conflict but increases them when there is. (p. 12) Contrary to the arguments that suggest terrorism is immune to the effects of aid because it is not borne out of economic circumstances, we show that governance and civil society aid provides a potentially peaceful way to assist afflicted governments without having to resort to invasive counterterrorism responses. Our findings, therefore, provide additional rationale for policy makers to continue using democracy assistance programs to promote both democracy and security in aid-receiving countries. (pp. 18-19)  

Welcome to "Women Around the World: This Week," a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week's post, covering June 10 to June 17, was compiled with support from Becky Allen and Anne Connell. 

Welcome to "Women Around the World: This Week," a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering May 20 to May 29, was compiled with support from Becky Allen, Anne Connell, and Alyssa Dougherty.

As I noted in previous blog posts, China has in recent years embarked upon a global soft power offensive. This charm offensive has included an expansion of Xinhua and other state media outlets into many new markets, as well as professionalizing these news services and hiring many capable reporters. The new charm offensive has included vast increases in aid, much of it part of massive new concepts like One Belt, One Road. It has included an increase in assistance for educational exchanges, new programs for training of foreign officials coming to China on short courses, and an overall effort by Xi Jinping and other senior leaders to portray Beijing as a kind of defender of the global order—at least on trade and climate change, two issues where U.S. leadership appears to be retreating. This attempt to portray Xi as the new defender of the global order was most evident during his visit to Davos, in January. There, he told attendees at the World Economic Forum that Beijing would protect free trade rules and norms, warning that “no one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.” In my previous post, I wrote that, at least in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, China’s massive soft power offensive is not likely to succeed. A decade ago, when I wrote a book on China’s then-rising soft power, it might have; Beijing was perceived more favorably by its neighbors back then, in part because it had been relatively modest in exerting its hard power influence in Southeast Asia. Now, after a decade of squabbling over the South China Sea and East China Sea, and a rising Asian arms race, China’s hard power has become significant, and threatening to neighbors. This hard power, delivered in a manner many Southeast Asian nations view negatively, undermines the entire soft power effort. But, globally, China’s image is better than it is these days in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, in part because nations in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, or the Middle East do not have to think as much about China’s rising hard power. The current partisan dysfunction in Washington also potentially makes China more appealing. But will the global democratic regression—Freedom House has now recorded eleven straight years of democratic regression in its annual Freedom in the World report— somehow boost China’s soft power? On the surface, the idea seems to make sense. If democratic leaders are failing to address major challenges like economic inequality, climate change, immigration, terrorism, technology’s impact on work and the job market, the rising cost of health care, and other issues, is it possible that an alternative model of governance would work—or at least might become more popular among citizens in many nations?   The fact that voters in democracies around the world are increasingly turning to strongman/strongwoman style candidates suggests that there is some pent up demand for an alternative model of governance, even if those strongmen are elected—which China’s leaders really are not. (The groundbreaking work of Yascha Mounk at Harvard suggests that, especially among younger men and women in many democracies, there is a greater willingness than in the past to consider alternative forms of government.) As the thinking goes, perhaps an elected strongman, like the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte or Hungary’s Viktor Orban, can break through political roadblocks, and use the popular will to make important progress on issues like economic inequality, or environmental threats, or sensible immigration? Certainly, strongman-style politicians, many of them using populist rhetoric, have made gains globally in the past decade—from Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand to Duterte to Orban to many others. So, if voters in democracies are choosing strongman-style politicians, wouldn’t they also warm to China’s own authoritarian leaders, who are supposedly delivering the goods at home? Not necessarily. China, too, has in its own way succumbed to this strongman trend. Xi Jinping is now probably the most powerful single leader of China since Mao Zedong. He has built a formidable personality cult around himself—a cult that harkens back to that of Mao Zedong. He also has cracked down hard on all forms of dissent, within the Party and in society at large. But while Xi may indeed be the most strongman-style leader China has had in decades, his style of governance is not necessarily going to boost China’s soft power around the world. Remember that in most countries that have flirted with or voted in strongmen-style leaders, these politicians were still elected. Polling by the Barometer series shows overwhelming support, in most of these countries, for the idea of electing leaders. In other words, citizens of Thailand or Hungary or the Philippines may have voted in what I have called elected autocrats, but they still overwhelmingly prefer to elect their strongmen. This point cannot be overstated. Electing modern strongmen like Thaksin or Orban is dangerous to the future of democracy—they can undermine democratic institutions even while winning elections. But the Orban/Thaksin/Duterte/Erdogan model is probably going to remain more appealing than a China-style approach, which does not really give the public a voice—not even a voice in choosing a leader who could undermine democracy. A model of an unelected strongman, chosen through opaque and byzantine political maneuvering, is indeed unlikely to be more popular than voters choosing an elected autocrat. Choosing an elected autocrat allows for the possibility that voters can eventually turn against and remove the elected leader—although, as Turkey shows, this gets harder over time. China’s system does not allow for that possibility. In my next post, I will address a second major flaw in China’s authoritarian model that undermines its global soft power.

