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HOME THE BOOK Praise for Excerpts About the publisher About the editor Buy the book THE AUTHOR REVIEWS CALENDAR |
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Left-Side States In any left-side-of-the-curve state, it is easier to close a country than to open it. But once mature political institutions are fully constructed and embraced by a nation's people, they are a lot more durable and do far more to protect the viability of the state than any police state tactic can. And communications technology can't be controlled forever. In February 2005, Chinese citizens celebrated the Lunar New Year by sending and receiving a total of 11 billion text messages. If text messaging had been as readily available in the spring of 1989, the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square might well have ended differently. What happens the next time a spontaneous demonstration in China takes on a life of its own? That question may already have been answered in the Philippines. Text messaging there helped topple a government in 2001. Opposition organizers used text messages to direct 700,000 demonstrators to Manila's People Power shrine to demand the removal of then-President Joseph Estrada. In moments of acute crisis, which the Tiananmen Square protests might have become, staying on the curve and avoiding the total collapse of the state requires a resolute move up the curve-in one direction or the other. A regime may try to stabilize the state by closing it as quickly as possible. That's the logic that led Deng Xiaoping to order tanks to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations. Or a government may try to reform its way toward the right side of the curve by increasing democracy, transparency, and openness to the outside world. South Africa's governing African National Congress allowed for the creation of a well-publicized "truth and reconciliation commission" whose sessions were open to the public and the media in order to prevent fear and thirst for revenge from becoming the primary drivers of the nation's politics. Following each of modern Turkey's military coups, the army quickly passed executive authority back into civilian hands, honoring the Turkish tradition of civilian rule. Left or right, the state must move away from the dip in the curve. If it doesn't, the state will collapse and fall off the curve into chaos. |
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