Neg Round 2
1nc
1
Democrats will keep the Senate now—best statistical models
Wang 9-9-14 (Sam, professor, Princeton University, "Democrats Now Have a Seventy-Per-Cent Chance of Retaining Control of the Senate" New
Yorker) www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/democrats-seventy-per-cent-chance-retaining-control-senate
In addition to polling data, these analysts are taking into account “fundamentals”—factors that supposedly
capture the state of the political playing field—like incumbency, campaign funding, prior experience, and President
Obama’s job-approval rating. Fundamentals can be useful when there are no polls to reference. But polls, when
they are available, capture public opinion much better than a model does. In 2012, on Election Eve, for example, the
P rinceton E lection C onsortium relied on polls alone to predict every single Senate race correctly , while Silver,
who used a polls-plus-fundamentals approach, called two races incorrectly, missing Heidi Heitkamp’s victory, in North Dakota,
and Jon Tester’s, in Montana. The Princeton Election Consortium generates a poll-based snapshot in which the win/lose
probabilities in all races are combined to generate a distribution of all possible outcomes. The average of all
outcomes, based on today’s polls, is 50.5 Democratic and Independent seats (two Independents, Bernie Sanders and Angus
King, currently caucus with the Democrats). Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity! I did not always appreciate the importance of sticking closely to polling data.
I first started analyzing polls during the 2004 Presidential campaign, in which John Kerry and George W. Bush traded the Electoral College lead three
times between June and November. An October calculation based purely on polls suggested that Bush would win. However, I added an extra
assumption: that undecided voters would break by two percentage points toward Kerry. On Election Day, the president of my university e-mailed me
asking for my final prediction. I told her, with confidence, that it would be Kerry. It was a humbling mistake. Because polls
have better
predictive value than fundamentals do, it would seem prudent to ask what an unadulterated poll-based snapshot of the Senate race looks
like. Today, it looks like this: wang_02 Based on this calculation, if the elections were held today, Democrats and Independents would control the
chamber with an eighty-per-cent probability. (The green section accounts for Greg Orman, the Independent candidate in Kansas, who would provide the
fiftieth vote. Orman has said that he would caucus with the majority, that he would caucus with the other Independents, and that he wants to break the
Senate gridlock. For this histogram, I have graphed him as caucusing with the Democrats.) But can a snapshot of today’s polls really tell
us that much about an election held eight weeks from now? As it turns out, it might. A poll-based snapshot moves up
and down, like the price of a stock. That movement can show us the range of the most likely outcomes for
Election Day. The chart below displays those ups and downs. On the right is a zone of highest probability, drawn out in much in the
same style as a hurricane strike zone on a weather map. This area indicates where the campaign is most likely to land. wang_03 At the point
marked November, the smaller bracket indicates the “two-sigma range,” where I estimate about eighty-five per
cent of outcomes should fall. Near the center of this range is the most probable outcome—an equal split of seats,
fifty Democratic and Independent, and fifty Republican, a situation in which the Democrats would retain control. The entire range
includes the additional possibilities of a fifty-one-to-forty-nine split in either direction, as well as a fifty-two-to-forty-eight split favoring the Democrats and
Independents. By adding up the parts of the strike zone that encompass fifty or more Democratic and Independent
votes, it is possible to estimate the probability of sustained Democratic control after the election: seventy per
cent. A more accurate way to interpret the current state of the race is this: At the start of 2014, conditions slightly favored the
G.O.P., when measured by fundamentals. Based on opinion polls, Democrats are currently outperforming those
expectations. The shape of next year’s Senate is based on whether that level of performance will continue.
Pot ballot initiatives cause youth turnout – which is key to Democratic victory
Dunkelberger ‘14
Lloyd Dunkelberger, staffwriter for The Ledger Tallahassee Bureau, 1/28/14, “Florida's Marijuana Vote Could Affect Other Races”
http://www.theledger.com/article/20140128/NEWS/140129089?p=1&tc=pg
But the
key variable is this: Voting in nonpresidential election years typically skews older, while polls show
support for the marijuana initiative is strongest among the youngest voters.
So on the surface, a larger turnout among younger voters — who don't typically show up in big numbers in
nonpresidential years — could help Democrats, as demonstrated by President Barack Obama in his last two successful elections in
Florida.
"Very few people are single-issue voters. But that
MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
issue could be a mobilizing issue for younger voters," said Susan
A GOP senate destroys the Iran deal
Julian Pecquet, journalist, “GOP Senate Takeover Could Kill Iran Deal,” THE HILL, 1—23—14, http://thehill.com/policy/international/196170-gopsenate-takeover-could-kill-iran-nuclear, accessed 5-31-14.
A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall could scuttle one of President Obama’s biggest second term goals
— a nuclear deal with Iran. Republicans have lambasted the interim agreement with Iran , calling for the Senate to
move an Iran sanctions bill. The House last year passed a measure in an overwhelming and bipartisan 400-20 vote. Both the Obama
administration and Iran have warned moving such a measure could kill a final deal. A number of Democrats have also
criticized the interim accord, which lifted $6 billion in sanctions on Iran in exchange for a commitment to restrictions on enriching uranium. Critics in both
parties say the deal gave away too much to Iran. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given Obama cover by refusing to
bring sanctions legislation to the floor. If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes majority leader,
sanctions legislation could move quickly to the floor and could attract a veto-proof majority. “If Republicans held
the majority, we would have voted already; with Democrats in charge, Harry Reid denies the American people the
bipartisan diplomatic insurance policy they deserve,” a senior Republican Senate aide complained. The aide suggested
Republicans would use the issue of Iran to show how a GOP-run Senate would differ with the status quo. “So the
question really is, what kind of Senate would people rather have — one that puts politics over good policy, or one that holds Iran accountable and works
overtime to prevent a world with Iranian nuclear weapons?” the aide asked. A total of 59 senators — 16 Democrats and every
Republican save two — have co-sponsored the sanctions bill from Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).
Republicans need to gain six seats to win back the majority, something within their grasp this year. The party is a solid favorite to
pick up seats in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, and believes it could also secure wins in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
Causes Israel strikes
Perr 13 – B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University; technology marketing consultant based in Portland, Oregon. Jon has long
been active in Democratic politics and public policy as an organizer and advisor in California and Massachusetts. His past roles include
field staffer for Gary Hart for President (1984), organizer of Silicon Valley tech executives backing President Clinton's call for national
education standards (1997), recruiter of tech executives for Al Gore's and John Kerry's presidential campaigns, and co-coordinator of
MassTech for Robert Reich (2002). 12/24 (Jon, “Senate sanctions bill could let Israel take U.S. to war against Iran” Daily Kos,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/24/1265184/-Senate-sanctions-bill-could-let-Israel-take-U-S-to-war-against-Iran#
As 2013 draws to close, the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program have entered a delicate stage. But in 2014, the tensions will escalate dramatically as a bipartisan
group of Senators brings a new Iran sanctions bill to the floor for a vote. As many others have warned, that promise of new measures against Tehran will almost
certainly blow up the interim deal reached by the Obama administration and its UN/EU partners in Geneva. But Congress' highly unusual intervention into the President's
domain of foreign policy doesn't just make the prospect of an American conflict with Iran more likely. As it turns out, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act essentially
empowers Israel to decide whether the United States will go to war against Tehran. On their own, the tough new sanctions imposed
it is the
legislation's commitment to support an Israeli preventive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities that almost ensures the U.S. and
Iran will come to blows. As Section 2b, part 5 of the draft mandates: If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense
automatically if a final deal isn't completed in six months pose a daunting enough challenge for President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. But
against Iran's nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the
constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its
territory, people, and existence. Now, the legislation being pushed by Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) does not automatically
give the President an authorization to use force should Israel attack the Iranians. (The draft language above explicitly states that the U.S. government must act "in accordance
with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force.") But there should be little doubt that an AUMF would
be forthcoming from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. As Lindsey Graham, who with Menendez co-sponsored a similar, non-binding "stand with Israel" resolution in
March told a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conference in July: "If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use
of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb." Graham would have plenty of company from the hardest of hard liners in his party. In August 2012, Romney
national security adviser and pardoned Iran-Contra architect Elliott Abrams called for a war authorization in the pages of the Weekly Standard. And just two weeks ago,
Norman Podhoretz used his Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge the Obama administration to "strike Iran now" to avoid "the nuclear war sure to come." But at the end of the day,
the lack of an explicit AUMF in the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act doesn't mean its supporters aren't giving Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu de facto carte blanche to hit Iranian nuclear facilities. The ensuing Iranian retaliation against to Israeli and American
interests would almost certainly trigger the commitment of U.S. forces anyway. Even if the Israelis alone launched a strike against Iran's atomic
sites, Tehran will almost certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe and even potentially in the American homeland. Israel
would face certain retaliation from Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining down from Gaza. That's why former Bush Defense Secretary Bob
Gates and CIA head Michael Hayden raising the alarms about the "disastrous" impact of the supposedly surgical strikes against the Ayatollah's nuclear infrastructure. As the
an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike
would lead to a wider regional war , which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials." And
New York Times reported in March 2012, "A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of
that September, a bipartisan group of U.S. foreign policy leaders including Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon, former Republican Senator (now Obama Pentagon
chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering concluded that American attacks with the objective of "ensuring that Iran never
acquires a nuclear bomb" would "need to conduct a significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years." (Accomplishing regime
change, the authors noted, would mean an occupation of Iran requiring a "commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the past 10
years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.") The anticipated blowback? Serious costs to U.S. interests would also be felt over the longer term, we believe, with
A dynamic of escalation , action, and counteraction
could produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to all-out
regional war.
problematic consequences for global and regional stability, including economic stability.
Escalates to major power war
Trabanco 9 – Independent researcher of geopoltical and military affairs (1/13/09, José Miguel Alonso Trabanco, “The Middle Eastern Powder Keg
Can Explode at anytime,” **http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11762**)
In case of an Israeli and/or American attack against Iran, Ahmadinejad's government will certainly respond. A possible countermeasure
would be to fire Persian ballistic missiles against Israel and maybe even against American military bases in the regions. Teheran will unquestionably
resort to its proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah (or even some of its Shiite allies it has in Lebanon or Saudi Arabia) to carry out attacks against Israel,
America and their allies, effectively setting in flames a large portion of the Middle East. The ultimate weapon at Iranian disposal is to block the
Strait of Hormuz. If such chokepoint is indeed asphyxiated, that would dramatically increase the price of oil, this a very threatening retaliation because it
will bring intense financial and economic havoc upon the West, which is already facing significant trouble in those respects. In short, the necessary
conditions for a major war in the Middle East are given . Such conflict could rapidly spiral out of control and thus a relatively
minor clash could
quickly and dangerously escalate by engulfing the whole region and perhaps even beyond. There are many key
players: the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Persians and their
respective allies and some great powers could become
involved in one way or another (America, Russia, Europe, China). Therefore, any miscalculation by any of the main protagonists can trigger
something no one can stop. Taking into consideration that the stakes are too high, perhaps it is not wise to be playing with fire right in the middle of a
powder keg.
2
The United States Federal Government should allow states to opt out of the marihuana
provisions of the Controlled Substances Act
CP solves and avoids the disad
Sam Kamin 14 Professor and Director, Constitutional Rights and Remedies Program, University of Denver, Sturm College of Law; J.D., Ph.D.,
University of California, Berkeley. Fall, 2014 University of Colorado Law Review 85 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1105 p.1107-1122, “COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM
AND STATE MARIJUANA REGULATION” l/n ac 9-16
The second Cole memo is a cooperative step toward solving the apparent contradiction created when states
legalize a drug that the federal government continues to prohibit. This concluding Part sketches a solution that I hope to expand
upon in a later article. n54 I propose that Congress amend the CSA in a manner that allows states to opt out of its
marijuana provisions. The federal government has already set forth the criteria to be used in determining whether
a state is regulating marijuana in a manner consistent with federal priorities. Under this approach, Congress would
authorize the Attorney General, or some other executive official, to certify that a state is regulating marijuana in a
manner consistent with federal priorities. n55 Upon certification, the state's regulations would [*1121] become the
sole regulations governing marijuana within that state. Those state provisions, rather than the CSA, would then apply to the
manufacture, distribution, and use of marijuana. n56 While
this approach might closely resemble the status quo in which
states are allowed to experiment with marijuana legalization so long as they keep in mind and help achieve
federal goals, it has one crucial difference. Under the current approach, states are allowed to experiment with marijuana law reform
through an act of prosecutorial grace. Those using, selling, or manufacturing marijuana under state law are not subject to criminal prosecution simply
because federal prosecutors have chosen not to prosecute them. This decision can be undone by yet another memo. A newly elected president may
chart a new policy course or may invoke the wiggle-room written into the second Cole memo. Thus, those using or selling marijuana pursuant to state
law could be arrested and prosecuted without any change in federal law. But more than that, the problem with the status quo is that marijuana
possession, manufacture, and distribution remain illegal under the second Cole memo . Even if the government keeps its promise not to
intervene in states that have enacted robust marijuana regulations, the continuance of federal marijuana
prohibition has a profound effect in those states. Only by making marijuana truly legal in those states, by
allowing qualified states to opt out of the CSA, can the [*1122] states truly be empowered to chart their own
policy direction.
State legalization inevitable now and the CP provides a path– momentum, state budgets, polls
Marketwatch 14 (Jan. 21, 2014, 7:05 a.m. EST “As More States OK Medical Marijuana Full Legalization Becomes Inevitable: Cannabis Science,
Inc.” http://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-more-states-ok-medical-marijuana-full-legalization-becomes-inevitable-cannabis-science-inc-nasdaq-otccbis-cannavest-corp-canv-otcqb-2014-01-21 ac 7-23
Jan 21, 2014 (ACCESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- While some believe the chances of more states legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in 2014 are
slim, they concede that it's likely more states will legalize cannabis for medical use this year. As of Jan. 14, there are six new states considering
legalizing the use of medical cannabis. They include New York, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. More could follow as state
legislators throughout the country convene. However, marijuana advocates argue that every new state that embraces medical cannabis
represents a major fissure in the wall against its eventual across-the-board legalization. Currently, only Colorado and
Washington sanction the purchase of marijuana for recreational use, but already 20 states including Massachusetts and California have legalized the
use of medical marijuana, which has the potential to be a 3 billion-dollar business in 2014 (*see two companies below). This reality leads some industry
it's only a matter of time before more states will follow , fueling the
momentum for full legalization. Their assertions appear to be confirmed by a Gallup Poll taken in October, which for
the first time ever showed that the majority, or 58% of Americans, favor marijuana legalization. Find out what could be
observers to side with advocates' predictions that
the best investor's move when it comes to medical marijuana by getting the complete report here, or by cutting and pasting the following link in your Web
browser: http://www.sixfigurestockpicks.com/ A perfect weed storm brewing In addition, there are fiscal realities that strongly favor
marijuana's legalization on state and federal levels. Many states that have legalized, or are seeking legalization of
medical marijuana, are suffering from huge budget deficits. Once they see the tax revenue medical cannabis brings into their coffers, and
the potential money saved by not prosecuting recreational users, it's just a matter of time before they go for the full Monty. Moreover, they contend that
once the marijuana tax-revenue floodgates open in enough states Uncle Sam will not be far behind, eventually leading a cash-strapped Congress to
legalize marijuana use in the United States. Conversely, those who view the sector with a jaundice eye, say such legalization will not be a windfall for
companies and their investors. They contend marijuana will become just another cheap, agricultural commodity. But meanwhile in the real world,
companies already in the legal medical marijuana sector are experiencing historic stock volume and growth . *At
the close of Jan. 17, 2014, Cannabis Science, Inc. (nasdaq otc:CBIS) traded 30,064,727 shares, compare with its 3-month average volume of
2,176,910. Find out what could be the best investor's move when it comes to CBIS by getting the complete report here, or by cutting and pasting the
following link in your Web browser: http://www.sixfigurestockpicks.com/ The Colorado company that is developing cannabis-based medicines announced
on Jan. 16 that it was spearheading an observational clinical research study in 2014 focusing on the use of cannabis and cannabis-based products to
treat a variety of medical conditions. "We will work with full authorization of the regulatory authorities and, most importantly, with the approval from
patients," said Cannabis Science President Robert Melamede. On Jan. 17, CBIS share price closed at 0.101 cents, up 21.69% over its closing price of
0.083 cents the previous day.
3
Security discourse is constructed and shapes policy- root cause of war, causes dehumanization and
extermination
Talbot 8 ( 'Us' and 'Them': Terrorism, Conflict and (O)ther Discursive Formations by Steven Talbot Defence Science and Technology
Organisation Sociological Research Online, Volume 13, Issue 1Published: 21/3/2008
As a point of departure, this paper aims to explore the significance of identity1formation and negotiation as it pertains to various
representations of terrorism. Particularly, this paper examines the ways in which adversarial identities are socially constructed
according to notions of difference which simultaneously encourages a comparison to, and rejection of,
[O]thers. Drawing upon the notion of the Other, this paper examines some of the ways in which identity is constructed through a variety of
social and historical processes, and articulated within a range of discourses evoking different and often mutually exclusive combinations of
sameness and difference. Using a social constructionist lens, I argue that representations of terrorism are constructed from
within specific discourses which accentuate difference. My analysis therefore positions identity formation within a dynamic and relational context where discursive representation, ways of
knowing, power and language intertwine. 1.4 Consequently, the following discussion explores identity formation and terrorism through an interpretive, constitutive and discursive lens. I start my disc ussion with an overview of the socially constructed or constituted nature of identity.
This is followed by an exploration of the roles various discursive frameworks play in shaping representations of identity. I then examine some of the implications for vi ewing terrorism and identities within dichotomous frameworks, particularly within notions of Self and Other, and
consequently, the discursive practice of ‘Othering.’ Finally, I interrogate the relational and discursive context of identity further by explor ing the relationship between the above theoretical concerns as they pertain to polarised collective identities and intractabl e conflicts. Socially
constituted identities 2.1 Identity construction pertains to the creation, maintenance and articulation of social identities by individuals or groups. Rummens (2001), draws a distinction between personal and social identities. Personal identity usually refers to the result of an
identification of self, by self, or in other words the self-identification on the part of the individual. Social identity in contrast refers to the outcome of an identification of self by others, or the identity that is assigned an individual by another (p.3). Both of these concepts differ from selfidentity, the individual self which is reflexively understood and worked upon by the individual through self-monitoring and self reflection (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991). 2.2 Sociological research into identity tends to focus on issues concerning the ascribed nature of identity, and the
social construction and negotiation of group differences, whereas psychological approaches are more inclined to look at identity development and formation within the individual (i.e. identity searching, self concept and identity crisis). However it is important to remember that
identities are not just ascribed or ‘achieved’ through socialisation processes, but are also socially constructed and negotiated between social actors. Through a sociological lens, identities by definition are socially constituted phenomena. In this sense, an indivi dual’s or group’s
identity is created, negotiated, and actively recreated through interaction with others. Identity can therefore be viewed as being a verb – it is something that one does, or is accomplished through social interaction (West and Zimmerman, 1987). 2.3 Identity underscores how humans
organise and therefore understand their social world. The notion of collective identity has been examined in classic sociological constructs like Marx’s (1977) ‘class consciousness,’ Durkheim’s (1960) ‘collective conscience’ and Weber’s (1922) Verstehen (meaningful
understanding). The commonality between these works is found in their emphasis on shared attributes, similarities, or the ‘We-ness’ of groups (Cerulo, 1997, p.386). Thus, the construction of group identities often involves a normative component, or in other words, individuals need
to be able to recognise themselves in certain qualities, characteristic or behaviours associated with their group (Schulte-Tenckhoff, 2001, p.6). This recognition of ‘we-ness’ is important given the origins of the term identity. Identity finds its linguistic roots in the Latin noun identitas,
with titas being a derivation of the Latin adjective idem meaning the same. Thus, the term is comparative in nature in relation to sharing a degree of sameness with others (Rummens, 2001, p.3). Identity is therefore a relational construct, or as Connolly astutely asserts, ‘[t]here is no
identity without difference’ (1995, p.xx). 2.4 More significantly, identity constructions often emerge in response to the types of political systems governing that society. Political systems are extensions of societal identity. For example, liberal democracy is a political structure that
, the pursuit of political goals
is also linked to the pursuit of identity (superpower identities inform superpower interests). Consequently, a political system can
forms and reflects a part of a societal identity construction in that it proscribes certain ideals and practices which inform members of liberal democratic societies how to live together and treat others. In turn
also be viewed as a source of threat to societal identity (Hughes, 2004, p.26). As Hughes observes, for those societies who draw their identity from non-liberal democratic (Western) traditions, the liberal democratic structure,
and the values contained within this structure, may be perceived as a threat to group identity. The rhetoric of Osama Bin Laden is an example of this, with its emphasis on acts of violence against the Western, liberal
democratic influences and their perceived threat to Islamic identity. 2.5 Political structures and associated organising
principles exert influence on political agendas,
policy and collective self-definition. Moreover, political elites create, manipulate and dismantle identities of nations
and thus shape the subsequent construction of allies and enemies (Corse, 1996; Gillis, 1994; Zerubavel, 1995 cited in Cerulo, 1997 p.390). Identity shifts can
therefore also occur based on changing socio-political factors, for example, as a result of changing policy, increased ethnic politics, and political activism. Constructivists would contend that identities, norms,
and culture play an integral role for understanding world politics (and related policy) and international relations,
particularly with its emphasis on those processes through which behaviour and identity construction is conceptualised
and legitimated by various political agencies. The roles knowledge construction and discourse plays in facilitating this process will be explored in the following discussion.
