Evidence-based policy

I heard earlier on the news that Alan Johnson has sacked David Nutt as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, after he published this paper criticising the current drugs classification policy in the UK. To someone who has been following what passes for debate in this area for years, Professor Nutt has said little that comes as a surprise. However, after Nutt disagreed publicly with two Home Secretaries in as many years, Johnson has done what all politicians do in such circumstances and shot the messenger.

What chance is there for practical solutions to society’s worst problems when the highest powers in the land put their fingers in their ears and sing “la la la” any time they’re told things they don’t want to hear? It is clear that politicians don’t regard scientific research as a tool to inform the decision-making process. Instead, scientific evidence is treated with the same respect as criminal evidence often was in the bad old days of the ’70s. Call it the Gene Hunt method of policy formation. The politician already “knows” what the policy should be, and the only acceptable evidence is that which supports the right answer. The system continues safely on without its paradigms being shifted, and bad policy keeps getting implemented in the face of overwhelming evidence that it doesn’t work.

It took years of campaigning and appeals to correct the wrongs perpetrated by the Gene Hunt method of police investigation, and times have thankfully changed for the better. But the Gene Hunt method lives on in policy formulation, which isn’t subject to appeal or judicial review. Who will take the side of the plain, unvarnished truth in the court of public opinion? Not government ministers, that’s for sure.

On Referendums

The tragedy of the referendum is that the electorate have a habit of answering the wrong question. The tragedy of the second Lisbon campaign is that neither side is asking the right question (is the Lisbon Treaty an acceptable modification to the way the EU is run?), instead trying to outdo each other in who can more effectively scare the electorate into voting the “right” way. Cóir’s outrageous “they’ll steal your babies” accusation is merely the most shameful example in a shameful campaign. The “yes” argument meanwhile seems to be equal parts irrelevant (“I’m better off in Europe”) and overblown (“FDI will dry up”).

Compared to past EU treaties (stand up, Maastricht) and past constitutional amendments (divorce) the Lisbon Treaty is small change. The issues it raises are mostly technical. Both “yes” and “no” campaigns have struggled to find anything in the text itself to hang a decent argument on. I gave a lift to a university-student friend the other day who admitted she hadn’t a clue what it was all about. At a public meeting earlier in the week, local politicians struggled (wo)manfully to keep the debate on track – speakers from the floor were more interested in jobs and aid. The general public seems more exercised by the potential of giving Cowen a good thrashing than the Treaty itself.

It is not just in Ireland that referendum campaigns can go astray. Polly Toynbee argued in the Guardian this week that it was time for a referendum on PR for Westminster. Her commenters were quick to point out that with Labour’s standing at a historic low, only opponents of PR should be hoping for such a referendum in the near future.

Because referendums, like local elections, are only ever about kicking the government in the nuts. All else is sophistry.

The civilisation state

The Chinese do not think of themselves in terms of nation but civilisation; it is the latter that gives them their sense of identity.

Martin Jacques wrote in the Times a while ago about the lesser-discussed consequences of China’s rise to world prominence (he has written a new book on the subject). Particularly interesting  is how he describes China as not a nation-state but a civilisation-state. It struck me immediately that the terminology could be transposed elsewhere without as much difficulty as he appears to believe.

Although we tend to think of China in somewhat homogeneous terms, it is a continent that contains great diversity; and to govern a continent requires a plurality of systems that a nation state would never tolerate.

Replace “China” with “India” or “Europe” in the above paragraph and consider for a moment. He also writes:

Or take the tributary state system, which organised interstate relations in East Asia for thousands of years. It was a loose and flexible system of states that was organised around the dominance of China, the acceptance of the latter’s cultural superiority, and a symbolic tribute that was paid in return for the protection of the Chinese emperor.

What single word other than “tributary” so succinctly describes Norway’s current stance of paying money into the EU in return for favour? Finally, consider:

or its highly distinctive position on race, where about 92 per cent of the population believe that they are of one race

I think a similar percentage of the population of Europe would describe themselves as “white”. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking of the EU in terms of a “civilisation”…

Neda Soltan’s army of voyeurs

Several of my friends on Facebook have posted the infamous video of Neda Soltan lying bleeding on a Tehran street. Column-inches of comment by those who have seen it are filling the old and new media.

