final edited monitor fall 2015

MONITORJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIESVolume 21, Number 1 Fall 2015

Executive BoardArianna Talaie, Editor in Chief

Mitchell Croom, Managing EditorAmanda Blair, Senior Copy EditorCaper Gooden, Senior Copy Editor

Bryan Burgess, Director of Public RelationsThor Vutcharangkul, International Interviews Chair

Alex ColeAndrew Warner

Austin SpiveyBrittany Parowski

Carolyn De RosterChris Gundermand

Courtney BlackingtonElizabeth Courtney

Ellie DasslerEmily Jackson

Grace HofbauerGraeme Cranston Cuebas

James WillardJessica Joyce

Katherine LuKellie Strand

Matthew RibarNicole Walsh

Rowan AndersonShivani Gupta

Torey Beth JacksonTian Weinberg

Venu KattaZarine Kharazian

Editorial Board

The Monitor is the journal of international studies at the College of William and Mary. Our aim is to promote and publish student work that contributes a new perspective to multicultural understanding. We are an interdisciplinary publication dedicated to serving an increasingly independent world.

Submissions should be sent to [email protected]. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.monitorjournal.org/

The opinions expressed in the articles in this journal are strictly those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the Monitor or its staff.

Contents

PREFACE Editor’s Note Double Blind- Review Process Acknowledgements

PROPERTY RIGHTS & RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT Less Developed Countries: Trade Dependency Ratio and Intellectual Property Rights Regulations Kristin Rodil

Azjerbaijan’s Prospects for Stability Carolyn De Roster

LINGUISTIC

Native Language and Cultural Relevance: A Study on the Acquisition of English Phonology Nicole Kristen Fitchett POWER IMBALANCES Paraguay Alone: The Effects of Isolation and Regional Imbalances on the Development of Paraguay Hayley Tymeson

The Legacy o European Empire: Racial Thinking in Contemporary International Politics Annelies Baneke

3

6

20

30

42

60

Editor’s Note This Journal, now over twenty years old, has worked since its founding to formally recognize original undergraduate research with an international dimen-sion. We are driven to reward scholarship with analytical and inventive ideologies. Through our double blind peer review process, our editorial staff impartially evaluates submissions for the strength of their global relevance, ingenuity, and empirical claims. What we seek is truly global. Our team solicits submissions from universities around the world, from Scotland to Azerbaijan, in order to maintain an eclectic and broad submission pool. The papers published here represent a small but exceptional subset of the extensive body of international research being produced by students today. With the support of William and Mary institutions such as the Reves Center for International Studies, this Journal promotes undergraduate schol-arship that demands serious consideration. To that end, the five contributions selected for this issue span academic fields and cross analytical boundaries. They investigate international property rights, the political economy of Azerbaijan, native phonology, the isolationist nature of Paraguay, and the historical legacy of colonialism in contemporary international politics. This issue of the Monitor first explores the relationship between least developed countries and their adherences to international property rights using statistical analysis. Next, we feature a piece on Azerbaijan’s natural resource dependency and Soviet-style bureaucracy, which have arguably impeded any institutional change within the country. Differences in accents between English-speaking Norwegians and Spaniards are then investi-gated within an article drawing explanations from their linguistic origins and their phoneme inventories. The issue shifts its focus to Paraguay’s inward-looking pol-icies that grew amid regional power imbalances, and concludes with a look into how imperialist institutions still persist today in regard to developing countries’ denial of complete sovereignty. Individually, each contributes new analysis and understanding in their respective subject field. Together, they prove that undergraduate research matters, and that it deserves a place in academic discourse beyond the classroom. On be-half of the 2015-2016 Editorial Board and Staff, I proudly present to you the Fall 2015 issue of the Monitor: Journal of International Studies.

Ariana TalaieEditor in Chief

Double-Blind Review Process Pursuant to our desire to adopt the best models of academic integrity and excellence within the academic community, the Monitor uses a double-blind review process similar to that used in most professional academic journals. The process seeks to divorce author from scholarship and personal considerations from editorial responsibility. When a submission is received it goes to an e-mail account to which the Managing Editor alone has access. The Managing Editor ensures that all identifying marks on any paper we receive are removed before they are sent to reviewers. Any reviewer that is acquainted or familiar with the paper or can identify the author returns it without review, and the paper is sent to someone else. Two reviewers review each submission, and a third is engaged in the case that the first two reviewers disagree. The only papers that are not reviewed are those that are determined to be out of scope, most commonly because they do not treat a foreign topic. Our reviewers are given uniform instruction and training in reviewing papers, minimizing variation between reviewers to the greatest extent possible. Reviewers are given papers on topics with which they have academic familiarity, and are given a week to review each paper to ensure that they have ample time to give each entry proper consideration. At the end of each semester, those papers that received either (a) two favorable reviews or (b) mixed reviews followed by a favorable tiebreaker review are read in their entirety by the Executive Board. The number of such papers vacillates, but is typically between ten and twenty. The selection thereafter occurs by deliberation and consensus of the Executive Board. The Managing Editor remains at this final stage the sole board member who, by necessity, knows the identity of authors. This editor refrains from comment or vote if personally familiar with the author. Any executive board member who can recognize by content or style the author of any given paper refrains from comment or vote on that paper. The Monitor, confident of the integrity of the process, does not prohibit editors from submitting papers. As our aim is to publish the best in undergraduate research, to exclude any individuals interested in scholarship would be counter- productive to our mission. Editors’ papers are subject to the same double-blind process and are held to the same scrutiny. Any editor with a paper under final consideration refrains from comment or vote. We share this information because to doubt the selection process is to question the merit of published papers. As it is the aim of the Monitor to support and encourage undergraduate scholarship, it is also our duty to preserve the integrity and transparency of selection. The double-blind review is not perfect—no process is—but we carry it forward with the utmost commitment to professionalism, excellence, and unbiased editorial responsibility.

Acknowledgements

The Editorial Board of the Monitor would like to thank the following indi-viduals for their support. Without the contributions, guidance, and effort

of these and many others, this issue would not have been possible.

Michael TierneyStephen Hanson and the Reves Center

Lisa Grimes, Joel Schwartz, and the Charles Center Anita Hamlin Forrest and the Office of Student Leadership

DevelopmentThe Media Council

The Department of AnthropologyThe Department of History

The Department of International Relations The Department of Government

T.J. ChengBrian Blouet

William FisherHiroshi Kitamura

Laurie KoloskiSharon Zuber

Less Developed Countries: Trade Dependency Ratio and Intellectual

Property Rights RegulationsKristin Rodil

Introduction: Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and Less Devel-oped Countries (LDCs) The World Trade Organization first seriously addressed the issue of intellectual property rights during the 1986–94 Uruguay Round. The discussions resulted in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which was intended to protect and enforce recognition of these rights. In part, this agreement was necessitated by “the relatively fast growth during the 1980s of trade in knowledge intensive products.” Knowledge intensive products include “patented products, goods that are marketed under trademarks, as well as products with copyright protection.” It is generally understood that less developed countries (LDCs) choose not to adhere to intellectual property right (IPRs) regulations because “an extension of international IPRs might harm their own technological progress.” Some LDCs “argue that…they should continue to be free to opt out of the partial system of international IPRs provided by the current conventions,” but it is not necessarily true that all LDCs regard IPRs as unimportant. In fact, LDCs exhibit variation in adherence to IPRs. I assert that the differences in behavior may be explained in part by trade dependency ratio: LDCs that adhere to IPRs are likely to have higher trade dependency ratios than those that do not. Part I of this paper defines the terms of my hypothesis, namely how I classify a country as less developed and how I measure adherence to IPRs. Part II of the paper deals with the analysis of the data, which includes the statistical procedures I used during the research, as well as my finding that the trade dependency ratio and adherence to IPRs may be related. In part III, I address possible explanations for why these two variables may be related, as well as implications for international trade relationships.

KRISTIN RODIL is a senior studying International Relations with a minor in Hispanic Studies at the College of William and Mary. She would like to thank all of her professors, especially those in the Government, Economics, History, and Hispanic Studies Departments, for inspiring her intellectual curiosity. She would also like to thank her family for encouraging her to do her best and her Creator for countless blessings and opportunities. In the future she hopes to attend law school.

7

Part I: Defining LDCs and IPR Violations For the purposes of this paper, LDCs will be classified as countries belonging to the two lowest income economy groups according to the World Bank. “Low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI [gross national income] per capita of $1,045 or less in 2013,” while “lower-middle income economies” have a GNI per capita between $1,046 and $4,125. While GNI per capita does not address all factors relevant to welfare, it can still be a useful measure because it is closely correlated with other, nonmonetary measures of the quality of life. I compiled a list of LDCs using the World Bank’s income classification data, then classified each LCD country as either adhering to or violating IPRs according to their status on the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) “Special 301 Report.” According to the USTR, the “Special 301 Report:”

…identifies a wide range of concerns that limit innovation and investment, including: (a) the deterioration in the effectiveness of IPR protection and enforcement and overall market access for persons relying on IPR in a number of trading partner markets; (b) reported inadequacies in trade secret protection in countries around the world, as well as an increasing incidence of trade secret misappropriation; (c) troubling “indigenous innovation” policies that may unfairly disadvantage U.S. rights holders in foreign markets; (d) the continuing challenges of copyright piracy and the sale of counterfeit trademarked products on the Internet; (e) additional market access barriers, including non-transparent, discriminatory, or otherwise trade-restrictive, measures that appear to impede access to healthcare and copyright-protected content; and (f) ongoing, systemic IPR enforcement issues at borders and in many trading partner markets around the world.

Countries where these concerns are prevalent are placed on the an-nual “Watch List,” which also includes a “Priority Watch List” for countries with severe violations. Of the 84 countries considered to be LDCs, only 7 are on the Watch List for USTR’s 2014 Special 301 Report, and an addi-tional 3 are on the Priority Watch List. This indicates that while some LDCs do not care about IPRs, most do. I argue that this variation, in part, can be explained by the trade dependency ratio.

Part II: Trade Dependency Ratio and Adherence to IPR Regulations My hypothesis is that the trade dependency ratio of an LDC affects its compliance with IPR regulations. In order to test this, I first divided LDC countries into two groups: countries on the Watch List (and Priority Watch List) and countries not on these lists. I then calculated net exports as a percentage of GNI to determine the trade dependency ratios for all LDCs (see Appendix A). I found the average trade dependency ratio for non-Watch List countries, 80.1%, and for countries on the Watch List, 72.3%. I also calculated the median trade dependency ratios for each group, which are 74.8% and 59.0% respectively (see Appendix B). These measures of

Less Developed Countries

8 The Monitor - Fall 2015

central tendency indicate that trade dependency ratios are greater in non-Watch List countries than in Watch List countries. While further statistical tests should be done to assess the significance and accuracy of these results, they do suggest that countries with more trade-dependent GNIs are more likely to adhere to IPR regulations. The World Bank divides countries into income classifications of low-income economies ($1,045 or less) and lower-middle-income economies ($1,046 to $4,125). I again distinguished between Watch List and non-Watch List countries and computed the means and medians for these four groups (see Appendix C). Non-Watch List countries in the low-income group had a mean trade dependency ratio of 69.0% and a median of 67.2%. The only country on the Watch List in this income group is Tajikistan, which has a trade dependency ratio of 87.5%. Tajikistan’s unique standing might be attributed to high levels of trade with Russia, Turkey, and China, all of which are Watch List Countries. For non-Watch List countries in the lower-middle-income economies group, the mean and median trade dependency ratios were 89.1% and 86.4% respectively. For Watch List countries, the mean and median trade dependency ratios were 70.6% and 58.7% respectively. As stated earlier, further statistical tests should be done to assess the significance and accuracy of these results, but they indicate that countries with trade-dependent GNIs are more likely to adhere to IPR regulations. Lastly, I calculated the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient to determine a possible linear correlation between a country’s trade dependency ratio and its frequency on the Watch List. First, I gathered data from the International Intellectual Property Alliance to determine the frequency at which each country appeared on the Watch List between 1989 and 2014 (see Appendix D). Using this information, as well as the set of values for each country’s trade dependency ratio, I calculated the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient to be zero. This suggests that no linear relationship exists between the two variables. However, I also created a scatter plot of the data, which demonstrates an apparent negative correlation: frequency on the Watch List decreases as the trade dependency ratio increases. These statistical tests suggest that for LDCs, trade dependency ratio and adherence to IPRs are connected. On average, non-Watch List countries are more likely to have higher trade dependency ratios than Watch List countries. Furthermore, these statistics suggest a negative correlation, such that as trade dependency ratio increases, frequency on the Special 301 Watch List decreases. Further statistical tests should be done to assess the accuracy and significance of all of the statistical results put forth. However, with the exception of Tajikistan, these statistical results suggest that adherence

9

of LDCs to intellectual property rights regulations is related to the trade dependency ratio.

Part III: Possible Explanations It is not clear what causes this negative correlation between trade and IPRs. Perhaps LDCs are already so dependent on trade that they adhere to IPR regulations to preserve existing trading relationships, especially because “evidence suggests that foreign technology-producing firms often refuse to license or lease their latest innovations to firms in countries with weak intellectual property protection.” A country might also want to enter trade relations with new partners, and “the benefits of access to developed country markets that membership of the WTO can provide [outweighs] the perceived cost of strengthening their IPR regime.” Alternatively, LDCs that have already chosen to adhere to IPR regulations may attract more trading partners. The evidence suggests that “stronger IPR protection leads to larger trade flows,” but this trade is “not necessarily in [high-tech or patent sensitive] goods;” IPRs might not be important for these types of goods. Additionally, the motives that drive the creation of new trade relationships is not altogether straightforward. Falvey and Foster suggest that “for individual countries, the impact of IPR protection on growth is likely to depend upon… factor endowments” and that “depending on whether opening up to trade shifts resources toward or away from the dynamic sector, a country’s rate of economic growth may increase or decrease with globalization.” The trading partners of a country further complicate an understanding of IPR adherence. Some LDCs on the Watch List, as in the case of Tajikistan, have high trade dependency ratios because they trade with developed countries that also appear on the Watch List. Further research on IPR adherence that extends to developed countries would be necessary for comprehensive analysis of such cases. For example, Cambodia is a non-Watch List country with one of the highest trade dependency ratios, and the United States, also the propagator of the “Special 301 Report,” was its top trading partner in 2008. Hirschman suggests that foreign trade can be “used as an instrument of national power policies.” IPRs can be seen as a tool to increase the economic influence of industrialized countries because “tighter intellectual property rights only strengthen the monopoly power of large companies that are based in industrial countries, to the detriment of the less developed countries.” Developed countries may only trade with LDCs that adhere to IPR so as to preserve their position of power. Sanctioning countries on the Watch List might be regarded as an attempt to promote self-interested policy. There appears to be a relationship between trade dependency ratio and adherence to IPR regulations, such that as trade dependency ratio increases, LDCs are more likely to adhere



to IPR regulations. However, further research must be done to explain why this is true. An attempt to understand how trade dependency ratio may influence countries’ behavior regarding intellectual property rights may perhaps facilitate negotiations over IPRs, an issue that is so crucial in the WTO context.

Appendix AAll values (Imports, Exports, and Trade Dependency Ratio) are for the year 2013.