Discourse and identity 3.1 Cultural constructions of identity are shaped by ‘a series of specific dialogues, impositions, and inventions’ (Clifford, 2004, p.14). Such a position invariably requires a closer examination of the
Hall, a discourse: ‘defines and produces the
objects of our knowledge. It governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully talked about and reasoned
relationship between identity construction, language, power, knowledge creation and associated discursive practices. 3.2 For
about. It also influences how ideas are put into practice and used to regulate the conduct of others’ (1997, p.44). 3.3 The same discourse (which characterises a
way of thinking or the given state of knowledge at one time) can appear throughout a range of texts, across numerous sites. When these discursive events refer to the same object, say terrorism for example, and share a
It is through these discursive formations that
things/practices acquire their meaning. However, discursive representation is not a benign practice , for it is often
similar style and support a strategy, they are said to belong to the same discursive formation (Hall, 1997, p.44).
those in positions of power and authority who are able to construct ‘reality’ and thus knowledge itself. As Klein (1994)
explains: ‘[a] discourse, then, is not a way of learning ‘about’ something out there in the ‘real world’; it is rather a way of producing that something as real, as identifiable, classifiable, knowable, and therefore, meaningful.
Discourse creates the conditions of knowing’ (cited in George, 1994, p.30). 3.4 Foucault contends that knowledge is a form of power, and that power is present or exercised within decisions regarding what circumstances
knowledge is applied or not.
Moreover, Foucault argues that knowledge (when linked to power) assumes the authority of ‘the truth’
and has the power to make itself true through a variety of regulatory and disciplining practices (Hall, 1997, p.49).
Knowledge (ways of knowing about others through discursive representations) therefore is constructed by humans through their interactions with the world around them and is a reflection of existing social, historical and
political factors, and as such, is never neutral. 3.5 In his analysis of the socially constructed nature of knowledge, Foucault explores the production of knowledge through discourse, and particularly how knowledge about the
social, the individual, and associated shared meanings are produced in specific periods. In Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1988) and The History of Sexuality Volume One (1981),
Foucault provides examples of the shifting historical significance of sexuality and mental illness and the emergence of deviant identities. In this respect, mental illness and sexuality did not exist as independent objects, which
remained the same and meant the same thing throughout all periods. Rather, it was through distinct discursive formations that the objects ‘madness’ or ‘heterosexuality’ emerged and appeared as meaningful constructs.
Sexual relations and desires have always been present, but the constructs ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ were produced through moral, legal, and medical discourses and practices. Through these discourses and practices,
behaviours and acts were aligned with the construction of ‘types of’ people or identities - identities which were subject to medical treatment and legal constraints designed to regulate behaviour. In this respect, social and self
identities are a consequence of power reflected in historically and institutionally specific systems/sites of discourse. 3.6 As social constructs, it is important therefore to view knowledge and discourse production through the
socio-historical conditions in which they are produced. In this respect,
discourses concerning terrorism, security dilemmas and threat , and world order,
are produced within specific historical, geographical and socio-political contexts as well as within social relations of power .
Furthermore, the controlling and legitimising aspects of discourse are such that proponents of violence are not
likely to construct a narrative that is contrary to their values. For instance, Al Qaeda is unlikely to construct a narrative that posits them in a contrary manner to
their own moral values by engaging in ‘terrorist’ activities. Rather, they would position themselves as acting morally, and as victims of oppression or humiliation (Cobb, 2004). Similarly, the US and her coalition allies are also
likely to construct a narrative which posits their involvement in a ‘fight against terror’ within a discursive framework of liberty and democracy, rather than expansionist or imperialist terms. 3.7 This paper now turns its attention
to some of the ways in which identities are constituted through discursive practices which accentuate difference or sameness through the use of binaries. Dichotomous logic and identity construction Self/Other binaries 4.1
Notions of self and other and their implications for identity formation have been explored through psychoanalytical and postcolonial inquiry. In his book The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Analysis of the Treatment of the
Narcissistic Personality Disorders (1971), the founder of the psychology of the self Heinz Kohut extends Freud’s theory of narcissism (which has a dual orientation) in his examination of narcissistic rage and accompanying
desires for revenge, and introduces the idea of ‘self-object relationships and transferences’ associated with mirroring and idealisation. Lacan (2002) also draws upon the notion of mirroring in regard to the identity formation of
infants. Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’ occurs when the infant recognises its reflection and begins to view itself as being separate from its mother, or observes its mirrored image as viewed by the mother. The mirror stage represents
the initial recognition of self as a unified subject, apart from external world and the ‘Other.’ This ‘Other’ (the first ‘big Other’ in an infant’s life being the mother) is fundamental to the constitution of self, as well as sexual identity.
4.2 In his foundational work Orientalism (1978), Edward Said examines the historical construction of the East (Them/Other) and West (Us/Self) as essentially different entities through discursive practices. Drawing upon
Foucault’s notion of discourse, Said contends that Orientalism is a discourse: by which European culture was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and
imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period (p. 3). 4.3 Such a
discourse draws upon assumptions that are imperialist by design, privilege European sensibilities and representations
ideas
of the Other, and reinforce
concerning the fixed nature of states of being and difference (McDowell, 2003). Said argues that Orientalist ideas can be found in current representations of ‘Arab’ cultures as backward,
lacking democracy, threatening and anti-Western (2003). Similarly, Occidentalism2 can be found in stereotypical representations of an “imperialist, corrupting, decadent and alienating West” (Nadje Al-Ali cited in Freund,
2001). As I suggest later, these representations have become a feature of the current Western perceptions of terrorism. 4.4 As a practice, Othering is not solely a province of East versus West relations, but also exists as a
strategy within other non-Westerns nations. For example, Shah (2004), Kennedy-Pipe and Welch (2005) and Baev (2007) note how the ‘war on international terrorism’
discourse has been used
by Russia to legitimate it actions against former Soviet republics like Chechnya . 4.5 Within a sociological context, identity discourse is often
characterised by issues concerning essentialising and marginalising social groups, as well as totalising and categorising individuals and groups (Gaudelli, 2001, p.60). Categorisation results as a response to diversity, wherein
categorisation assists with making the diversity (of people) more understandable. As a consequence of this, people become viewed as being more typical of certain categories (eg. a Muslim from Iraq is stereotypically viewed
as being ‘Muslim’ in comparison to an Australian Muslim in Cronulla within some discursive frameworks). Following the construction and application of these categories, is a tendency to essentialise (belief in essence) as is
Dividing practices evident in the
categorisation and essentialising processes which inform the production of binaries reflect power struggles, as they primarily entail an
external authority imposing a ‘condition of life upon people’ (Gaudelli, 2001, p.74) that are supposed to have
evident in notions of ‘the laconic Aussie,’ ‘the whingeing Pom,’ and the ‘fanatical terrorist.’ In this sense, the act of ‘naming’ is akin to ‘knowing.’ 4.6
certain essences. These power relations become evident in the abilities of claim-makers or particular agents to
make certain discourses, categories and labels acceptable and make them ‘stick’
as it were. In turn, essentialism results in reifying culture by
viewing cultural systems as being discrete and homogeneous units (nationally, ethnically and ideologically), which are ‘naturally given’ and fixed in locality (Jones, 1999). Here it is important to remember, that it is not culture
that is ‘found’ or ‘discovered’ out in the field, but individuals who act and interact and express their views of culture (Schulte-Tenckhoff, 2001, p.5). This paper contends that it is the relations between groups and related
boundary making practices (insider/outsider, Self/Other) rather than ‘traits’ which are important indicators and producers of identity. As discussed above,
binaries such as those of Self/Other
have a tendency to convey world views in concrete , simplified and often imperialist ways (Berry, 2006). The process
of ‘Othering’ is commensurate with identification (as culture, community, or nation) which further entails an act of differentiation,
authentication, and at times, exclusion – creating boundaries between members of the ‘in’ group and outsiders. In this sense the: ‘Self/Other
relation induces comparisons used by social actors to describe themselves or to describe others, depending on their location. In locking
a given group into a substantially transformed identity, one constructs and immobilises this relation so that
it operates in favour of those to whose advantage it is’ (Schulte-Tenckhoff, 2001, p.11). 4.7 Self/Other relations are therefore ‘matters of power and rhetoric rather
than of essence’ (Clifford, 2004, p.14). Within this context, boundary-making practices are a way of ‘locking’ ‘imagined communities’ into strategically informed ontological states of being. Moreover, these boundaries are intersubjectively determined, that is, they are constructed through an emphasis on only a subset of many identity labels that apply (eg. religion). President George Bush has described his war on terror as a ‘crusade’ and a ‘divine
plan’ guided by God. These sentiments are similar to Islamic calls for Jihad, with religious terrorists viewing themselves as God’s people and their enemies as God’s enemies, ‘infidels’, or sinners. As a consequence, for both
sides, the conflict takes on the form of a ‘spiritual battle.’ Thus religious doctrine acts as fuel for Islamic-based terrorism as it does for the US led ‘war on terror’. Inside this discursive framework, both would contend that each
construction of identity plays a key role in relation to the prospect for religious
and political violence. Hence, identity claims invariably informs interests. The call by fundamentalist Islamists for a Jihad on Western
nations for example is a realisation of both interests and identities simultaneously. In this sense, identities and interests are
party’s religion is the only meaningful one (Berry, 2006 p.4). Indeed, the
mutually reinforcing concepts and incapable of being pursued separately (Hughes, 2004, p.7). 4.8 Identity negotiation
highlights the political nature of social identifications of Self and Others within and between groups. Contestation arises out of those
ascribed social or collective identities that do not align with an individual’s or group’s self-definition, highlighting global
and national tensions, as well as power dynamics which frequently underplay such identification processes. Hence Self/Other
struggles are ultimately struggles of legitimacy and meaning, frequently enacting and fuelling conflict. Indeed, it
is in the creation of Self and an all-threatening Other that the state, or prominent figures within terrorist networks like Al
Qaeda, use their power and available resources for legitimated violence (Grondin, 2004). Enemies and Others 4.9 Identity
boundaries are functional in that they allow us to distinguish humans from animals, culture from nature, as well as differences between
classes and nations. Using identity to distinguish in this way is
the foundation for insecurity and conflict . Such
boundaries allow the demarcation of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ and ‘domestic’ versus ‘foreign.’ Without the creation of these distinctions, the
‘enemy’ could not be identified (Campbell, 1998 cited in Hughes 2004). 4.10 Sociology of the enemy examines the social process of
constructing enemies , and within the context of identity politics and negotiation, creating Others for advantageous reasons .
Politicians, other charismatic leaders, social elites, and the military alike, are in prime positions to construct
particular representations of the enemy. In turn, these representations are also influenced by a host of other actors
(academics and intellectuals, advisors), and array of sources and representations at their disposal. The proliferation of these
representations through the internet, media reports, government documents, books, articles, and film has led to an expansion of
an enemy discourse (as part of a deliberate and incidental public diplomacy3), assisting the articulation of a dualistic collective moral
righteousness which attempts to legitimate the destruction of the Other (Aho, 1994; cited in Cerulo 1997; Berry, 2006; Hansen, 2004). 4.11 Orientalist
and occidentalist inspired representations of ‘enemies’ can be seen at work within the current terrorism discourse. The Australian and US national security ideology for example frames the terrorism discourse within a system
of representations that defines Australian and US national identities through their reference to the Un-Australian, Un-American, Un-Western Other, usually confined to a Muslim/Islamic centre located in the Middle East, but
also extending by association to Muslim/Islamist global diasporas. Similarly, representations of the Un-Eastern, Un-Muslim or Non-Islamic Other are employed by some Islamic fundamentalist groups to assert their identity and
cause. Both parties construct an enemy that reflect and fuel ideological strains within the American/Australian body politic and Islamist terrorist networks (Grondin, 2004, pp.15-16). The use of dichotomous logic in these
representations fails to account for degrees of ‘Otherness’ and ‘Usness,’ or diversity, within both populations. In this sense, the homogenising effects of such a discourse fails to acknowledge an ‘other – Other,’ namely, a more
discursive
construction of a homogenous West and ‘Rest’ has the effect of silencing dissenting voices residing within both camps. 4.12 Using simple
moderate Muslim population located within an Islamic centre and its periphery. Similarly, distinctions can be drawn between an Australian ‘Us’ and her United States counterpart. In either case, the
dichotomies like ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ or ‘friend’ or ‘foe’ ignore the multidimensionality of identity and fail to recognise the interconnectedness and complexity of modern life. The use of such terms also highlights the emotional
underpinnings for issues of security.
With their use of an enemy discourse which incorporates notions of religiosity, good versus evil, and right and
wrong, both the Taliban and US led ‘coalition of the willing’ appeal to beliefs over empiricism (what is knowable,
measurable and debatable) – belief systems grounded in notions of faith where it is important to believe things to be
true, rather than actually being true
(Berry, 2006, p.5). Similarly, claim making of this nature appeals to emotions (like hatred, revenge and fear) in contrast to logic in the sense that they
encourage communities to feel in particular ways which are less likely to be challenged than appeals to think in particular ways (Loseke, 2003, p.76). Hence, Berry (2006) contends, that because definitions of enemies are
often not empirically based, they can fluctuate according to the needs of the definers. 4.13 With the creation of ‘identifiable’ enemies, defining ‘Us’ automatically entails defining ‘Them,’ with ‘Them’ being the social foe or ‘evil’
(Huntington, 1996). As Burman and MacLure (2005) remind us, ‘there is always a hierarchy in these oppositions’ for there is an essence of a higher principle or ideal articulated in one, and something lesser, or subordinate in
the other (p.284). Thus, within this hierarchical value system of prioritised logic, good is seen as coming before evil, positive before negative, Us before Them, and real over the written. Moreover,
to label a
population as evil is to render the other ‘sub-human.’ We are told of the ‘Evil doers,’ Axis of evil,’ Osama Bin Laden the evil, America the evil, capitalism the evil, and
terrorism the evil, and evil acts (Davetian, 2001). The ensuing pursuit and eradication of this evil within the context of calls for jihad and a corresponding ‘war
on terror’ also implies a ‘promotion of war more willingly than accommodation’ (Armitage, 2003, p.202). However, as is the case with dichotomous logic, good and evil are two sides of the same coin,
or mutually sustaining concepts. Thus, to speak of eradicating evil in this context is a nonsensical pursuit. As Baudrillard explains: ‘We believe naively that the progress of the Good, its advance in all fields (the sciences,
technology, democracy, human rights), corresponds to a defeat of Evil. No one seems to have understood that Good and Evil advance together, as part of the same movement…Good does not conquer Evil, nor indeed does
the reverse happen: they are once both irreducible to each other and inextricably interrelated’ (2002, p.13). Dichotomous logic can be applied to an examination of security and associated threat discourses. Threats and
(in)security 4.14 Stern defines terrorism as ‘an act or threat of violence against non-combatants with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidation, or otherwise influencing an audience’ (2003, p.xx). One of the aims of this
act of violence is to instil fear in the target audience. However, to better understand this notion of terrorism and threat, one also needs to understand the discursive power of claim makers, and those in positions of authority
(whether they be political parties, clerics and other elites or the military for that matter) in shaping or co-constituting them so. As Campbell (1998) alludes: ‘[d]anger is not an objective condition. It is not a thing which exists
independently of those to whom it may become a threat…nothing is a risk in itself;…it all depends on how one analyses the danger, considers the event’ (pp.1-2). 4.15 To this end, the securitization school of thought
developed by the Copenhagen School examines the socially constructed dimension of security threats by looking at the ways in which processes like social interaction form as well as alter interests, and in the process,
construct or constitute security. By using an inter-subjective lens to look at security, proponents of this school explore the extent to which power relationships and language as expressed through
discourse
shape understandings of threats and subsequent security responses . They argue that by labelling something a security issue or threat, actors
invoke the right to use whatever means to stop that threat. Here language is akin to a ‘speech act,’ or in other words, relates to the act of speaking in a way that gets someone else to act (Hughes, 2004, p.14). 4.16 Labelling
to label a
problem a ‘security’ issue or a ‘threat’ gives this problem a special status, and one which can legitimate
something as a security issue, or some group or community as a threat can therefore be seen as a powerful political tool in terms of the behaviour of governments and other interest groups. Indeed,
extraordinary measures to tackle it. Within the current climate of terrorism, threats to security are often characterised
as emanating from Others who view their global neighbours rapaciously and are ready to pounce at first sign
of weakness. 4.17 The following discussion examines the relational and socially constructed nature of identity and its relevance to
various discursive representations of terrorism through its analysis of polarised collective identities and intractable conflict. Polarised
collective identities and conflict 5.1 Protracted conflicts have dominated the international arena and have resulted in
much of the violence and terrorism witnessed today. These types of conflict usually centre on deep-rooted issues such as
struggles over material, human needs, or an historical grievance. The relationships which feature in these forms of conflict comprise
of self-perpetuating spiral of violent interactions in which each party develops a vested interest in the
continuation of the conflict. They also characteristically entail ‘polarised perceptions of hostility and enmity’
(Bercovitch, 2003). 5.2 In the case of polarised collective identities and protracted conflict, conflict invariably centres on identity
struggles, categorisation, and perceived difference (and related issues concerning values and beliefs). Social and collective
identity construction is by nature a source of indirect and direct threat. As Hughes explains: ‘[i]ndirectly, identity construction contains the possibility
for identity threat since the adoption and practice of one identity necessarily precludes the fulfilment of another by the same audience’ (2004, p.24). 5.3 Direct threats are expressed in terms of an identity’s stance toward the
existence and identification of ‘others.’ These stances can occur along a continuum ranging from accepting to eliminating (Hughes, 2004, p.24). It is important to note, however that identity contains the potential for, rather than
the inevitability of conflict. Nevertheless, an examination of the literature and theories concerning identity, Self-Other differentiation, highlights the extent to which individuals not only display a tendency for assigning people
with whom they interact into a class of Self/Other, but also show how individuals treat more favourably other individuals whom they consider Self, than those who they regard as Other. ‘Inclusive fitness’ and social identity
theories for example have shown how sharing ‘genetic material,’ or having similar observable characteristics such as looks, religion, ethnicity (markers of ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ status) informs behaviour between
groups/others (Ben-ner, McCall, Stephane, and Wang, 2006). 5.4 The concept collective identity refers to a ‘shared place’ in the social world, or the ‘we’ aspect of identity that develops through a process of self-categorization,
identification and social interaction. Moreover, whilst these identities can be chosen freely by individuals, they can also be imposed by others who have the resources and authority to do so (as is the case with labelling Others
evil, a threat, or enemies through the discursive practices highlighted above). Collective identities serve many symbolic, practical and normative functions such as fulfilling needs for belonging, distinctiveness, respect, unity
and status. They also provide a justification for claims and a focus for the maintenance of a distinctive culture or way of life (Coleman, 2004). Such a position presumes or utilises a sense of ‘we-ness,’ or group homogeneity,
which discounts levels of heterogeneity that may exist. 5.5 As stated above, protracted conflicts are rooted in the perceived threat to basic human needs and values, as well as concerns over group dignity, recognition, security
and distributive justice. When these aspects of collective identities are denied or threatened in some way, intractable conflict occurs. As the conflict intensifies, antagonistic groups become increasingly polarised through an ingroup discourse and out-group hostilities focussed on the negation, defamation and vilification of the out-group (Druckman, 2001; Fordham and Ogbu, 1984; Hicks, 1999; Kelman, 1999 cited in Coleman, 2004). 5.6 In his
review of the literature, Coleman (2004) highlights a series of conditions, processes and structural issues that are conducive to the development and maintenance of polarised collective identities and related conflict. Eight of
these conditions include: 1. ‘Situations where there is a pervasive belief in enduring hostilities where the disputants feel locked – into the intensity and oppression of the conflict relationship’ (Coleman, 2004, p.11; Fordham
and Ogbu, 1984). 5.7 During his speech to the National Guard in February 2006, President George Bush talks of the ongoing nature and progress of the War on Terror: …On September the 11th, 2001, our nation saw that
vast oceans and great distances could no longer keep us safe. I made a decision that day -- that America will not wait to be attacked again. (Applause.) And since that day, we've taken decisive action to protect our citizens
against new dangers. We're hunting down the terrorists using every element of our national power -- military, intelligence, law enforcement, diplomatic, and financial. We're clarifying the choice facing every nation: In this
struggle between freedom and terror, every nation has responsibilities -- and no one can remain neutral… 5.8 Implied within this discourse is the notion that if you are not with us, then you are against us, and thus a potential
enemy. The discussion also makes it clear that there is no room for negotiation with, or accommodation to, the enemy. The view that terrorists are also locked into a zero-sum battle has also been reported. R. James Woolsey
has been quoted in the National Commission of terrorism as saying, “today’s terrorists don’t want a seat at the table, they want to destroy the table and everyone sitting at it” (Morgan, 2004, pp.30-31). 2. The involvement of
‘salient aspects of identity’ (cultural differences) ‘where the in-group and out-group can be easily differentiated’ (Coleman, 2004, p.12; Gurr, 2000). 5.9 The representation of the Muslim/Islamic Other with its emphasis on
radically different values systems, becomes evident in references to religious motivations for terrorist attacks – religious ideals which are positioned in opposition to more ‘moderate’ Christian values. As argued above, both
often use religious justifications as part of their claims making and their respective calls for a ‘Jihad’ on the US and her Allies, and the US led ‘War on Terror.’ Similarly, Esmer (2002) and Norris and Inglehart (2002) note how
hallmarks of Western democracies which are built upon principles of rights (the ‘Land of the Free’), gender equality, sexual liberation pose a threat to traditional values extant in some Islamic cultures. Representations of this
kind accentuate perceived cultural differences. In this sense, culture can be viewed as having three components: an empirical aspect (culture understood as communities with their own sets of identifiable, observable, and
transferable cultural traits); an analytical aspect (culture used as a conceptual tool) and more significantly a strategic aspect (instrumentalisation of culture/religion to advance identity claims) (LCC, 2001, p.4). 3. ‘Where there
exists the perception of negative treatment or threat to an identity group of high centrality and importance’ (Coleman, 2004, p.12; Fordham and Ogbu, 1984). 5.10 There will be in most issues concerning security, a structure of
two basic discourses, which articulate radically differing representations of identity (whether they be the humiliated other, the freedom fighting champion, or fanatical terrorist). Many ethnic and religious conflicts that cover the
globe are fuelled by stories of humiliation, which in turn, are the basis for stories of revenge. Authors like Hassan (2004), Bendle (2002), Cobb, (2004) and Davetian (2001) have noted how (suicide) terrorist attacks offer self
empowerment in the face of powerlessness, redemption in the face of damnation and honour in the face of humiliation. 5.11 Group boundaries are also often delineated according to symbolic, spatial, religious and social
referents, ensuring collective identification within, while simultaneously ensuring the exclusion of outsiders. In this respect, the symbolic attacks on the Pentagon, Twin Towers, and the planned attack on the Whitehouse,
represent an attack on the pillars of Western democracy and capitalism, and as such, threats to ‘ways of life’ and identity. 4. ‘High mortality salience where death-related anxieties motivate people to become more deeply
September 11th as reported by real
time coverage on international television networks, “was seductive in conjuring up the sense that we are living in an era of
ubiquitous and even world-ending violence” (2004: 3). The fear of apocalyptic violence posed by WMD was a major
justification for pursuing a pre-emptive war against Afghanistan and Iraq. In turn, a ‘death-related anxiety’ was felt by Western nations with the
committed to their cultural groups as a means of buffering such anxiety’ (Coleman, 2004, p.12; McCauley, 2001). 5.12 Humphrey argues that the impact of
prospect of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) falling into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorist networks. These fears were not alleviated when George W. Bush for example asserted the ‘terrorist groups’
would use WMD ‘without a hint of conscience’ (Bullimer 2002).