I refuse to watch.

Isn’t it enough that a young woman is dead? Do we have to be voyeurs before we can feel sympathy? Or is it just our desire to rubber-neck at a road accident, transposed into a new medium?

Would the real United Ireland please stand up? (Part 2)

I meant to continue the discussion from my previous post, but didn’t get around to it. Making amends now…

So we have outlined a “Minimal United Ireland” – one that I suspect most nationalists would hold is undeserving of the name. Nevertheless, from a technical point of view I believe it is valid, and therefore interesting.

I’d now like to consider its corollary – the “Maximal non-United Ireland”. Where the Minimal United Ireland (mUI) involves a transfer of sovereignty and little else, the Maximal non-United Ireland (MnUI) will involve co-operation and integration on every matter under the sun, but without any sovereignty transfer or modification to the Agreements. The best pre-existing example of this in the world today is the relationship between France and Germany.

Under the current structure of the EU, sovereignty is pooled in several areas, but the member states retain the right to un-pool their sovereignty by leaving. France and Germany, or at least their political elites, are keen on further integration that many other states are either circumspect about or openly hostile to. To satisfy this desire they have entered into several bilateral agreements, mostly informal, with the goal of co-ordinating their national policies. This idea of both formal and informal co-operation between sovereign states could serve as a basis for the MnUI.

Formal co-operation is already legally enshrined in the N-S Ministerial Council (c.f. EU Council of Ministers). Several shared agencies already exist, and a MnUI would see these expanded to cover a wide spectrum of policy areas. This approach does have its limitations: it is not always desirable to create extra layers of bureaucracy on top of existing ones; full mergers of Northern and Southern agencies could run afoul of funding and oversight squabbles; it may be too costly to have any formal structure in certain areas. A culture of Franco-German informal co-operation could help to fill in some of these gaps: bills in each jurisdiction could be drafted to minimise disparities across the Border; Northern and Southern departments could agree to take a common line in European meetings; NI MPs could make it a matter of principle to stand up for the interests of Ireland as a whole in Westminster, and the Republic could do the same for NI’s interests (impartially!) in other fora such as the UN.

No doubt much of this is already happening. Interestingly, I can think of no policy area which is immune to such co-operation – not even the diplomatic service. The issue of sovereignty could quietly rust in the hayloft.

Would the real United Ireland please stand up?

I see there’s a fresh Sinn Féin campaign for a United Ireland. I seem to have missed the bit where they trot out the usual “32-county socialist republic” rhetoric. Together with an ongoing discussion on Slugger, sparked by Mack taking issue with one of my previous posts, I’ve been led to consider what people actually mean by the words “United Ireland”.

In many ways it’s similar to the term “United Europe” that causes blood to boil in the veins of the susceptible. To its detractors, it is the ultimate bogeyman – an unforgivable affront to freedom and democracy. To its proponents it is a self-evident and necessary condition for those very ideals. What gets lost in the ensuing carnage is the fact that the term itself is so loosely defined that it is almost meaningless.

Compare the United Kingdom with the United States, or for that matter the United Nations. The “Unity” proclaimed by each of these is of a vastly differing nature, and even the close “Unity” of the UK falls far short of the kind to be found in Sinn Féin policy statements of yore. Their new campaign talks of a single health service, transport policy etc., but these are quite technical matters far removed from the emotional, absolutist desire to completely erase the Border which was once the central plank of Republican ideology.

To most Unionists, the term United Ireland means this hypothetical unitary Socialist Republican state, the most extreme antithesis of Unionism imaginable. I sincerely doubt that many Unionists know of (and of those that do, believe in) the SDLP’s version of a United Ireland (thanks for the link, Mack) in which all the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are left untouched (what role the North-South Ministerial Council would play in this scenario is left unexplained). If there were to be a vote for a United Ireland, the people would surely need to be told in advance whose United Ireland they were voting for.