Non-Watch List Countries: Low-Income

Imports:goods & Services, % of GDP

Exports:goods & Services, % of GDP

Trade De-pendency Ratio

Afghanistan 49.1 6.3 55.4

Bangladesh 26.8 19.5 46.3

Benin 33.5 18.3 51.8

Burkina Faso 32 25.1 57.1

Burundi 34.2 7.4 41.6

Cambodia 73.8 65.7 139.5

Central African Republic

N/A N/A N/A

Chad 37.5 32.2 69.7

Comoros 61.8 16.4 78.2

Congo, Dem. Republic

40.4 34.2 74.6

Eritrea N/A N/A N/A

Ethiopia 29.1 12.5 41.6

The Gambia 50.8 37 87.8

Guinea 54.6 28.5 83.1

Guinea-Bisau N/A N/A N/A

11

Haiti 52.9 18.2 71.1

Kenya 33.2 17.7 50.9

Korea, Dem Rep. N/A N/A N/A

Liberia N/A N/A N/A

Madagascar 43 30.1 73.1

Malawi 64.2 46.3 110.5

Mali N/A N/A N/A

Mozambique 40.3 30.2 70.5

Myanmar N/A N/A N/A

Nepal 37.5 10.7 48.2

Niger 41.4 23.3 64.7

Rwanda 31 14.4 45.4

Sierra Leone 54.4 53.1 107.5

Somalia N/A N/A N/A

Tanzania 31.6 17.9 49.5

Togo N/A N/A N/A

Uganda 30.5 20.2 50.7

Zimbabwe 57 29.5 86.5

Watch List Country: Low Income




Tajikistan 68.3 19.2 87.5



Non-Watch List Countries: Lower-Middle Income




Armenia 48 27 75

Bhutan 62.9 40.8 103.7

Cameroon 28.9 20.7 49.6

Cabo Verde N/A N/A N/A

Congo, Rep. 66.1 76.5 142.6

Côte d'Ivoire N/A 45.4 N/A

Dijibouti N/A N/A N/A

El Salvador 45.8 26.4 72.2

Georgia 57.6 44.7 102.3

Ghana 47.2 42.2 89.4

Guyana N/A N/A N/A

Honduras 69.5 47.9 117.4

Kiribati 110.5 10.5 121

Kosovo 49 17.4 66.4

Krygyz Republic 95.9 47.2 143.1

Lao PDR 46.1 37.2 83.3

Lesotho N/A N/A N/A

Mauritania 67 66.7 133.7

Micronesia, Fed. Sts.

N/A N/A N/A

13

Moldova 81.5 43.8 125.3

Mongolia 67 45.1 112.1

Morocco 46.9 33.6 80.5

Nicaragua 52.1 40.5 92.6

Nigeria 13 18 31

Papua New Guinea

N/A N/A N/A

Philippines 32 27.9 59.9

Samoa 50.3 30.6 80.9

São Tomé and Principe

47.3 11 58.3

Senegal 47.4 26.2 73.6

Solomon Islands 64.6 54.5 119.1

South Sudan 42.8 18.2 61

Sri Lanka 32 22.5 54.5

Sudan 16.1 9.6 25.7

Swaziland 59.3 55.3 114.6

Syrian Arab Republic

N/A N/A N/A

Timor-Leste N/A N/A N/A

Ukraine 55.4 46.9 102.3

Vanuatu 51.3 47.8 99.1

West Bank and Gaza

N/A N/A N/A

Yemen, Rep. N/A N/A N/A



Zambia 39.7 41.9 81.6

Watch List Country:Lower-Mid-dle-Income




Bolivia 37.2 44.2 81.4

Egypt 24.7 17.6 42.3

Guatemala 35 23.7 58.7

India 28.1 25.2 53.3

Indonesia 25.7 23.7 49.4

Pakistan 19.9 13.2 33.1

Paraguay 44.7 49.4 94.1

Uzbekistan 31.6 27.7 59.3

Vietnam 79.8 83.9 163.7

Mean Trade Dependency Ratio (%)

Median Trade Dependency Ratio (%)

Non-Watch List Countries

80.1 74.8

Watch List Countries

72.3 59

Appendix BValues for year 2013

15

Appendix CValues for year 2013

Mean Trade Dependency Ratio (%)

Median Trade Dependency Ratio (%)

Non-Watch List Countries: Low Income

69 67.2

Watch List Countries: Low Income

87.5 87.5

Non-Watch List Countries: Low-er-Middle Income

89.1 86.4

Watch List Countries: Lower-Middle Income

70.6 58.7

Appendix D** = Watch List, Lowest Income Group

***=Watch List, 2nd Lowest Income GroupNo mark = Not on Watch List, 2nd Lowest Income Group

Country Frequency on Watch List***Egypt 26***Indonesia 26***Pakistan 26**Tajikistan 25Philippines 25***Guatemala 23***India 23***Vietnam 18***Bolivia 17***Uzbekistan 15Ukraine 10***Paraguay 5El Salvador 5Armenia 3Honduras 2Moldova 1*Afghanistan, N/A 0*Bangladesh 0



*Benin, N/A 0*Burkina Faso, N/A 0*Burundi, N/A 0*Cambodia 0*Central African Republic, N/A 0*Chad, N/A 0*Comoros, N/A 0*Eritrea, N/A 0*Ethiopia, N/A 0*Guinea, N/A 0*Guinea-Bisau, N/A 0*Haiti, N/A 0*Kenya 0*Korea, Dem Rep., N/A 0*Liberia, N/A 0*Madagascar, N/A 0*Malawi, N/A 0*Mali, N/A 0*Mozambique, N/A 0*Myanmar 0*Nepal, N/A 0*Niger, N/A 0*Rwanda, N/A 0*Sierra Leone, N/A 0*Somalia, N/A 0*Tanzania, N/A 0*The Gambia, N/A 0*Togo, N/A 0*Uganda, N/A 0*Zimbabwe, N/A 0Bhutan, N/A 0Cabo Verde, N/A 0Cameroon, N/A 0Congo, Dem. Republic, N/A 0Congo, Rep., N/A 0

17

Côte d'Ivoire, N/A 0Dijibouti, N/A 0Georgia 0Ghana, N/A 0Guyana, N/A 0Kiribati, N/A 0Kosovo, N/A 0Krygyz Republic 0Lao PDR 0Lesotho, N/A 0Mauritania, N/A 0Micronesia, Fed. Sts., N/A 0Mongolia, N/A 0Morocco 0Nicaragua 0Nigeria 0Papua New Guinea, N/A 0Samoa, N/A 0São Tomé and Principe, N/A 0Senegal, N/A 0Solomon Islands, N/A 0South Sudan, N/A 0Sri Lanka 0Sudan, N/A 0Swaziland, N/A 0Syrian Arab Republic, N/A 0Timor-Leste, N/A 0Vanuatu, N/A 0West Bank and Gaza, N/A 0Yemen, Rep. 0Zambia, N/A 0

N/A indicates that frequency on the Special 301 Watch List is not known; a value of 0 is assigned to the number of times these countries appear on the

Watch List (1989-2014).



1 “World Trade Organization,” World Trade Organization, 2015, https://www.wto. org/index.htm. 2 Elhanan Helpman, “Innovation, Imitation, and Intellectual Property Rights,” Econometrica 61, no. 6 (1993): 1247. 3 Ibid., 1247-1248. 4 Michael J. Ferrantino, “The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on International Trade and Investment,” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 129, no. 2 (1993): 300. 4 Ibid. 5 “The World Bank,” The World Bank Group, 2015, http://www.worldbank.org/. 6 Ibid. 8 Executive Office of the President of the United States, Office of the United States Trade Representative, 2014 Special 301 Report, by Ambassador Michael B.G. Froman (2014), 30-58. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Russia and China also appear on the Priority Watch List; “World Trade Organization,” World Trade Organization, 2015, https://www.wto.org/ index.htm. 12 David M. Gould and William C. Gruben, “The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Economic Growth,” Journal of Development Economics 48 (1996): 324. 13 Rod Falvey and Neil Foster, “The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Technology Transfer and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence,”(2006): 55. 14 Ibid., vii. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 10. 17 EconomyWatch Content, “Cambodia Trade, Exports and Imports,” Economy Watch, March 10, 2010, http://www.economywatch.com/world_econo my/cambodia/export-import.html. 18 Albert O. Hirshman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945), xvii.

19 Helpman, “Innovation,” 1248.

Notes

Azerbaijan’s Prospects for Stability

CAROLYN DE ROSTER is a junior at the College of William and Mary majoring in International Relations. She would like to thank every professor that she has had at the College for helping to push her into a direction of study that she is greatly passionate about, and for providing her with opportunities to research those areas. In the future, she would like to work in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.

Azerbaijan’s long history of development has culminated in the creation of an autarkic and corrupt regime characterized by the presence of state monopolies, an inefficient bureaucracy, the absence of independent institutions, a lack of transparency, and an oligarchic economic structure. Through its process of development, Azerbaijan’s economy has become highly dependent on oil and natural gas production. As a country in a strategic geopolitical position, it is critical that Azerbaijan remains stable. However, stability is difficult to attain in a regime where government corruption hinders change to an uncertain economic model.

The Government and the Economy: Oligarchic Structure and High-Level Corruption Azerbaijan’s governing authoritarian regime disregards civil liberties and political rights and does not tolerate dissent. In 1993, Heydar Aliyev was elected President of Azerbaijan and instituted a hierarchical, Soviet-style power system based on patronage and the suppression of political dissent. When Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father in 2003, he intensified the most repressive aspects of the Azerbaijani government such as quelling public dissent, restricting media access, and expanding the police presence internally. Since then, the inflow of oil reserves has driven executive patronage, strengthened the state’s security system, and partially subdued domestic and foreign criticism of the regime. Not only has public opinion been silenced, but the Azerbaijani people have become tolerant of the repressive regime. State control over oil resources has created an oligarchic economic structure, resulting in widespread corruption in Azerbaijan’s government. This corruption is further sustained by a Soviet-style bureaucracy. While the government addressed low and mid-level corruption in 2013 by improving access to official government documents in 2013, high level corruption remains unchanged as the Aliyev family, state officials, and officials’ relatives continue to amass significant personal wealth.

Carolyn De Roster


Regional and Global Significance Because Azerbaijan’s economy fuels its oligarchic government, a destabilization of the economy could lead to the destabilization of the government. Azerbaijan maintains sensitive relations with Russia, Iran, Israel, and the United States, which may cause disruptions in the South Caucasus region. With its incredible wealth in energy, ambiguous balance between Western and non-Western states, and precarious geopolitical position, Azerbaijan may present a major international security threat in the event of domestic destabilization. Azerbaijan is strategically located between two major energy consumers, Europe and China, and has shown interest in supplementing Russia’s natural resource supplies as well. Furthermore, Azerbaijan has been the largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus region due to its natural-resource abundance. Consequently, Azerbaijan has been expanding its oil and natural gas exports beyond the South Caucasus region into Europe and Russia. Bolstered by energy wealth, Azerbaijan sees itself as powerful enough to balance both Western and non-Western alliances. Azerbaijan continues to implement a Russian-style authoritarian model, while also presenting itself as a strategic partner with the West on energy issues and security. By choosing not to side with either Russia or the West, Azerbaijan seeks to gain dual strategic benefits. The country’s elites hope that maintaining a trading relationship with the United States and Europe will allow them to increase their wealth without threatening Azerbaijan’s oligarchic political system. However, if Azerbaijan wants to deepen ties with the West, it should institute major political reforms. Baku’s leanings towards the West have done little to bring the country closer to its neighbors. Azerbaijan lies between Iran and Russia, two powerful and obstinate countries. In recent foreign policy, Iran has accused Azerbaijan of harboring Israeli intelligence agents, who had crossed the border to conduct operations that allegedly included the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. With regards to Russia, Azerbaijan’s leanings towards the West have threatened Russia’s influence over oligarchs and other powerful political leaders in the country. The country’s foreign policy decisions will have ramifications not only for its own state sovereignty, but also for the geopolitics of the entire region. Azerbaijan may either distance itself from the West, thereby allying itself closer to Iran and Russia, or completely embrace the West and risk regional backlash for succumbing to Western imperialism. Azerbaijan’s close relationship with Israel and its role in imposing sanctions on Iran complicate geopolitical issues in the region. Additionally, the Nagorno–Karabakh conflict with Armenia (which has a

21Azjerbaijain’s Prosepectus for Stability

military alliance with Russia) continues to stress Baku’s relationship with Moscow.

Historical Background: The Legacy of Soviet Control Azerbaijan enjoyed a brief period of independence from 1918-1920 after the collapse of the Tsarist Russian Empire. However, the country was re-conquered by Red Army forces and incorporated in the Soviet Union thereafter. Upon regaining independence in 1991, Soviet-era rulers continued to lead Azerbaijan until 1992 when the Popular Front, led by Abulfaz Elchibey, was elected to power. However, Elchibey was replaced by Aliyev, a former member of Azerbaijan’s Communist Party. These power transitions began a political pattern of repression and corrupt rule that persists today. The Soviet Union controlled most aspects of Azerbaijani administration, including budgeting, commerce, education, judicial administration, and the distribution and use of land and natural resources, leaving little political decision-making for Azerbaijani leaders themselves. Furthermore, foreign contact outside the Soviet Union was strictly controlled in order to isolate national groups, preventing them from gaining outside trading partners. The South Caucasus region, particularly Azerbaijan, was the primary supplier of Soviet oil and natural gas up until the 1960s. But when oil and natural gas were discovered in Siberia, investment and assistance from Moscow to Baku consequently dwindled, and Azerbaijan dropped to last place among Soviet republics in terms of industrial growth. Demand from the Soviet Union had rendered the Azerbaijani economy dependent upon the production of raw materials. Thus, when Moscow turned its favor toward Siberian supplies, Azerbaijan’s economy suffered severely and remained underdeveloped despite a vast supply of natural resources. The legacy of Soviet-era economic control by the ruling elite has left a great impact on the nation to this day. The post-1991 governments appointed former patrons to important positions in administrative and economic enterprises. Hence, people used bribes and payoffs to gain legal advantages. Additionally, Azerbaijan’s Soviet past contributed to the population’s demand for strong, centralized leadership. Elchibey’s inability to re-establish law and order during the chaotic years of early independence, including the immediate post-Soviet period’s socio-economic hardships, further strengthened the popular demand for powerful leaders. The 1995 Azerbaijani Constitution increased presidential powers, giving the president the ability to appoint ministers and local officials, as well as submit budgetary and other legislation that cannot be amended.


Azerbaijan’s second oil boom is the main contributor to current government corruption. The discovery of new oil reserves in the Caspian Sea attracted international investors to Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev, the president at the time, invited international oil companies to bid for projects as part of what he called the “Contract of the Century.” The result was the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, which British Petroleum (BP) has used to send oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean since 2006. Azerbaijan’s oil boom transformed its economy. Afterwards, Azerbaijan enjoyed the world’s highest economic growth rate. The boom eliminated the worst post-independence poverty in the country, and enabled the government to accommodate refugees who had fled during the war with Armenia over the Nagorno–Karabakh region. However, it also created a new group of oligarchs. Free market reforms and the oil boom have treated the “New Azeris” (wealthy elite) much better than ordinary citizens. Many in Azerbaijan continue to live below the poverty line despite having gainful employment. Life is even more difficult for those who are unemployed, or retired with inadequate pensions. The discrepancy in living standards between ordinary citizens and the new class of oligarchs sustains government corruption in the economy, as oligarchs have an interest in maintaining the status quo. Politicians in Azerbaijan typically use their political influence to protect their wealth. The president is in a particularly privileged position, but even so, he does not fully control the ministers below him. Some state ministers have created legally-sanctioned militias whose loyalties lie both with the state, as well as their individual patrons.