By linking these two issues (terrorism and WMD) political discourses of this kind
reified terrorism and WMD , setting into action a series of actions designed to control their proliferation. 5.13 Structural issues which act to reinforce and maintain polarised collective identities
include: 5. ‘A negation of the Other’ (Coleman, 2004, p.17). 5.14 This, according to Coleman is the ‘fundamental aspect of the in-group’s identity’ (17). Identity creation through negation entails making a statement of in-group’
identity with reference to what it is not, or does not consist of, for example ‘I am a Christian, not a Muslim.’ Strategies employed in the negation of the Other also include: marginalisation of ethnic and religious groups through
naming; racialisation; criminalisation; and stigmatisation. Response strategies of the ‘out-group’ include: collective resistance to ascribed identities; group empowerment; demands for collective group rights (territorial claims) in
an attempt to secure greater autonomy, legitimisation and social control (Rummens, 2001, p.18). 6. ‘The outgroup images become negative, homogeneous, abstract and stereotypical’…particularly in regards to the
images tend to become self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing ,
serving important interests and needs’ (Coleman, 2004, pp.17-18; Stein, 1999; Toscano, 1998). 5.15 Implicit within ‘Us/Them,’ ‘East/West,’
‘Good/Bad’ and ‘Self/Other’ binaries is the notion that opposing identities are relatively homogenous. The use of these non-specific yet
all-inclusive tags also serves to dehumanise and depersonalise a highly abstracted Other. In turn, depersonalisation allows social
productions of ‘enemy images’ which ‘contain an emotional dimension of strong dislike…these
stereotyping, group cohesiveness and collective action to occur. The construction of absolutist discourses of this kind are an important vehicle for understanding conflict: ‘[a]lthough generally described as integrated and
homogensous, communities as loci of production, transmission, and evolution of group membership foster conflict through the negotiation and manipulation of social representations’ (LCC, 2001, p.6). 5.16 Here, the
Identity demarcation of this kind further allows the
mobilisation of audiences to carry out conflict. President Bush for example has made many references to ‘evil doers’. He has been quoted as saying ‘we're on the hunt...got
demarcation of the common enemy/Other assists with the mobilisation of one group against another (Aho, 1994).
the evildoers on the run...we're bringing them to justice’ and ‘they kill without mercy because they hate our freedoms...’ (Sample, 2006, The White House, 2001). The emotive language used in ‘speech acts’ of this kind are
designed to elicit ‘in-group’ distinctiveness and cohesion through the negation and disparagement of the ‘out-group’ (terrorist organisations). The use of terms ‘evil doers,’ ‘them,’ and ‘they’ are interesting however in the sense
that they refer to an enemy that extends beyond the confines of terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda. 7. ‘A clear and simplified depiction of good (us) and evil (them) that serves many functions’ (Brown and Gaertner, 2001;
Coleman, 2004, p.18). 5.17 By framing their conflict within a discourse which accentuates a struggle between good and evil, both religious terrorist groups and their Western-led protagonists, view non-members of either camp
to be ‘infidels’ or ‘apostates’ (Cronin, 2003) and ‘immoral’ or ‘fanatical’ respectively. The maintenance of such a discourse can be seen as serving a dual purpose; namely, to dehumanise the respective victims on both sides of
the conflict, and sustain in-group and out-group identities. 8. ‘In extreme cases, pain and suffering for one’s group and one’s cause come to be considered meritorious’ (Coleman, 2004, p.19; Zartman, 2001). 5.18 Martyrdom is
a well documented motivation for engaging in terrorist activity. From 1996-1999, Nasra Hassan, a United Nations relief worker in Gaza interviewed 250 aspiring suicide bombers. In one interview, the late spiritual leader of
Hamas, Sheikh Yasin, told her that martyrdom was a way of redemption, "[l]ove of martyrdom is something deep inside the heart. But these rewards are not in themselves the goal of the martyr. The only aim is to win Allah's
satisfaction. That can be done in the simplest and speediest manner by dying in the cause of Allah. And it is Allah who selects martyrs" (Hassan, 2004, p.1). Conclusion 6.1 This paper has explored some of the issues
concerned with identity formation, construction and negotiation. In doing so, this paper has focussed on the socially constructed aspects of identity, and in particular, the extent to which social identities are subjectively
constructed according to perceived differences in comparison to others. Hansen contends, identity is “always a relational concept, and it is constructed within discourses, not given by the thing itself” (2004, p.4). 6.2 Meaning is
therefore also relational, for the identification of/with difference between imagined communities like the East and West denotes, or holds meaning. Consequently, identity construction involves a degree of ‘Othering’, and within
this context, social identities can be constructed and understood as being more or less threatening and different. Issues of Otherness are central to understanding terrorist activity, and are a feature of security discourses
girding the current ‘war on terror.’ To this end, this paper has examined the relationship between power and the formation, emergence, and mobilisation of culturally-based collective identities and their expression through
representation, narratives, discourse and language. 6.3 Using a social constructionist and a somewhat postcolonialist inspired analysis, this paper questions the utility of dichotomies like Self/Other, insider/outsider, Us/Them,
Good/Evil used within terrorist discourses. The ensuing discursive formation shapes the ways in which terrorism can be meaningfully talked about, understood, and tackled. In the process of defining and establishing
difference, the discourse of the Other is also highlighted, since such definitions invariably allude to an object in terms of what it is not. Such a practice entails the social construction of some other person, group, culture or
nation as being different and deficient from one’s own. Hence as Simon Dalby (1997) observes, “specifying difference is a linguistic, epistemological and, most importantly, a political act; it constructs a space for the other
distanced and inferior from the vantage point of the person specifying the difference” (cited in Grondin, 2004, p.5-6). For Said, accentuating difference in this way is central to dichotomous representations of the Self and Other,
When examining issues concerning what is terrorism, who
practices it and why, as well as appropriate responses to this activity, this paper contends that such issues are often clouded by a
rhetoric (discourse) that has deflected attention away from political and moral concerns underlying political violence.
This paper has also argued that utilising dichotomous logic in the construction of an enemy is a counterproductive strategy for grappling with
terrorism. The use of binaries like Good/Evil and Us/Them assist with the construction of a dehumanised Other who
cannot be reasoned with, thus repudiating calls for negotiation, and in the process, reducing incentives to understand
difference. Demonising the enemy in such a manner, amplifies fear and alarm, and perpetuates cycles of revenge
and through the lens of Orientalism, the creation of a self serving discourse which privileges the world-view of the West. 6.4
and retaliation which necessitate more violent responses to perceived injustices. In this sense , the production and
maintenance of a West and Rest dichotomy, a dichotomy which characterises current terrorist and security discourses , has also
lead to the creation of mutually sustaining antagonisms ensuring further conflict. 6.5 Consequently, it is
important to rethink the binary oppositions employed within the social constructions of other socio-cultural groups, enemies or
threats, and national identities. When employed within a national security context, these dichotomies not only serve to reify imagined
differences between communities, but also may inflame hostilities through the continuation of oppositional identities
and relations which are viewed as being fixed, and thus resistant to change . A way around this binary impasse is
the construction of
counter-discourses which contain dual positions for both parties as victims and as agents of conflict. As long
as both sides represent themselves as being victims, rather than perpetrators of violence, more violence will ensue. Moreover, another way
to challenge the legitimacy of dichotomous logic is to create a counter-discourse highlighting the diversity extant
within ‘so-called’ homogenous populations.
Role of the ballot is to either accept or reject the affs securitization—prior to action
Saltera 8 (Securitization and desecuritization: a dramaturgical analysis of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Mark B Saltera
School of Politics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5. E-mail: msalter@uottawa.ca, , 2008
This model of settings for securitizing moves fits cleanly with Paris School interventions on the trope of risk (Aradau and van Munster 2007; Aradau et al. 2008). However, it is precisely because security plays differently to
each audience, is used differently by different speakers, and changes in its meaning that we need to expand our analysis of how securitizing moves are accepted or rejected. Bigo (2006: 7) uses the notion of 'field' to
demonstrate how 'these professions do not share the same logics of experience or practice and do not converge neatly into a single function under the rubric of security. Rather, they are both heterogeneous and in
competition with each other'. This article offers a way into that field analysis of securitization, that is not reduced to linguistic analysis, through a dramaturgical analysis of setting: within each securitizing move, we must
consider who may speak, what may be spoken, and what is heard. Top of page Securitization Securitization theory has been an incredibly fruitful approach for the study of security. Having disaggregated 'state security' into
several sectors (military, political, societal, economic, and ecological), Buzan argues that 'the question of when a threat becomes a national security issue depends not just on what type of threat it is, and how much the
recipient state perceives it, but also on the intensity with which the threat operates' (1991: 133–4). This was expanded by Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde in the formal model of securitization: 'the intersubjective establishment of
The attempt at securitization is called
a 'securitizing move', which must be 'accepted' or rejected by the target audience. The authors argue that the conditions for success are
an existential threat to have substantial political effects...to break free of procedures or rules he or she would otherwise be bound by...' (1998: 25).
(1) the internal grammatical form of the act, (2) 'the social conditions regarding the position of authority for the securitizing actor — that is, the relationship between the speaker and the audience and thereby the likelihood of
the audience accepting the claims made in a securitizing attempt, and (3) features of the alleged threats that either facilitate or impede securitization' (1998: 33). There is room within the original cast of the theory to expand
the notion of facilitating conditions or impediments for securitizing moves — but little direction as to what those might be. In this reading, the second factor — these social conditions — is under-determined and must be
explored further. In the debate between the CS, so named in a response by McSweeney (1996, 1998), subsequent replies (Buzan and Waever, 1997), and a provocative intervention by Williams (2003), a number of critiques
of the model of securitization were raised. The CS was faulted by McSweeney for appearing to give an ontological pre-existence to the 'speaker' and 'audience' that is at odds with a more processual or constructivist
perspective of identity (1996: 83). Williams argued that different kinds of speech might constitute an act, and made an important theoretical connection to Schmittian politics of sovereign exceptionality. Williams wrote that the
CS process of securitization — notably that securitization implies depoliticization — can be found in other theories of sovereign authority, and that securitizing moves are an attempt by the sovereign to decide the exception
and thus remove the sector from democratic debate (2003). Buzan, presented a spectrum of how issues might be weighted: 'nonpoliticized... through politicized... or securitized' (1998: 23). Within this account, the CS appears
to represent securitization as a threshold — particularly within a democratic society. Either a threat is represented and then accepted as a security issue, or it remains contested within the realm of normal, deliberative politics.
Successful securitization is at root a political process, but the actual politics of the acceptance are left radically under-determined by this model. The authors argue that
'the issue is securitized
only if and when the audience accepts it as such... ( it must) gain enough resonance for a platform to be made
from which it is possible to legitimize emergency measures...' (1998: 25). It is precisely the dynamics of this
acceptance, this resonance, this politics of consent that must be unpacked further. The Copenhagen School, certainly
open their model to consideration of the 'external, contextual, and social roles and authorized speakers' of the speech act 'and, not least,
under what conditions (i.e. is the securitization successful)' (1998: 32). But, within their model, there is no frame for how securitizations are
successful or fail. A subsidiary point that is worth noting: these external and internal conditions for securitization appear to work
in reverse for the process of desecuritization (Wæver 1995). The speaker proposes that there is not a threat, or at
least not a threat that is existential, and that the problem can be comprehended or managed within the rubric
of normal politics.
There are a number of assumptions within articles about securitization theory about the differential ease or difficulty of securitization and desecuritization. These unexplored assumptions arise because there is no theory for the actual process of the success or failure for a securitizing or desecuritizing move. The
statist model of securitization does not match the complexity of contemporary social dynamics of security. First, other non-state actors must be included in the model, as demonstrated by Bigo (2006) and others. Security is not contained solely within the traditional boundaries of the state and the authority to make securitizing moves not limited to state actors. Second, two
temporal dimensions must be added to considerations of securitization and desecuritization: the duration of the securitization and the entropy of the public imagination. Some issues, such as the war on drugs, rose and faded in the public imagination, largely independent from the 'actual' or empirical degree of threat (Campbell 1993; Aradau 2001). Third, securitization is not
an instantaneous or irrevocable act. Rather securitization reflects the complex constitution of social and political communities and may be successful and unsuccessful to different degrees in different settings within the same issue area and across issues. Floyd demonstrates convincingly that desecuritization is entirely 'issue-dependent rather than static' (2007: 349). Nor is
securitization an act that removes an issue from deliberative politics forever. Rather, studies of securitization need to account for the movement of issues into and out of the security sector over time. An issue that has faded from the public view may rest within the security frame or enjoy a kind of 'entropy' where the public, elite, technocratic, or scientific communities assume
that exceptional security measures have lapsed in the face of a threat that no longer seems pressing or relevant. Hysteria over the presence of communists and homosexuals within government departments no longer seems a national security threat, in the way that McCarthy and others described. For example, a securitization act may be successful with a scientific or
technocratic community, and yet fail in the elite and popular realm, such as the debate over global warming during the 1980s and 1990s. A process of desecuritization may occur within popular politics, while elites and professionals remain unconvinced, such as transportation safety. Doty examines how the Minutemen along the US–Mexico border consider themselves to be
acting in a 'decisionist' mode, even though they are not sovereign actors (2007: 129–31). A particular group has successfully securitized illegal migration at the border for a segment of the population, while s imultaneously human rights groups — by placing water in the desert and advocating for amnesty — act as if the issue is politicized. John McCain (Arizona Senator and
Republican Presidential nominee) proposed legislation (with Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, for whom 'all politics are loc al') that would provide a 'path to citizenship' and border security — only to withdraw it in the face of public criticism. In this case, the issue was the subject of intense 'normal' political debate, and the securitizing move was incomplete and
heterogeneous across the political landscape. The model provided by the CS gives us no way to measure the success or failure of a securitizing move. In this article, I gauge the success or failure of a securitizing move by ranking the degree to which policies, legislation, and opinion accords with the prescriptions of the speech act: 1. To what degree is the issue-area
discussed as part of a wider political debate? 2. Is the description of the threat as existential accepted or rejected? 3. Is the solution accepted or rejected? 4. Are new or emergency powers accorded to the securitizing agent? Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, please contact
help@nature.com or the author This scale of success–failure is particularly useful in assessing the persistence of a security issue within different audiences. A more nuanced notion of success and failure also gives us a purchase on whether an issue remains securitized over time so that we may develop a theory of the public imagination in the future. Two recent
contributions to securitization theory stand out for my analysis.1 Balzacq and Stritzel share my excitement about the potenti al of the CS, and my worry about the under-developed social aspect of securitization. Stritzel leads the theoretical debate, and provides a strong grounding for this present article. He argues 'too much weight is put on the semantic side of the speech
act articulation at the expense of its social and linguistic relatedness and sequentiality' (2007: 358). He critiques the under-theorization of the speaker–audience relations, stating that 'in empirical studies one cannot always figure out clearly which audience is when and why most relevant, what implications it has if there are several audiences, and when exactly an audience is
"persuaded"' (2007: 363). Stritzel proposes an embedded analysis of securitization: '(1) the performative force of the articulated threat texts, (2) their embeddedness in existing discourses, and (3) the positional power of actors who influence the process of defining meaning' (2007: 370). By this, he argues, the discourse of securitization must be understood as situated within
a relationship between speaker–audience and within a context that predates the actual securitizing act. What makes a securitizing move successful is, for Stritzel, the extent to which the actor has the power to make the threat and the discursive weight of that threat (has it been well established, or is this a new threat?). Stritzel's general model of embedded securitization is
productive, but does not explain the success or failure of securitizing moves with any greater clarity than the CS. It is a useful framework that can guide empirical work, but it does not allow us to generate any hypotheses about the politics of securitization and, in particular, about securitizing moves that fail to garner acceptance or resonance. Adding the range of
success/failure, as detailed above, helps Stritzel's embedded analysis disaggregate 'persuasion' into multiple steps of audience acceptance. Balzacq also offers a model of the social aspect of securitization that includes 'the context, the psycho-cultural disposition of the audience, and the power that both the speaker and the listener bring to the interaction' (2005: 172). In
posing the question of strategic or pragmatic practice, Balzacq argues that 'the positive outcome of securitization, whether it be strong or weak, lies with the securitizing actor's choice of determining appropriate times within which the recognition, including the integration of "imprinting" object — a threat — by the masses is facilitated' (2005: 182). His examples demonstrate
that these choices are constrained by history, memory, and discursive tropes. What a dramaturgical analysis adds is the notion that — just as there are different national and psycho-cultural contexts — so too are there different sociological, political, bureaucratic, and organizational contexts within a populace. A popular audience will 'accept' securitization of threats differently
to an elite or scientific audience. Global warming as an environmental securitization, for example, has had creeping success — but on radically different grounds with scientists, bureaucrats, elite politicians, and the populace (both within states and between states). It is unclear to me if 'securitizing agents always strive to convince as broad an audience as possible' (2005:
185), particularly within the context of security professionals (Balzacq 2008). In the case study below, the securitization of Canadian civil aviation security was pitched to narrow, specific audiences — and there was little effort to securitize the issues for the general public. At a base level, popular politics (at least in democratic societies) operates differently than scientific
politics; technocratic politics from elite politics. In short, in addition to the 'régime of truth, [a society's] "general politics" of truth' (Foucault 1980: 131), there are also specific politics of truth. Foucault hints at these specific regimes of truth in discussing the relationship between the specific intellectual and 'direct and localised relation[s] to scientific knowledge and institutions'
(1980: 128). I return to these notions of direct and localized relations in the case study. This is why a dramaturgical approach to the actual evolution of particular securitizing moves is so productive; the language and political games at stake in each setting are radically different. Balzacq has gone on to argue that 'securitization sometimes occurs and produces social and
political consequences without the explicit assent of an audience' (2008: 76). He uses the new governance literature to propose a new investigation into policy tools that are 'instruments of securitization' (2008: 79). Both Balzacq's work and this article are attempting to remedy the same flaw in the CS's methodology: an overreliance on speech acts to the neglect of the social.
A dramaturgical analysis of setting, however, provides the audience that Balzacq displaces. It is crucial to our analysis that
the audience is determinative of the form of securitizing move.