The emotional core of the UI debate is sovereignty. But in Northern Ireland the sovereignty of the UK is already highly constrained by international treaty. In effect the Agreements recognise the (limited) sovereignty of the people of Northern Ireland – it is they alone who hold the final decision over any constitutional change. This sovereignty is limited because independence for NI is not an option, rather like the situation in Gibraltar. Would the people of NI retain this limited sovereignty after a border poll in favour of a UI? Unionists would certainly fight tooth and nail for it.

So assuming that a necessary and sufficient condition for a United Ireland would be a (most likely constrained, as now) realignment of sovereignty, what would be the minimum changes required? With a transfer of sovereignty, some shared functions of state would by definition have to exist: head of state, foreign minister, diplomatic service, supreme court. All other matters could remain the competence of the existing jurisdictions, as in Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” arrangement. If we were to take the SDLP proposals at face value, meaning the ministerial council would be retained, it would be obvious forum to manage these shared functions – say a rotating arrangement where one jurisdiction would nominate the President and the other the foreign minister, and each a few judges to the supreme court. From a purely legal point of view, this would amount to a United Ireland.

The question would then be: would Nationalists be satisfied with such a UI? It’s far more lightweight than the arrangement proposed for Cyprus. If too many extra functions were transferred to the ministerial council, there would be questions about democratic oversight. But there would certainly be at least some Nationalists for whom this would be cake and anything more would be icing.

Fine Gael and Northern Ireland

Over on his blog, Seymour Major brings up an interesting idea: that Fine Gael could be included in the UCUNF. I am intrigued, but think it a stretch too far.

The main problem is that the UCUNF is an explicitly Unionist project. However much some Conservatives may protest, their party has thrown in its lot with one side of the sectarian divide, and is now just another Unionist party. As I have argued before, Northern Ireland needs a party or parties which can transcend the Unionist-Nationalist divide. The UUP is nowhere near the stage where it could be described as a “post-Unionist” party, nor has it shown any inclination of moving in that direction. Indeed, in recent years they have obviously struggled with the temptation to outflank the DUP on the extreme. Fine Gael would suffer at the hands of its core supporters if it was seen to be taking sides with unreconstructed Unionists.

On the other hand, Fine Gael could easily be sold as a “post-Nationalist” party in the North if it were minded to make a few concessions to Unionist sensitivities. Its revolutionary past is ancient history in political terms, and as Seymour correctly points out it is a progressive-conservative party whose policies would be quite palatable to the moderate Unionist willing to think outside the box. Its potential appeal to moderate Nationalists shouldn’t need stating: it would be the first political party to be in government on both sides of the Border, despite Sinn Féin’s best efforts.

But to sell themselves as non-aligned in the -ism debate, they would have to enter NI politics alone, not through an alliance with an existing (i.e. compromised) political party. So would FG do it?

The unbearable lightness of Alliance

From the Belfast Telegraph:

Parsley is realistic about his chances of winning a seat in the European parliament.

The Alliance man is hoping to get around 6.8% of the vote however the biggest obstacle he faces, as does any politician, is public apathy.

But instead of trying to engage with those who quite clearly had no intention of voting, Parsley, who was always courteous when he approached, quickly made an exit leaving one of his leaflets behind.

He explained there was no point in trying to convince someone who had no intention of voting for Alliance — or at all — at this stage of the race.

Instead, it was more important to concentrate on those who would vote for Alliance, he said.

And given that he was canvassing in an area where half the street would welcome his presence, he was barely challenged on why people should vote for him.

Why should anyone bother voting for him if he can’t be bothered explaining why they should? Utterly pathetic.

More on continents

I posted before that the borders of Europe are purely arbitrary. It occurred to me that it might be amusing to test this theory to destruction.

A continent is pretty easy to define – it is a large landmass entirely or almost entirely surrounded by ocean. By this definition, Europe and Asia are not separate continents but a single Eurasia. If we disallow any exceptions and remove the word “almost”, we find that Africa is not a separate continent either, and North and South America are also one. Most people would not go this far, and since it would end my blog post prematurely, I won’t either.