The Continuation of Corruption into Modern-Day Azerbaijan Azerbaijan has consistently been ranked in the highest third of global corruption indices due to its state monopoly over oil resources, its Soviet-type bureaucracy, the absence of independent institutions, and the oligarchic structure of its economy. The regime has widely publicized survey results stating that 68 percent of Azerbaijani citizens consider anti-corruption measures in the country to be effective. However, the survey does not report how these anti-corruption measures only affect low-level corruption, while high-level corruption continues despite the National Action Plan. For example, there is evidence that the Aliyev presidential family has amassed tremendous personal wealth. Opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli highlighted high-level corruption as a crucial issue in his campaign, though he did not receive any official responses from President Aliyev or the state itself. Furthermore, the 2012 Gulargate scandal revealed how parliamentary seats were available for purchase. A series of video recordings


showed MP Gular Ahmadova promising a seat in parliament in exchange for a bribe. High-ranking officials implicated in the videos survived the scandal relatively unharmed, despite the string of footage releases that continued until summer 2013. In 2003, Azerbaijan joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which the international community saw as a critical move towards transparency in the oil industry. However, out of the 14 foreign oil and gas companies that operate in the country, only BP and the state oil company (SOCAR) make their statistics publicly available. Currently, the private sector monitors the production of and income from natural resources through the National Budget Group, an umbrella watchdog organization. Regardless, oil revenue distribution has not become more transparent, as resource-related income is erased from the budget. Local experts stress the limitations of civil society involvement due to weaknesses in organization, an absence of fundamental freedoms, and a lack of transparency to elicit effective monitoring. Despite efforts towards reform, high-level officials continue to defy corruption laws. The noncompliance with existing regulations has allowed for the continuation of corrupt practices. The regime is also able to siphon off oil revenues for its own enrichment, using the State Oil Fund, which contains profits from energy exports, to expand budget limitations and exclude civil society participation. The lack of transparency in the spending and distribution of oil revenues has strengthened political patronage, a key factor in the regime’s long-term stability. Monopolies, the patronage system, links between business and political interests, and a non-transparent regulatory environment create obstacles for foreign investment and free-market business operation. The size of the unofficial economy remains large, and competition remains limited due to the difficulties of doing business in the country.

The Development of Azerbaijan’s Economy After independence, Azerbaijan lacked sufficient capital, technology, and knowledge to properly manage the resource endowments that Russia had neglected to extract when it turned its attention to Siberia in the 1960s. For this reason, Baku found it necessary to attract Foreign Direct Investment. Although FDI in Azerbaijan is challenging to maintain due to slow democratic transition, high corruption, and low labor productivity, the resource-seeking advantages are great. With “7 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and 30 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas,” the country’s large wealth of resources has successfully attracted a third wave of FDI. In the late 1990s, oil and gas exports fueled GDP growth in Azerbaijan. FDI flows contributed to the highest GDP growth rates in the


world between 2005 and 2009. Today, hydrocarbons account for 45% of Azerbaijan’s GDP and 90% of its total exports. Investment in Azerbaijan comes from the United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Russia, Norway, and Japan. The scope and timing of oil and gas development in the Caucasus depends on (1) the availability of FDI and investment, and (2) the approach authorities in Baku take towards international oil companies. The current pro-Western and FDI-friendly government policies have led to the significant growth of the hydrocarbon sector. In particular, FDI in Azerbaijan has led to the development of five oil and gas pipelines, a major proposed pipeline extension, and the promise of a new offshore gas field. In diversified economies, FDI can spur technology transfer, decreased unemployment, and increased integration into the global economy. However, FDI in Azerbaijan is overwhelmingly concentrated in the oil and natural gas sector, while the mining and agriculture industries are left wanting. Azerbaijan’s current FDI is currently constrained by an autarkic and corrupt regime, high informal market-entry barriers such as bribes, and sector monopolies. The preeminence of oil and natural gas in Azerbaijan’s economy leaves it vulnerable to external commodity price movements. Azerbaijan’s vulnerability to international markets is exacerbated by weak regional integration, problems of vested interests, and limited channels for accountability and debate. For example, until the BP Shah Deniz Phase Two offshore gas fields come on stream in 2018, the Azerbaijani government plans to continue drawing on the assets of the State Oil Fund to alleviate budget deficits. The government also uses the State Oil Fund to support rising social expenditures before elections, but has done little to strengthen social indicators or resolve infrastructure gaps. Furthermore, domestic spending levels have contributed to stronger real exchange rates, which have put pressure on other important export sectors that are not yet developed.

Conclusion Azerbaijan’s oil primacy and natural resource dependence has brought it dramatic increases in GDP since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. However, state monopoly over oil resources, Soviet-type bureaucracy, the absence of independent institutions, a lack of transparency, and the oligarchic structure of the economy all inhibit economic stability. The state monopoly over oil resources gives the state a vested interest in ensuring that the oil and natural gas sector receives a significant share of FDI. The bureaucracy in Azerbaijan prohibits significant change to the country’s economic or political systems. The absence of independent institutions impedes any process of checks and balances that could counter


central government decisions. A lack of transparency allows state officials to continue to siphon off oil and natural gas revenues, and use them to balance budget deficits and placate the population. Lastly, the oligarchic structure of the economy corrupts both politics and business practices. Thus, the government lacks incentives to restructure the economy. While Azerbaijan currently possesses abundant oil and natural gas resources, the rapid growth of these resources is not sustainable. First, the development of the oil and natural gas sector comes at the expense of others sectors, such as mining and agriculture. Second, the continued government push for FDI in the oil and natural gas sector leaves its population literate, but not trained for any other industry. Lastly, oil and natural gas are finite resources, and Azerbaijan will not be able to sustain them as its major exports indefinitely. Because Azerbaijan’s economic condition is so closely tied to its political environment, it is important that both remain stable to ensure the state’s survival. Economic and political stability will be crucial given that Azerbaijan is in a precarious geostrategic position, has shown signs of anti-Western sentiment, and provides an important source of natural resource diversity internationally.


Notes 1“Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit, accessed November 19, 2014, https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2014/azerbaijan#. VHuDfsmV3xx. 2 Official government documents had previously been exchanged for bribes; Ibid. 3 Currently there are joint venture plans between Azerbaijan and Russia in order to explore oil field locations and build infrastructure that would transport oil into Russia; Emil Ismailov, “Azerbaijan and Russia: Prospects for energy cooperation,” European Dialogue, 2014; Gawdat G. Bahgat, “Exporter Updates: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan,” Oil and Gas Journal 107 (2009): 23. 4 Gerald Hubner and Frankfurt am Main, “Foreign Direct Investment in Azerbai jan – The Quality of Quantity,” Caucasus Analytical Digest 28 (2011): 2-6. 5 Jim Nichol, “Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests,” (Congressional Research Service Report, Washington, D.C., 2013), 25- 28 6 Thomas de Waal, “Azerbaijan Doesn’t Want To Be Western: The Rhetoric and Reality of Baku’s Grand Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, September 26, 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142113/thomas-de- waal/azerbaijan-doesnt-want-to-be-western. 7 James Yan, “A Rock and a Hard Place: Azerbaijan’s Precarious Foreign Policy Perspective,” Foreign Affairs, September 17, 2014, http://www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/141993/james-yan/a-rock-and-a-hard-place 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Svante E. Cornell, Azerbaijan Since Independence (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2011). 11 Ibid. 12 Suha Bolukbasi, Azerbaijan: A Political History, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011). 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid.

15 Nichol, “Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests,” 1-2.

16 de Waal, “Azerbaijan Doesn’t Want To Be Western.”

17 de Waal, “Azerbaijan Doesn’t Want To Be Western.”

18 Ibid.

19 Bolukbasi, Azerbaijan: A Political History.


20 de Waal, “Azerbaijan Doesn’t Want to be Western.”

21 “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit.

22 “Azerbaijani Press Launches New Attacks On Khadija Ismayilova,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, August 30, 2013, quoted in “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit; Aynur Jafarova, “Official: Transparency International Report Confirms Azerbaijan’s Advances In Anti-Graft Fight,” Azernews, July 10, 2013, http://www.azernews. az/azerbaijan/56581.html. 23 Through the National Action Plan, the Azerbaijani government provides a series of proposals to reduce corruption at all levels. The plan has thus far been successful at tackling low and mid-level corruption, but has not affected high-level corruption; Ibid. 24 “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit. 25 “Top Azerbaijani Official: Reference To Me In the Video With Elshad Abdullayev and Gular Ahmedova Is a Deliberate Provocation,” Trend News Agency, October 3, 2012, http://en.trend.az/news/ politics/2072614.html. quoted in “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit. 26 “Is State Budget of Azerbaijan Transparent?” Social Watch, October 23, 2013, http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16253. quoted in, “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit. 27 “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit.

28 Azerbaijani officials are able to use money from the State Oil Fund to bribe civil society groups and pay internal police to repress these groups.

29 “Azerbaijan,” Freedom House: Nations in Transit.

30 Ibid.

31 Hubner and am Main, “Foreign Direct Investment in Azerbaijan – The Quality of Quantity,” 2-6.

32 Ibid. 33 Nichol, “Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests,” 11-12. 34 Azerbaijan’s GDP growth peaked in 2006 at 34.5%, making it the highest GDP growth in the world that year. However, by 2011 GDP growth had fallen to 0.1%. In 2013, the GDP growth rate in Azerbaijan was 5.8%. The extreme variation in Azerbaijan’s GDP growth rates reflects the volatility of oil markets and their effect on resource-dependent state economies; The World Bank, “Data,”GDP Growth (annual %), http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP. MKTP.KD.ZG?order=wbapi_data_value_2006%20wbapi_ data_value&sort=desc. 35 Additionally, Azerbaijan’s non-oil fiscal deficit (which excludes hydrocarbon-


related revenues) is more than 40% of non-oil GDP; Mark Horton and Jonathan Dunn, “Eurasia’s Next Frontier,” Finance and Development 50 (2013). 36 Hubner and am Main, “Foreign Direct Investment in Azerbaijan,” 2-6. 37 Bahgat, “Exporter Updates: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan,” 23. 38 Specifically, these developments include: the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) from Azerbaijan to Turkey, the proposed extension of SCP into the Interconnector Turkey-Italy-Greece (ITIG) gas pipeline, the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnection (AGRI), the SOCAR Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) through Turkey-Greece-Albania-Italy, the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) from Western Turkey to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria, and the promise of the BP Shah Deniz Phase Two offshore gas fields in 2018; Nichol, “Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests.” 39 Hubner and am Main, “Foreign Direct Investment in Azerbaijan,” 2-6. 40 Horton and Dunn, “Eurasia’s Next Frontier.” 41 Nichol, “Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests,” 10-11. 42 Horton and Dunn, “Eurasia’s Next Frontier.”

Native Language and Cultural Relevance: A Study on the Acquisition of English PhonologyNicole Kristen Fitchett

NICOLE KRISTEN FITCHETT graduated from the College of William and Mary with a major in Linguistics and a minor in Hispanic Studies. She looks forward to pursuing further graduate or doctoral education. She would like to thank Professor Ann Reed from William and Mary, as well as Professor Anne Golden from the University of Oslo.

Introduction Even though native-like phonology is more difficult to acquire in a second language (L2) after childhood, many foreign-language speakers who began studying after this period are generally understood in their personal and professional use of a nonnative language. L2s are learned through a variety of ways. Some people learn through immersion, others learn through frequent interaction with speakers of that language, and a great number learn through formal education. The common belief is that the most efficient way to learn a nonnative language is through immersion in that country, or living with native speakers of that language. Such methods are effective for a variety of reasons: students are able to absorb the language more efficiently; implicit input that is subtle and varied is more productive than explicit input such as classroom instruction; and an environment without error-correction allows the student to learn without being “put on the defensive.” All people who learn English as a second language (ESL) have a variable input of English, but patterns still seem to exist among the accents of ESL speakers who share the same native language. For example, every French person who learns English receives a different amount and composition of English-language input. Some have native (L1) English-speaking teachers, some do not; some take more English classes than others do, while some choose to learn other languages instead of English. Yet, when English speakers consider the French, they often think of a stereotypical “French accent” in English, regardless of how the English was learned. There are commonalities between all of them that can be seen as patterns of transfer between their native French phonology and L2 English phonology. Patterns will emerge because ESL speakers think in terms of their native pronunciation to the extent that English words and phrases are often produced with sounds native to French that would not appear in a native English speaker’s speech.


The phonemes of a language are the sounds that are used in a language to distinguish words. Mastery of these phonemes is distinct from fluency (a fluent English speaker could have an unintelligible accent). However there is a common perception that near-native pronunciation may correlate with increased fluency in a language. Stephen Krashen argues that the correlation between pronunciation and fluency results from a causal relationship: the more “authentic” one sounds when speaking a foreign language, the easier one is understood. In turn, more native speakers of that language will engage in more complex conversation with the nonnative speaker, thus improving the latter’s fluency. According to Krashen “a second language speaker who makes lots of mistakes, has a poor accent, and is hesitant, will most likely receive, in general, more modified input than a speaker who appears competent and fluent.” This theory is supported by the Input Hypothesis, which postulates that fluency is achieved by absorbing input rather than producing output. This paper comprises a small, 6-subject pilot study of the two basic causes of the so-called ‘foreign accent’: foreign language input and interference from native pronunciation. This paper will focus on four qualities of English that may be problem sounds for native speakers of Norwegian and Spanish. The four sounds analyzed from the Norwegian data will be chosen based on differences specific to Norwegian vs. English phonology, and the four from the Spanish data will be chosen based on differences specific to Spanish vs. English phonology, because each language has a unique phonological relation to English. Phonological inventories of each language can be found in Table 1.

SPANISH

ENGLISH NORWEGIAN

a

y ʉ ø œ

ɪ ʊ ə ʌ

ɛ ɔ æ ɑ

i u e o

Table 1

31Language and Cultural Relevance

In the context of this paper, the term “accent” will refer to a pronunciation that is influenced by another language. For example, a native Spanish speaker might speak English with a “Spanish accent,” and a native Norwegian speaker with a “Norwegian accent.” If the accent is very noticeable, meaning that the native phonology greatly impedes the pronunciation of English, the accent is said to be a “strong” accent. If the accent is hardly noticeable, and the speaker uses a greater amount of English phonology, they are said to have a “slight” accent. These distinctions are largely based on perception and judgment of the listener.