Even if those audiences are internal
or organizational, as Goffman explains: 'no audience, no performance' (1974: 125). He argues, "if one individual attempts to direct the activity of others by means of example, enlightenment, persuasion, exchange, manipulation, authority, threat, punishment, or coercion, it will be necessary, regardless his power position, to convey effectively what he wants done, what he is
prepared to do to get it done and what he will do if it is not done. Power of any kind must be clothed in effective means of displaying it, and will have different effects depending upon how it is dramatized. (1959: 241, emphasis added)" Viewing securitizing moves as a kind of performance, we can see the importance of 'front' and 'backstage': that the same securitizing speech
acts may be framed differently within the professional team and in front of an audience. Among themselves, (security) agents may speak in one way, but use other ways to conform to the expectations of a popular audience — and there are some that are always totally excluded from the securitizing process (1959: 145). The audience is not always the public. There is a
network of bureaucrats, consultants, parliamentarians, or officials that must be convinced that securitization is appropriate, efficient, useful, or effective. Balzacq identifies a series of backstage securitizing moves that have public effects, though are never securitized publicly. Rather than disappear the audience, a more flexible notion of the setting of securitization allows for
micro-sociologies of the particular securitizing moves. Top of page Dramaturgical Analysis Dramaturgical analysis uses the vocabulary of the theatre to understand social settings, roles, and performances of identity. Sociologist Goffman also introduced the notion of the 'framing' of identities and issues, to which much critical scholarship is indebted (1974).2 Much poststructuralist work relies on notions of performance, and critical work in international relations often assumes that key politi cal divisions such as inside/outside, order/anarchy, self/other must be continually performed and reinforced to have effect. In this research programme, I am interested less in the national application of Butler's notion of the performativity of gendered and
other identities (1990), Campbell's (1993) notion of foreign policy as an articulation of danger that acts as an identity function, Sylvester's analysis of 'dramaturgies of violence' (2003a) or 'development' (2003b), important and provocative though they may be. Instead, this dramaturgical theory argues that the setting of a securitizing move is determined by the actors and their
roles, the rules of the discourse permissible within that space, and the expectations of the audience. When we push this theatrical metaphor, we can classify the different types of securitizing moves that all share similar conventions, narratives, characters, and tropes. The use of specialized language, procedural forms, and common conventions all suggest a common
setting.3 For example, terms, precedents, or issues whose specialized meanings both speaker and audience share.4 Buzan et al . themselves use dramatic language: 'the staging of existential issues in politics to lift them above politics...an issue is dramatized and presented as an issue of supreme priority...' (1998: 26). Huysmans alludes to the 'security drama' and leads to
this focus on 'the processes of security' (1995: 66). Rather than classify securitizing moves as comedies, tragedies, and histories, we can classify them according to the setting: popular, elite, technocratic, and scientific settings. Each of these settings structures the speaker–audience relationship of knowledge and authority, the weight of social context, and the success of the
securitizing move. The setting of a securitizing act includes the stage on which it is made, the genre in which it is made, the audience to which it is pitched, and the reception of the audience. What is particularly useful about Goffman's dramaturgical analysis is precisely the mutual constitution of self and audience. The characters in the drama must use information to
convince the audience of a particular story: 'the over-communication of some facts and the under-communication of others... a basic problem for many performances, then, is that of information control' (1959: 141). The setting of a performance, then, communicates the ground-rules for who may speak, what may be said, and what is heard. For example, when Shakespeare
was originally staged, groundlings, who paid little admission and sat in the stalls below the stage, might speak to and throw food at the actors — something probably frowned upon at Stratford-upon-Avon today. British pantomime has a particularly interactive audience–actor relationship (oh no it doesn't, oh yes it does), as does the Rocky Horror Picture Show, both of which
rely on the audience knowing the call-and-answer structure of the drama. This is to say that in addition to an awareness of the language, tropes, metaphor, plots, and devices that are embedded in the process of securitization, dramaturgical analysis also directs our attention to the constitution of the actor–audience in a particular discursive relationship. Also, Goffman argues
that the presentation of the self changes from different social settings, and that an understanding of the setting can illuminate the exigencies of different performances. For him, the character and audience join together in a 'working consensus' to create 'the belief that ([he performer] is related to [the audience] in a more ideal way than is always the case' (1959: 48). Any
social scene, such as the setting of securitizing moves, involves the presentation of a self, the setting for that narrative, and audience reception. Speech-act models of securitizing miss the crucial aspect of the 'setting' of the narrative. In particular, the setting of a political speech act includes the stage upon which the securitization is attempted (national, organizational,
bureaucratic, or scientific) and also the past narrative history of failed and successful securitizations by lauded or derided characters (Merelman 1969: 225).5 Securitizing moves in popular, elite, technocratic, and scientific settings are markedly different — they operate according to different constitutions of actor and audience. A securitizing move is not the same in all
contexts, because it is not simply made up of the internal grammatical elements. Krebs and Jackson analyse the importance of public rhetoric, while bracketing the questions of motivation (2007: 41). Whether the intention of the speaker is entirely calculative or emotive, the rules of the setting remain the same (Goffman 1959: 66). A securitizing move made for political gain
or from fear adheres to the same logic, but the effect of the message may be different. This focus on the reflexive relations hip between speaker and audience is particularly important for theories of securitization. Securitizing moves follow an internal grammar that is determined not simply by internal rules (i.e. the invocation of an emergency or exception to normal politics),
but also to a common, social grammar (i.e. the universe of tropes, images, metaphors, histories that can be invoked). Securitizing moves occur within the universe of the audience imagination. It is not simpl y a power relationship — but a knowledge-authority game. A popular securitizing move may be prompted by an informal authority such as a civil society group (like the
Minutemen along the US–Mexico border); but, civil society groups may be ineffective in scientific settings (Minutemen and similar groups do not participate in academic or professional arguments about border security). A scientist will use different authority to convince her colleagues than her bureaucratic counterparts. For example, the case for the presence of weapons of
mass destruction in the lead-up to the most recent American invasion of Iraq illustrates how ambiguity was leeched from the technocratic discourse as it was marshalled in the popular sphere. Uncertainty was purged as the reports were summarized, as technocrats aimed to convince the political elite, and in turn as the elite aimed to convince the general populace. In short,
the 'acceptance' of the audience and the 'resonance' of an existential threat is different within different spheres. I argue that we can distinguish these distinct settings by the grand narratives by which truth is authorized, the characters who are empowered to speak, and the relationships between characters and audience. Within the security sphere, different narratives are
.
deployed for security threats in different sectors; different characters may attempt a securitizing speech act; and the relationship between the audience and the performer structure how those speech acts are made and received. This model of different settings for securitization stems from research into the widening of public security in post-9/11 politics
There is a consensus among critical scholars that the amount of social life that is governed by 'security' claims has increased
since 9/11 — but not all securitizing moves have been successful. In studying the evolution of civil aviation security, it was clear that the rules of the speech act
were different in different settings: who could speak, who could hear, and what could be said all varied radically — even on the same issue within the same sector. Using the case of the CATSA below, I argue that there are
four key settings for these securitizing moves. This is not to say that, in other contexts, more settings are not possible, but rather that the four settings are the fewest number of categories that allow for significant differentiation
within this case. The changing nature of perceptions of the aviation sector over the past 40 years demonstrates the importance of time and entropy within securitization studies. The gradual and increasing securitization of
international aviation has been a long process, one in which terrorist groups rather than government elites have been the organizational and discursive entrepreneurs. The travelling public has a short memory, politicians aim
at the next election cycle, and bureaucrats are risk averse.
Securitization has occurred at once or necessarily as a result of one speech act
that is accepted or rejected but often through the imposition of new regulations or international standards.
The setting
of securitization is clearly crucial. The success of a securitization act is dependent not exclusively on the formal syntax or on the informal social context, but also on the particular history, dominant narrative, constitutive
characters, and the structure of the setting itself. A popular appeal to national security is often effective in popular and elite politics, but may be less convincing in a scientific realm. The restrictions of mandate and bureaucratic
thinking will predominate in technocratic politics in (at least potentially) different ways to the decision making of elites bent on maintaining power or gaining reelection. The setting also determines the characters that may
attempt a securitizing speech act. Imams and ministers have an authority to name cultural and moral threats to society within the setting of popular politics, but there is a different stage presence about scientific truths. For
example, American librarians had a surprise entry onto the popular scene due to their perceived scientific interest in privacy and free speech, which trumped elite policy demands in the realm of popular politics during the
debate surrounding the total information awareness proposal (Abdolian and Takooshian 2003; Monahan 2006). The disproportionate effect of librarians in this public debate cannot be explained simply by power differentials as in Stritzel or Balzacq. Different actors possess different authorizations to speak in different political settings. In the following case, the same securitizing move (to
expand aviation security and airport passenger security) was made by different actors, to different audiences, with different claims to authority, in different languages, with different effects. This was evident over time as the securitizing move was accepted or rejected by the target audience. Top of page Securitization and CATSA CATSA provides an excellent case for dramaturgical analysis.6 There is a clear and accepted securitizing move in response to the at tacks of 9/11: the creation of CATSA. Because the 9/11 attacks were directly connected to failures
in airport security, specifically passenger screening, the securitization of civil aviation was relatively straightforward: the external threat of terrorists using planes as weapons of mass destruction had a deep resonance across the populace, political elite, technocrat, and scientific audiences.7 In particular, the real-time broadcast of the second plane hitting the World Trade center, and the repetition of those images, gave aviation security a dominant position in the public imagination of homeland security. Previous to 9/11, in Canada (and the United States)
aviation passenger screening was done by airlines according to national standards set by the transportation authority. Airpor t security was not a realm of emergency or crisis, and could be handled by non-state entities (like airlines or airport authorities). It was depoliticized, expressed in terms of cost and regulations and technical standards. To na tionalize airport security — make it part of the governmental structure, through CATSA — represented an expansion of governmental powers that was due to a perceived emergency and existential threat.8 The
securitizing move was successful, even easy. However, this does not tell us enough about the process of securitization. During 2004–2007, there were several other securitizing and desecuritizing moves. There are clear popular, elite, technocratic, and scientific communities that engaged in these (de)securi tization processes. Popular sentiment can be evaluated through public media, particularly in 2006. Furthermore, in 2004, CATSA engaged the scientific community in an examination of its security strategy, the proceedings of which were then published in
2006. Elite, technocratic, and scientific settings are evidenced through a 5-year governmental review of the CATSA Act in 2005–2007 and an Auditor-General Special Examination of CATSA in 2006. In these reviews, experts, bureaucrats, and policy -makers evaluated the security function of CATSA. In particular, the CATSA Act Review, conducted by Transport Canada with a wi de range of public consultations, provides a thick slice of public, scientific, technocratic, and elite opinion after 5 years of operation. During these two critical reviews, the CATSA
executive attempted to convince the elite of the need for an expansion of their mandate. In other words, a further securitization of airport security was called for. This was rejected by the technocrats, experts, and t he elite. The CATSA case thus provides us with a clear sector that is successfully securitized, popular and expert challenges to that securitization, and a rejection of an expansive securitizing move. There is thus a prima facie case for a successful securitization move in the area of aviation security in Canada. Before 9/11, passenger screening was
done by airports and airlines according to standards set by Transport Canada. Despite Vancouver-based attacks on Air India in 1985, there had been a general trend towards the depoliticization of airport security. It was a subject accessible to public debate, but not politically salient (referenced in political campaigns or in parliamentary debates). Transport Canada was the owner/operator of the majority of airports, and consequently was responsible for passenger screening. Airport policing, which had been the responsibility of the federal police force (RCMP),
was conducted by regional forces. Following the 9/11 attacks, Finance Minister Paul Martin submitted a budget that included the creation of the CATSA. The CATSA Act received royal assent on 27 March, 2002, as a new crown corporation responsible for 'effective, efficient and consistent screening of persons accessing aircraft or restricted areas through screening points, the screening of the property in their possession or control, and the screening of the belongings or baggage they give to the air carrier for transport' (CATSA Act Review 2006: 13).9 On 31
December 2002, CATSA undertook responsibility for all passenger screening. The creation of CATSA and its initial responsibili ties was supported by the Minister of Transport and Finance Minister Paul Martin, who shortly thereafter became the Prime Minister and issued Canada's first National Security Strategy. There was a clear case for securitization: the threat of terrorism particularly to civil aviation was acute, the previous system of privatized or deregulated screening might lead to inconsistencies among Canadian airports which fundamentally threatened
the integrity of the system, and, finally, running counter to the trend towards deregulation in civil aviation, the government had a security role. This opinion was exemplified in the National Security Strategy (Canada. Office of the Auditor General 2006: 36). In the following sections, this article parses the four settings of securitizing moves in the civil aviation security sector during 2004–2007. The traditional CS explanation would go this way: the Canadian state made a securitizing move to define the terror threat to civil aviation as an existential threat that
required extraordinary action; this move was accepted by the public, and CATSA was formed in 2001–2002 with new powers and authorities (in evidence through the changes to the Aeronautics Act). The Canadian state has not attempted any significant securitizing moves since the formation of CATSA. However, a close reading of the e volution of CATSA, and, in particular, the reviews in 2005–2006, demonstrates a much more complex picture of securitizing moves and counter-moves. Within the elite setting, political and bureaucratic actors actively debated
the roles and responsibilities of CATSA and attempted to increase or decrease the powers and authorities of the organization. Within the popular scene, CATSA became the subject of a number of journalistic and public government reports by a Senate committee that questioned the nature of the threat to aviation security and the appropriate policy responses. Within the scientific setting, academics and experts at tempted to desecuritize the work of CATSA through a critical appraisal of the risk management approach. Within a technocratic setting, the ability of
CATSA to provide and measure security was radically questioned by the Auditor-General, leading to a desecuritizing move. Running throughout all of these settings, there is a common thread: the CATSA exec utive wanted to increase its mandate, including more counter-terror operations in its operational purview. This particular securitizing move followed the same pattern: existential threat and new powers needed. However, this same securitizing move was made in different ways in different settings. Elite The CATSA Act Review provides a productive
snapshot of the securitizing moves in play between 2005 and 2006. The Minister of Transport, later Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, appointed an expert advisory panel in November 2005 to report on CATSA after 5 years of operation, which was tabled in Parliament on 12 December 2006.10 The Advisory Panel had a wide remit to 'examine the provisions and operations of the CATSA Act to ensure that the legislation provides a sound and adequate statutory basis for CATSA's aviation security mandate, provide advice on future aviation security
requirements and other developments that may impact on CATSA's future operations...on other important issues that come to [the Panel's] attention' (CATSA Act Review 2006: 15). In the preparation of their report, the panel conducted a number of public consultations and received submissions from over 40 agencies, institutions, airports, organizations, and individuals. CATSA itself also prepared a number of posi tion papers. This is a complex situation for the study of securitization: the three experts on the advisory panel are the primary authors of the report;
they are guided and supported by a bureaucracy from Transport Canada; the final audience is the Minister of Transport. Because the audience of this legislative review was the Minister of Transport, Communities and Infrastructure (and other political decision-makers), I analyze this process as part of the elite process. The Auditor-General's Special Examination, though it occurred in a similar timeframe and with consequences for CATSA's Board, was conducted with reference to the Office of the Auditor-General which has a defined mandate. Thus, I examine
the Special Examination below as part of the technocratic audience. It was clear that the mandate of CATSA was in contention. There was a potential within the social space for a securitizing move. The Panel notes: 'it is apparent to the Panel and to many stakeholders that clarification is needed concerning the operation mandate of CATSA and Transport Canada... CATSA thinks it should determine the "hows" [of security functions], while Transport Canada insists they are to be determined within the [Security Screening Order]' (CATSA Act Review 2006:
146). CATSA argued in their submissions that Transport Canada's Security Screening Order was extremely detailed in its prescription, and made security screening inflexible. CATSA made a clear securitizing move: a threat, which was existential, that required extraordinary action — in this case the expansion of its mandate and the transformation of an aviation screening corporation into a counter -terrorism agency (CATSA 2006a: 4). In particular, it was argued before the Advisory Panel that the CATSA Act, Canadian Aviati on Security Regulations, and the
security screening order, gave CATSA an extremely clear, but restricted mandate in its passenger screening. CATSA screeners were responsible for and authorized to detect and to interdict prohibited items only, or to validate the identity of some non-passengers entering into secure air-side operations. In other words, CATSA could not use any profiling, risk-management, or policing methods in their security screening. CATSA argued that its ability to use these tools — such as behavioural profiling or risk management — would make the civil aviation security
system much more secure. CATSA sought increased access to intelligence, a greater flexibility in screening-point staffing, and screening procedures. These moves were rejected by the expert panel and the Minister in the CATSA Act Review.11 In 'Our vision for aviation security', submitted to the Review, CATSA makes its case for an expanded mandate. CATSA can provide 'a national approach and consistency', 'public security', 'accountability', 'access to intelligence', and 'international networks' (CATSA 2006b: 5–6). The desire for national consistency
among Canadian airports was one of the chief reasons for the creation of CATSA. The form of the organization balances accountability across a Board of Directors, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and the Treasury Board (which approve, among other aspects, CATSA's budget and corporate plans). However, these other three priorities (public security, access to intelli gence, and international networks) represent an expansion of its mandate. Airports, in their submissions to the CATSA Act Review, argue that screening can be
handled efficiently and effectively by their own private security staff — essentially a desecuritizing move (Aéroports de Montréal 2006; Canadian Airports Council 2006). They argue that security screening is not an existential threat and does not require additional powers or authorities. Aéroports de Montreal concludes: 'ADM strongly opposes any expansion of CATSA's mandate to encompass, for example, access control or policing functions, since this could be a further infringement of airports' control over their operations. Furthermore, the Minister should not
be able to grant CATSA new responsibilities without consulting the airports' (2006: 3). The Canadian Airports Council writes: 'With the exception possibly of cargo security, airports are not in favour of an expanded mandate for CATSA, and airports should be consulted thoroughly before any expansion to CATSA's mandate takes place. Some airports have expressed an interest in taking over or sharing some of CATSA's functions at airports' (2006: 1). Against the argument that airports might be able to provide security screening, CATSA argues 'public secur ity
is the #1 priority — CATSA's legislated mandate is air transport security — period. We are not in the business of operating parking, leasing space to businesses, airport cleaning and maintenance, or other areas of interest to airport authorities. Public security is compromised when screening operations are "cross-collateralized" with other airport operations' (5). Within this complex discursive environment, securitization/desecuritization is not simply a binary (on/off) condition but more processual. An examination of the submissions to the Advisory Panel
illustrates who 'counts' as a stakeholder for the process, who counts as expert, whose voice is heard. While CATSA, the Advisory Panel, and the Review Secretariat clearly had primary speaking roles (with stakeholders in supporting roles) in this particular securitization drama, the important audience was the Minister. This is a failed securitizing move: CATSA attempted to expand their mandate, to widen their security footprint, to convince the political elite that, due to the terror threat, more powers should accrue to the security service. CATSA publications
emphasize the threat of terror, memorialize past attacks, and have instituted a training programme on terror for senior staff (David 2006). The attempt by CATSA to expand their mandate and securitize other areas of airport security was rejected by both the expert panel and the political elite. Both elite and experts were convinced of the threat, but none were convinced that special or expanded powers were needed. The Minister argued specifically that 'Responsibility for aviation security will continue to rest with the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and
Communities... CATSA's activities will be focused on its core aviation security-screening role: the effective and efficient screening of persons who access aircraft or restricted areas through screening points, the property i n their possession or control, and the belongings or baggage that they give to an air carrier for transport' (Cannon 2007). E xperts and elites argued that the public–private system, structured by rules from Transport Canada, could secure the system. In other words, the existential threat was accepted by the audiences, but not an expansion of
powers. Consequently, the securitizing move was not accepted by the key audiences, the Advisory Panel and the Minister. Popular Within popular politics, the securitization of airport screening was easy to accomplish, particularly in countries that had 'focusing events' such as 9/11 (Birkland 1997, 2004). As Lyon observes, 'apart from short-term responses to some notorious hijackings over the past 30 years, airport security was never a topic that engaged the publi c imagination in Canada (or elsewhere for that matter)' (2006: 398). In 1985, the attack on Air
India flight originated in Canada. Investigations determined that it was a result of weak baggage screening and the lack of r econciliation between passengers and luggage. However, passenger screening was not seen as such an important issue — the majority of hijacking or terror attacks occurred in the United States, particularly with reference to Cuba, or in Europe and the Middle East.12 In January 2003, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence tabled a report in Parliament titled The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports that
called for a reinstatement of the RCMP presence and a wide-ranging overhaul of the system. Despite frequent interviews in the popular press by its author, this report did not resonate with the public, the policy, or the political audiences: it represents another failed securitizing move.13 However, the success of the securitization of aviation security can be seen in the popular reaction to two cases of investigative journalism. First, a journalist f rom the French-language paper Journal de Montréal infiltrated the secure, air-side areas at Trudeau airport in Montreal
on a number of occasions through different access points. The journalist entered a catering company's facilities (Cara Foods) and gained access to restricted areas through a disused hanger. The reporter 'found a place to slip under the airport's perimeter fence, but there's no need to get your knees dirty: he also just walked in, repeatedly, as if he belonged. In prohibited zones he gained easy access to the outside of aircraft, to carts full of meals about to be loaded onto planes, and to a truck used to provide water to aircraft' (Gazette 2006). Though none of the
checkpoints he passed were staffed by CATSA employees, or indeed the actual regulatory responsibility of CATSA, it was CATSA that was held publicly responsible. While CATSA has responsibility for key elements of aviation security, such as passenger and non-passenger screening at identified checkpoints, it is not responsible for overall perimeter security or security of air-side services. An editorial opined: 'Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon and CATSA chief Maurice Baril have got some explaining to do. Security can't be perfect, but it should surely be
better than this'. Minister Cannon summoned Maurice Baril (who was CATSA's Chairman of the Board of Directors, who subsequently resigned) and CATSA President and CEO Jacques Duchesneau to Ottawa 'for further discussions' (Cannon 2006). In Canada, the responsibility for airport sec urity, and the maintenance of air-side security, is shared among a number of different players in the airport and coordinated by Transport Canada through the A viation Security Regulations. Thus, CATSA is responsible only for its six stated tasks, mandated in the
CATSA Act. However, the popular response was that CATSA should be responsible for all of airport security — that all aspects of airport security were the responsibility of the government, because of the existential threat, because of the need for emergency powers. The (inappropriate) critique of CATSA — for, in essence, having a restricted mandate — is a clear demonstration that the public expected that CATSA would be responsible for all airport security (perhaps because of its much larger American counterpart the Transportation Security Administration
or a 'misleading' corporate identity). For securitization theory, this implies that the audience, in this case the popular audience, may not simply accept securitization but also initiate an expansion of government powers. The second popular case that demonstrates how the wider public may not simply support, but widen securitizati on, is the 'revelation' by a Canadian television news programme that CATSA itself had security problems. CBC's investigative journalism programme, The Fifth Estate, broadcast 'Fasten Your Seatbelt' on 5 November 2005 (CBC
2005). A whistle-blower argued that 'customer service' was prioritized over security in passenger screening, and then a security expert, Steve Elson, demonstrated how to circumvent screening points (CBC 2006). The 'security expert' was described as being a former TSA inspector who currently consults on security matters (validating his expertise in both government and liberal economic terms). Once again, a comple x web of regulations and responsibilities was simplified (and misconstrued). The whistle-blower was a CATSA employee, and the programme
highlighted the role of CATSA in passenger screening and the random nature of non-passenger screening. Within the programme, there was little discussion of the role of the actual regulator and ministry responsible for aviation security: Transport Canada. However, in an unaired portion of the interview with Senator Colin Kenny, one of the authors of The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports said, 'The problem is with Transport Canada. They set the regulations, CATSA simply follows them' (CBC n.d.). CATSA has specifically mentioned their attention to
public pressure (Auditor-General 2006), and continuously measures passenger satisfaction rates. Within the popular realm, journalists and government representatives had the roles as experts to 'speak authori tatively'. In these cases, CATSA representatives — who were experts on the legislated mandate of CATSA — were unable to convince the populace through press releases, interviews, etc. that CATSA was not responsible for the security breeches. The socio-political context of Canada also determined 'what might be said'. In particular, the extremely
complex interplay of authorities and responsibilities at the airport was radically simplified: CATSA was represented as being solely responsible for aviation security . Any failures of airport security, by themselves or their subcontractors, were laid at the feet of CATSA — as demonstrated by the Minister of Transport calling the President of CATSA back to Ottawa immediately after the Montreal incidents. The success of the securitization of aviation security within this realm is clear in the public criticism of CATSA for not using enough emer gency measures to
contain this existential threat. The travelling public, which is frequently surveyed by CATSA about its customer service, plays a large role in CATSA's internal discussions, but a smaller role in its discussions with external agencies. These c onclusions demonstrate why more nuance is needed in current models of securitization. More is going on than a simple politics of blame or bureaucratic infighting, although plainly some of those dynamics are in play. Rather, CATSA was being responsibilized for all of aviation security in Canada, despite its limited mandate.