Welcome to "Women Around the World: This Week," a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering May 14 to May 19, was compiled with support from Becky Allen and Alyssa Dougherty.  U.S. State Department expands global health restrictions On Monday, the State Department released a guidance document on global health, dramatically expanding Reagan-era restrictions on U.S. aid related to reproductive health to affect all global health programs, including those focused reducing HIV-AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child health. The guidance document – entitled "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" – was issued under the auspices of a Presidential Memorandum promulgated at the start of the Trump administration. The guidance will, for the first time, extend restrictions beyond family planning programs to restrict funding to global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies, explicitly including programs such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI). In total, the rule is estimated to restrict almost $9 billion in global health aid, in comparison to around $600 million affected under President George W. Bush. Experts expressed alarm that the new policy would undermine HIV-AIDS prevention efforts—including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus—as well as programs to combat maternal mortality, among other priorities.  Ugandan peacekeepers accused of sexual exploitation This week, Ugandan peacekeepers tasked with finding warlord Joseph Kony in the Central African Republic (CAR) were accused of rape, sexual exploitation, and sexual slavery of young girls. According to UN records, more than thirty cases of allegations of abuse have been documented, and forty-four women and girls have been impregnated by members of the Ugandan forces. Both the Ugandan military and American Special Operations deny any knowledge of misconduct. Allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation in CAR are not unique to the Ugandan military; years of abuse by peacekeepers from countries including France, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Burundi resulted in an independent investigation into the issue in 2015. The resulting report produced a set of recommendations for the UN, including the creation of a Coordination Unit to oversee the UN response to sexual violence, establishment of a trust fund to provide specialized services to victims, and new mechanisms to ensure prosecution.         Pakistan government cracks down on abuse of girls  The Pakistani government has arrested numerous tribal leaders practicing vani – an illegal practice in which a father marries off his daughters to repay debts or settle village feuds. Recent reports from human rights workers, police officers, and regional media cite an increase in cases in rural communities, despite efforts from lawmakers to resolve disputes through government-appointed mediators. Although only twenty-eight cases of vani have been officially reported since January 2016, hundreds of incidents are estimated to occur annually, and some victims of the practice are as young as one year old. Local critics of the government’s crackdown – typically conservative tribal elders – consider vani to be a long-held tradition that prevents bloodshed, rather than a criminal offense that violates girls' human rights. 