Phonological Comparisons During my travels in Europe, I noticed that Norwegians in Oslo tended to have less of a perceivable accent when speaking English than did Spaniards in Madrid, and I decided to investigate why. The number of phonemes shared between Norwegian and English is greater (although not significantly so) than those shared between Spanish and English (see Table 1). Norwegian is a Germanic language, like English, and so the two languages are closely related. On the other hand, Spanish is an Italic language, and English has borrowed heavily from French, Latin, and Spanish. These observations might suggest that phoneme inventories of English would come more naturally to a Norwegian than to a Spaniard. An important note to bear in mind when discussing ESL speakers is that many learn English from a great number of different sources, each of which is likely to teach a different dialect of English. Instead of comparing Norwegian and Spanish to one dialect of English, as many students are unsure of whether they learned RP (Received Pronunciation, a British dialect), SAE (Standard American English, a North American dialect), or other dialects, I will only count phonemes that violate the rules of both these widely-taught dialects as nonnative. For example, omitting the phoneme /ɹ/ is a feature of RP but not of SAE; /ɹ/ omission will therefore not be considered evidence of an accent. The phonemes /ptk/ always appear aspirated as the allophones [pʰ] [tʰ] [kʰ] at the beginning of stressed syllables in both dialects of English, so an unaspirated /ptk/ sound spoken by any ESL speaker in this environment would be considered a nonnative sound. For example, most native English speakers would consider [pit] to be a nonnative pronunciation of “peat” which is normally pronounced [phit]. “Norwegian” is a nebulous term as it is the name used to refer to the languages spoken by the people of Norway, of which there are two written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk, along with many spoken dialects. According to one of my subjects, the different dialects are mostly mutually intelligible. Classifying a language can be difficult due to personal and dialectal


variability. For this reason and for external validity in comparing Spanish and Norwegian phonemes, Norwegian as used in this study will refer to the dialects spoken by native Norwegians in and around Norway’s capital, Oslo. Norwegian has a phoneme inventory of 23 consonants and 12 vowels, as does English. The only consonants that English has that Norwegian does not are /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/, /z/, /θ/, /ð/, /ɹ/, and /v/. Additionally, Norwegian’s retroflex tap, /ɽ/, is similar to the English alveolar approximant /ɹ/. Norwegian’s labiodental approximant /ʋ/ is also similar to the English labiodental fricative /v/. To speakers of languages which do not distinguish between those two sounds, the difference may be nearly impossible to hear. “Spanish” is an even more nebulous term, as it is spoken natively by many more people and across more continents than Norwegian is. The Spanish that I will refer to in this study is the dialect known as español estándar, or “Standard Spanish,” which is most stereotypically spoken in Spain’s capital city, Madrid. The phonemes of Standard Spanish differ greatly from other varieties, such as the dialects of Castilian Spanish spoken in southern Spain or in the Canary Islands. Furthermore, these dialects of Castilian Spanish (also colloquially called “Peninsular Spanish”) differ in vocabulary and pronunciation from varieties of South American Spanish. Spanish phonology contains 19 consonants and 5 vowels, compared to English’s 23 consonants and 12 vowels. The consonants that English has that Spanish does not are /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʤ/, /z/, /ɹ/, /v/, /b/, /d/, /h/, and /ŋ/. I expect these exclusively English phonemes will be absent or used incorrectly in the speech of my Spanish subjects. In both Norway and Spain, compulsory English education in public schools begins at a young age. I selected Norwegian and Spanish as target languages because the presence of English in Oslo and Madrid varies so greatly between the two capital cities. Most English media in Madrid comes in the form of television shows, movies, and interviews. Film is usually dubbed into Spanish before presented to the consumer (or, in the case of printed text, translated). Songs with English lyrics are frequently translated into Spanish for radio broadcast. Consumers rarely hear or see the original English version of any media unless they intentionally seek out such materials. In Oslo, on the other hand, English movies and television shows are largely shown in the original English with Norwegian subtitles. Media is usually only dubbed for young children who are often unable to read yet. Many university students read English texts untranslated, and English-language songs are popular on the radio. The disparity of these two situations should make it easier to discern a correlation between any of these factors, and to understand the scope of the English phoneme inventory of the ‘average’ Spaniard or Norwegian.


Predictions: Norwegian The Norwegian rhotic is the retroflex /ɽ/, so it may appear in a native Norwegian’s English instead of /ɹ/. The same can be said for the Norwegian retroflex voiced stop /ɖ/ and the English voiced stop /d/. Norwegian speakers generally release final /ptk/, while most English speakers do not. Release of final /ptk/ may therefore be expected in the speech of Norwegians. The releasing itself is not necessarily characteristic of a nonnative accent because it does occur in English dialects, though it usually only appears in SAE if pronounced in emphatic speech. However, when this feature is used non-emphatically and combined with the use of /ɹ/ stereotypical to SAE, a foreign accent may become apparent. The phoneme /z/ does not exist in Norwegian, so there is a high probability that native Norwegian speakers would pronounce /s/ when English dictates the use of /z/.

Predictions: Spanish Unlike English speakers, Spanish speakers do not aspirate /ptk/. Because they are often used to aspirated /ptk/, English speakers may mishear unaspirated /ptk/ as /bdg/. The English contrast between /b/ and /v/ does not exist in Spanish. Instead, both written letters -b- and -v- are pronounced as /β/, a voiced bilabial fricative. Accordingly, a native Spanish speaker may have difficulty differentiating between the two sounds and is likely to pronounce /b/ and /v/ the same way. Like Norwegian, Spanish lacks the phoneme /z/. There is therefore a high probability that native Spanish speakers would approximate their speech by pronouncing its voiceless counterpart /s/ in place of /z/ in English.

Methods Each interview was conducted according to the same standards and following the same procedures. The Norwegian interviews were conducted at the University of Oslo (Blindern campus). The three participants were students between the ages of 18 and 26, and native speakers of Norwegian from the region around Oslo. The Spanish interviews were conducted in a private area of the Botini gardens in Madrid. The three participants were university students in the city between the ages of 18 and 26, as well as native speakers of Castilian Spanish from Madrid. The purpose of the study was explained to each participant. Each was given a statement of informed consent which they read and signed. I then asked them a series of questions to encourage them to speak about a broad range of topics in English. The form of the interview was informal free-response. Examples of the questions asked are:


• “What dialect of [Norwegian/Spanish] do you speak?”

• “Describe your personal history learning English.”

• “How much media do you consume weekly, and what percentage of

that is in English?”

• “Talk about your childhood: favorite foods, holidays, memories of

family, etc.”

• “Have you ever been to an English-speaking country? If so, where,

why, and for how long?” I then asked them to answer one question in their native language: “Please tell me what you have chosen to study, and why you have chosen to study that.” This allowed me to evaluate their individual pronunciation and to validate the findings of my analysis. Instead of comparing their English phoneme inventory to textbook native language phoneme inventory, I could compare their English pronunciation to their own personal native language phoneme inventory. Audio was recorded for each interview to be transcribed later.

Transcription of the six interviews was a three step process:1. Word level: A verbatim transcript was created with the words that

each participant spoke in sentence format. 2. Broad phonological transcription: The specific phonemes that each

participant spoke were written below each word-level transcription. 3. Narrow phonetic transcription: The broad phonological transcription

of the entire Spanish interviews which contained approximately six minutes of speech, and the first six minutes of speech from each Norwegian interview (which were significantly longer) were edited to reflect the exact allophones (variations of a phoneme that does not make a difference in meaning ) that each speaker used. Only the first six minutes of each Norwegian interview was narrowly transcribed to save time, and also to allow for consistency in comparison to the Spanish interviews, which were all around 6 minutes long with silences removed. From the narrow transcriptions, I was able to gather data for analysis.

Data Analysis: Norwegians Anja spent thirteen years learning English at her local public school, beginning at age five. She has visited Tanzania (whose primary language is English) briefly, but otherwise has never visited an English-speaking country.


Over half of her media consumption is in the original English, sometimes with written Norwegian subtitles. Anja releases word-final /ptk/ 89% of the time (in 28 utterances, or N=28), which is the most noticeable feature of her “accent” because such release seems inconsistent with her American pronunciation. Anja uses /s/ where English has /z/ with 25% frequency (N=4). She produced the retroflex /ɽ/ phoneme instead of the English rhotic /ɹ/ with only an 8% frequency (N=13), and then the retroflex /ɖ/ with 14% frequency (N=14). It should be noted that the use of these retroflex sounds occurred at the beginning of the transcript only, and may have been a result of her abrupt transition from Norwegian to English speech. Anja statistically shows a strong accent in word-final /ptk/ release, a slight accent in substituting /s/ for /z/, and almost no noticeable accent in the use of retroflex /ɽ/ and /ɖ/ sounds instead of their non-retroflex counterparts. Brita has learned English for eleven years in public school since she was ten years old. She lived in Australia for a little under 1 year, and has previously visited the United States and the United Kingdom on vacation. Most of the media Brita consumes is in English. Brita releases word-final /ptk/ phonemes 27% of the time (N=40). Brita substitutes /s/ for /z/ with 100% frequency (N=8). She produced the retroflex /ɽ/ phoneme instead of the English rhotic /ɹ/ with only a 5% frequency (N=46), and then the retroflex /ɖ/ with 4% frequency (N=26). As with Anja, Brita may have produced these retroflex sounds during her transition from Norwegian to English speech, as they appear only in the first few utterances of the transcript. Brita statistically shows a weak accent in word-final /ptk/ release, a strong accent in the inappropriate use of /s/, and almost no noticeable accent in the use of retroflex /ɽ/ or /ɖ/ sounds instead of their non-retroflex counterparts. Carl has spent at least ten years learning English. He lived in the United States for one year when he was nine years old and one year when he was seventeen. The majority of the media Carl consumes is in English. Carl’s English does not show any trace of retroflex sounds that are characteristic of Norwegian. His /ptk/ phonemes are all unreleased at the end of words (N=11), as is expected of a native speaker of SAE. He produces /z/ rather than /s/ phonemes when called for (N=9). Anecdotally, I should include that when I first spoke to Carl I assumed that he was American, and did not initially believe him when he told me he was a native Norwegian speaker.

Data Analysis: Spaniards Alberto spent thirteen years learning English at a bilingual school, beginning at age 5. He has never lived in nor visited an English-speaking country. Approximately one-third of his weekly media consumption is in English. Alberto aspirated /ptk/ allophones at the beginning of stressed


syllables 86% of the time, as is consistent with English phonology. He is identified as having a slight accent because of the incorrect 14% unaspirated /ptk/s (N=7). He correctly produced the English-appropriate /v/ sound instead of /β/ with 100% frequency (N=4). /b/ was not a naturally-occurring English phoneme in any of the words he used, so it is understandable that he produced zero /b/ phonemes. Alberto uses /s/ where English has /z/ with 100% frequency (N=6). In summary, Alberto statistically shows a slight accent in syllable-initial /ptk/ aspiration before vowels, no accent in the use of /v/ and /b/, and a heavy accent in the inappropriate use of /s/. Bernardo has been learning English in school for twelve years, beginning at age six. He has never lived in nor visited an English-speaking country, nor is any of his media consumption in English. Bernardo produces unaspirated /ptk/ where English speakers have aspirated sounds with 100% frequency (N=2). He uses /s/ in place of /z/ with 100% frequency (N=3). Bernardo produces neither /b/ nor /v/, instead using /β/ with 100% frequency (N=4). Overall, Bernardo numerically shows a heavy accent in lacking /ptk/ aspiration, a heavy accent in the use of /β/ for /v/ and /b/, and a heavy accent in the inappropriate use of /s/ in place of /z/. Claudia has spent fifteen years learning English in school. She has never lived in nor visited an English-speaking country, and little of the two hours of weekly media she consumes is in English. Claudia aspirates /ptk/ appropriately with a 13% frequency (N=8) and uses the phoneme /s/ in place of /z/ with 100% frequency (N=5). She produces neither /b/ nor /v/ phonemes, instead using /β/ with 100% frequency (N=3). Claudia statistically shows a strong accent in lack of aspiration, in use of /β/, and in use of /s/ instead of /z/.

Discussion The results of the phonological analysis follow the general trend that was hypothesized at the outset of my study; the Norwegians tended to use fewer non-English phonemes and allophones in their English speech samples than did the Spaniards. The Norwegian differences appeared in sounds that we don’t distinguish in English (retroflexes), allophonically in the release of utterance-final /ptk/ sounds, and phonemically when /z/ was said as /s/. The Spanish differences appeared allophonically in a lack of aspirated /ptk/ sounds, and phonemically in the pronunciation of /b/ and /v/ as /β/ and the pronunciation of the English /z/ as /s/ after a vowel. This indicates a correlation between cultural exposure to English and native-sounding English phonology; Norwegians tend to consume more English media and have a more native-sounding English phonology than Spaniards. This supports the hypothesis that it is not the L1 that determines L2 English


phonology, but rather the depth and length of exposure to English, though of course it is impossible to separate the confounding factor of L1 phonemic inventory similarities. The presence of English in each participant’s life seems to be correlated with their English phonological proficiency. For example, Alberto went to a bilingual (Spanish/English) school, and his English phonology was more consistently accurate than the other Spaniards. Bernardo’s extremely nonnative English phonology is consistent with the fact that he consumes no English media nor has ever been to an English-speaking country. Claudia, whose English immersion is somewhere between the levels of Alberto and Bernardo, has a grasp of English phonology that is also somewhere in between the nativeness of Alberto and Bernardo. Each of the three Norwegian participants has spent more vacation and residence time around English speakers, is immersed in English media, and has a more native English phonology than any of the Spaniards. Carl, who lived in the United States for two years at a younger age than any other participant, and who consumes mostly English media, has a more native English phonology than the other Norwegian subjects. Next is Brita, who lived in Australia for nine months and consumes less English media than Carl but more than Anja. Least native is Anja, who consumes the smallest amount of English media of the three Norwegians, and has spent the shortest amount of time in an English-speaking country. Perception could also play a role in the stereotypical conception of foreign accents. It is possible that the retroflex sounds of the Norwegian accent are not as noticeable to English speakers because English phonology does not contain retroflex sounds. This would mean that they do not have the ability to distinguish a /d/ from a /ɖ/; it might sound slightly “off,” but not so much so that it would be confused for a different phoneme. Because English speakers would not mistake the /ɽ/ or /ɖ/ with any other phonemes, they are less likely to notice this misuse; on the other hand, a Spaniard confusing a /b/ for a /v/ is extremely noticeable because they are different English phonemes. As such, it may be difficult to discern what word a Spaniard with that particular accent feature is trying to say. This would support the fluency hypothesis that speakers who are perceived as having “little accent,” or a more native phonology, would also be perceived as more fluent. Even though Norwegian does not have more phonemes in common with English than Spanish does, Norwegians may be able to pronounce more nonnative phonemes than Spaniards because of their more diverse phoneme inventory. The conclusion could then be drawn that speakers of languages with greater phoneme diversity in their inventory would be better at producing the phonologies of nonnative languages because they can more


easily manipulate their consonant space. If this is true, one would expect Norwegians to have an advantage over Spaniards in learning any other nonnative language, a prediction that I was not able to test. It should also be noted that the Norwegian participants all spoke English more fluently (with very few errors in syntax and colloquial phrases) than did the Spanish participants. This could be due to the constant exposure due to influx of English media, as explained through Krashen’s Input Hypothesis. It could also be because Norwegian and English are part of the same language family, and English syntax is therefore easier for Norwegians to learn than it is for Spaniards. Cultural relevance affects the acquisition of a language, and English is extremely culturally relevant in Norway. Krashen reports having heard Yiddish spoken in his family as a child, but never acquiring the language because he did not feel that it was relevant to his life. Perhaps Spaniards feel less compelled to acquire English phonology because it is not as relevant in their lives; they are exposed to English occasionally in school but nowhere else. English has become more prevalent in Norway as the country increasingly globalizes. Spaniards have a larger body of Spanish-language speakers to communicate with when outside their borders, whereas Norwegian is only primarily spoken in Norway. Norwegians must learn English, the de facto world language, for utilitarian purposes to better connect with non-Norwegians economically, socially, and politically.