The popular pressure, I argue, is a representation of the 'facilitating conditions' in the popular imagination: the public wa s open to securitizing moves by the government. There is also the restriction of 'what might be said': in short, an over-simplification of complex regulatory systems and a misrepresentation of the level of attainable security. No system is completely secure — a fact that is often and easily acknowledged among experts in aviation security. But, this was not portrayed in the popular scene. Investigative journalists, in this case, had the posi tion to
speak authoritatively in a way that a Senator and other security experts did not. The public could only express their sati sfaction with CATSA's screening as a customer service to CATSA, or in the popular media as a policing and counter -terrorism agency. The failure of the expansion of the security mandate of CATSA in the elite realm and the simultaneous popular critique of CATSA's mandate indicate that the setting matters. Scientific In addition to a set of technical debates, CATSA is also engaged with the scientific community on how to effectively and
efficiently screen passengers. I want to focus on the primary adoption of the risk management model, since this has been examined in the Auditor-General's Special Examination and CATSA Act Review process. CATSA was responsible for the purchase and implementation of a wi de-scale technological upgrade to explosive detection systems, to meet Canadian and international standards. It has also won awards for its technological innovation for the RAIC programme that uses biometric identification.14 There is also a robust debate in expert circles
regarding the use of private firms for security screening, whether airport security can be left to the private sector or should be provided by the government (Frederic kson and Laporte 2002; Hainmüller and Lemnitzer 2003; Seidenstat 2004).15 CATSA is mandated to secure key elements of the civil aviation infrastructure through passenger screening. CATSA, however, provides screening according to the 'Security Screening Or der', under the Aeronautics Act and the Canadian Aviation Security Regulations. As a crown corporation, CATSA is also bound by
government policy to implement a 'risk management strategy', the key elements of which are the evaluation of potential impact and frequency of exposures to different risks. It then formulates a strategy that accepts, avoids, transfers, or mitigates that r isk. Within this framework, 'It is government policy to identify, and reduce or eliminate risks to its property, interests and emp loyees, to minimize and contain the costs and consequences in the event of harmful or damaging incidents arising from those r isks, and to provide for adequate and timely compensation,
restoration and recovery' (Canada. Treasury Board of Canada 2001). CATSA actively engaged the academic and expert communities in formulating its risk management strategy (Brodeur 2006),16 and its proposed Security Management Systems approach (Salter 2007). The CATSA executive asked for training in risk management and, in 2005, the International Centre for Comparative Criminology organized two seminars (in Paris and in Montréal) on risk management. Th e academic experts at these workshops represented the fields of surveillance studies,
criminology, sociology, public health, environmental studies, and risk management itself. The core issues for the experts were the following: 'uncertainty theoretically supersedes risk and rule-based and risk-based models are not mutually exclusive in the promotion of security. Not only can they be reconciled in practice, but they must' (Brodeur 2006: 324). This poses two problems for CATSA, which later became evident in the CATSA Act Review and the Auditor-General's Special Examination: uncertainty within the public security fields makes measurement
impossible; following security regulations alone would be insufficient to demonstrate risk management. Among the social scientists represented at the Montréal seminar, there was a consensus that the tactic of risk management, used often in environmental planning and other scientific realms, cannot be easily transferred to the social realm (Zedner 2006: 424). Ericson, an internationally renowned criminologist who pioneered the critical study of risk management, argued, 'risk management systems can restric t freedom, invade privacy, discriminate, and
exclude populations. Such self-defeating costs and the uncertainties they entail can be minimized only by infusing risk management systems with value questions about human rights, well-being, prosperity, and solidarity' (2006: 346). These experts questioned not only the empirical reliability of risk managemen t (Manning 2006: 457), but also the ideological function of screening by risk (O'Malley 2006: 420). These experts agreed that the move to a risk-based model of airport screening would require more specific intelligence and the widening of CATSA's
mandate. But, they also stressed that because of the radical incalculability of the threat of terror, risk-based security screening had to be combined with rules-based screening. Since risk management could not prevent terror, and may cause potential problems, the problem of airport sec urity had to be made explicitly political. Within these seminars, the setting was academic: experts were selected because of their scholarly credentials and the discourse was in an academic mode.17 At root, the experts attempted a desecuritizing move: since uncertainty
trumps risk, the lack of metrics makes measurement (and thus management of risk) impossible. Thus, the security screening process must be political. Since a risk-based approach cannot guarantee security, and the risk- and rule-based systems were in some conflict, CATSA (and by implication Transport Canada, the regulator) must deal with these uncertainties and risks, sensiti ve to the politics of the situation. Screening procedures could not be an emergency, existential threat that required extraor dinary powers or policies. Because security was
unobtainable, the process had to remain steadfastly political. Though there was a consensus among the scientific field, this desecuritizing move failed — none of the other audiences were convinced, as demonstrated below in the review of the technocratic setting. Technocratic While the CATSA Act Review had the political elite as its audi ence, the Auditor-General's Special Examination had only the Office of the Auditor-General as its audience. It was also presented to the CATSA Board of Directors, with clear implications for the Minister — but the authors of
the report were a team of auditors not politicians. A Special Examination of CATSA was undertaken by the Auditor -General of Canada during November 2005–June 2006 (a similar time period to the CATSA Act Review process). The Auditor-General appraised the extent to which CATSA was fulfilling and measuring its mandate, as well as other financial and manageme nt standards.18 It is beyond the mandate of the Auditor-General's Special Examination to analyse the mandate of the organization (Canada. Office of the Auditor General 2006: 9). CATSA tri ed
to use the Special Examination as another venue to expand its mandate, which, as I argue above, is a securitizing move — accruing more governmental power to manage an existential threat. Just as CATSA attempted this with respect to the elite audience of the CATSA Act Review, they also attempted this in the technocratic setting. As the report concludes: 'CATSA does not wish to be constrained by its limited mandate. CATSA would like to have more control over the way screening operations are conducted, the allocation of screening staff, and the
selection of screening equipment; and it would like direct access to intelligence information' (3). The case for the expansion of CATSA's mandate is made in terms of security, emergency, and extraordinary powers: it satisfies the internal criteria for a securitizing move. Here is the key moment: 'CATSA's view is that counterterrorism is a key aspect of its work. This is evident in CATSA documents. Transport Canada has stated that CATSA's current mandated responsibiliti es do not specifically include counter-terrorism' (14). The CATSA Act Review Advisory
Panel also notes this troubled relationship: 'there appears to be a high level of frustration and mistrust between Transport Canada and CATSA at the national level' (CATS A Act Review 2006: 137). The Auditor-General's report is relatively neutral in this bureaucratic in-fighting but that neutrality stands as a rejection of the securitizing move. In short, the securitizing move fails because it does not accept 'security' as a legitimate justification for reevaluating the mandate of CATSA: 'This Special Examination did not question CATSA's mandate; rather it assessed
CATSA's systems and practices within its mandate and the regulations that govern the aviation security system' (9). Despite the best efforts of CATSA to make the mandate part of the audit, in order to use the report as a tool in their securi tizing move, the Auditor-General did not accept the move. Within the Auditor-General's review, who may speak and what may be said is radically different. CATSA officials prepared reports for the Auditor-General's team who also consulted with an expert team.19 The terms of reference for the report, however, were specific
to the crown corporation model and its relevant legislation regarding financial administration. Essentially, security was not the object of study: however, risk management was under scrutiny. Thus, while similar messages were made by CATSA and Transport Canada, they were expressed in different, more managerial language. The audience for this report was primarily the Board of Directors, and indirectly the responsible Minister, Treasury Board Secretariat, and the Parliament of Canada to which the Auditor-General reports. However, the review results
This dramaturgical analysis of CATSA during the crucial 2005–2006
period has demonstrated the need for an analytical disaggregation of the actor–audience model in securitization theory. Within different settings (popular, elite,
scientific, and technocratic), different actors were empowered to speak, and different audiences constituted — the rules of those discursive relationships were
also impacted by setting. Stakeholders from the CATSA Act Review had no voice in the experts' academic workshop; reports on the measurement of security for
the Advisory Panel were not used in the Auditor-General's Special Examination. These different settings also defined the content of securitizing moves: though
there was a common desire to expand CATSA's security mandate, it was done with different arguments in the expert workshop, the Special Examination, and
the CATSA Act Review. Finally, the CATSA case demonstrates the need to parse the success/failure of securitizing moves in a more nuanced way.
were also marshalled in the CATSA Act Review process, in order to bolster the case for a refusal of the securitizing move to increase CATSA's mandate. Thus, the same securitizing/desecuritizing moves are played out, but in a totally different register within different sect ors. Settings for Canadian Aviation Security
CATSA's securitizing was premised on the acceptance of an existential threat (which is commonly believed), the description of a crisis or
move
emergency (accepted by some and rejected by others), and the accrual of new executive power (which was completely rejected). Top of page Conclusion The CS model of securitization is provocative and productive of many
political and research agendas. Making the model more sensitive to who may speak, who can hear, and what can be said within particular settings allows us to evaluate the politics of successful moves to securitize or
desecuritize an issue. This kind of analysis necessarily involves an examination of a particular setting over time, a factor often downplayed in CS analysis. Sector studies in public safety, security studies, migration, trafficking,
minority rights, and disease can all benefit from a clearer consideration of audience–speaker co-constitution of authority and knowledge, the weight of social context, and the degree of success of particular moves.
Desecuritization is seen a priori as more politically preferable than securitization (Wæver 1999: 335). Deliberative politics
are by definition more democratic than exceptional politics. This has led to the important debate led by Aradau (2001, 2004, 2006), Alker (2006), Taureck (2006), Behnke (2006),
Huysmans (2006), and Floyd (2007) on the ethical relationship of emancipation and politicization to securitization. This follows from a productive discussion on the role of security experts (Eriksson 1999; Goldmann 1999; Wæver 1999; Williams 1999). While this article does not
analysts and experts must understand the political dynamics of successful
securitization and desecuritization processes if they wish to intervene. In this, I once again take the lead from Foucault who says that his own analysis
engage this debate extensively, we would argue that, tactically,
has sprung from his personal experiences and a kind of a malaise with objective, abstract, Archimedian theory. In building from his insider knowledge of and outsider status within institutions (such as the clinic, human
sexuality, or the penal system), Foucault conducts a 'history of the present' — to ask not 'what does the prison mean' but 'how does the prison mean?' With particular experience in different realms of security studies, it seems
the process of successful securitization and desecuritization
operates differently within different settings. If, as security experts, it is part of our role to intervene in the
that securitization theory might contribute to this kind of history of the present. This is to say that
securitization /desecuritization process, then we must gain a tactical knowledge of the conditions for success and failure. There is an
assumption in this debate about securitization/desecuritization that experts are significant or important voices. It is true that 'in writing or
speaking security, the analyst him/herself executes a speech act, this speech act is successful if the problem
raised becomes recognized as a security problem in the academy and/or in the wider policy making
discourse' (Floyd 2007: 336).
Cartels
Drug war violence declining
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But Violence Persists” Filed:
7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists-260990
Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like Coahuila, Guerrero and
Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate . In Durango, part of the Mexican “golden triangle,” an area
notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased by nearly half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.¶
ADVERTISEMENT¶ It is unclear what percentage of recorded homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification
in October, doing away with a separate category for drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.¶ Aware of the war weariness
felt among many in Mexico, Pena Nieto ran on the promise that, if elected, his government would shift the focus
from capturing drug kingpins, like Calderon had, to making daily life for ordinary Mexicans safer.¶ "With this new
strategy, I commit myself to significantly lowering the homicide rate, the number of kidnappings in the country, the extortions and the human trafficking,"
wrote Pena Nieto in a newspaper editorial during his presidential campaign.¶ Since taking office in December 2012, Pena Nieto has largely
eliminated talk of security from his agenda except when large outbreaks of violence have forced him otherwise,
focusing instead on the economy and his legislative reforms , including sweeping overhauls to education and energy. And while
the country appears to be less violent now than during Calderon’s war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the Committee to Protect
Journalists, remains “perilous.”
Legalization destabilizes mexico- causes cartel lashout and diversification
Chad Murray et al 11, Ashlee Jackson Amanda C. Miralrío, Nicolas Eiden Elliott School of International Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse
Control Commission: Capstone Report April 26, 2011 “Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”
Mexican DTOs would likely branch into other avenues of crime . Perhaps the most obvious short-term effect of
marijuana legalization is that this would rob the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels of up to half of their total revenue .117
The economic strain placed on the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel may not necessarily help Mexico in the
short term . The short-term effects of legalization could very well create chaos for Mexico. “The cartels
compensate for their loss of drug revenue by branching out into other criminal activities-- kidnapping , murderfor-hire, contraband , illegal ¶ 29 ¶ immigrant smuggling , extortion, theft of oil and other items, loan-sharking,
prostitution , selling protection, etc .”118 This means that if the social and economic environment remains the
same then “they are not going to return to the licit world .”119 If the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel turn
towards activities like kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion, it could lead to a spike in violence that would
prove to be destabilizing in those organizations‟ areas of operation. ¶
The Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana
cartel might splinter into smaller groups. In addition, the loss of more than 40% of revenue would probably
force them to downsize their operations. Like any large business going through downsizing, employees will
likely be shed first in order to maintain profitability.120 These former DTO operatives will likely not return to
earning a legitimate income, but rather will independently find new revenue sources in a manner similar to their
employers. Therefore it is possible that the legalization of marijuana in the United States could cause territories
currently under the control of the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel to become more violent than they are today.
This is troubling, as Sinaloa, Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua states are already among the most violent
areas of Mexico.121
Legalizing doesn’t solve violence
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in
the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars ac 6-24
Full commercial legalization of cannabis, or some alternative short of full commercialization, such as lawful production for personal use
or by user cooperatives,
would shrink the revenue of the Mexican trafficking organizations by approximately one-fifth ,
according to Beau Kilmer and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation:
not a dramatic gain but certainly not trivial. Whether
trafficking violence would be reduced by a comparable amount is a question for speculation, with no real
evidence either way. Mexican drug traffickers would be left with plenty to fight over and more than enough
money to finance their combat.
**Cartels are diversified and resilient
Longmire 11 a former officer and investigative special agent in the Air Force, “Legalization Won’t Kill the Cartels” By SYLVIA LONGMIRE
Published: June 18, 2011 New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19longmire.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss ac 6-22
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Marijuana
legalization has many merits, but it would do little to hinder the long-term
economics of the cartels — and the violent toll they take on Mexican society.¶ For one thing, if marijuana makes up 60
methamphetamine, cocaine, and brown-powder
and black-tar heroin. If marijuana were legalized, the cartels would still make huge profits from the sale of these other
drugs.¶ Plus, there’s no reason the cartels couldn’t enter the legal market for the sale of marijuana, as organized
crime groups did in the United States after the repeal of Prohibition.¶ Still, legalization would deliver a significant
short-term hit to the cartels — if drug trafficking were the only activity they were engaged in. But cartels derive a
growing slice of their income from other illegal activities. Some experts on organized crime in Latin America, like
Edgardo Buscaglia, say that cartels earn just half their income from drugs.¶ Indeed, in recent years cartels have used an
extensive portfolio of rackets and scams to diversify their income. For example, they used to kidnap rivals, informants and
percent of the cartels’ profits, that still leaves another 40 percent, which includes the sale of
incompetent subordinates to punish, exact revenge or send a message. Now that they have seen that people are willing to pay heavy ransoms,
kidnapping has become their second-most-lucrative venture, with the targets ranging from businessmen to
migrants.¶ Another new source of cartel revenue is oil theft, long a problem for the Mexican government. The national oil company,
Pemex, loses hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum every year to bandits and criminal gangs who tap into
pipelines and siphon it off. Now the cartels are getting involved in this business, working with associates north of the border to sell the oil to American
companies at huge markups.¶ In 2009 a federal court convicted an American businessman of helping to funnel $2 million in petroleum products stolen
from Pemex by a Mexican cartel, eventually selling it to a Texas chemical plant owned by the German chemical company BASF. The chemical company
claims never to have known where the products came from. ¶ Cartels
are also moving into the market in pirated goods in Latin
market used to be dominated by terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas , who operated in the triborder area
of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Now the field is being overtaken by Mexican cartels, which already have so much
control over the sale of pirated CDs, DVDs and software that many legitimate companies no longer even bother
to distribute their full-price products in parts of Mexico.¶ Taking another page from traditional organized crime, cartels are also
moving into extortion . A cartel representative will approach the owner of a business — whether a pharmacy or a taco stand — demanding a
America. The
monthly stipend for “protection.” If those payments aren’t made on time, the business is often burned to the ground, or the owner is threatened,
popular cartel racket involves branded products . For example, a cartel member — most often from Los
tell a music-store owner that he has to sell
CDs with the Zetas logo stamped on them, with the cartel taking a 25 percent cut of the profits. Noncompliance isn’t an
option.¶ With so many lines of business , it’s unlikely that Mexican cartels would close up shop in the event of
kidnapped or killed.¶ A
Zetas and La Familia Michoacana, two of the largest and most diversified cartels — will
legalization, even if it meant a serious drop in profits from their most successful product. Cartels are economic
entities, and like any legitimate company the best are able to adapt in the face of a changing market .¶ This is not to
say that drug legalization shouldn’t be considered for other reasons. We need to stop viewing casual users as criminals, and we need to treat
addicts as people with health and emotional problems. Doing so would free up a significant amount of jail space, court time and law enforcement
resources. What it
won’t do, though, is stop the violence in Mexico.
State capacity and institutional corruption are huge alt causes
Hope 14 (Alejandro, security policy analyst at IMCO, a Mexico City research organization, and former intelligence officer, 1-21-14, "Legal U.S. Pot
Won’t Bring Peace to Mexico" Bloomberg Review) www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-01-21/legal-u-s-pot-won-t-bring-peace-to-mexico
Whatever the legal status of marijuana, Mexico needs to tackle its many institutional malfunctions. Its police
forces are underpaid , undertrained , under motivated and deeply vulnerable to corruption and intimidation. Its
criminal justice system is painfully slow, notoriously inefficient and deeply unfair . Even with almost universal
impunity , prisons are overflowing and mostly ruled by the inmates themselves . Changing that reality will take
many years. Some reforms are under way, some are barely off the ground. As a result of a 2008 constitutional reform, criminal courts are being
transformed, but progress across states has been uneven. With a couple of local exceptions, police reform has yet to find political traction. The federal
Attorney General’s Office is set to become an independent body, but not before 2018. The reformist zeal that President Enrique Pena
Nieto has shown in other policy areas (education, energy, telecommunications) is absent in security and justice. Security
policy remains reactive, driven more by political considerations than by strategic design. And results have been mixed at best:
Homicides declined moderately in 2013, but both kidnapping and extortion reached record levels. Marijuana
legalization won’t alter that dynamic . In the final analysis, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem, much less a marijuana
problem: It has a state capacity problem . That is, its institutions are too weak to protect the life, liberty and
property of its citizens. Even if drug trafficking might very well decline in the future, in the absence of stronger
institutions , something equally nefarious will replace it.