In this second post in the series, I will examine why I doubt China’s efforts to bolster its soft power will succeed today. Why are China’s soft power efforts unlikely to succeed today? And they are unlikely to succeed: As the Economist notes, polling data collected by the Pew Research Center found that, in most of the nations studied, public images of China have become more negative in recent years. A recent study by the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian perceptions of the United States and China, found that the Trump administration was potentially undermining perception of U.S. power in Southeast Asia, and that China was perceived as becoming more influential regionally. According to the South China Morning Post: Over 70 per cent of the respondents [to the survey] – people in government, academia, business and media and civil society in ten ASEAN ­nations – said the United States’ reputation under Trump had either deteriorated or deteriorated immensely. Yet at the same time, respondents to the survey had extremely negative perceptions of China, while they admitted that Beijing was becoming the essential strategic actor in Southeast Asia. A majority of respondents in the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute study, as the South China Morning Post noted, said they had little or no confidence in China to essentially act in the region’s greater good, to protect common regional interests. Even in Laos, one of the countries highlighted in the New York Times’ Sunday report on One Belt, One Road – a place where China is spending feverishly on a railway project and the economy has becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment over the past decade – it is hard to definitively say that China’s public image has improved in recent years. Laos’ new government, which took power last year, reportedly is packed with top leaders close to Vietnam. Meanwhile, those who wanted to tilt Laotian foreign policy toward China retired or did not take senior positions in the new, 2016 government. Although it is difficult to measure, it is hard to see that Laotian public opinion toward China, which soft power would target, has been swayed either. There have been a series of unexplained attacks on Chinese nationals in Laos over the past two years – in part possibly because of public anger over Chinese firms’ environmental records in investments in northern Laos. Although Laos is one of the most repressive places in the world, social media often includes strident anti-Beijing writings. One major reason why China’s soft power strategy is not currently working is that Beijing simply has spent the last decade exerting significant hard power, particularly in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, its near neighborhood. And, its growing willingness to wield coercive strategic and economic power has made its soft power a more difficult sell, even when Beijing is lavishing funds on One Belt, One Road and cultural, media, and educational projects overseas. Thus, while people in the region recognize China’s growing hard power, Beijing’s soft power is a really tough sell. In recent years, China has militarized parts of the South China Sea and East China Sea, rapidly upgraded its military forces, assertively claimed much of the South China Sea, and allegedly used its diplomacy to foster splits within Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) over issues like the South China Sea, leading to a sense of paralysis within ASEAN at every meeting, and infuriating some Southeast Asian opinion leaders. Beijing has helped spark an arms race in Southeast Asia, and has  shown a willingness to use Chinese state companies and other state tools to put pressure on regional competitors. What’s more, under Xi Jinping, the Chinese government further has enacted a range of policies that promote Chinese firms in many industries and severely limit foreign investors, a strategy that has led a wide range of foreign chambers of commerce in Beijing to complain about increasingly economically nationalistic Chinese policies. (To its credit, Beijing also has been relatively proactive in providing regional trade leadership and leadership on some climate change issues.) Many states in the region, from Japan to Singapore to Vietnam to Myanmar, have become increasingly wary of China’s seeming desire to dominate the region. In such an environment, aid, cultural programs, media, and other soft power tools will find few minds to convert. Meanwhile, even in places like Central Asia, South Asia, and Eastern Europe where China’s One Belt, One Road will provide critical infrastructure links, power plants, and other important assistance – and where China exerts less obvious hard power than in the South China or East China Seas -- many leaders fear that the project will simply make it easier for China to flood local markets with Chinese goods, while not being willing to handle trade deals fairly. In Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America, among other developing regions, China’s aid and investment and funding for infrastructure are more warmly welcomed, but they are not without downsides. (Polling data suggest that Africans view China more favorably than people on many other continents.) Some African opinion leaders, while praising Chinese investment, have in recent years complained that Beijing employs too few local workers, pays little attention to environmental norms, and dumps products below costs on African markets. More broadly, since China’s own domestic media environment remains tightly constrained – and is in fact getting less free under Xi Jinping – it is hard for Beijing to convince anyone outside of China to be interested in its cultural programming, as the Economist notes. In my next post, I will discuss why even the global democratic regression of the past decade will not necessarily bolster China’s soft power or increase converts to China’s authoritarian style of politics.