Conclusion The findings of the study suggest what all of the Norwegian subjects have anecdotally expressed to me: that they speak English with a high degree of native phonology because of the levels of exposure they receive on a regular basis. Furthermore, the variation in levels of English phonology among the Spanish participants alone showed a correlation between exposure to English and acquisition of English phonology. Further research should be conducted with more speech samples in order to extend the validity of these findings. It would also be worthwhile to study Spaniards who had lived in an English-speaking country to see if they were able to reach the same level of phonological nativeness as similarly-immersed Norwegians. These results indicate that native phonology seems to provide a number of challenges when acquiring English phonology, but with sufficient exposure to authentic English phonology, those obstacles shrink and one’s native phonology may become less prevalent in English. This is shown in the correlation between the high amount of English in Norwegian media and the high amount of English phonology usage exhibited by ESL Norwegians. One’s accent is always dictated by one’s native phonology, but the strength


of that accent can be reduced with more exposure to English. It also appears that exposure to a language at an earlier age correlates to less of a perceived accent. To extend the results of this study, speakers of other languages and at different ages of exposure should be observed in this same manner. The universal nature of language acquisition can be called upon to extrapolate these conclusions to other languages as well (until further studies are done); if anyone wishes to increase comprehensibility and the appearance of nativeness in a nonnative language, immersion is key. Native phonology dictates the starting point of phonological acquisition in a nonnative language, but the level of success and the progress reached is a variable, potentially controllable factor.


Notes1 Paul M. Lewis, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 17th ed. (Dallas: SIL International, 2013). 2 An allophone is a variation of a phoneme. In English, aspirated [ph ] and unaspirated [p] are allophones of the phoneme /p/. 3 Birte Hillestad, Olaf Husby, Åsta Øvregaard, and Sissel Robbins, Norwegian on the Web (Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2011), 7. 4 Steven Weinberger, Speech Accent Archive (Fairfax: George Mason University, 2013), http://accent.gmu.edu. 5 Paul M. Lewis, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig, Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 17th ed. (Dallas: SIL International, 2013). “Spanish.” 6 Standard Spanish is a linguistic term for the phonology of this area, and not a term for the dialect that is well-recognized by the average individual. 7 M.P. Nuño Álvarez and J.R.Franco Rodríguez Fonética, (Anaya ELE, 2008). 8 Lewis et al., Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 9 Weinberger, Speech Accent Archive. 10 Ibid. 11 A. Golden, personal interview with author, April 4, 2013. 12 “What Is Phonology?” LinguaLinks Library 5.0 Plus, SIL International, January 5, 2004, http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/ GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsPhonology.htm. 13 All names used in this study are pseudonyms. 14 Lewis et al., “Language Family,” in Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15 Krashen, Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, 63.

Hayley Tymeson

Paraguay Alone: The Effects of Isolation and Regional Imbalances on the Development of Paraguay

HAYLEY TYMESON graduated from the College of William and Mary with a major in International Relations and a minor in Economics last year. She would like to express her gratitude to Gustavo Guerrero for helping with edits and patiently listening as she spoke of Paraguay over the past few years. In the future, she plans to volunteer as a research coordinator in Mexico with the global health organization, Partners in Health.

Paraguay is often overshadowed by its wealthier and more developed neighbors in South America. While Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay draw significant attention in academic literature and debate, Paraguay is delegated to footnotes in regional analyses. Hedge fund managers likely receive daily updates on Argentina’s debt crisis, and Uruguay made headlines with its decision to legalize marijuana in 2013. Brazil is considered the economic powerhouse of Latin America. These countries rank highest in terms of GDP per capita in South America; in contrast, Paraguay has the third lowest per capita GDP in the region. So what explains Paraguay’s outcast status in the Southern Cone, despite sharing a common colonial legacy, geography, and culture? I argue that Paraguay’s deviation from regional trends began under Spanish rule, and its position as a landlocked and resource-empty state served to exacerbate alienation. Its isolation deepened as the country drew inward to protect itself from its more powerful neighbors, Brazil and Argentina. This regional imbalance of power created the perfect conditions for totalitarianism. Because of the threat of annexation by Brazil and Argentina, lone political strongmen were in a prime position to convince rivals and allies to cede power to a central authority. Placing power in the hands of a select few allowed certain actors to have vast and personalized influence over the course of Paraguay’s development. These dictatorial leaders set Paraguay on a path that has influenced its political and economic structure to this day. Paraguay continues to be characterized by a staunch resistance to foreign influence, perpetual lack of resources, and continued dependence on neighbors for oceanic trade access. But the very conditions that allowed them to take power also constrained (and in many ways, dictated) their available courses of action. This paper will analyze the extent to which contemporary patterns of


democracy, drug violence, human rights, and immigration in Paraguay follow regional trends. A historical analysis provides useful context for Paraguay’s development. The next section will narrate the events and situations that shaped Paraguay’s sense of independence. Interestingly, independence immediately brought a new form of subjugation, under the guidance of “Supreme Ruler” Juan Gaspar de la Francia. Independence, coupled with a lack of resources and limited access to oceanic trade, pushed Dr. Francia to implement strong isolationist policies for his new domain.

Historical Analysis Paraguay’s isolation, 150 years in the making, continues to affect the country. During the colonial era, Paraguay received little attention from the international community. The colony lacked mineral deposits and seaports, rendering large-scale trade difficult. The inhospitable Chaco region, grasslands of exceptionally high temperatures that compose a majority of Paraguay’s interior, deterred most settlers. The largest settlements included Asunción, the only city, and the relatively autonomous mission towns of Jesuits and indigenous followers. The Spanish saw little to desire, and left the colony alone until the mid-1700s when the Jesuit societies began to draw attention for their highly lucrative yerba trade. Spain tried to impose more authority over the missions towns, but the Jesuits resisted and even encouraged their indigenous Guaraní followers to take up arms against the Spanish. In 1767, the Spanish reasserted control and expelled the Jesuits from Paraguay. Spain dissolved the colony in 1776 and transferred its authority to Buenos Aires under the Viceroyalty de la Plata. However, over a century of Spanish neglect created a distinct sense of autonomy in Paraguay; the territory would not willingly remain under Argentine rule for long. When the Wars of Independence broke out in the early 1800s, Asunción refused to remain a part of Argentina. The city mustered an army from surrounding areas and won independence from both Spain and Buenos Aires in 1811. Within five years, Paraguay would be led by the first of many dictators, Juan Gaspar de la Francia. Francia was a central figure during the transition from colonial administration to independent governance. Despite a peace accord, Argentina continued to bully its smaller neighbor, and even tried to enlist Paraguayans into the Argentine army. The peace accord failed, hostilities rose, and Argentina to set up a blockade around Paraguay. Francia promised to protect Paraguay’s autonomy, and the Paraguayan Congress granted him the title of “Supreme Dictator of the Republic” in return. In line with my theory, Paraguay’s first dictator gained power by emphasizing the threat of foreign acquisition.

43Paraguay Alone

Francia implemented a nationalist, isolationist policy that shut off almost all contact from the rest of the world. He closed the country’s borders, enacted land reform, and set Paraguay on a path towards development. Francia invested heavily in the military to protect against threats from Argentina and Brazil, which contributed to Paraguay’s rapid modernization. In his paper “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” Charles Tilly argues that the rising military-industrial complexes of Europe in the 1700s brought about the development of the modern nation-state. Similarly, militarization forced Paraguay to develop the institutions necessary for war. State capacity rapidly developed through centralized planning in order to finance the policing of citizens and borders. Francia also strengthened discriminatory marriage policies that began under colonialism. He banned marriage between Spanish creoles in order to weaken the nobility’s power and in turn, strengthen his own. Today, Paraguay is one of the most racially homogeneous countries in Latin America, with a 95 percent mestizo population. Paraguay’s demographics clearly demonstrate that the whims of Paraguayan totalitarians had lasting effects on the country’s future. Francia’s policies homogenized Paraguayans racially, but the decisions of Mariscal Francisco Solano Lopez would have an even stronger effect on Paraguayan demographics. Francisco Solano Lopez succeeded his father as president in 1862. Unlike Paraguay’s former dictators, Francisco was unable to maintain the Southern Cone’s balance of power. The rule of Lopez, which brought about the War of the Triple Alliance, would come to be the dividing point in Paraguayan history. The war pitted Paraguay against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Although Francia’s militarization had provided Paraguay (by current estimates) with the largest army in the region, Paraguay was annihilated in the end. Census data at the time is unreliable, but the literature holds that no less than 60 percent of the population died. Roughly thirty thousand men over the age of 15 survived, a 90% reduction of the male population before the war. Paraguay never quite recovered, and essentially remained under the control of Brazil and Argentina for the next ten years. During that time, the new authorities claimed Paraguayan land. The land ownership inequality which began with the War of the Triple Alliance continues to plague Paraguay today. Two patterns emerge. First, Paraguay’s historical politics were defined by the struggle to maintain autonomy. Paraguayans fought against Spain, Argentina, and then finally to near extinction in the War of the Triple Alliance to resist foreign rule. Its dictators used centralized state planning, isolation, and balance of power politics to achieve this end. The quest for autonomy fomented a strong Paraguayan nationalism. Second, Paraguay’s


dependence upon Brazil and Argentina for oversea trade access has led to constantly shifting relations between the three countries. The need to balance the importance of autonomy with that of trade, proved difficult. Some Paraguayan leaders managed to maintain this balance, shifting favor from Argentina to Brazil if dependence grew too strong (as Francia and Alfredo Stroessner have in the past). Mariscal Lopez represents those who were unable to maintain that balance, which has resulted in disastrous consequences.

Drugs and Smuggling Paraguay is an ideal transit state. It lies between Bolivia, the continent’s largest producer of coca, and Brazil, which purchases drugs both for its large domestic population and for export to European buyers. Geographically, the country boasts large swaths of open countryside and long, undefended borders. Throw in a highly-complicit political elite and a limited formal economy, and Paraguay has the makings of an ideal drug smuggling nation. Paraguay lacks natural resources and industrial infrastructure, and exists mainly as an agricultural society. Marijuana, as both a crop and a drug, fetches high prices for Paraguayan farmers. As a result, they grow a considerable amount. The UNOCD estimates that 15 percent of the global supply originates in Paraguay. The authoritarian characteristics of the state also had its impact on the development of Paraguay’s drug-based economy.Paraguay’s position as a trafficking state solidified under the Stroessner regime in the 1970s. General Alfredo Stroessner had a tight grip on Paraguayan politics, evidenced by his 35-year long rule. He did not use his political sway to stem the drug trade; if anything, he encouraged it. Stroessner referred to smuggling as “the price of peace,” focusing his efforts on containing communism instead. The General’s anti-communist stance and strong support of U.S. policy earned the country almost $300 million in aid since 1954. The “Stronato” era (a term for the reign of Stroessner) continues to define politics (and trafficking, by extension) to this day. Stroessner’s Colorado party controlled the presidency for sixty years without interruption until finally losing the 2008 elections. However, Paraguay’s transition to democracy did not force the Colorados to clean up their act. Trafficking, corruption, and extortion remains the status quo among top Colorado officials. There is a looming question here: how does a small nation like Paraguay make such disproportionately large waves in the smuggling world? The answer lies forty years back, in Stroessner’s heyday. In the 1970s, Paraguay’s economy was booming. Commodity prices were high, generating large intakes of foreign reserves from Paraguayan cotton and soybean exports. Stroessner used the money to fund infrastructure and energy projects,

45Paraguay Alone

including roads to end Paraguay’s dependence on Argentine trade routes. The construction of the Itaipu Dam with Brazil strengthened the economy and Stroessner’s regime; the government distributed dam construction contracts to its supporters. The development of Paraguay’s infrastructure resulted in an inadvertent, but mutually reinforcing pattern: as roads and trade routes improved, smuggling became less costly and more attractive. Stronger ties with Brazil manifested in the formal sector with energy sales from Itaipu, and informally through smuggling and trafficking networks. Itaipu promised a long-term source of funding, spurring investment and the openings of banks-- to handle both legitimate transactions and money laundering for the traffickers. To a certain extent, Stroessner embodied Mancur Olson’s conception of a “stationary bandit.” The stationary bandit is an extortioner who maximizes utility by improving the economic conditions of those he terrorizes. By doing so, the stationary bandit has more resources to distribute to his supporters, and thereby consolidates his power. A democratic government could be seen as the “benevolent” stationary bandit, who fairly distributes gains back to the population. Instead, Stroessner distributed contracts, trade routes, and resources to his supporters, rendering him more of a nepotistic bandit. Instead of improving systems of taxation, he strengthened contract enforcement in the informal sector in order to generate more income to distribute additional benefits to an elite group of Paraguayans.

Violence Violence in Paraguay peaked in 2002, and has fallen since then. By 2012, Paraguayan homicide rates had fallen below the continental average. The rise in violence at the beginning of the century is likely related to the weakened position of the Colorado party. The party dominated the executive for over six decades without interruption, beginning with Stroessner’s leadership. The Colorados started losing their grip on power during Paraguay’s transition to democracy. Noticeable rifts began to appear in the late 1990s, culminating in the assassination of Vice President Luis Argaña in 1999. Argaña had represented a powerful faction in the party. In 2002, the same year violence peaked, a separate faction within the party splintered off to form the National Union of Ethical Citizens, or UNACE. UNACE went on to win 17 seats in the legislature in 2003, making it the third-largest party in Paraguay. The surge in violence at that time follows Richard Snyder’s theory which predicts that violence will increase when state-sponsored protection rackets break down. I would argue that Paraguay’s state protection rackets did not


completely break down, but rather significantly weakened. The Colorado party has maintained a near-constant claim on the executive since the 1940s, losing control of the executive for the first time in 61 years in 2008. Fernando Lugo gained office under a coalition of leftist parties, but he didn’t manage to keep it. Lugo was controversially impeached in 2012, but many neighboring countries denounced the impeachment as a coup. The Colorado party won the next elections, and has held the executive office ever since. The democratic opening of the 1990s weakened the party, but did not destroy it, as evidenced by its swift return to the executive after Lugo’s ouster. In line with Snyder’s theory, the party’s initial weakness caused a spike in violence, but after they regained power, levels of violence subsided.

