Tutorial Readings

Question 1

Rovner

Answer 1

• Rovner argues that third wave of media proliferation (first being TV, second internet) which is rise of social media is changing ways in which intelligence communities and policymakers interact
• I say that social media is hindering the ability of states to achieve their intelligence goals
• Ways in which Rovner says social media altering intelligence: explosion of info that agencies need to shift through in major events like Arab Spring, where people were posting their own perspectives of events and hard to tell which ones were right and what implications were; exacerbates institutional competition between agencies and new media since both are competing for attention of policymakers; exacerbates neglect (where policymakers ignore the advice of intelligence communities and cherrypick information that supports their preconceived views or information that they think is more relevant); exacerbates politicization as intelligence agencies are incentivized to cater their information to policymakers due to policymakers having more preconceived notions via previously consumed new media and thus pressuring agencies into supporting such views
• Using Rovner’s case study of Arab Spring, I believe that social media hinders the ability of states to achieve their intelligence goals
• In Arab Spring, policymakers were bewildered that intelligence agencies were not able to predict that the protests would lead to large scale regime change. Thus people ranging from Sen. Feinstein to Pres. Obama expressed disappointment in intelligence community despite fact that no pundits could have really predicted that regime change would occur. This likely fuels the cycle of neglect and politicization, as intelligence communities will be incentivized to produce confident conclusions that support the preconceived notions that politicians may have — and if these conclusions are proven in the future to be incorrect, policymakers will further distrust intelligence and seek out information themselves

Question 2

Lyndon CS Way

Answer 2

Tactics employed by Oy Oy Recap video:

• Promotes populism in lyrics by pitting Erdogan government (referred to as “you”) against protestors (referred to as “we”). Use of “we” also collectivizes all the different protestor groups (environmentalists, LGBT activists, etc.) into a whole
• Lyrics such as “why don’t you see us” and “you kept hitting us when we said stop” depict government forces and Erdogan as blind, violent, and uncaring about the concerns of the populist bloc
• Lyrics such as “did you think the public were sheep” on the other hand depict populists as knowledgeable despite gov censorship efforts
• Visuals dominated by pictures of police violence such as pepper spraying or using tear gas on innocent protestors
• Visuals depict police as armored and helmeted, part of the elite class that is literally standing separate from the protestors
• Visuals both make fun of Erdogan thus bringing him down to earth (eating with hands, falling off horse) and depict him as uncaring tyrant (images of him speaking angrily in formal attire while staring off into distance and not listening to people)
• Visuals depict protestors positively, showing them handing food to police, standing together playing music, etc.

Overall:
- While the political use of such a video is limited due to the fact that it does not address the neoliberal polices carried out by the Erdogan government that have deprived the Turkish people, nor the issue surrounding the Gazi Park protests itself (selling parkland to private corporations to build a shopping mall), in the controlled media environment that is Turkey where government forces collaborate strongly with media to spin narratives and also control music industry by limiting the instrumentation allowed to be used in songs, such a video does provide a rare avenue for populist protestors to rally behind — thus overall positive

Question 3

Gurumurthy

Answer 3

3 ways data is being incorporated:

• Singapore Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning system that pools citizen data from public and private databases in order to help government make policy decisions ranging from immigration to school curriculum
• Collaboration between Baidu and Chinese government to create the “social credit system” that ranks people based on their social media engagement — although Gurumurthy does not specify exactly what this system is used for
• Governments in US, India, Australia are using citizen data regarding health, behavior to determine whether people should be eligible for welfare benefits

Overall:

• While implementation of big data can help governance, in capitalist west especially the lack of regulations towards big data companies / unwillingness of governments to regulate them in name of retaining free market leads to a situation where data is in held in the hands of highly dispersed corporations that may not properly secure it
• Thus, global governance is hurt because governments cannot properly utilize such data and can also be faced with security threats if citizen data is sent in wrong hands (example of Cambridge Analytica gathering Facebook data to target people in Brexit vote and influencing their views, which did not come to light until far after vote took place and even then tough to prosecute due to the multiple front companies used to cover their tracks)
• Reactionary foreign actors such as the Russian government can also utilize citizen data to breach democratic elections in countries like US, Canada, etc
• If data is to be used in a positive manner, governments should get ahead of the curve and start adopting comprehensive data security regimes such as EU General Data Protection and Privacy Act that Gurumurthy cites

Question 4

Riegl

Answer 4

Five main factors in determining secessionist success

• Human rights abuses suffered by country trying to secede
• Weak central government that is being seceded from
• Support of most of the great powers
• International involvement that already exists in territory (such as international administration)
• Relative power and degree of involvement exhibited by great powers involved in the secessionist crisis (most important)

Transnistria:

• Region wedged between Moldova and Ukraine that seceded in 1990 and more formally after a short 1992 war
• I think best way for Transnistria to obtain independence is to further integrate itself with Russia (perhaps in a Belarus style arrangement like the Union State) where it gives up more and more of its autonomy. This is already happening due to fact that economy is reliant on Russian subsidies, it is no longer having to pay for Russian oil, and the political situation in the country is dominated by Russian interests. The presence of the Russian army was a large factor in it achieving independence in the first place, and Russia has a strategic interest in the region as it allows Russia to influence Moldovan and Ukrainian politics and provide a buffer against further NATO expansion. As per Riegl’s thesis that the relative power and degree of involvement exhibited by interested great powers is the foremost factor in determining whether countries are successful in secession, maintaining good relations with Russia (which is really the only great power that is heavily involved in the region due to geography, interests, etc.) is the best way to achieve real success