The definition above is thus full of subjective terminology: “large” and “almost entirely surrounded”. We should be careful to pin these down, and the best way to do so is to examine the edge cases. Australia is generally considered a continent but Greenland, the next largest landmass, is not. This is generally attributed to Greenland’s proximity to North America, making it an island thereof, but this cannot be sufficient to disqualify a continent. South America is closer to North America than Greenland is – you can’t get much closer than touching, after all. A better distinction would be that Australia has its own tectonic plate (as does South America), whereas Greenland shares one with the rest of North America.

So what about “almost entirely surrounded”? Considering the Americas and Africa, we see that their umbilical cords of land are narrow compared to their coastline. Determining the lengths of coastlines is mathematically tricky since they appear to get longer as you examine them more closely (this is a common property of fractals). Land areas are more stable quantities – we could therefore compare the square of the width of the narrowest point (roughly the area of the largest postage stamp that can be dragged from one continent to the next without getting its edges wet) with the total area of the continent. In the case of Africa, this ratio is roughly (200km)^2/(3*10^7km^2) = 1/750, which is certainly small. Let us be generous and define “almost entirely surrounded” as meaning that any land bridge has square width less than 1% of the area of the continent in question (in the case of Europe, this ratio is greater than 100%).

So our definition of a continent might now read:

A landmass that is surrounded by ocean, save for any land passage whose square width at the narrowest point is less than 1% of the total area, and which constitutes the greatest such landmass on a particular tectonic plate.

This works brilliantly for the Americas, Africa, Australia and Antarctica. It also, surprisingly, works for Eurasia as a whole, if we are willing to gloss over the fact that Eurasia spills over onto a few tectonic plates other than its own:

Tectonic Plates (from usgs.gov)

For an even more detailed view of tectonic plates, try this.

So what, I hear you say. You’ve taken two screenfuls of analysis to reach an obvious conclusion. Yes, I reply. But I can extend that analysis a little further. How do we treat those large parts of Eurasia that do not lie on the Eurasian plate? There is already a precedent – the Indian subcontinent, which is separated from the rest of Eurasia by mountain ranges and which corresponds almost exactly with the Indian tectonic plate. Despite a Wikipedia entry to the contrary, the term “subcontinent” has not been consistently applied to any other geographical area. I propose that it should.

Tectonic plate boundaries mostly lie underwater; ocean ridges generate new seafloor, which creeps across the globe and disappears back into the mantle at the bottom of trenches. Constructive dry-land boundaries, such as the one currently opening in the African Rift Valley, do not stay dry for long (in geolocical terms) as their floors sink and eventually the seawater pours in. Destructive dry-land boundaries on the other hand, are spectacular, giving us the great non-coastal mountain ranges of the world. This is exactly what happens at the land boundary of the Indian plate: not only has it created the Himalayas, but an entire chain of fold mountains from Baluchistan to Burma.

So perhaps we can define “subcontinent” by modifying our definition of “continent”:

A landmass that is divided from the rest of its continent by a plate-boundary mountain range, save for any land passage whose square width at the narrowest point is less than 1% of the total area, and which constitutes the greatest such landmass on a particular tectonic plate.

The above definition fits not only the Indian subcontinent but also an Arabian subcontinent corresponding closely to the Arabian plate, the mountains of south-eastern Turkey and western Iran quite effectively separating it from the rest of Eurasia. More interestingly, it would also fit a “Cherskian subcontinent” in far-eastern Russia, which roughly matches that part of Eurasia that lies on the North American plate, and is separated quite effectively from the lands to the west by either the Chersky or Verkhoyansk ranges (the Chersky range corresponds more closely to the plate boundary, but the Verkhoyansk range is more prominent). Since plate boundaries are not particularly useful on the surface (which exact fault do you draw the line along?), watersheds would seem more useful:

Watersheds (from wikimedia.org)