Democracy It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when democratic transition began in Paraguay. The country has a history of authoritarian leaders, coups, and civil wars, without even an attempt at democracy until Stroessner’s fall in 1990. Furthermore, the coup that ousted Stroessner was internally instigated, rather than the result of societal pressure. Former Stroessner strongman General Andrés Rodríguez orchestrated the coup and took over as interim president. Rodríguez publically broadcast his commitment to democracy and promised elections to the Paraguayan people. Elections came too quickly to be fair. After 35 years of political repression, the opposition had only three months to organize itself before the polls opened. Unsurprisingly, the Colorado party won, with none other than Rodríguez as party candidate. Opposition parties made gains with more time, proving that democratization was more than just talk. The opposition won a majority of mayoral elections in 1991, even taking Asuncion from Colorado. The Paraguayan Constitution, written in 1992 by a majority-Colorado constituent assembly, was widely praised by the international community for its human rights protections and precautionary measures. It established a bicameral legislature, an elected executive, and an independent judicial branch. Some progressive and preventative aspects include: single term limits for presidents, a ban on active-duty military personnel in politics, and the recognition of land reform and indigenous collective rights. Paraguay thus satisfies the conditions for democracy on paper. In reality, the country barely merits status as a procedural democracy which, according to Robert Dahl’s concept of polyarchy, would require competition and inclusion at minimum. Formally, Paraguay has procedures in place to guarantee both, with leaders elected through simple majorities by any Paraguayan over age 18. In practice, it could be argued that competition is

47Paraguay Alone

less than perfect. Corruption still undermines true competition in Paraguayan politics. It is not necessary to dig deep to find evidence of corruption in Paraguay. Post-Stroessner presidents and senators continue to maintain their illegal networks while in public office. General Andres Rodriguez was not only the first president of democratic Paraguay, but also the “drug kingpin of Paraguay,” according to the Transnational Institute. The executive branch has remained plagued by corruption charges. To date, eight presidents have served under the new democracy; two resigned, one was impeached (under dubious legal circumstances), and three faced charges for fraud and embezzlement. With the exception of Lugo, all were Colorado party members and associated with state corruption or contraband trade. The current president, Horatio Cartes, is a businessman whom the U.S. State Department and DEA has previously investigated as a central figure in Paraguayan money laundering. The judicial branch is similarly reproachable. Freedom House provides a useful description of the judiciary in their rule of law report:

Colorado party influence on the judiciary is especially strong. Though court independence is constitutionally guaranteed, roughly 60% of judges are affiliated with the party. As a result, high-ranking Colorado officials and wealthy Paraguayans (often one and the same) have preferential access to the law, while the poor are marginalized. Considering Paraguay’s high levels of inequality, that means most of society lacks competent legal protection. Until the Colorado party cleans up its ranks or vacates power, full democracy in Paraguay will remain out of reach. Still, the formation of any democracy contradicts the original theory proposed: that Paraguay’s position as a landlocked country surrounded by threatening neighbors should lead to totalitarianism. Changes in international norms and technology within the last fifty years changed the circumstances, creating conditions where democracy in Paraguay is plausible, if difficult. First, Paraguay’s neighbors no longer threaten the existence of the nation. With the creation of the United Nations after WWII, states were internationally recognized as the building blocks of the international order. Sovereignty and the maintenance of borders is now an international norm, reinforced by the decolonization of the 1960s. The invasion of foreign

The judiciary is nominally independent but is highly corrupt and subject to external influence. Corruption in the judiciary led to trial delays and extended pretrial detention in 2013. Courts are inefficient, and politicians routinely pressure judges and block investigations. The constitution permits detention without trial until the accused has completed the minimum sentence for the alleged crime.


territory has become extremely rare; wherever it occurs, political backlash and international discourse follow. Paraguay no longer needs to fear foreign invasion or annexation of territory, barring immense changes to the global order. But if international norms solidified borders in the 1960s, Paraguay hasn’t really been in danger of foreign annexation for over 50 years. So why did the transition to democracy only come about in 1990? Though international norms defended Paraguay’s borders, regional norms strengthened Paraguay’s form of government. The country fell under authoritarianism in 1954, too soon after WWII for international norms to be solidified. Within the next few decades, bureaucratic authoritarianism would sweep through the rest of the Southern Cone. Stroessner’s dictatorship was reinforced by tacit acceptance from global powers and warm approval from neighboring despots. But in the 1980s, authoritarian governments in the Southern Cone started to topple. Argentina started the trend, with its military junta stepping down in 1983. Military juntas in Brazil and Uruguay followed suit in 1985, and Argentine despot Augusto Pinochet was voted out in 1988. With the democratic transitions of the 1980s, one more constraint against the development of democracy in Paraguay was removed, , one more constraint against the development of democracy in Paraguay was removed. Second, Paraguay’s position as a landlocked country no longer obstructs its chances of trade. Stroessner, in a rare interview, bragged about his infrastructure projects: “We also used the Brazilian road to reach the Atlantic, for exports and imports to Paraguay.” Energy rents from Itaipu Dam also guaranteed a source of income for Paraguay, as did the illicit trade of drugs and contraband. Stroessner focused on the elimination of trade dependence as one of his major goals, just as Francia had aimed to do in the 1800s. Francia relied on isolationist policies and development projects to reduce trade dependence. Stroessner used infrastructure improvements, including better road networks and long-term income from Itaipu, to increase Paraguay’s bargaining power in trade deals. Lastly, democracy is new, incomplete, and exceptional in Paraguayan history. Most countries in Latin America, a region known for its undemocratic regimes, experimented with democracy before 1990. Paraguay’s leaders never truly made democratic efforts, other than accepting the misleading title of “president.” Its economy is predominantly informal compared to other Southern Cone countries, implying that politicians lack the capability or desire to develop a legitimate economic sector. Paraguayan democracy is also less substantive than in neighboring countries; in the last two years, there have been numerous scares, scandals, and attempted coups in Paraguay,

49Paraguay Alone

while Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay have enjoyed relative political stability.

Human Rights Human rights in Latin America have a bleak history. Paraguay is no exception, though its human rights abuses follow a unique timetable compared to its surrounding countries. Human rights abuses became politicized earlier in Paraguay than in the rest of the region. After the Wars of Independence in the early 1800s, most South American countries experienced fifty years of chaos under regional caudillos (strongmen). Paraguayans instead suffered systematic political targeting and repression under Francia, who ascended to power in 1816. Sofia Cardenas theorizes that “exclusionary ideologies” that create an out-group are precursors for human rights abuses. Paraguay’s dictators, from Francia to Stroessner, used exactly this tactic to justify crackdowns on the opposition. The 1800s were characterized by dictatorial leaders who preferred absolute control. During that period, the economy was dominated by the state, so economic interests were subsumed by the state. The military also possessed strong influence due to pre-war build-ups in the 1860s and the 1930s. Civil society in Paraguay has faced repression and subjugation to political entities for a very long time. As a result, repression became an expected attribute of Paraguayan culture, which explains the low levels of backlash against dictators committing abuses. Stroessner, as an example, was ousted in an internal coup rather than through popular demand, as occurred in most other Southern Cone regions. Paraguayans were either unwilling or incapable of organizing large-scale resistance. History suggests incapability, not apathy. Strong centralized authority and repression of opposition likely weakened civil society. Geographic considerations add further barriers to societal organization; low population density and limited transportation infrastructure make coordination more difficult. Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán theorize that the normative preferences of political actors, including the military, civil society, politicians, and economic groups, are the main factors contributing to regime type. They also emphasize the importance of regional trends in changing the nature of a regime. I believe Paraguayan elites, including the military and dictators, maintained their grip on power by weakening civil society and creating structures that perpetuated their power. The rule of Alfredo Stroessner is one such example. He committed his worst atrocities upon taking power in 1954, when the surrounding region was still mostly democratic. Abuses included the repression and illegal


imprisonment of the opposition (sometimes for over 20 years), torture, and political assassinations. Political parties other than Stroessner’s own were banned and dismantled. His regime received criticism from international organizations, as well as the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Elie Wiesel once compared Stroessner’s treatment of Paraguay’s Ache Indians to the Holocaust. The rise of bureaucratic authoritarian regimes in the rest of the Southern Cone doubtless aided Stroessner’s ambition. But the initial turn towards repression and human rights abuses occurred outside of regional trends. In recent years, elites showed only slight inclinations toward democracy until the 1990s. Still, democracy is more rhetoric than reality. Elites, aided by high levels of inequality, have the power to maintain structural systems that keep rights conditional, rather than universal. Human rights have seen large gains with the shift toward democracy, but the laws are still applied unequally. The Constitution provides for the legal protection of basic rights, which has continued to improve through legislation promoting women’s and workers’ rights. Yet, Amnesty International reports that peasants, women, and indigenous groups have far weaker access to social services and legal resources than elites.

Immigration Paraguayan net immigration has been negative since at least 1967. The World Bank estimates that between 2010 and 2014, net migration was -40,000. The data shows that emigration was strongest in the 1960s, with roughly 70,000 more people leaving Paraguay than entering. From there, emigration fell until around 1990, and then increased during the ‘90s and 2000s. Paraguayan migrants abroad represent almost 12 percent of the population according to the International Organization for Migration. A few trends stand out. Emigration was at its highest in Paraguay during the earlier days of Stroessner. Those leaving the country likely suffered political persecution. The lowest point of net migration in 1990 corresponds with the end of Stroessner’s regime, suggesting that Paraguayans and foreigners felt safe enough to return or enter the country. The rise in emigration rates in the late ‘90s and early 2000s coincides with the breakdown of the Colorado party and period of increasing violence described earlier in this paper. Paraguayans seem to be leaving for a number of reasons. There appears to be a relation between migration and political uncertainty in Paraguay. However, more thorough quantitative research would be required to verify correlation. Economic opportunity is a credible push factor; as the least-developed country in the Southern Cone, there are many opportunities for higher pay

51Paraguay Alone

just across the border. Argentina, specifically Buenos Aires, accounts for the largest number of Paraguayan migrants. This trend strengthened with the passage of Argentina’s migrant worker law in 2004, which protects the rights of migrant workers and provides social services for illegal immigrants. Spain, Brazil, and the United States are also top destinations for Paraguayan migrants. Paraguay was not always a land without opportunity. During the first half of the 19th century, Paraguay was actually highly developed compared to its neighbors (excluding Argentina). Francia’s successor Carlos Antonio Lopez developed and industrialized the nation, transforming it into a “socialist utopia” in the eyes of some Europeans. Paraguay built the first railroad and the first iron foundry in South America, evidence of its efforts at modernization. The promise of economic security and industry attracted European immigrants in the 1880s, especially from Germany. But the War of the Triple Alliance destroyed any progress in that direction, killing a great number of Paraguayans in the process. After the war, borders were thrown open in hopes of enticing settlers that would help to rebuild Paraguay’s broken society. However, the war-torn land attracted very few foreigners, and repelled many native Paraguayans away from their home country. Today, Paraguay retains the vestiges of a bizarre immigration history. German and Japanese communities mix Old World cultures with Paraguayan influence. The border with Brazil hosts large numbers of Taiwanese, Lebanese, and Brazilian citizens, who are there to take advantage of the booming smuggling trade. Overall, Paraguayan migration does not need much interpretation. Paraguayans usually leave to find jobs that an agriculturally-based economy cannot provide. Because education is low, migrants are usually low-skilled laborers, taking up low-wage work. Though Paraguayan GDP is rising rapidly, the gains of economic growth are not distributed equally. The Brazilian “invasion” of eastern Paraguay in the 1960s (to take advantage of cheaper lands for soybean production) continues to exacerbate land inequality issues in Paraguay. Inequality remains high for the region, and until the Paraguayan economy can match the wages of higher-income countries, workers will continue to leave. In fact, poverty could explain the surprisingly low migration rate, as travelling in and out of Paraguay is expensive due to its geographic location and dispersed rural population.

Conclusions Paraguay appears to be a country stuck in the past. Its legacy of dictatorships, war, corruption, and smuggling makes it uniquely underdeveloped in the Southern Cone. The country began as a marginalized


colony, unable to offer lucrative resources or strategic trade importance. The malevolence of wealthier neighbors threatened Paraguay’s existence in its formative years, paving the way for controlling dictators. The precedence towards authoritarianism and constant press for state survival shaped much of Paraguay’s history. Now, Paraguay faces new challenges in the modern international system. The informal sector must be internalized, or the Paraguayan state will remain unable to ensure security and prosperity for its citizens. Corruption must be rooted out, and democracy respected. If not, Paraguayans will continue to emigrate out of their lonely state, furthering Paraguay’s status as an isolated and underpopulated nation.

53Paraguay Alone

1 “World Economic Outlook Database October 2014,” IMF World, accessed De cember 7, 2014, https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2014/02/ weodata/index.aspx .

2 Dennis Michael Hanratty, “Historical Setting,” in Paraguay, a Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1990), http://memory.loc.gov/ cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+py0012)

3 James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, Origins and Early Maturity (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 263-266.

4 Walter Nonneman, “On the Economics of Socialist Theory and the Reducciones of the Jesuits (1609-1767),” in The Political Economy of Theocracy, ed. Mario Ferrero and Ronald Wintrobe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 130-146.

5 Jerry Cooney, “Paraguayan Independence and Doctor Francia,” The Americas 28, no.4 (1972), http://www.jstor.org/stable/980204.

6 Hanratty, “Historical Setting.”

7 Cooney, “Paraguayan Independence,” 415-426.

8 Ibid.

9 Act of Congress, Asunci6n, June 1, 1816, CRB 1-29, 23, 5-B.

10 Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson, “The Nationalist Experiment,” in The Paraguayan Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 54-59.

11 C. Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. P. Evans et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169-191.

12 John Hoyt Williams, “Paraguayan Isolation under Dr. Francia: A Re- Evaluation,” Hispanic American Historical Review 52 (1972): 115.

13 “Paraguay,” The World Factbook 2013-14, (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013)

14 Scholars disagree on the causes of the War of the Triple Alliance, but most acknowledge Lopez’s role as the instigator. The prevailing logic argues that Francisco Solano was trying to protect Uruguayan independence, which he believed as crucial to maintaining the regional balance of power and preserving Paraguayan autonomy; Lambert, “The Nationalist Experiment,” 59. Other authors attribute the war more heavily to Lopez’s personality - see James Saeger’s Francisco Solano López and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.)

15 Chris Leuchars, “The Military Balance,”in To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002), 47-53.

Notes


16 “The Never-Ending War,” The Economist, December 22, 2012, http://www. economist.com/news/christmas/21568594-how-terrible-little-known- conflict-continues-shape-and-blight-nation.17 Ibid.

18 J.M.G. Kleinpenning, Man and Land in Paraguay (Amsterdam: CEDLA, 1987), 242-250.

19 “Volume 1: Drug and Chemical Control.” International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 1, http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2012/ vol1/184101.htm#Paraguay.

20 R. Andrew Nickson, “Democratisation and Institutionalised Corruption in Paraguay,” in Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America, ed. Walter Little and Eduardo Posada-Carb, ( New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 254-257.

21 “UNODC and Paraguay Launch $10 Million Programme to Combat Drugs and Crime,” UN Office on Drugs and Crime, November 9, 2011, http:// www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2011/November/unodc-and- paraguay-launch-usdollar-10-million-programme-to-counter-drugs-and- crime.html,

22 “Paraguay After Stroessner,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1989, http://www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/44327/riordan-roett/paraguay-after- stroessner.

23 Ibid.

24 Jorge Zarate, “Paraguay’s Colorado Party Back in Power,” Inter-Press Service, April 22, 2013, http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/paraguays-colorado- party-back-in-power/

25 “Paraguay After Stroessner,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/44327/ riordan-roett/paraguay-after-stroessner.

26 “Paraguay at a Glance,” World Bank, March 15, 2014, http://devdata. worldbank.org/AAG/pry_aag.pdf.

27 Isabel Hilton, “The General,” La Granta 31 (1990): 11-83.

28 C. Folch, “Surveillance and State Violence in Stroessner’s Paraguay: Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam, Archive of Terror,” American Anthropologist 115 2013): 44–57.

29 “Paraguay After Stroessner,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/44327/ riordan-roett/paraguay-after-stroessner.

30 Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 6-13

31 Nickson, “Democratisation and Institutionalized Corruption,” 247-253.

32 “Global Study on Homicide,” UNODC, January 1, 2012, http://www.unodc. org/gsh/

55

33 Buckman, Robert T, Latin America 2012 (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 320

34 Howard J. Wiarda, Latin American Politics and Development (Boulder: Westview Press, 2011), pg. 269-70.

35 “Unión Nacional De Ciudadanos Éticos | Partidos Politicos Paraguay,” Elecciones Paraguay, January 1, 2013, http://www.eleccionesparaguay. com/partido-politico-union-nacional-de-ciudadanos-eticos-19.html.