No Mexican failed state—reject media hype
by Martín Paredes ·El Paso News February 28,
friedman-mexico-failed-state/ ac 8-27
2014 “George Friedman: Mexico is not a Failed State” http://elpasonews.org/2014/02/george-
A failed state read the headlines. Doom
and gloom, Mexico was about to implode led the news cycles starting around
2008. A revolution as about to start south of the US border, it was just a matter of days. Fast forward to today and the notion that
Mexico is on the verge of becoming a failed state is as idiotic today as it was then . The news reporters happily
interviewed the dubious characters predicting Mexico’s failures because to lead with Mexico’s imminent demise
was an easy sell for the US appetite for sensational headlines .¶ I understand that the news media has to attract
eyeballs in order to stay in business. Eyeballs sell advertising and the more eyeballs the more financially stable
the news outlet is. Most of the time when I am discussing the state of the news media with a reporter and news outlet executive the topic of
tabloids leads to heated discussions about ethics in journalism. That discussion invariably leads to how blogging has destroyed the
profession of the professional news outlet. I always counter that the demise of the newspapers and news outlets to Internet delivered
news is a direct result of the failure of the traditional news outlets adhering to the basics of fair and ethical news reporting.¶ The demise of the
traditional news media came about when sensationalism became the accepted practice rather than the exception.
I don’t blame the so-called experts on everything drug cartel related because they are nothing more than
individuals looking to make a quick buck by proclaiming themselves experts on the drug traffickers in Mexico.¶
The notion of the imminent failure of Mexico was started by information peddler George Friedman in May of 2008
with his self-serving, make-another-dollar opinion that was nothing more than another charlatan peddling his
goods to those willing to buy. The problem with people like Friedman is that the news media is too happy to label
them “experts” in order to ply their sensational headlines to their audience. ¶ George Friedman’s company and
raison d’ete is his company Stratfor. Stratfor peddles “strategic analysis” about geopolitics. In essence, the
company has self-proclaimed itself as an expert in global security in order to sell its publications to individuals
and governments. It peddles self-proclaimed expertise in security. The problem though is that their security
“expertise” apparently doesn’t include their own operations because in 2011, the hacker group Anonymous
broke into their systems. In February 2012, Wikileaks began publishing the stolen emails.¶ Friedman’s Stratfor has taken the position that you
can’t trust the released emails because they will not confirm which ones are authenticate and which ones may be doctored after they were stolen. To
me, this position is nothing more than a desperate attempt to discount the theft of their emails. Regardless, for a so-called expert on “security” the theft
of their emails shows a distinct failure in their ability to protect themselves and thus the security of their clients. ¶ For his part, George Friedman, born in
Budapest Hungary is a former professor and now an author and owner of Stratfor. He peddles information to those willing to buy it. I am sure you are all
aware of the famous phrase; “those who can’t, teach”. Most appropriate for Friedman. ¶ A Failed State is generally defined as a country
that has lost some or all control over its sovereignty. The fact is that Mexico, even at the height of the Mexican
Drug War never relinquished control over its sovereignty. I am sure some of you will argue that there were and are pockets of
criminality in Mexico that seem to surpass the government’s ability to maintain control. However, all of that rhetoric ignores a fundamental
reality; a failed state has a failed economy and an ineffective government. So, let’s take a look at those two
functions.¶ Has the Mexican economy faltered?¶ The World Bank ranks Mexico’s economy as the second largest economy
south of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), behind Brazil. This month Moody’s rated Mexico as A3, the first time the country has received an
“A” rating in its entire history. Keep in mind that the rating is derived from actions taken by two administrations under two different political parties.¶ I
wish George Friedman would explain to everyone how it is that a country on the verge of collapse is able to
attain an A rating for its economy. Somehow, I don’t expect he will, as it isn’t something he can sell to the news outlets and his subscribers
looking for doom-and-gloom coming from Mexico.¶ Somehow, a country on the verge of collapse, according to George
Friedman is on the road to becoming the United States’ number one automobile exporter this year. Again, how is it
that a country on the verge of collapse continues to build enough automobiles to outpace Canada and Japan? ¶
Clearly, the Mexican economy is not on the verge of collapse and therefore the country’s government is in full
control. So, let’s a take a look at the transition of power. ¶ On December 1, 2012, President Enrique Peña Nieto took office.
Mexico had effectively transitioned power from one government to another. Former President Felipe Calderon
Hinojosa, who initiated the Mexican Drug War, democratically relinquished power in a transition from one party
to another. Both US president Barack Obama and leftist president Hugo Chavez both agreed that the transfer of power was properly completed.¶ In
other words, two opposing political ideologies both agreed that Mexico’s electoral process was completed properly
under the law. In fact, Mexico has now transitioned power from one party, to another and back to the original party
making Mexico a two-party country.¶ So much for the notion that Mexico was on the verge of collapse.¶ The
problem of the drug cartels is a significant problem for Mexico but it is a geopolitical problem with many facets at
work at the same time. For the most part Mexico has risen to the occasion and has demonstrated that far from being a
failed state, it is in fact an economically growing country in full control of its sovereignty. As much as the
naysayers want it to be, the facts are that Mexico is not some backwards country on the border holding the US
back. Rather it is a country that the US should be proud to call a friend .¶ Unfortunately, for people like George
Friedman and those who subscribe to his voodoo research the facts are just inconvenient things that should be
ignored.
No oil shocks-several factors check.
Whitehouse 10 (12-19, Mark, deputy bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal “Oil Prices Seen as a Threat Again”,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395904576025762319723364.html
In the physical market, oil producers have ample capacity to keep prices in check. The International Energy
Agency estimates spare capacity among Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at 6.4% of
global demand, nearly double the level of late 2007. As of the end of November, the world had enough oil
in its inventories to cover demand for 20 days without drying out pipelines and refineries, according to data
provider Oil Market Intelligence. That's up from 14 days in November 2007. Thanks to the added
inventories, "the broader economy is now more insulated from oil shocks" than it was back in 2008, says
Philip Verleger, an energy economist at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business.
While many see speculative investment as a source of volatility, it might actually help prevent a spike, says Mr.
Verleger. By pushing up the price of oil to be delivered in future months, investors have made it more attractive
for traders to buy oil now and hold it for future sale. That , in turn, keeps inventories higher, providing a cushion
that can limit price swings in the event of sudden changes in supply and demand. If the price of oil does rise
further, it won't necessarily do economic damage. For one, the price spike of 2008 led many people and
companies to cut back on energy consumption, a shift that could make them more resilient to price increases
this time around. Beyond that, oil-price increases can have little to no impact if they correspond to a decrease
in the value of the dollar against other currencies. Because oil is bought and sold in dollars, it doesn't become
more expensive for most of the world's buyers unless the price increase exceeds the drop in the dollar. And in
the U.S., the export boost from a cheaper dollar can create more jobs, offsetting the pain of higher prices at the
gas pump.
**Data disproves heg impacts
Fettweis, 11 Christopher J. Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint? Examining European Grand
Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, EBSCO
It is perhaps worth noting that there
is no evidence to support a direct relationship between the relative level of U.S. activism
and international stability. In fact, the limited data we do have suggest the opposite may be true . During the 1990s, the
United States cut back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was spending $100 billion less on
defense in real terms than it had in 1990.51 To internationalists, defense hawks and believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible
“peace dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan, “doubts
that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”52 On the other hand, if the pacific
trends were not based upon U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, one would not have
expected an increase in global instability and violence. The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The world grew
more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its security was endangered by
a less-capable United States military, or at least none took any action that would suggest such a belief. No militaries
were enhanced to address power vacuums, no security dilemmas drove insecurity or arms races, and no
regional balancing occurred once the stabilizing presence of the U.S. military was diminished . The rest of the world
acted as if the threat of international war was not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities. Most of all, the United States and its
allies were no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut its military spending under President
Clinton, and kept declining as the Bush Administration ramped the spending back up. No complex statistical analysis should be necessary to reach the
conclusion that the two are unrelated. Military spending figures by themselves are insufficient to disprove a connection between overall U.S. actions and
international stability. Once again, one could presumably argue that spending is not the only or even the best indication of hegemony, and that it is
instead U.S. foreign political and security commitments that maintain stability. Since neither was significantly altered during this period, instability should
not have been expected. Alternately, advocates of hegemonic stability could believe that relative rather than absolute spending is decisive in bringing
peace. Although the United States cut back on its spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered. However, even if it is true
that either U.S. commitments or relative spending account for global pacific trends, then at the very least stability can evidently be
maintained at drastically lower levels of both. In other words, even if one can be allowed to argue in the alternative for a moment and suppose that
there is in fact a level of engagement below which the U nited States cannot drop without increasing international
disorder, a rational grand strategist would still recommend cutting back on engagement and spending until that
level is determined. Grand strategic decisions are never final; continual adjustments can and must be made as time goes
on. Basic logic suggests that the United States ought to spend the minimum amount of its blood and treasure while seeking the maximum return on its
investment. And if the current era of stability is as stable as many believe it to be, no increase in conflict would ever occur irrespective of U.S. spending,
which would save untold trillions for an increasingly debt-ridden nation. It is also perhaps worth noting that if opposite trends had unfolded, if other states
had reacted to news of cuts in U.S. defense spending with more aggressive or insecure behavior, then internationalists would surely argue that their
expectations had been fulfilled. If increases in conflict would have been interpreted as proof of the wisdom of
internationalist strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at least pose a problem.
As it stands, the only evidence we have regarding the likely systemic reaction to a more restrained United States
suggests that the current peaceful trends are unrelated to U.S. military spending. Evidently the rest of the world can
operate quite effectively without the presence of a global policeman. Those who think otherwise base their view on
faith alone.
**No Latin America war or escalation
Cardenas, Brookings Senior Fellow, 3-17, 2011, (Mauricio, "Think Again: Latin America", Foreign Policy, PAS)
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/17/think_again_latin_america
Latin America poses little to no threat to
international peace or stability. The major global security concerns today are the proliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. No
country in the region is in possession of nuclear weapons -- nor has expressed an interest in having them. Latin
American countries, on the whole, do not have much history of engaging in cross-border wars. Despite the recent tensions
on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it should be pointed out that Venezuela has never taken part in an international armed conflict. Ethnic and
religious conflicts are very uncommon in Latin America. Although the region has not been immune to radical jihadist attacks -- the 1994
Although some fear the Mexican drug violence could spill over into the southern United States,
attack on a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, for instance -- they have been rare. Terrorist attacks on the civilian population have been limited
to a large extent to the FARC organization in Colombia, a tactic which contributed in large part to the organization's loss of popular support.
No impact to econ
Daniel Drezner 14, IR prof at Tufts, The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession, World Politics, Volume 66.
Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164
The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence.
During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to
increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an
increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of
great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement
fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however. The Institute for Economics
and Peace has concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43
Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in
most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent
conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five
years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed . Rogers
Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion
that might have been expected
FSM
Pot is irrelevant- tons of alt causes
Natelson 14 (Rob, Independence Institute's Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, 1-4-14, "Lessons for Federalism from Colorado's Pot
Legalization" The American Thinker) www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/lessons_for_federalism_from_colorados_pot_legalization.html
From Colorado's marijuana "legalization" some federalism advocates draw a conclusion that is both (1) obvious and (2)
wrong. The conclusion is that the only way to restore constitutional limits is for constitutionalists to form alliances with
hard core "progressives" in areas of common concern. After all, wasn't it a right-and-left-wing coalition that successfully repealed
Colorado's marijuana ban?¶ There are, however, at least two problems with this approach. First, the few areas of common
concern are mostly very small and of limited importance. "Progressives" very rarely take a genuine profederalism position, and when they do, the issue is usually narrow. By any objective measure, marijuana
legalization is small POT-atoes compared to massive programs like Obamacare.
Current pot federalism is good – preserves state flexibility – the aff causes federal takeover which kills
federalism and growth/competitiveness
Richard A. Epstein and Mario Loyola Summer 14 (*Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of Chicago;
**Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation; “Saving Federalism,”
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/saving-federalism)
cooperative-federalism programs that are almost as
effective in establishing federal control of the states as direct rule would be. Cooperative federalism uses either fiscal or regulatory
inducements to rope states into implementing federal policy. Examples include state Medicaid programs and state implementation
There was only one problem: Like New York, Printz left the door wide open for the
plans under the Clean Air Act (such as the EPA's new state-based carbon rule), both of which require states to seek federal approval to gain benefits
and avoid penalties. The Rehnquist Court held fast to the fiction that such programs are voluntary for the states and constitute mere "encouragement" on
the part of federal authorities, which is permissible unless and until it rises to the level of coercion. As the Court explained in New York, "Where
Congress encourages state regulation rather than compelling it, state governments remain responsive to the local electorate's preferences; state officials
remain accountable to the people."¶ But what is the conceptual difference between encouragement and coercion? Both involve free will but both involve
the imposition of onerous penalties if states refuse to comply with federal policy. Federal funds, which now account for 32% of state
budgets on average, often come with so many conditions attached that any state variations to a program can be only marginal. If states refuse to
comply, they lose funds under programs that their citizens have already been taxed for.¶ Likewise, through what scholars call "conditional
preemption," the federal government, exercising its commerce power, grants states permission to implement federal
regulations in areas such as health care , the environment, education, and transportation — but only if the states comply with a host of
they
don't comply, the federal government preempts them and imposes its own implementation program, often with little
conditions. The conditions are normally so extensive that if states comply they are reduced to mere field offices of the federal government. But if
consideration for local constituents. Indeed, sometimes the federal agency comes to "crucify" local constituents, as former EPA regional administrator Al
Armendariz boasted at a closed-door meeting in the first months of the Obama administration. One troubling example of such "crucifixion" arose when
Texas refused to implement the EPA's first greenhouse-gas regulations: EPA preempted the field and then massively delayed the implementation of the
regulation, leaving key industries with no access to necessary operating permits. Texas was forced to back down. ¶ Unlike the Supreme Court, the
National Federalists have no trouble praising cooperative-federalism programs that increase federal control of state governments. Federal
conditions shape most state policies, chiefly because they are almost impossible for state officials to resist as a matter of
political reality. The blandishment of hard tax dollars, which if rejected will go to other states even if raised from the citizens of the refusing state, plus the
specter of unfriendly federal regulators stepping in if state regulators refuse to comply, are usually more than enough to force the hands of state
officials.¶ Trying to distinguish pressure from compulsion, the Court in New York v. United States claimed that "[a]ccountability is...diminished when, due
to federal coercion, elected state officials cannot regulate in accordance with the views of the local electorate in matters not pre-empted by federal
regulation." But by definition any incentive-based "encouragement" diminishes a state government's responsiveness to local preferences in favor of
national ones.¶ Nor can the Court's current federalism construct be saved by insisting that the difference between encouragement and coercion is a
matter of degree. One might as well say that it is fine for a robber to give you a choice between 5% of your wealth and your life, but not between all your
money and your life. It is the forfeiture of any federal revenue for non-cooperation that marks off coercion from encouragement. The fact that money is
taxed directly from American citizens and given back to state governments (or withheld) in two separate "transactions" is irrelevant.¶ The Rehnquist
Court failed to make any progress on the federalism front because it was unwilling to disturb the key New Deal decisions in any way. In fact, at the end
of the day, it only strengthened them. On the commerce-power side, 1995's U.S. v. Lopez struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act because it wasn't
a regulation of economic activity, but in so doing it strongly reaffirmed the vitality of the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn decision and of the virtually limitless
commerce clause. Meanwhile, on the spending side, 1987's South Dakota v. Dole affirmed that a state could be docked federal highway funds if it
refused to raise the drinking age to 21. Dole relied almost entirely on 1937's Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, which refused to see inducement as
coercion because to do so would "plunge the law in endless difficulties." Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinions in both Lopez and Dole.¶
The Supreme Court's feeble defense of dual federalism has only played into the hands of the National Federalists, who are totally unconcerned with
differentiating between encouragement and compulsion anyhow. They believe in federal oversight of the states so strongly that they have turned a new
page on the progressive constitution. For four generations, their predecessors in law schools and courts had earnestly sought to explain why there was
no coercion in cooperative federalism, and how states retained their portion of dual sovereignty no matter what the extent of federal power. In contrast,
the National Federalists do not just concede federal coercion and control on every front of cooperative federalism; they celebrate it. ¶ For Bulman-Pozen,
the states are already dead as autonomous independent actors: "[W]e should think more seriously about federalism's afterlife as a form of nationalism."
For Gerken,
"the federal government can increase its power by devolving it" ; the task of federalism now is to expand the list of
nationalist ends served by federalism and identify new institutional means for achieving those ends. For Abbe Gluck, federalism "mostly comes — and
goes — at Congress's pleasure"; National Federalism goes beyond process federalism because it embraces "Congress as federalism's primary
source."¶ The National Federalists have done the country a signal service by dispelling the myth that any of the variants of process or cooperative
federalism can possibly coexist with the state's dual sovereignty when Congress decrees otherwise. They are surely correct, and the Supreme Court will
hopefully soon take note that nobody on the right or left takes its affirmations of devotion to dual sovereignty seriously anymore. ¶ Where the National
Federalists present a most profound danger is in their confident argument that national control of states is a good thing. Luckily, their arguments on this
front are demonstrably incomplete and misconceived. Gluck, for example, criticizes the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision (in the 2012 case National
Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius) on the Medicaid front because it "unrealistically assumed that erecting barriers to state
implementation of federal law will stop Congress from enacting major federal legislation altogether. The New Deal, however, is here to stay. The
question is not whether we will have major federal statutes, but what the continuing relevance of the states in this landscape will be." The "alternative to
National Federalism is not state autonomy," she assures us; "it is more Washington-controlled federal legislation."¶ In fact, however, cooperative
federalism allows the federal government to do many things it might not be able to do otherwise. Medicaid might never have
passed if it had been unconstitutional for the federal government to rope states into match-funding a federal program, because the federal cost
consider marijuana decriminalization in Colorado and Washington: Without
state and local police on hand to do its bidding, the federal government can't even enforce its own drug laws.¶
Unfortunately, the National Federalist account misses many of the troubling questions that its aggressive agenda raises for political economy
and constitutional principle in the post-New Deal era. For example, the National Federalists laud the states' ability to vary from federal standards
because it enfranchises local preferences while advancing national goals. What they ignore is that these benefits are a one-way ratchet:
States can always pile taxation and regulation on top of the federal baseline, but they can never reduce the federal
projections would have been staggering. Or
baseline. The National Federalists concede states the right to have more government than the national norm, but never less, except in the rare case
that a special waiver program allows it. Wisconsin's mid-1990s welfare reform, for instance, is one of the few examples of a state reducing a
cooperative-federalism program pursuant to a federal waiver.¶ Officials in regulation-heavy and tax-heavy states have an enormous incentive to collude
with their fellows in other states to form coalitions in Congress aimed at imposing a high level of regulation and taxation on everyone. We saw why in the
Child Labor case: With industrialization, labor and capital were becoming increasingly mobile and sensitive to seemingly small differences in state
regulation. States with child-labor laws set at 14 years were furious that other states set theirs at 12. They cried out to Congress for a uniform national
standard to counteract "the race to the bottom," a progressive pejorative for interstate regulatory competition.¶ One major objective of the New Deal was
to safeguard states with high levels of taxation and regulation by neutralizing the effects of mobile labor and capital through federal programs meant to
eliminate the competitive advantage of states with low levels of taxation and regulation. Modern federalism advances this vision with brutal effectiveness.
The whole system is biased in favor of producing the highest level of overall government control and economic extraction that is politically sustainable
—
exactly the opposite of the competitive federalism of the original Constitution.¶ Another point the National Federalists overlook,
again in keeping with their progressive forebears, is that their
vision substantially neutralizes one of the great benefits of a modern
economy. Keeping both capital and labor mobile encourages innovation , increases the velocity of exchange, and propels
the market toward higher productivity and wealth creation . Consider, for example, one of the great legacies of the New Deal: the
Rust Belt. Precisely when markets were needed to introduce a rapid re-allocation of human and material resources, the federal government stepped in
to freeze everything in place with "protections from competition" and "economic security for the common man." The inevitable result of hitting
efficient markets with these heavy interventions — which were driven by convictions that were as passionate as they were economically
illiterate — was the desolation of an entire region of the country.
no spillover, ecosystems adapt – best science
Jeremy Hance, senior writer at Mongabay citing Barry Brook, Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the School of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at the University of Adelaide, and Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute, 3-5-2013, “Warnings of
Global Ecological Tipping Points May Be Overstated” http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0305-hance-tipping-points.html#r2IbUBDMyux2eU7i.99
There's little evidence that the Earth is nearing a global ecological tipping point, according to a new Trends in Ecology and
Evolution paper that is bound to be controversial. The authors argue that despite numerous warnings that the Earth is headed toward an ecological
tipping point due to environmental stressors, such as habitat loss or climate change, it's unlikely this will occur anytime soon—at least not on land. The
paper comes with a number of caveats, including that a global tipping point could occur in marine ecosystems due to ocean acidification from burning
fossil fuels. In addition, regional tipping points, such as the Arctic ice melt or the Amazon rainforest drying out, are still of great concern. "When
others have said that a planetary critical transition is possible/likely, they've done so without any underlying model
(or past/present examples, apart from catastrophic drivers like asteroid strikes)," lead author Barry Brook and Director of Climate Science at the
University of Adelaide told mongabay.com. " It’s just speculation and we’ve argued [...] that this conjecture is not logically
grounded. No one has found the opposite of what we suggested—they’ve just proposed it." According to Brook and his team, a truly global tipping
point must include an impact large enough to spread across the entire world, hitting various continents, in addition to causing some uniform response.