This is the first part in a series on China's attempts to bolster its soft power and its prospects for success. In recent years, China has stepped up its soft power offensive in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, among other regions of the globe. About two months ago, The Economist chronicled Beijing’s soft power boom, in a lengthy story that examined the ways in which China attempts to bolster its softer types of influence. As The Economist noted, China is now spending around $10 billion per year on a plan to boost its global soft power, according to an estimate by David Shambaugh of George Washington University. This effort includes plans to expand China’s foreign-language media abroad, create more Confucius Institutes and foster educational exchanges, boost aid outflows, sponsor cultural festivals abroad, and generally try to portray Beijing today as a defender of the international order, trade, and globalization. China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, also known as “One Belt, One Road,” chronicled on Sunday in a lengthy article in the New York Times, fits into this soft power offensive in some respects. Beijing plans to spend and raise as much as $1 trillion in an effort to create a vast new road and rail infrastructure, energy projects, and other needed infrastructure across many parts of Eurasia and even in Africa and parts of Western Europe. One Belt, One Road is by far the largest such economic spending plan in the world today – and one that is larger, in its spending, than the famed Marshall Plan was. The infrastructure creation, aid, and jobs that will come with the initiative could boost growth in places from Laos to Pakistan to many parts of Eastern Europe, and could theoretically improve China’s public image in these countries and regions.  After all, the United States is supposedly retreating into an “America First” crouch while Beijing is lavishing these funds on building infrastructure and promoting trade, all the way from its near neighborhood to the Balkans. As it happens, I wrote a book about China’s soft power—in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other developing regions of the globe—about a decade ago. At that time, China was just beginning to increase its aid programs, launch its educational link-ups with foreign universities, spread its state media into foreign markets, promote Chinese culture abroad, fund large-scale training programs for foreign officials who came to China, and take other methods of boosting China’s influence without utilizing coercive military or economic tools. At the time, China seemed in a strong position to wield its soft power. It had mostly avoided major disputes with its neighbors in Southeast Asia, at least for more than a decade, and it was a relatively new power in Africa, the Middle East, and some other parts of the world. In contrast, the United States at that time was suffering from the aftereffects of the Iraq War; the United States’ public image had soured in much of the globe, and the overall popularity of democratic government was slipping as well. Some Chinese officials were beginning to enunciate a Chinese model of development, as an alternative to the Washington Consensus. Now, a decade after writing that book, the United States’s global image remains weak—although it rebounded for a time during the 2010s—democracy is in dire shape in many parts of the globe, and Beijing undoubtedly is far stronger, strategically and economically, than it was in 2007, when my book was published. But I am doubtful that China can effectively wield soft power today—far more doubtful than I was back in 2007—even though Beijing’s budget for aid, education programs, training programs, cultural programming, and other soft power tools is exponentially greater than it was a decade ago.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) has issued a press release that it has just delivered 810 metric tons of food to Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. The organization estimates that it will feed 26,000 families for two weeks. MSF is primarily a medical organization. But, according to its press announcement, it is now delivering food because “there are people in desperate need. Other organizations were not stepping up until now, and MSF was obliged to fill the gap.” MSF runs two large medical facilities in Maiduguri, two therapeutic feeding centers for malnourished children, and trucks in 80,000 to 100,000 liters of water every day. It estimates that Maiduguri now hosts more than one million refugees. MSF notes that the food security and health situation will worsen in March, the start of the annual “lean season” in Nigeria. A MSF medical doctor, Javed Ali, says: “There is a lethal interplay between the lean and rainy seasons. Just as people’s immunity falls as nutrients in their diet decrease, the number of infections rises. This is particularly difficult for children and can leave them very vulnerable to developing severe malnutrition with complications.” In the aftermath of sounding the alarm over Ebola in West Africa, MSF has particular credibility. The fact that it is now delivering food–not its usual focus–indicates that the humanitarian emergency in northeast Nigeria remains out of control.