36 Ibid.

37 Richard Snyder and Angelica Duran Martinez, “Does Illegality Breed Violence? Drug Trafficking And State-sponsored Protection Rackets,” Crime, Law and Social Change 52 (2009): 253-273.

38 Ibid., 7.

39 BBC News, “Mercosur suspends Paraguay over Lugo impeachment,” 29 June 2012 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18636201

40 Nancy Powers, “The Transition to Democracy in Paraguay,” Kellogg Institute, Januaray 1, 1992, https://www3.nd.edu/~kellogg/publications/ workingpapers/WPS/171.pdf.

41 Ibid., 7.

42 Ibid., 8.

43 Robert Daughters and Leslie Harper, “Fiscal and Political Decentralization Reforms,” in The State of State Reform in Latin American (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 213-218.

44 Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, (New Haven: Yale University Press 1971).

45 Jayme Brener, “Paraguay: An Unpunished Crime,” Transnational Institute, December 1, 1997, http://www.tni.org/article/paraguay-unpunished- crime.

46 Jeffrey Franks, “Paraguay: Corruption, Reform, and the Financial System,” International Monetary Fund (2008): 7-31.

47 “Operation Highwire,” Wikileaks, January 5, 2010, https://www.wikileaks.org/ plusd/cables/10BUENOSAIRES5_a.html.

48 “Paraguay,” Freedom House, January 1, 2012, https://freedomhouse.org/ report/countries-crossroads/2011/paraguay#.VSm8IZTF_wg.

49 “En Route to a Failed State-Corruption in the Paraguayan Legal System, the Illicit Market, and Transnational Security,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 10, 2012, http://www.coha.org/en-route-to-a- failed-state-corruption-in-the-paraguayan-legal-system-the- illicit-market-and-transnational-security/.

Paraguay Alone


50 Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter explicitly defends sovereignty of territories: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

51 Boaz Atzili, “When Good Fences Make Bag Neighbors: Fixed Borders, State Weakness, and International Conflict,” International Security 31 (2007): 139

52 Marcelo Cavarozzi, “Patterns of Elite Negotiation and Confrontation in Argentina and Chile”, in Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe ed. Higley et. al, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 208.

53 Hilton, “The General,” 39

54 Sidney Weintraub, “Development and Democracy in the Southern Cone: Imperatives for U.S. Policy in South America,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (2000): 1-18

55 Wiarda, Latin American Politics, 284-293.

56 Lambert, “The Nationalist Experiment,” 67.

57 S. Cardenas, Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 60-65.

58 Lambert, The Paraguay Reader, 257

59 S. Mainwaring and A. Pérez Liñán, Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 11-26.

60 Hugh M. Hamill, ed., Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 341.

61 “Domestic Workers Treaty Goes Into Force,” Human Rights Watch, September 3, 2013, http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/03/domestic-workers- treaty-goes-force.

62 “Paraguay Human Rights,” Amnesty International, January 1, 2013, accessed December 8, 2014, http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/ americas/paraguay.

63 “Net Migration in Paraguay,” Trading Economics, January 1, 2014 http://www tradingeconomics.com/paraguay/net-migration-wb-data.html.

64 Ibid.

65 “Paraguay,” International Organization for Migration, August 1, 2014, https:// www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/news-and-views/press-briefing- notes/pbn-2012/pbn-listing/migration-profile-for-paraguay-surveys-i. html.

57

66 “Argentina,” International Organization for Migration, August 1, 2014, http:// www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/where-we-work/americas/south- america/argentina.html.

67 Dilip Ratha, et al., “Migration and Remittances Factbook,” World Bank, January 1, 2011, accessed December 8, 2014, http://data.worldbank. org/data-catalog/migration-and-remittances.

68 Lambert, “The Nationalist Experiment,” 54.

69 John Gimlette, “Eastern Paraguay,” in At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels through Paraguay (New York: Vintage Departures, 2005) 187-195.

70 Juan Blyde, “Economic Growth in the Southern Cone,” Inter-American Development Bank (2004), accessed November 17, 2014, http:// www.iadb.org/regions/re1/econ/RE1-04-004.pdf.

71 “Paraguay GDP 1965-2014 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast | News,” Paraguay GDP, accessed December 7, 2014, URL.

72 “Paraguay,” International Organization for Migration.

Paraguay Alone

ANNELIES BANEKE is studying at the University of Cambridge for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, followed by a MA in “Researching Practice.” She would like to thank Dr. Vanessa Pupavac for her supervision and support. Anneleis has put her interest in international education to practice by teaching in both France and Thailand. She also intends to work for international development schemes to gain experience in education policy and practice.

Annelies Baneke

The Legacy of European Empire: Racial Thinking in Contemporary

International Politics

The narrative of decolonization envisions a world of equal states, and an inclusive system of self-determination. However, it appears that “imperialism is inextricable from the very foundations of modern international relations and the world order.” This essay will examine the extent to which self-determination, defined as “the right to determine the conditions of one’s own existence,” has been afforded to non-Western societies following decolonization, using evidence from Africa. Through theoretical analysis, this essay will address the role of non-intervention and prevalence of the state in countering the notion that non-Western societies are now internationally recognized as equals. Despite some progress in the institutional provisions against hegemonic actors, international praxis continues to operate within the imperial parameters of a Western narrative, particularly with regard to the Westphalian principle. These parameters sustain a system of Eurocentric favoritism and perpetuate the denial of full self-determination within developing countries. The demands for civilizational recognition cannot be addressed by simplification through a dualistic narrative of sovereign and non-sovereign; states and non-states; subject and object. So long as material structures continue to suppress African contributions to a more balanced narrative, global politics will remain inseparable from the imperialistic foundations which determine it today.

Non-Intervention: Universal Principle or Tool of Western Interests? Traditional Westphalian sovereignty outlines the right of states to independently determine their internal policies, and thus constitutes an indispensable aspect of self-determination. However, during the colonial era, the Westphalian conception of sovereign territories only applied to

59

communities that exhibited Western attributes of statehood and civilization. Territorial integrity was denied to areas lacking the empirical conditions for Western sovereignty. These conditions refer only to defined territories, ruled over by a “civilized” and stable government which is equipped to protect its people against threats and to provide prosperity. These criteria justified the belief that “civilized” Europe had the authority to incorporate non-Western communities into their own system of states; “as international law is a product of the special civilization of modern Europe…differently civilized states can only be presumed to be subject to it.” In this way, the polities of Europe assumed the right to formally assimilate non-Western communities into their own international system, thereby contradicting the principles of non-intervention and self-determination. Since the colonial era, Jackson observes that “the rules of sovereign statehood have changed in the direction of far greater…accommodation of marginal governments.” Jackson believes that decolonization indicated the end of Europe’s infringement upon self-determination. In the years following independence, ex-colonies were given the negative right against foreign intervention, derived from Isaiah Berlin’s notion of negative liberty, which models the “area within which a man can act unobstructed by others.” While reflecting an important part of self-determination, negative sovereignty cannot by itself ensure the same degree of autonomy across all states. Less established states lack the political, economic and social resources which would enable them to progress beyond the formal condition of non-intervention, towards novel realms of self-mastery. This condition characterizes the contemporary “quasi-state,” which shares few empirical similarities with Western states, yet has been granted legal sovereignty within the international order. In this way, negative sovereignty—in ensuring that states’ autonomy cannot legally be violated—is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, prerequisite for self-determination. This notion of a growth in the self-determination of quasi-states is supported by Glanville’s conviction that the normative assignment of sovereignty during the colonial era has been replaced by a contemporary ethos of non-intervention. During the colonial era, each state recognized by the West had the “right to determine…what her duties require of her.” This was rooted in the Enlightenment myth that the West, acting as a “universal authority,” represented the ideal standard of development. According to Glanville, contemporary institutional regulations mark the end of this old system of international governance. In 1965, the UN adopted a declaration specifying that “no state has the right to intervene…for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any state.” Ex-colonies in particular expressed their support for the declaration, which

The Legacy of European Empire


signaled progress away from imperial-era humiliation and subordination. Traditional imperial states maintained the right to use force for self-defense, but the use of force for broader international affairs shifted from the authority of individual sovereigns to the collective body of the UN Security Council. The new attitude of non-intervention was illustrated, until 2011, in the reluctance of the Security Council to sanction military intervention for humanitarian purposes. Military intervention had been authorized only with the consent of governing authorities (as in Rwanda), or in the absence of any functioning government authority who could provide consent (as in Somalia). This reflects a new awareness of the sovereign right to non-intervention, and its strong influence within the international community. Security Council decisions have displayed a departure from the colonial era ability of states to intervene unilaterally. While recent cases of UN-authorized intervention could be seen to herald the return of colonial expansionism, the unanimous 2005 declaration of the “responsibility to protect” principle demonstrates a shift towards collective action. Recent Security Council decisions indicate a move away from the discretionary right to intervene based on unilateral interests during the colonial era, and towards a collective duty to safeguard rights. This principle formed the basis for the 2011 intervention in Libya, when the Security Council authorized the use of “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, challenging the self-determination of oppressive regimes in the interest of freedom for the individual. Jackson also argues that the reconceptualization of self-determination encouraged a sense of humanitarian duty to assist quasi-states; “what was once considered…ground for denying membership in international society is now regarded as a claim to additional international support.” Such “sovereignty plus” provides extra entitlements for impoverished countries to assist in the development of self-determination. This system aims to correct the shortfalls of negative sovereignty, whose non-intervention principle does not guarantee that weak governments will be able to take advantage of their independence. Indeed, Marx held that for individuals, negative liberty is “unsatisfactory as a basis for realizing the good life.” To overcome this, the provision of material assistance to the Non-West through state-organized aid has become an international norm designed to promote the self-determination of non-Western communities. Grovogui criticizes Jackson’s reference to the “accommodation” of quasi-states, for endowing the West with the authority to dictate global standards of sovereignty. Rather than accepting different modes of governance as evidence against the notion of a universal political system, the West considers these divergences as problems endemic to African

61

states. Jackson asserts that former colonies lack the independent capacity for “positive sovereignty,” where sovereignty is maximized through internal resources and initiatives. Instead, he attributes the self-determination of former colonies to foreign assistance, and to the international recognition and non-interference which constitute negative sovereignty. This notion fits Mercer’s analysis, where “Westphalia-confirming non-Western practices are attributed to conditions external, such as their socialization by European states; Westphalia-disconfirming non-Western practices are attributed to non-Western states’ inherent inferiority.” This discriminatory application of international principles conflates non-Western systems of government with an inherent inability to achieve full self-determination, and positions the West as the paradigm and disseminator of international law. As such, encroachment upon self-determination becomes legitimized, and the role of Western domination becomes obscured by focus on factors internal to Africa. This framework exists in accordance with powerful states’ material or ideational requirements; “sovereignty cannot be envisioned without the subjective ends of regimes.” In the case of decolonization, the “subjective ends” of Western regimes were focused on preventing the rise of violent and destabilizing anticolonial movements, and more importantly on the ideational need to preserve moral authority in the face of Nazi imperialism and racial oppression. During World War II, the confidence of the West significantly diminished, which prompted those countries to “take the moral high ground of racial equality rather than to lose the initiative to others.” Condemning other expansionist regimes as racially and morally inferior while also maintaining control over their colonies became unfeasible. As a result, European powers expanded the definition of sovereignty, leading to institutional arrangements to protect the territorial integrity of ex-colonies. The normative motivation for recognizing states, determined by the fluid interests of the West, is also demonstrated by the comparison of Belgium to the Congo during the colonial era. At its inception in 1830, Belgium “lacked all but a few features of the most established states.” Its sovereignty was artificially constructed by the 1839 Treaty of London, which guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium in pursuit of European stability. At the same time, sovereignty adopted an entirely different meaning in the Congo. Pre-existing political systems were expelled in favor of European structures of organization, and its territorial integrity was quashed by colonial expansion. Subsequently, a contrasting logic of sovereignty saw Western financial support strengthen the Congo’s post-independence government. This demonstrates the lack of a consistent international definition of sovereignty. The definition, or at least its application, depends on the West’s military,



political, economic, and ideational interests. Just as African communities were excluded from participating in the Berlin Conference that formalized colonization in 1884, African participation is constrained by contemporary institutional arrangements. However, this imperialist legacy was ignored in the “global governance that determined state capacity upon decolonization.” For example, the control vested in the permanent members of the Security Council “violated the spirit of national equality” by establishing an elite decision-making body to govern global peace issues. Similarly, the non-proliferation agreement has a weakening influence on international law and the sovereign equality of states within it. These double standards reveal the idealized depiction of the international system, based not on the equal sovereignty of states, but rather on the hegemony of Western powers. This is obscured, however, by legitimizing Western authority through international agreements and the United Nations. In doing so, these agreements deny African involvement in decision-making processes which may directly affect their capacity for self-determination. Sovereignty is exploited as an instrument for advancing Western interests, and its flexible definition provides no assurance of self-determination for all nations.Similarly, the Western structures that have defined the global economy since decolonization perpetuate the subordination of Africa. Liberal economic principles, such as financial deregulation and international competition, resulted from the Washington Consensus (Grugel et al. 2008: 501). Western powers engineered a universal economic policy, rather than considering the particular needs of the Non-West. Western states favored strong and established economies, often at the expense of former African colonies. The industrialization of East Asia, a region which had previously been economically weak, gave credence to neoliberal policies by demonstrating the possibility of escaping the economic periphery. The idea that the rest of the decolonized world could follow a similar path “reconceptualized [dependency] as a state choice” rather than a position assigned to them by a biased international order. Jackson assumes that Western assistance can “compensate” for unequal ability to compete in world affairs. Such beliefs allow for the endurance of discriminatory structures, and also absolve the West of responsibility for the economic problems of the Non-West. The preservation of Western moral authority legitimizes the continued subordination of Africa in particular. The circularity of these justifications for subordination locks non-Western states into a system that perpetually condemns them to poverty in the name of Western progress.