"These criteria, however, are very unlikely to be met in the real world," says Brook. The idea of such a tipping point comes from ecological research,
which has shown that some ecosystems will flip to a new state after becoming heavily degraded. But Brook and his team say that tipping points in
individual ecosystems should not be conflated with impacts across the Earth as a whole. Even climate change, which some
scientists might consider the ultimate tipping point, does not fit the bill, according to the paper. Impacts from climate change, while global, will not be
uniform and hence not a "tipping point" as such. " Local and regional ecosystems vary considerably in their responses to climate
change, and their regime shifts are therefore likely to vary considerably across the terrestrial biosphere," the authors write. Barry adds that, "from a
planetary perspective, this diversity in ecosystem responses creates an essentially gradual pattern of change, without any identifiable
tipping points." The paper further argues that biodiversity loss on land may not have the large-scale impacts that some ecologists
argue, since
invasive species could potentially take the role of vanishing ones. "So we can lose the unique evolutionary
history (bad, from an intrinsic viewpoint) but not necessarily the role they impart in terms of ecosystem stability or provision of
services," explains Brook. The controversial argument goes against many scientists' view that decreased biodiversity will ultimately lessen ecological
services, such as pollination, water purification, and carbon sequestration.
alt causes prove resilience
Boucher 98 (Doug, "Not with a Bang but a Whimper," Science and Society, Fall, http://www.driftline.org/cgibin/archive/archive_msg.cgi?file=spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxisminternational.9802&msgnum=379&start=32091&end=32412)
Given the prevalence of the idea that the
entire biosphere will soon collapse, it is remarkable how few good examples ecology can provide of this
happening m even on the scale of an ecosystem, let alone a continent or the whole planet. Hundreds of ecological
transformations, due to introductions of alien species, pollution, overexploitation, climate change and even collisions with
asteroids, have been documented. They often change the functioning of ecosystems, and the abundance and diversity of their animals and
plants, in dramatic ways. The effects on human society can be far-reaching, and often extremely negative for the majority of the population. But one
feature has been a constant, nearly everywhere on earth: life goes on. Humans have been able to drive
thousands of species to extinction, severely impoverish the soil, alter weather patterns, dramatically lower the
biodiversity of natural communities, and incidentally cause great suffering for their posterity. They have not generally
been able to prevent nature from growing back. As ecosystems are transformed, species are eliminated -- but
opportunities are created for new ones. The natural world is changed, but never totally destroyed. Levins and
Lewontin put it well: "The warning not to destroy the environment is empty: environment, like matter, cannot be created or destroyed.
The political danger of catastrophism is matched by the weakness of its scientific foundation.
What we can do is replace environments we value by those we do not like" (Levins and Lewontin, 1994). Indeed, from a human point of view the most
impressive feature of recorded history is that human societies have continued to grow and develop, despite all the terrible things they have done to the
earth. Examples of the collapse of civilizations due to their over- exploitation of nature are few and far between.
Most tend to be well in the past and poorly documented , and further investigation often shows that the reasons
for collapse were fundamentally political.
Cooperative federalism kills civic engagement
Greve 2K (Michael, John G. Searle Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Ph.D. (Government) Cornell University, 1987, “Against Cooperative
Federalism” Mississippi Law Journal, 70 Miss. L.J. 557, Lexis)
American federalism has become an administrative, "cooperative federalism": state and local
governments administer and implement federal programs. n4 Many stateadministered programs are funded by the federal
In practice, however,
government, in whole or, more often, in part. Others take the form of conditional preemption, meaning that the states may choose to administer the
federal program or else, cede the regulatory field to the federal government. Cooperative federalism covers an enormous array of regulatory fields, from
the environment to education to welfare and, lately, crime control. In its horizontal dimension, cooperative federalism replaces dual federalism's
competition with state policy cartels and uniform regulatory baselines. n5 [*559]
cooperative federalism is a rotten idea , its political popularity notwithstanding. Cooperative federalism
undermines political transparency and accountability, thereby heightening civic disaffection and cynicism;
diminishes policy competition among the states; and erodes self-government and liberty. The sooner we can
think of viable means to curtail cooperative programs and to disentangle government functions, the better off we
shall be.
This article argues that
extinction
Boggs 97 – Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Los Angeles (Carl, The Great Retreat, Theory and Society 26.6, jstor, /)
The false sense of empowerment that comes with such mesmerizing impulses is accompanied by a loss of public
engagement, an erosion of citizenship and a depleted capacity of individuals in large groups to work for social change. As this ideological quagmire
worsens, urgent problems that are destroying the fabric of American society will go unsolved perhaps even unrecognized
only to fester more ominously into the future. And such problems (ecological crisis, poverty, urban decay, spread of infectious diseases,
technological displacement of workers) cannot be understood outside the larger social and global context of
internationalized markets, finance, and communications. Paradoxically, the widespread retreat from politics, often inspired by
localist sentiment, comes at a time when agendas that ignore or sidestep these global realities will, more than
ever, be reduced to impotence. In his commentary on the state of citizenship today, Wolin refers to the increasing sublimation and dilution of
politics, as larger numbers of people turn away from public concerns toward private ones. By diluting the life of common involvements, we negate the
very idea of politics as a source of public ideals and visions.74 In the meantime,
the fate of the world hangs in the balance . The
unyielding truth is that, even as the ethos of anti-politics becomes more compelling and even fashionable in the United States, it is the vagaries of
The shrinkage of politics
hardly means that corporate colonization will be less of a reality, that social hierarchies will somehow disappear,
or that gigantic state and military structures will lose their hold over people's lives. Far from it: the space
abdicated by a broad citizenry, well-informed and ready to participate at many levels, can in fact be filled by
authoritarian and reactionary elites an already familiar dynamic in many lesserdeveloped countries. The fragmentation and chaos of a
political power that will continue to decide the fate of human societies. This last point demands further elaboration.
Hobbesian world, not very far removed from the rampant individualism, social Darwinism, and civic violence that have been so much a part of the
American landscape, could be the prelude to a powerful Leviathan designed to impose order in the face of disunity and atomized retreat. In this way the
eclipse of politics might set the stage for a reassertion of politics in more virulent guise or it might help further rationalize
the existing power structure. In either case, the state would likely become what Hobbes anticipated: the embodiment of those universal, collective
interests that had vanished from civil society.75
2nc
cp
We do have federal certification – vague plan text justifies vague counterplan text
Kamin 14 from the 1nc
Congress would authorize the Attorney General, or some other executive official, to certify that a state is regulating
marijuana in a manner consistent with federal priorities. n55 Upon certification, the state's regulations would [*1121]
become the sole regulations governing marijuana within that state.
Aff destabilizes Afghanistan—world market alt cause
Fox 14 [Marlowe Fox, formerly lead counsel at a nationwide foreclosure defense firm with over two hundred attorneys across the United States,
“DRUG CARTELS, TERRORISM, AND MARIJUANA”, GLOBAL, POLITICS JULY 14, 2014, http://raybounmulligan.com/mexican-drug-cartelsafghanistan-and-marijuana/, \\wyo-bb]
Goodman notes that Afghanistan is the
world’s largest supplier of cannabis and legalization would allow Afghans to realize an immediate revenue
stream. Goodman concludes that this revenue would contribute to the overall stability in the region. However, he does not
In his recent blog, H.A. Goodman illustrates some of the possible benefits of legalizing marijuana.
consider the fact that legalization would remove barriers of entry for American and international entrepreneurs .
from
around the world would put their hat into the ring and effectively push Afghan growers out of any new market
Goodman cites Rand Corporation figures that Americans spend approximately $40.6 billion a year on marijuana. Hence, entrepreneurs
created by legalization. Thus, the conjectured stabilization in Afghanistan as a result from marijuana legalization
is not likely to happen .
No draw in
Fettweis ‘11 Christopher Fettweis, Professor of Political Science @ Tulane. “Dangerous Times: The Futurist Interviews Christopher Fettweis”. World
Future Society. 1/12/2011. http://www.wfs.org/content/dangerous-times-futurist-interviews-christopher-fettweis
THE FUTURIST: In the next few years, the United States will end its military oversight of Afghanistan and Iraq. We can hope that the two fledgling
democracies’ civil governments will prove strong enough to withstand their armed insurgent enemies, but it’s obvious that they might possibly not. In that
case, Afghanistan and/or Iraq could fall back into chaos. What can we do in that situation to make sure that a new
regional war does not come to pass as a result? CHRISTOPHER FETTWEIS: We can’t determine for sure if Iraq will implode. But
the odds of it drawing everybody else in seem low to me. People worry about the Iranians coming into Iraq. But the Iranians are more
hated in Iraq than the Americans are. In the nineteenth century, power vacuums used to draw powers in. Nowadays they
don't. Countries tend to stay away from them. They don’t want to even send troops into peacekeeping missions. I
don’t think invading Iraq has made us safer or less safe. It's just been a mess . Afghanistan is the same thing. I don’t think it matters
much to U.S. security either way. They may well end up having their own civil war. But will it spill over into other
countries? Probably not.
Cartels
Drug cartel containment is working now, even with limited legalization
Elish 14
Yale Globalist Notebook blogger covering Latin American politics and culture Paul, “21 Drugs –Legalization, Marijuana, and Cartels.” Yale
Globalist, 2014, http://tyglobalist.org/onlinecontent/blogs/21-drugs-legalization-marijuana-and-cartels/
An article from The Washington Post about “How marijuana legalization will affect Mexico’s cartels, in charts” is also a useful resource
on the subject, especially if one is seeking evidence downplaying the effect on cartels. The article cites a Stanford expert’s pie chart that shows
marijuana representing 17% of cartel revenues. The chart makes it evident that cartels don’t live on pot alone, so cocaine, methamphetamines, and nondrug activities (e.g. human smuggling and kidnapping) could help them weather legalization. What’s more, Colorado and Washington hardly
put a dent in marijuana cash flow compared to “bigger” places like Texas. Ultimately, the wait-and-see approach appears to
be the order of the day with reference to the consequences of legalizing pot in the U.S. and abroad, and with reference
to the changing dynamics of the War on Drugs. At the moment, things generally seem to be on the up-and-up .
Mexican President Peña Nieto is triumphantly tweeting about the capture of El Chapo and resulting possibilities
for smaller-scale cartels, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is getting psyched about extra dough rolling in from pot taxes, and I’m
contenting myself with my unquestionably legal, questionably advisable escapades in New Haven’s bar scene. Even so, I, along with many policymakers, will be interested to see what we’re saying on the subject of drug reform in the near and distant future.
Cartels are strengthened long term by taking over the informal economy- but have massive
short term lashout
By: Vanda Felbab-Brown senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings
September 23, 2010 “Why Legalization in Mexico is Not a Panacea for Reducing Violence and Suppressing Organized Crime” Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/09/23-mexico-marijuana-legalizationfelbabbrown?rssid=mexico&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3a%2bBrookingsRSS%2ftopics%2fmexico%2b(Brooki
ngs%3a%2bTopics%2b-%2bMexico ac 6-21
But, even
if legalization did displace the DTOs from the marijuana production and distribution market in Mexico,
they can hardly be expected to take such a change lying down . Rather, they may intensify the violent power
struggle over remaining hard-drug smuggling and distribution. (Notably, the shrinkage of the U.S. cocaine
market is one of the factors that precipitated the current DTO wars .) Worse yet, the DTOs could intensify their effort
to take over other illegal economies in Mexico, such as the smuggling of migrants and other illegal commodities,
prostitution, extortion, and kidnapping, and also over Mexico’s informal economy – trying to franchise who sells
tortillas, jewelry, clothes on the zócalo -- to mitigate their financial losses. They are already doing so. If they
succeed in franchising the informal economy and organizing public spaces and street life in the informal sector
( 40% of Mexico’s economy), their political power over society will be greater than ever .
1nr
Iran want to negotiate because its key to containing ISIS
Ryan Crocker et al., journalist, “How a U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal Could Help Save Iraq,” WASHINGTON POST, 7—11—14,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-a-us-iran-nuclear-deal-could-help-save-iraq/2014/07/11/cd2d1b72-085c-11e4-a0ddf2b22a257353_story.html, accessed 9-14-14.
¶ Illustrating that point, the advance in Iraq and Syria of the Islamic State poses a threat to the United States while clarifying choices for U.S.
policymakers. The question confronting the United States and Iran is no longer whether to work together but how to do so. And in light of decades of
distrust and animosity, communications between the two countries can be greatly facilitated by reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement in talks
If the Islamic State is to be contained, the U nited S tates and
other nations will have to reconsider past policies and manage enmities.¶ ¶ For Iran, the breakup of Iraq and the creation of a radical
Islamist Sunni state next door would be catastrophic. Iranian leaders now must decide whether to join Iraqi Shiites in a bloody sectarian war or,
underway in Vienna. Failure, however, would leave only bad options.¶ ¶
along with the use of force, work with others to build a federalized Iraq in which ethnic groups share in the responsibilities and benefits of statehood.¶ ¶
Meanwhile, after years of clandestinely supporting radical Sunni Islamists throughout the Middle East, the Persian Gulf monarchies face a choice
between denouncing the Islamic State, which poses a significant threat to them as well, or continuing to emphasize the sectarian struggle with the
Shiites.¶ ¶ In Syria, the choice for Bashar al-Assad’s government is either to turn its military power against the Islamic State or to continue to kill fellow
Syrians. It makes no sense for the West to support a war against Assad as well as a war against the Islamic State. Assad is evil, but in this case he is
certainly the lesser evil.¶ ¶ The Turkish leadership seems to have decided already to support Kurdish military action against the Islamic State, choosing
to risk enabling more independence for the Kurds given that the alternative is a radical Islamist regime on its border. Israel, too, must see that this violent
Islamist turbulence requires it to reconsider which foreign power represents its most serious threat.¶ ¶
Iran and the U nited S tates share
interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran’s intelligence network, religious identity, political influence, history and geography give it a pre eminent role in
both countries. At the same time, U.S. air power, special forces, military advisers, recent history and a commitment not to waste the lives and money the
United States invested in both places likewise assure that it has a major part to play. While some direct, low-key talks on Iraq have already taken place,
the nuclear
negotiations must be resolved before the U nited S tates and Iran will agree to have regular talks on the issue.
Any such discussions must also be sensitive to the reactions of Sunnis, particularly those in Iraq who loathe Iran.¶ ¶ Both sides are clearly committed to
making a maximum effort to get a nuclear agreement by July 20, and a good accord is within reach. Despite the expectations of many observers,
remarkable headway has been made. Iran has already met most of the demands of the six nations involved in the talks, and the sides are working to
establish a practical time frame for Iran to comply with limits on its nuclear program under extraordinary monitoring and safeguards. The negotiations
have been more civil than anyone imagined a year ago. But important — perhaps deal-breaking — details regarding the ultimate size and scope of Iran’s
peaceful nuclear program remain unresolved.¶ ¶ A breakdown of the talks — still a possibility — would revive the specter of
military conflict and result in the collapse of the worldwide alliance that helped bring Iran to the table. It would make
bilateral communications impossible, with both sides blaming the other. As the U.S.-built coalition crumbled, Iran might succeed in establishing its own
trade and political relationships with Russia, China and Western Europe.¶ ¶ Failure would also undermine the hopes for Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani’s government and could lead to the removal from office of those Iranian leaders who have sought to put the confrontational Ahmadinejad era
behind them.¶ ¶ A new strategic relationship between the United States and Iran may seem impossible and risky, yet it is also necessary and in the
interests of both. While an alliance is out of the question, mutually informed parallel action is essential.¶ ¶ Another Arab proverb advises,
“At the narrow passage there is no brother or friend.” Indeed, as we enter a new era of Middle East conflict, the path is narrow and fraught, and the
United States will have to work with many strange bedfellows. But with the right nuclear agreement and pragmatic strategic decisions by
Tehran and Washington,
there is a way forward.
Deal can be resolved- both sides confident
PressTV, 9-9 ["EU optimistic about Iran nuclear talks: Ashton," 9-9-14, www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/09/378168/eu-optimistic-about-iran-nucleartalks/, accessed 9-20-14]
The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on Monday that the remaining gaps between Iran and the United States, France, Britain, Russia,
China and Germany could be narrowed in the next round of negotiations due to be held in New York on September 18. “My hope is that we will make
progress... We believe, although we are far apart, there is the possibility of being able to narrow the gap,” Ashton stated. “But we are determined in so
doing to do it fully aware that the world is watching and expecting that any agreement must be a good and positive one if it can be found,” she added. On
Monday, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said that despite the current understanding of the
concerns on both sides, deep disagreements still remain. Araqchi, who is also Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, added that a major persisting difficulty is
agreement on a timetable for the lifting of the illegal sanctions imposed against Iran as a reciprocal measure by the six countries. On September 1, Iran’s
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ashton, who represents the six countries, met in Brussels, Belgium, and discussed the process of the
ongoing nuclear talks. Following the negotiations with Ashton, Zarif said he is optimistic that the issues related to the Iranian nuclear energy program
“can be resolved in time” within the November 24 deadline. Last November, Iran and the six countries signed an interim deal in Geneva, which took
effect on January 20 and expired six months later on July 20. The two sides have agreed to extend negotiations until November 24.
There is momentum for the deal
Norman, 9-19 -- WSJ staff [Laurence, "Iran Nuclear Talks Resume After Gap," 9-19-14,
WSJ, online.wsj.com/articles/iran-nuclear-talks-resume-
after-gap-1411159387, accessed 9-20-14]
The first full round of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers resumed Friday in New York after a two-month gap, with Western officials saying
the coming days are critical to reaching a deal by the Nov. 24 deadline. The talks are taking place to the backdrop of the annual United Nations General
Assembly meeting, meaning leaders and foreign ministers from Iran and the six powers will be in town. Western officials say they hope that will inject
some needed momentum into discussions and help them answer their biggest question of whether Iran's negotiating team has political cover to accept
a major cut in Tehran's current nuclear-enrichment program under a final deal.
C. Polls capture non-quantifiable factors that fundamentals miss
Highton 9-16-14 (Ben, analyst, "Good news for Senate Democrats. Maybe." Washington Post) www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkeycage/wp/2014/09/16/good-news-for-senate-democrats-maybe/
our Senate forecast is more optimistic for the
Democrats now compared with several months ago when we gave the Republicans a better than 8 in 10 chance of taking control. Here I will
elaborate and suggest an explanation. There are two central reasons why we estimate better chances for the Democrats now
than before. First, as Election Day approaches, our model gives increasing weight to polls (especially recent polls) rather
than background fundamentals, such as incumbency and state partisanship. As we have discussed, early in the
campaign season, taking into account fundamentals helps with forecasts. Later in the season, the polls are pretty
much all anyone needs. (See also what Josh Katz at The Upshot has to say about polls and fundamentals.) Second, there is a
disproportionate number of elections where Democrats are polling better than one would expect based on the
fundamentals alone, a phenomenon also discussed by Harry Enten and Sam Wang. In fact, if we compare the estimated probability of winning
A couple of weeks ago on The Fix, Chris Cillizza talked with John Sides about why
based only on fundamentals to the current estimated probability of winning that includes the polls, Democrats do better in six of the seven elections
where the differences are at least 10 percent. What explains this over-performance by Democrats, or under-performance by
Republicans? One
possibility is that the “midterm penalty” — the loss in vote share suffered by the president’s party
in the midterm — is shaping up to be smaller than in the past. That penalty is estimated by comparing midterm and presidential
election years from 1980-2012. For 2014, we have applied the average penalty, taking into account uncertainty due to variation in past midterm penalties
along with the uncertainty that arises simply because 2014 is a new election year. But it is plausible that the size of the midterm penalty in 2014 may end
up being smaller than in the past. This could be the consequence of voter discontent with the Republican Party, as Nate Cohn has noted. Another
possibility is that there are idiosyncratic features of individual races that the background fundamentals cannot
easily capture, and which favor Democrats in certain races. For example, maybe some candidates in the key races are
just better or worse in ways that we cannot easily measure — but that the polls are capturing.
Alaska key to Dems
Cohn, 9/10
(Political Columnist-NYT, What a Republican Edge in Alaska Could Mean, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/upshot/what-a-republican-edge-inalaska-could-mean.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0)
We know very little about what voters are thinking in Alaska. There haven’t been many polls, and the few polls we have are from partisan firms or those
using new methods. Alaska is the only state where there has not been a single traditional live-interview poll so far this year. What data we do have,
though, hints at the possibility that the Republicans have an advantage. If that’s true, it’s an important development in the fight for the Senate. Pollsters
have done only two polls since Dan Sullivan, the Republican nominee, won the primary last month. Both show Mr. Sullivan with an advantage. As a
result, Leo, The Upshot’s Senate elections forecasting model, now gives Mr. Sullivan a 55 percent chance of winning. If that’s confirmed by other polls,
Mr. Sullivan’s odds will go up further. For now, it is hard to have much confidence in these polls. It’s just two data points, after all, and there are reasons
to be skeptical. One of the polls, a YouGov panel, is not especially reliable in Alaska, where it includes only around 400 respondents. The other one, by
Rasmussen, is an automated polling firm that has struggled to get it right in recent election cycles. It would hardly be a huge surprise if Mr. Sullivan has
an advantage. Among this year’s Senate battlegrounds, Alaska was Mitt Romney’s third-best state; he won it by 14 points in 2012. It is also perhaps the
most reliably Republican state of the battlegrounds. It hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1964. If Mr. Sullivan has indeed taken
a modest lead since the primary, the consequences for the Senate contest are very significant. By most accounts, Republicans have an advantage in
five Democratic-held seats, including Louisiana and Arkansas. If the Republicans have an advantage in Alaska as well, that will most likely be
enough to flip the Senate, provided they avoid an upset in Kansas or Georgia. Additional polls might eventually sort out the situation in Alaska. But
given the frequency and quality of the Alaska polling to date, it seems just as likely that we won’t have any clearer picture. The state has had its fair
share of polling misses over the last decade, perhaps in part because the state poses challenges to pollsters or because the most reliable pollsters
haven’t surveyed the state. Either way, it is quite easy to imagine that sometime around 1 a.m. on Nov. 5, with most of the national races called, we
might realize that domination of the Senate is coming down to Alaska, and that we have no idea what’s going to happen.