Note that the watersheds drawn by the image author are by no means exhaustive: at least one watershed can be drawn between any two points on the coast of a single landmass (possibly more if the landmass has endorrheic basins, as shown in grey above). You can clearly see the Indian and Arabian subcontinents picked out, despite the author’s less than ideal choices of endpoints (I would move in the eastern boundary of the Indian SC to somewhere on the west coast of Burma, and include the thin Levantine coastal strip in the Arabian SC). Not shown is the watershed defining the Cherskian subcontinent, but it can be seen below as the eastern bound of the Lena catchment:

Lena catchment (from s3)

I’m quite taken with Cherskia – it’s the size of India but with the population of… well, I have no figures to hand but I can tell you it’s not much. Unfortunately it doesn’t hold water as a modern cultural region, unlike the Indian and Arabian SCs, but perhaps in the distant past when the Paleo-Asiatic cultures were more widespread in the area… who knows?

And still I haven’t found a boundary for Europe (told you it was hard). But we’re nearly there. Using watersheds as boundaries has a long pedigree, and the world map above has some pretty good ones despite its flaws. If we consider “core Eurasia” as the bit left over after removing the three subcontinents, it divides nicely by watershed into three further regions: “Atlantic Eurasia” west of the watershed between Hatay and either Nordkaap or the White Sea (pick one); “Pacific Eurasia” east of the watershed between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Burmese coast; and “Central Eurasia” between the two. Surprisingly, these correspond reasonably well to historical cultural areas, but also to emerging modern regions. “Pacific Eurasia” is the modern Asia-Pacific. “Central Eurasia” was the heartland of the Altaic peoples (Turks, Mongols etc.), then mostly came under Russian and Soviet influence. “Atlantic Eurasia” corresponds more closely with the likely extent of the E.U. in 2025 than does the standard geographical definition of Europe.

There are still flaws. The definition of “Atlantic Eurasia” is not as clear as its Pacific counterpart – due in no small part to its lack of good mountains. The watersheds that run through European Russia are unremarkable on the ground. But perhaps we see some of the attraction of Central Asia for Russians – throw a bottle in the river in Moscow and it will wash up on the shores of the Caspian, not of America. Meanwhile, the snowmelt in Kiev flows into the Med.

Update – It suddenly occurs to me that the presence or absence of ice-free ports might be a practical way to define the northernmost tip of the Atlantic/Central Eurasian watershed. This of course is subject to global warming, so may not be sufficiently permanent…

Normal politics?

I have been watching with bemusement the car crash that is the Ulster Conservative and Unionist New Force (which still doesn’t have it’s own web page, despite the election being days away). Leaving aside the unfortunate connotations of a political movement having “Force” in its title, and the almost irresistible urge to mistype the acronym, I remain unconvinced that anything will come of it.

Outside of Bangor, the Conservatives have a dismal record in Northern Ireland. It is clear what they are hoping to get out of a relationship with the UUP, but not what the UUP is hoping to get from them. “Vote for Change” is a good slogan in theory, but if the only real change on offer is a few photographs of David Cameron shaking hands with the same familiar electoral candidates, there’s really nothing much to sell. The UUP has been becalmed for some time, and this smells more like a last gasp than a new beginning.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a great admirer of Cameron. He’s done a fantastic job ridding his party of its uncaring image and making it electable again after the nadir that was Ian Duncan Smith. The Tories remain, however, a minority party beyond the borders of England; too many non-English voters still associate them with opposition to devolution and insensitivity to local issues. Cameron’s new localism has a long fight ahead.

The Tories’ choice of NI partner is not a match made in heaven, rather a least-worst option. The UUP is superficially a centre-right party, but underneath it is a broad church of both left- and right-wingers. The advent of “normal politics” as espoused by UCUNF is already tearing the UUP apart at the seams. Public shows of party disunity will only lead to voters fleeing elsewhere, and the main beneficiary of this will be the DUP. Of course, the DUP is in turn shedding voters to the TUV, in a repeat of the timeworn NI political dance of parties tacking towards the constitutional centre against an outflow of voters.