63

The State: Representative or Neo-Colonialist? Since the 19th century, the Western state model has been construed as the ultimate source of law, and recognition confined “to those branches of alien races which… accept our political conceptions.” Since decolonization, this approach has been sustained by the English School, which upholds the state as the “standard form of territorial political organization.” This definition provides a means of labelling different communities according to some external, imperialist benchmark. However, Keal believes that self-determination cannot always be measured by the authority invested in state sovereigns, as “indigenous peoples do not seek statehood but instead the right and the power to control the reproduction of distinct cultures.” By his account, identity cannot be represented purely by centralized state institutions because the territorial boundaries of former colonies may not contain populations of unitary identity. Granting recognition to former colonies is a means for the Western prescribers of international standards to claim an institutional pretense of equality, while simultaneously denying self-determination to distinct sub-state groups. In contemporary International Relations, the English School reaffirms this conception of social order, and presents the state system as the natural product of “mutually shared norms and expectations.” However, assuming a universal civilization ignores the interests of non-Western communities and impedes their right to represent those interests through their own systems of governance. Thus, institutional provisions for equal recognition of state groups, such as the UN charter for the “self-determination of peoples” and the 1960 Declaration on the Independence of Colonial Countries, assume a decolonized world of neatly divided territorial units, each of which represent converging interests. In so doing, such provisions reduce demands for civilizational recognition to the interests of the state. This definition of self-determination ignores the discrepancy between cultural identity and territorial boundaries, and has endowed ex-colonies with only a limited right to self-determination. Namely, the positive right to be an internationally effective, homogenous “people” is replaced by the negative right from external rule. The system of negative sovereignty relegates sub-state groups to be passive observers of international affairs, unable to contribute to the decision-making bodies that affect them. For example, the desire of the Eritreans for independence and full control over their social organization is circumvented by the Western-established community of states. The “moral language of the game” describes such groups as separatists, and thereby reinforces their international illegitimacy



as a way to maintain boundaries and prevent threats to the contemporary order. In order to protect these boundaries, the 1964 Organization of African Unity (OAU) declared the frontiers imposed by colonial powers as a “tangible reality.” The president of Mali asserted that “African unity demands…complete respect for the legacy that we received from the colonial system.” With the exception of Morocco and Somalia, all members of the OAU endorsed the decision to deny sovereignty to sub-state groups, subscribing to the belief that an Africa divided into fully self-determining homogenous groups would increase vulnerability to external control. In this way, indigenous groups have sacrificed full self-determination in fear of the possibility of recolonization. The consecration of ex-colonial boundaries is thereby maintained both by the international norm of denying recognition to non-state groups, and also by the desire of decolonized states to maintain territorial integrity. As an alternative to this model, Keal proposes that a system of dialogue and equal interaction amongst different cultural communities would secure their freedom from domination. He endorses Otto’s vision of “layers of sovereignty” that exist not in competition but instead as interrelating parts of a global system. In this way, indigenous self-determination would exist within the overarching boundaries of state sovereignty, thereby allowing groups to maintain distinctive cultural rights and identity while actively participating in state decisions. However, the state centrality in such institutional arrangements could work to suppress minority interests. Individual or group self-determination may come at the cost of another group’s established values. Similarly, Brown believes that “there are no universal human rights,” and therefore no universal indigenous rights. The UN declaration could be viewed as another imposition of uniformity to fit the system of convenient categories through which to manage and interpret the global community. Similarly, Lake’s endorsement of “divisible sovereignty” demonstrates a need to adopt new conceptual entities to enable different forms of self-determination. For example, he argues that the lack of a formally recognized status for Kosovo worsened the conflict against Serbia in the 1990s by making sovereignty an “absolute.” In the absence of different spheres of authority, each side was motivated by the status quo of absolute sovereignty, and thus took more extreme positions in pursuit of that achievement. Paradoxically, this notion of total sovereignty heightens the need for the external involvement, which could in turn erode the self-determination of the state in question. This supports Keal’s argument that the centrality of states in international discourse underpins unequal power

65

relations. He promotes the need to recast International Relations theory away from the traditional model of Westphalian state-centrism to embrace a more fluid framework for the provision of rights. However, Anaya argues that Jackson’s account overlooks many important developments in the achievement of indigenous rights, such as Convention 169, which recognized “the aspirations of peoples to exercise control over their own institutions… and to maintain and develop their identity… within the framework of the states.” Although lacking any explicit reference to indigenous self-determination, this convention affirms Keal’s alternative definition of self-determination as the upholding of distinct group character and autonomy within an overarching state structure. This, together with the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, represents a legal retreat from the residual state-centric, unitary imposition of identity. Conceptually, Anaya highlights the “traditional legal rhetoric” that frames Keal’s proposals, whose formal categories fail to explain the practical impact of becoming a “subject” of the law, as legal recognition does not always mean effective autonomy. Ensuring autonomy for indigenous groups depends on our ability to decouple notions of self-determination from doctrinal rhetoric, such as “democracy,” “sovereignty,” or “statehood.” These attitudes served to justify European conquest during the colonial era, and today they remain a benchmark to judge non-Western political behavior against. By continuing to frame reality through these attitudes, we fail to question the extent to which they are consistent with Western behavior, and allow them to obscure the role of hegemony in International Relations today.

Literature: Sustaining the Normative Hierarchy The role of literature in substantiating Western hegemony represents an additional underlying facet to the imperialist legacy. In line with Keal, Ayers argues that a Eurocentric state vision of society remains pervasive today, yet her approach focuses on the role of theoretical inquiry into the exclusion of different forms of self-determination. She challenges the absence of recognition for pre-colonial African systems, which were based on distinct ethical foundations and, contrary to the Western state model, fostered social harmony through cooperation and minimal institutional regulation. She argues that to assume the Westphalian state model is to assume a discourse of inequality, where non-Western systems are viewed in terms of their inability to achieve full autonomy. Her term “segmentary societies” (as opposed to “stateless societies”) in reference to pre-colonial African communities recognizes non-state claims to self-determination in



their own right, rather than in terms of their divergence from the European standard. In a parallel effort to recast the theoretical underpinnings of a Western-oriented world order, Grovogui contests the idea that democratic norms can be traced solely to the French Revolution. The rigid commitment to European development narrows the empirical origins of liberal values, and prevents us from accepting other contributions for the progression of societies. African modes of thought have been systematically excluded from intellectual inquiry, reflecting Hegel’s assertion that Africa “is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit.” Grovogui argues that the French Revolution plays only a part in the global discourse concerning human rights and social order. The Haitian revolution, for example, was founded upon a more expansive conception of the human condition, “for the liberation and for the dignity of all men in the world.” Social organization was to be informed by human cooperation, which in turn would legitimize structures of authority. This contrasts with the Enlightenment vision which fosters an individualistic, competitive philosophy that is disdainful of other conceptions of social structuring. The Eurocentrism in International Relations theory is secured by orienting inquiry towards a “past in which we exclude unwanted elements.” The colonial influence which defines contemporary international affairs is concealed to preserve the self-image of the West. Global history since the mid-19th century has been defined by the express denial of self-determination to colonial communities, followed by the normalization and externalization of blame for these abuses. Confronted with the moral challenges surrounding colonialism, Western powers sought to sustain the dualism that secured their dominance by highlighting the role of other states in oppression. Criticism of the racism of the South African regime was met in 1946 with a denunciation of the caste system in India, and of Ghana’s authoritarian government in 1964. In this way, racism was used as a justification to deny self-determination to colonial states, and became conceptualized as a global issue when used as a label for all forms of group conflict. Casting domination as the natural product of the uneven balance of power mitigated the West’s duty to scrutinize its own structures of oppression. The externalization of blame even included the victims of oppression. As Fanon notes, “the racist group points accusingly to a manifestation of racism among the oppressed.” The deflection of responsibility, which obscures the need to redefine the colonial world order, takes form in the modern era through the narrative of a moral dichotomy, reinforced by the media. Following decolonization, literature depicted Africa not only as racially, but also as morally subordinate. In 1994, the Sunday Times

67

suggested that “Rwanda is a society where deception and dishonesty are the most highly esteemed values.” More recently, this has taken the form of condemning communities of former colonies for “fundamentalism,” or for inciting terrorism. Such examples form part of the essentialized discourse which enables the West to maintain its sense of moral supremacy. Although not formally institutionalized through a system of empire, the use of simplistic dichotomies reinforces the arbitrary division of a world focused on control and regulation. In line with Arendt’s warning that “the absolute spells doom to everyone when it is introduced into the political realm,” the black-and-white characterizations of the West versus the Other has served not to confront the colonial legacy, but instead to stifle reasoned political analysis of the complexities that allow for an unequal world order. In so doing, this simplification legitimizes the continued relegation of Africa to its position of dependency within the international community. A reassessment of the Western claim to moral authority will be necessary to accommodate non-Western standards for self-determination, and to thereby override the imperialist legacy. The persistence of the imperial mindset is facilitated by the lack of attention afforded to colonial history, which is assigned a “bracketed location” in our studies. A discipline which claims universal relevance finds its roots in an era of colonial oppression, the history of which is manipulated to avoid confronting the need for a more equal international order. For this reason, Jones proposes an outlook more attuned to “Imperial Relations” than to the inconsistency of “International Relations.” Commitment to the ontological frameworks which sustain the status quo is a commitment to sustaining the normative dichotomy between the West and the Non-West. Rather than reaffirming the idealized vision of Europe as the moral and political epicenter of global activity, which imposes a contradictory self-serving reality on the world order, we must center our studies on the oppressive history for which Europe is responsible. Lake endorses the idea that International Relations can be traced to a Eurocentric past. However, although some literature marks progress in overcoming this legacy, he observes that this approach fails to demonstrate how prevalent deviance from the Western models of non-intervention and statehood may be. Such a framework would allow us to wholly discard the Western monopoly in defining the international system. Yet, he also outlines the problems of confronting the centrality of imperialism in International Relations: “naming inequalities and highlighting their prevalence in international politics may legitimate…intervention.” To do so would be to openly re-embrace the normative judgements of the colonial era, where a lack of progress in the Non-West was cast as justification for imperial expansion. As outlined above, this attitude is embodied in the “moral



language” of the West, whose illegitimate actions are masked by a discourse of dualisms and psychological manipulation. Despite these challenges, reframing International Relations theory is our most likely means to exposing substantive inequalities, encouraging acceptance of difference, and stripping away the polished rhetoric of hegemonic states. This may give way to a more critical discipline that accepts a pluralistic world of different modes of self-determination. To achieve a more inclusive discipline of International Relations, it is vital to acknowledge African contributions to academic inquiry. This approach showed promising developments in the years after independence with the establishment of the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) network of reconstructive scholarship. However, the prevalence of authoritarian rule in the 1970s suppressed critical thought, and resulted in the detention and torture of many African academics. The global economic crisis in the following decade intensified such oppression by eliminating the material structures necessary for the production of knowledge. State budgetary cuts reduced the resources available to university libraries, and many prominent journals were discontinued. The African Journal of International Affairs and Development, for example, established in 1995 in Nigeria, ceased publication in 2002, since it had not “acquired immunity from the ongoing crisis in African publishing.” In this way, the Western logic of the international free market, heralded for its contribution to freedom and economic progress, testifies to the persistence of imperialism. Dispossession in the colonial era took the form of slavery and territorial imposition; modern day imperialism has dispossessed African scholars of the means to recount their experience of colonialism. The centralizing nature of free-market capitalism has augmented the West’s ability to propagate its selective memory and its exclusive definition of progress. The Western monopoly in the production of knowledge has allowed for the continued circulation of imperialist, Eurocentric notions of self-determination. The role of bilateral and private donor organizations became increasingly prevalent in response to the economic crisis; an example of Jackson’s notion of “compensating” quasi-states for their inability to compete in the international system. Although, in the 1990s, the Ford Foundation provided $52.7 million for African university research, these funds were contingent upon the content of the research: “we would expect them to conduct programs which…are not antagonistic to [America’s] dominant values.” The residual structures of colonialism have thus inhibited advances in genuinely African bodies of thought, as African scholars are forced to center their analyses on Eurocentric assumptions. The scarcity of accounts relating to colonial oppression, or to alternative concepts for organization,

69

nullifies attempts to hold the West to account. This, in turn, crystallizes both the imperial imagination in International Relations theory, and the material structures of hegemony. An intellectual bias fortifies material structures, constituting the cyclical relationship between the denial of full self-determination and the normative subordination of non-Western societies.

Conclusion Overall, despite institutional provisions that delegitimize encroachment on decolonized states and recognize alternative conceptions of self-determination, these are determined not by a principled commitment to equality, but by a problematized notion of sovereignty which fits the temporal needs of Western powers. Premised on the false narrative of neatly arranged “postcolonial” states, the ideals of non-intervention, statehood, and equal participation function as Western-imposed proxies for self-determination, and apply neither to the empirical behavior of the West, nor to the needs of decolonized communities. Even so, by upholding this imaginary standard, Western institutions, governments, and scholars continue the dichotomous portrayal and construction of an inherently “dependent” Non-West and an “enabling” West. The consecration of political, economic, and geographical colonial boundaries are both sustained by and substantiate the intellectual boundaries of imperialism, particularly within Africa. Just as the universalized standards of the Westphalian model and civilization legitimized colonialism through a normative division of the global community, so does the universalized normative hierarchy justify marginalization of non-Western self-determination today. The suppression of African history, the ignorance of African values, and the manipulation of African morality testify to the imperialist mentality which remains central to International Relations. Transcending these imperial foundations necessitates a confrontation with the essentialist doctrines that ignore Western empirical inconsistencies, and suppress African contributions to the international order. Thus, we must dismantle “a contemplation that can offer only interpretation of the given world,” and rather recover non-Western understandings “that can help in changing the world.” As it is, however, the self-perpetuating imperialist imposition of meanings of “sovereignty” and “self-determination” remain the very foundation of International Relations, surfacing not only in coercive material structures, but also in the theoretical bias that both justifies the endurance of imperialist mentality and silences the African thought which could challenge it.



1 Branwen Jones, Decolonizing International Relations (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 4.

2 Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 218.

3 Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty; Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 9.

4 Robert Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 38.

5 Turan Kayaoglu, “Westphalian Eurocentricism in International Relations Theory,” International Studies Review 12, no. 2 (2010): 201.

6 Jackson, Quasi-states, 24.

7 Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), quoted in Jackson, Quasi-states, 27.


9 Ibid., 21.

10 Luke Glanville, “The Myth of ‘Traditional’ Sovereignty,” International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2013): 83.

11 Siba Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self- Determination in International Law (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 49.


13 UNGA Resolution 2131 [xx], 1965.


15 Ibid., 87.

16 Ibid., 86.


18 Ibid., 40.

19 Ibid., 29.

20 Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans, 49.


Notes

71

22 Kayaoglu, “Westphalian Eurocentricism in International Relations Theory,” 196.

23 Siba Grovogui, “Regimes of Sovereignty: International Morality and the African Condition,” European Journal of International Relations 8, no.3 (2002): 324.

24 Frank Furedi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (London: Pluto Press, 1998), 167.

25 Ibid., 174.

26 Grovogui, “Regimes of Sovereignty,” 329.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., 331.

29 Ibid., 332.

30 Ibid., 321.

31 Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans, 148.

32 Richard Falk, “International Law and the Future,” Third World Quarterly 17, no. 5 (2006): 731.

33 David Lake, “The New Sovereignty in International Relations,” International Studies Review 5, no. 3 (2014): 307.


35 (Lorrimer 1884) quoted in Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans,, 71.


37 Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 218.

38 Ibid., 219.



41 Ibid., 152.

42 Ibid., 41.




44 Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 152.

45 Chris Brown, “Universal Human Rights: A Critique,” Human Rights in Global Politics, ed. Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), quoted in Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 222.

46 Lake, “The New Sovereignty in International Relations,” 318

47 Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 218-9.

48 James Anaya, “Review of ‘European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society’ by Paul Keal,” The American Journal of International Law 99, no. 1 (2005): 309.

49 “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, http://www.ohchr.org/en/Issues/IPeoples/ Pages/Declaration.aspx.

50 Anaya, “Review of ‘European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,’” 308.

51 Alison Ayers, “Beyond the Imperial Narrative: African Political Historiography Revisited,” in Decolonizing International Relations, ed., B. Jones (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006): 160.

52 Jones, Decolonizing International Relations, 14.

53 Georg Hegel, The Philosophy of History (New York: Dover, 1956), 99, quoted in Ayers, “Beyond the Imperial Narrative,” 155.


55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid., 91.

58 Frantz Fanon (1956), quoted in Furedi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race, 238.


60 Furedi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race, 240.

61 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1963), 79.


63 Ibid., 7.

64 Lake, “The New Sovereignty in International Relations,” 320.


66 Jones, 231.

67 Ibid., 232.



70 Ibid., 219.

71 Ibid., 221.


final edited monitor fall 2015

Documents