Dem Alaska loss ensures GOP majority
Wellford, 9/16
(PBS News Hour, Morning Line’s mid-September top 10 Senate races, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/morning-lines-mid-september-top-10senate-races/)
‘The Marks’ look more vulnerable; does the Democratic firewall hold? Republicans need to net six seats for a majority, and are still favored to win at
least three. Nos. 4 on down are all tight and toss ups, but perhaps the most troubling news for Democrats is that compared to before the summer, the
GOP is now more strongly challenging the Marks (Pryor In Arkansas, which is up two spots to No. 4, and Begich in Alaska, up four spots to No. 6).
Democratic operatives feel confident Begich will pull out the victory in Alaska and that their firewall of MUST-WIN states to hold the majority are Iowa,
North Carolina and Colorado. But even if Democrats win all three, they could still lose the majority if Begich goes down. That’s entirely possible in a
state Mitt Romney carried by 14 points in the 2012 presidential election. But imagine this scenario: Republicans pick up those six seats, but Orman pulls
off the Kansas upset. That would suddenly make Orman a VERY important person on Capitol Hill.
Alaska is the Democratic firewall
Bernstein, 9/16
(Political Columnist-Bloomberg, We Could Be in for a Long Election Night, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-16/we-could-be-in-for-a-longelection-night)
Democrats have moved up slightly in the latest round of polling, leading the Senate forecasters to inch from a toss-up with a slight lean to Republicans to
pretty much a pure toss-up. Here's an update of the predictions of the estimated chances for 51 or more Republican seats: Monkey Cage/Washington
Post: 49 percent of 51 or more Republican seats Nate Silver/FiveThirtyEight: 55 percent New York Times "Leo": 51 percent Drew Linzer/Daily Kos: 45
percent HuffPost Pollster: 46 percent Sam Wang: 30 percent For what it's worth, a straight average of these works out to a 46 percent chance of a
Republican majority; that's down from an average of 54 percent when I last looked, on Sept. 3. The big difference over the two weeks is that Kansas
emerged as a real battleground. But it's worth remembering: that the numbers here (and especially the numbers at the various sites, most of them with
excellent "data vizualization") seem scientific, but at this point everyone is just guessing about what Kansas independent candidate Greg Orman will do if
he wins, especially if he winds up as the deciding vote in organizing the Senate. Which gets me to the point of this post: We could be in for the longest of
election nights. Any very close election can take days or even months to be decided, and this time we already have four seats with known risks of
continuing past your bedtime: Alaska: This is being called the tipping-point race. With Republicans having already apparently secured three open
Democratic seats (West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota) and having very good chances at knocking off two Democratic incumbents (Louisiana and
Arkansas), the Alaska contest may be next in line, becoming either the race that puts Republicans over the top or the one that has them fall short.
Alaska also adds a huge amount of uncertainty; it's considered very difficult to survey accurately, and very few try. Planning to stay up? Alaska's polls
close at midnight Eastern time, so if it's at all close you could be up very late indeed (poll closing times here; apparently, about half of the Aleutian
Islands close even later, but anyone still on the air at that point will call the state without them). Louisiana: Tilts Republican; HuffPollster has Republican
Bill Cassidy with a 48 percent to 47 percent lead over the incumbent Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu. But that's in a two-person contest. The election
in November is a "jungle" primary with multiple candidates, and it would almost certainly go to a runoff, set for Dec. 6. Cassidy will probably be favored,
but the race is close enough that the runoff could hold considerable suspense. Georgia: An even stronger Republican state. HuffPollster shows
Republican David Perdue with a 51 percent to 45 percent lead over the Democrat, Michelle Nunn. Still, there is a libertarian on the ballot, and Nunn is
within striking distance of holding Perdue under 50 percent, forcing a runoff, which, Ed Kilgore tells us, wouldn't happen until Jan. 6. Perdue would be
favored if there is a runoff, and conventional wisdom is that if a runoff was what determined the deciding vote in the Senate, then party loyalty (and
therefore, Republican candidates in Louisiana and Georgia) would be helped ... but it's possible that unpredictable factors would enter into the equation.
Kansas: Orman, the independent candidate, has taken a small (and unreliable, given the small number of polls and the unusual nature of the contest)
lead over Pat Roberts, the incumbent Republican senator. If Orman wins, we'll then have to wait to find out whether he would caucus with Democrats or
Republicans. He's indicated that he would go with the majority party, but that's not binding, and it doesn't hint at what he would do if he was the swing
vote. As for the timetable, he could wait as long as he wants, including until he knows the outcome of the other overtime events. Granted: it's still very
possible that either a surge or a bit of luck will mean that all the close seats go the same way, and one of the parties has a clear majority before Alaska
closes on election night. Nate Silver, for example, still estimates a 10 percent chance that Republicans will wind up with 55 or more seats; then, only the
political junkies will be up past midnight. But if it's close? That's four reasons the election might go into overtime, with any random nail-biter requiring a
recount making it five. That's one long election night.
Alaska determines control
CNN, “Game on in Alaska Senate Battle,” 8—20—14, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/20/game-on-in-alaska-senate-battle/, accessed 9-614.
The stage is set in one of the most important Senate races this year's midterm elections, a contest that could
decide whether the Democrats or Republicans control the chamber next year. Former Alaska Attorney General Dan
Sullivan held off two other major candidates to win Tuesday's Republican Senate primary, and will now face off in the general election
against first term Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. If the GOP can flip the seat in Alaska, and five others without losing any ground, they will
win control of the Senate. Sullivan topped 2010 GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller, with Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell coming in third place. Miller,
who was backed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, surged in recent weeks, but wasn't able to close the gap with Sullivan, who enjoyed a fundraising
advantage over his opponents, and who had the support of many mainstream pro-Republican organizations. Groups such as American Crossroads and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which tend to back establishment GOP candidates, supported Sullivan, as they saw him as the strongest Republican
candidate to take on Begich. Sullivan also had the backing of the Club for Growth, which often endorses more conservative Republican candidates.
The plan makes the ballot initiative impossible – deters voters – marijuana leads to a
confluence of issue-specific voters who will also vote for Begich
them, 20 states and the District of Columbia have more or less legalized the drug for medical purposes.
Wedge issues drive GOP turnout—history proves
Joshua Holland, staff, “Will Raising the Minimum Wage Become a “Wedge Issue” in the 2014 Midterms?,” MOYERS & COMPANY, 1—4—14,
http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/04/will-raising-the-minimum-wage-become-a-wedge-issue-in-the-2014-midterms/, accessed 9-4-14.
campaign to re-elect George W. Bush encouraged socially conservative activists to put constitutional
amendments barring same-sex marriage on state ballots across the country. At the time, opposition to same-sex marriage was the majority
position and the effort polled well. The move was widely seen as an effort to use a “wedge” issue to peel off some
Democratic voters, fire up the Republican base and increase turnout among those likely to support the president
against challenger John Kerry. It succeeded in 11 states.
In 2004, the
Pot ballot initiatives key elections
Halimah Abdullah, CNN, 5/8/14, Could pot push voters to the polls this fall?, www.cnn.com/2014/05/08/politics/marijuana-midterms/
Political operatives are pushing pot legalization in several states this year in the hopes of sparking high turnout in this
fall's midterm elections, and are looking ahead to 2016 as well. If voters approve a closely-watched ballot initiative in November, Florida could
become the first Southern state to allow medical marijuana. And voters in Alaska and Oregon — two states that already allow medical marijuana and
have decriminalized harsh sentencing for some recreational use — will likely vote on whether to join Colorado and Washington in allowing, taxing and
regulating pot for recreational use. There's not much of a smoke screen shrouding as to why some Democratic political
strategists would want marijuana measures on ballots this year given President Barack Obama's low approval numbers
and the party's historic slump in terms of turnout in midterm election years, marijuana policy analysts said. 'Young adults and
legalization' "It's nothing but politics," said Jon Gettman, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University. "If anyone's
electoral strategy is to bring out new voters, one area they would target is young adults and marijuana
legalization." That's because people under 30 are more likely to use and be arrested for pot, Gettman said. And, he
added, young voter attitudes about legalizing marijuana also tends to cut across political ideologies and includes a
cross section of liberals and libertarians. According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in February, 70% of respondents between
18 and 29 believe marijuana should be legalized. Comparatively, 32% of people 65 and older support legalization. So, political operatives and
their well-heeled backers have sallied forth, in part, with the hopes of hooking those elusive young voters with
the allure of legalizing marijuana. For example, Oregon's petition drive, which the National Conference of State Legislatures said is gaining
steam, is funded by New Approach Oregon. The group last year received $50,000 from the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization with ties to billionaire
and pro-marijuana legalization advocate George Soros. Alaska's Begich in tight race In Alaska, "the finances were right" to put money and effort into
getting a ballot initiative, said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-pot legalization group. In that state,
Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is in a competitive race to keep his seat. Those who oppose marijuana legalization balk at the influence of
big cash and election year pushes. "It hasn't been a fair fight in terms of messaging. They've spent over $100 million to advocate this," said Kevin Sabet,
an assistant professor at the University of Florida's Drug Policy Institute. "It speaks to the money in marijuana politics." Pot Politics "You have
special interest groups lobbying, pollsters, public relations and marijuana companies that are funding this. They
stand to make a lot of money if (marijuana legalizes nationally)," said Sabet who served as a drug policy adviser to both Republican
and Democratic administrations and is on the board of directors of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an anti-pot legalization group. "This is about creating
the next big tobacco and getting rich off of other people's addictions." In the effort to get marijuana-related ballot initiatives, pro-pot legalization
advocates have also netted the support of older voters who perhaps may be more likely to suffer from ailments they hope marijuana
can alleviate, and those who were born during the 1960s and 70s and bore witness to looser cultural attitudes about drug use,
marijuana policy experts said. Drawing voters to polls Pot measures are more likely to draw voters to the polls , said Chris Arterton, a
political management professor at George Washington University who helped conduct a national poll in late March examining the issue. According to the
poll "39% of surveyed voters reported that they would be much more likely to turn out to the polls if there was a proposal to legalize
the use of marijuana on the ticket. An additional 30% said that they would be somewhat more likely to vote in the election under that circumstance."
According to the poll, 40% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats say they would be strongly more likely to turn out, Arterton
said.
Plan hurts the dems—even if legalization is popular in general, it’s unpopular among LIKELY votersold white men plus a third of dems disaprove.
New Republic, 10/24/13, “Marijuana is America's Next Political Wedge Issue”
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115334/marijuana-americas-next-great-political-wedge-issue
To date, Democrats
haven’t had many incentives to take a risk on the issue. Democrats are already winning the
winnable culture war skirmishes , at least from a national electoral perspective, and they have a winning demographic hand.
And let’s get perspective: Marijuana legalization may be increasingly popular, but it’s not clearly an electoral
bonanza. Support for legalization isn’t very far above 50 percent, if it is in fact, and there are potential downsides.
National surveys show that a third of Democrats still oppose marijuana legalization. Seniors, who turnout in high
numbers in off year elections, are also opposed. Altogether, it’s very conceivable that there are more votes to be
lost than won by supporting marijuana . After all, marijuana legalization underperformed President Obama in Washington State.
Pot ballot intiatives save Begich—keeps Reid in his job
TRNS (Talk Radio News Service), “Brookings: Harry Reid Should Support Pot Legalization to Keep Leadership Post,” 8—25—14,
http://www.talkradionews.com/congress/2014/08/25/brookings-harry-reid-support-pot-legalization-keep-leadership-post.html#.VBkgU_ldXD4, accessed
9-15-14.
Engaging young voters with promises of legalizing marijuana may be the ticket to keep Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid in his post through this election cycle, according to a new Brookings Institution study. “In Colorado, those who voted in favor of Amendment
64 (marijuana legalization) voted for President Obama at a rate of 68%—far above his support among all Colorado voters (51%),” reads the study,
entitled ‘Harry Reid Should Love Marijuana: How Legalization Could Keep The Senate Blue’. “Similarly, in Washington, among those who voted in favor
of Initiative 502 (marijuana legalization), 72% also voted for President Obama. The president won about 56% statewide.” Reid is a supporter of medicinal
marijuana. The study cited the competitive Alaska Senate race, where incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D) is fighting for a second term against Republican
former state attorney general Dan Sullivan. And while midterm elections generally favor Republican candidates, Alaska’s electoral ballot will also include
an initiative to legalize marijuana. Alaska, if approved, would join Washington State and Colorado as U.S. states that have legalized marijuana.
“Marijuana legalization could change that by dramatically changing the character and nature of the midterm
electorate in Alaska, and helping Sen. Begich win reelection,” the study said. Oregon will also vote for pot legalization this November.
“(R)egardless of the outcomes, the presence of those initiatives will likely drive younger and more liberal voters
to the polls,” the study reads, “However, legalization supporters would be wise to wait until 2016 and capitalize on a dual effect. A presidential
election year will bring out voters more sympathetic to legalization, and legalization will bring out even more young, liberal voters than normal.”
Iran deal and relaxation of sanctions is key to prevent global proliferation and instability leading to
nuclear conflict.
Philip Stephens, journalist, “The Four Big Truths that Are Shaping the Iran Talks,” FINANCIAL TIMES, 11—14—13,
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/af170df6-4d1c-11e3-bf32-00144feabdc0.html, accessed 9-2-14.
The first of these is that Tehran’s acquisition of a bomb
would be more than dangerous for the Middle East and for wider
international security. It would most likely set off a nuclear arms race that would see Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt signing up to
the nuclear club. The n uclear non- p roliferation t reaty would be shattered. A future regional conflict could draw Israel into
launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. This is not a region obviously susceptible to cold war disciplines of deterrence. The second
ineluctable reality is that Iran has mastered the nuclear cycle. How far it is from building a bomb remains a subject of debate. Different intelligence
agencies give different answers. These depend in part on what the spooks actually know and in part on what their political masters want others to hear.
The progress of an Iranian warhead programme is one of the known unknowns that have often wreaked havoc in this part of the world. Israel points to
an imminent threat. European agencies are more relaxed, suggesting Tehran is still two years or so away from a weapon. Western diplomats broadly
agree that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not taken a definitive decision to step over the line. What Iran has been seeking is what diplomats call a breakout
capability – the capacity to dash to a bomb before the international community could effectively mobilise against it. The third fact – and this one is hard
for many to swallow – is that neither a negotiated settlement nor the air strikes long favoured by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, can offer
the rest of the world a watertight insurance policy. It should be possible to construct a deal that acts as a plausible restraint – and
extends the timeframe for any breakout – but no amount of restrictions or intrusive monitoring can offer a certain guarantee against Tehran’s future
intentions. By the same token, bombing Iran’s nuclear sites could certainly delay the programme, perhaps for a couple of years. But, assuming that even
the hawkish Mr Netanyahu is not proposing permanent war against Iran, air strikes would not end it. You cannot bomb knowledge and technical
expertise. To try would be to empower those in Tehran who say the regime will be safe only when, like North Korea, it has a weapon. So when Barack
Obama says the US will never allow Iran to get the bomb he is indulging in, albeit understandable, wishful thinking. The best the international community
can hope for is that, in return for a relaxation of sanctions, Iran will make a judgment that it is better off sticking with a threshold
capability. To put this another way, if Tehran does step back from the nuclear brink it will be because of its own calculation of the balance of
advantage. The fourth element in this dynamic is that Iran now has a leadership that, faced with the severe and growing pain inflicted by sanctions, i s
prepared to talk. There is nothing to say that Hassan Rouhani, the president, is any less hard-headed than previous Iranian leaders, but he does
seem ready to weigh the options. Seen from this vantage point – and in spite of the inconclusive outcome – Geneva can be counted a modest success.
Iran and the US broke the habit of more than 30 years and sat down to talk to each other. Know your enemy is a first rule of diplomacy
– and of intelligence. John Kerry has his detractors but, unlike his predecessor Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state understands that serious
diplomacy demands a willingness to take risks. The Geneva talks illuminated the shape of an interim agreement. Iran will not surrender
the right it asserts to uranium enrichment, but will
lower the level of enrichment from 20 per cent to 3 or 4 per cent. It will suspend work on its
about the disposal of some of its existing stocks of enriched uranium,
and accept intrusive international inspections. A debate between the six powers about the strength and credibility of such pledges is
heavy water reactor in Arak – a potential source of plutonium – negotiate
inevitable, as is an argument with Tehran about the speed and scope of a run down of sanctions.
uncontrollable escalation – draws-in every superpower, specifically US, Russia, and China – only
scenario that rises to the level of extinction- turns heg
Reuveny, 10 – professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University (Rafael, “Unilateral strike could trigger World War
III, global depression” Gazette Xtra, 8/7, - See more at: http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/aug/07/con-unilateral-strike-could-trigger-world-war-iii/#sthash.ec4zqu8o.dpuf)
A unilateral Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely have dire consequences, including a regional
war, global economic collapse and a major power clash. For an Israeli campaign to succeed, it must be quick and decisive. This
requires an attack that would be so overwhelming that Iran would not dare to respond in full force. Such an outcome is extremely unlikely since the
locations of some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are not fully known and known facilities are buried deep
underground. All of these widely spread facilities are shielded by elaborate air defense systems constructed not only by the Iranians but also the
Chinese and, likely, the Russians as well. By now, Iran has also built redundant command and control systems and nuclear
facilities, developed early warning systems, acquired ballistic and cruise missiles and upgraded and enlarged its armed forces. Because Iran is wellprepared, a single, conventional Israeli strike—or even numerous strikes—could not destroy all of its capabilities, giving Iran time to
respond. Unlike Iraq, whose nuclear program Israel destroyed in 1981, Iran has a second-strike capability comprised of a coalition of
Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, and, perhaps, Turkish forces. Internal pressure might compel Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority
to join the assault, turning a bad situation into a regional war. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, at the apex of its power, Israel was saved from defeat
by President Nixon’s shipment of weapons and planes. Today, Israel’s numerical inferiority is greater, and it faces more determined and better-equipped
opponents. After years of futilely fighting Palestinian irregular armies, Israel has lost some of its perceived superiority—bolstering its enemies’ resolve.
Despite Israel’s touted defense systems, Iranian coalition missiles, armed forces, and terrorist attacks would likely wreak havoc on its enemy, leading to
a prolonged tit-for-tat. In the absence of massive U.S. assistance, Israel’s military resources may quickly dwindle, forcing it to use
its alleged nuclear weapons, as it had reportedly almost done in 1973. An Israeli nuclear attack would likely destroy most of Iran’s capabilities, but
a crippled Iran and its coalition could still attack neighboring oil facilities, unleash global terrorism, plant mines in the Persian Gulf and impair maritime
trade in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Middle Eastern oil shipments would likely slow to a trickle as production declines
due to the war and insurance companies decide to drop their risky Middle Eastern clients. Iran and Venezuela would likely stop selling oil to the United
States and Europe. From there, things could deteriorate as they did in the 1930s. The world economy would head into a tailspin;
international acrimony would rise; and Iraqi and Afghani citizens might fully turn on the United States, immediately requiring the deployment
of more American troops. Russia, China, Venezuela, and maybe Brazil and Turkey—all of which essentially support Iran—could be
tempted to form an alliance and openly challenge the U.S. hegemony. Russia and China might rearm their injured Iranian protege
overnight, just as Nixon rearmed Israel, and threaten to intervene, just as the U.S.S.R. threatened to join Egypt and Syria in 1973. President Obama’s
response would likely put U.S. forces on nuclear alert , replaying Nixon’s nightmarish scenario. Iran may well feel duty-bound to
respond to a unilateral attack by its Israeli archenemy, but it knows that it could not take on the United States head-to-head. In contrast, if the United
States leads the attack, Iran’s response would likely be muted. If Iran chooses to absorb an American-led strike, its allies would likely protest and send
weapons but would probably not risk using force. While no one has a crystal ball, leaders should be risk-averse when choosing war as a foreign policy
tool. If attacking Iran is deemed necessary, Israel must wait for an American green light.
A unilateral Israeli strike could ultimately spark
World War III .
Iran-US relations are a conflict dampener- prevent global wars
Adib-Moghaddam 14 – London Middle East Institute Centre for Iranian Studies chair
[Arshin, MPhil and PhD, Reader in Comparative Politics and International Relations at SOAS, University of London, interviewed by Firouzeh Mirrazavi, "
Renewed Iranian-American Relations Stabilize World Politics – Interview," Eurasia Review, 2-16-14, www.eurasiareview.com/16022014-renewediranian-american-relations-stabilize-world-politics-interview/, accessed 2-19-14]
I am in no doubt that renewed Iranian-American relations will have a
stabilizing effect on world politics in general. The two countries have
merging interests and ultimately they are actors that can deliver. One of the reasons why the foreign policy of both countries was not effective in the
different strategic theatres that you have mentioned is exactly because there was no dialogue to align them where necessary. This region needs peace
and stability. The human suffering of the last decades is unbearable. The threat of al-Qaeda continues to be real and urgent. Iran and the United States
must sit on the same table in order to deliberate about how to bring about a security architecture that will outlaw, once and for all, the use of force in the
region. It is central that this is not pursued in exclusion of other regional actors. Iran and the United States will continue to disagree on a range of issues,
certainly Palestine, Hezbollah, Bahrain etc., but I do not see any reason why these differences could not be negotiated within a diplomatic context.
Certainly, they are not more serious than the differences that the United States has with China.