So if this isn’t change, what would real change be like?

Draw a Line

Firstly, any hypothetical Normal Political Party would have to put the politics of unionism and nationalism behind it. The Alliance Party has been gamely trying to do this for a couple of decades now, but with limited success. This is because politics in Northern Ireland is currently driven by a single factor – the maintenance of equilibrium. Voters see their political enemies moving towards the extreme, and instinctively move to the opposite extreme in order to maintain the balance of power. This is why the DUP makes such a big deal of “thwarting the Sinn Féin agenda” and why SF accuse the DUP of wanting to go back to majority rule. There is thus no incentive for a single party to abandon its position at the extreme, and leads naturally to institutional deadlock and the much-documented hollowing-out of the political centre. The Normal Party must be inventive if it is to avoid falling into this hole.

The UUP survived the Troubles by managing its left-right split to present a common, unionist face. In a future era of Normal Politics a successful Normal Party must invert this formula, managing its unionist-nationalist divisions internally and presenting a common centre-left or -right face. In order for today’s voters to transfer their allegiance to such a party, it must do its utmost to demonstrate that it poses no threat to the established equilibrium. Its principles must therefore include at least the following:

1. No change to the current constitutional arrangements – ever The Normal Party will not campaign for constitutional change. The NP must be above suspicion in matters of constitutional change. No mealy-mouthed platitudes about “aspiration towards eventual unity” or dark mutterings about the iniquity of mandatory coalition. The current arrangements are balanced on the head of a pin and the NP must be prepared to fight passionately to maintain that balance.
2. The party’s elected representatives will apportion themselves between unionist and nationalist designations in order to maintain a stable ratio in the Assembly, regardless of election results. The individual voter must be assured that transferring his vote from another party will not affect the balance of power in the Assembly. The NP cannot therefore designate itself as “other”, or it will weaken the position of whichever -ism it draws more support from.
3. Open primaries. The NP must always fight for the political centre ground, therefore all temptation to swing to extremes must be removed, and must be seen to be removed. Open primaries will ensure that the NP’s candidates best represent the mainstream of popular opinion.

Meat on the Bones

Secondly, the Normal Party must have readily identifiable and principled Normal Policies which contrast those of the competition. As a party seeking to occupy the centre ground, the NP’s major political antitheses will be the DUP and Sinn Féin. Luckily these parties are both easy targets. The NP must be:

1. Socially progressive, in contrast with the DUP’s neanderthal and patriarchal instincts.
2. Economically liberal, in contrast with Sinn Féin’s near-Communist economic policies.
3. Pro-European, in contrast with both of the above. Common EU policies have smoothed over many issues which might otherwise have divided the UK and RoI – a major factor in the Border’s recent loss of significance. If either or both of the UK or RoI were to leave the EU or become semi-detached, the Border would become a problem once more.
4. A disbeliever of the zero-sum game. The Good Friday Agreement stated that everyone in NI had the right to consider themselves either British or Irish, and have that choice respected. The NP must encourage the idea, already held by the majority of NI residents, that there is no contradiction in an individual considering himself simultaneously British and Irish, and that perceived gains for one cultural tradition are therefore gains for all.
5. A tireless defender of human rights.

Shock and Awe

Finally, the Normal Party must be capable of making significant electoral gains in a short period of time. To do so, it must be both genuinely novel and professionally organised. This means:

1. A newcomer to Northern Ireland politics. No makeovers of tired, existing political parties – the NP must be untainted by the politics of the Troubles if it is to make headway into both of the existing political camps.
2. …but an experienced player. The NP must immediately inspire confidence in its ability to deliver on its promises – if voters get the impression that a vote for the NP is a wasted vote, the project will be stillborn.

The Conservatives like to think they could be the Normal Party, but they forfeited their chance by aligning themselves with one side of the old political debate. They will inevitably become just another player in Politics as Usual.

So, who will step up to the plate? Who out there has the best prospects of being Northern Ireland’s political White Knight? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I’ve drawn mine.