Complexity and Dynamics of Global Violence

How to comprehend the functioning and evolution of human civilization as a complex system will be one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century. A key sub-question concerns the interplay between individual human behavior and the various components of the international political system. Progress toward answering this question promises invaluable payoffs in terms of wars avoided and human aspirations satisfied.

To sketch out the nature of the problem, one can simplify to a three-lens view of international relations:

· One lens shows the familiar broad overview of events: sequence is fairly clear but causality far less so, which leaves us vulnerable to surprise.

· A more powerful lens reveals the causal dynamics. The concepts for interpreting what we see at this magnification are well developed and can even in some fields be represented by equations (because it is assumed that all actors in a given class behave the same), but culture lags behind: we are unfortunately not accustomed to thinking very clearly about the nature of feedback loops and delays in the context of international relations. We have a valuable set of interpretive tools for minimizing surprise in global affairs and for avoiding foreign policy failures that we have simply not bothered to use.

· The third lens is still being polished; though the view through it remains murky, we need to start using it because it shows a far more accurate image of reality. This is the lens that reveals not only the actions and dynamics of a system but also the various structural components. If these components are at multiple levels (individual, group) and all are interdependent, the result is complexity. The theory of complexity that is taking shape today is designed to illuminate systems composed of multiple interdependent parts whose connections at one level (e.g., individual) give rise to seemingly counterintuitive behavior at other levels (e.g., group, national, regional, or system-wide).

The first lens shows us speeches, invasions, elections. The second lens shows the forces causing those events, which it may be reasonable to classify into political, economic, demographic, cultural, and technical. The third lens presumably should show how new behavior emerges at one level from highly complicated interactions at another. More precisely, behavioral dynamics will occur at multiple levels within each of the five sectors mentioned above and others will occur among those sectors.

Exactly how to apply these ideas to international relations is a challenge that remains to be solved. Among the specific problems that seem appropriate subjects for viewing from the complexity perspective are:

· How Palestinian infighting has emerged to undercut the Palestinian people’s long struggle for independence from Israeli colonization;

· How a peasant rebellion for justice against exploitative big landowners in Colombia evolved over half a century into a battle between guerrillas and paramilitaries, with both selling narcotics and committing atrocities against the innocent;

· How violence-addicted extremists gained ascendancy on all sides so quickly after the brief glow of post-Cold War hope, leading to the casting aside of fundamental rules for governing the international political system;

· How the Iraqi insurgency evolved into Sunni-Shi’ite in-fighting at the expense of efforts either to resist the U.S. occupation or rebuild Iraq, with the emergence of new types of behavior (e.g., blowing up holy sites).

Complexity theory sensitizes us to questions that might otherwise be overlooked.

· The interdependence of the parts of a complex system (think of the difference between giving drugs to a sick person and repairing a car) warns one to expect “side” effects. Thus, if a problem in ties between two ethnic groups appears, from the complexity perspective, one would automatically ask how that would ripple through the whole system, with implications for system stability.
· The expectation that the way the parts of a complex system interact will be affected by the context in which the system exists focus attention on how external pressures modify the behavior of actors within the system.
· The assumption of complexity theory that variation exists among individuals cautions one to pay strict attention to details. (Note that this assumption directly contradicts the assumption of smoothness that is made when viewing dynamics [the second lens, above].)

· The concept of “emergence” sensitizes us to anticipate rather than be surprised by new forms of behavior that violate cultural norms (the rise of narco-paramilitaries, revenge destruction of holy sites, intifadas, ethnic cleansing, massacres of civilians, bombing of cities, threats of nuclear war against non-nuclear states).

The generic complexity theory we have today sensitizes us to ask certain key questions and prepares us to anticipate surprise. There is as yet little application of that generic theory to the specifics of human civilization, much less to the field of global politics, so the theory does not—yet—tell us what type of behavioral modifications we should anticipate. It remains to be seen whether or not we can construct a “science of human socio-political complexity.” What is the next step in the direction of that vision? The development of a framework to allow us to think more conceptually about the proper ways to use each of the three above-described powers of magnification–events, dynamics, and interdependence—would be a good place to start.

Can Our Leaders Learn?

A particularly invidious psychosis plagues the world: the refusal to learn from enemies held in contempt. This very special type of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face is a major reason why international conflict resolution is so difficult. Whether the despised opponent lays out his conditions for compromise plainly in a speech or engages in transparent behavior, the other side will all too often make it a matter of (false) pride to learn absolutely nothing.

Almost never is a person utterly and implacably evil. Even the utterly evil get tired, and most have a price. Sometimes that price is close to paid simply by treating opponents with respect. When decision makers fail to learn from the lessons taught them (be they actions taken by an opponent or statements made by an opponent), the country is in serious trouble. Circumstances are always in flux, and no country can function very well without learning.

The critical ingredient is dissent. One can of course have internal feedback that passes up information, but in practice dissent is the critical form of feedback for a political system. The degree to which leaders pay heed to apathy, critical media, demonstrations, and violence directed against the state or people is a fundamental measure of the degree to which they are in touch with reality.

These phenomena do not come out of the blue. They result from some mix of reality and perceptions and can therefore be used as signals by open-minded decision-makers. When ruling circles ignore the message of those who oppose them, this indicates a pathology of the system. The refusal to learn is pathological.

Regime Behavior and Instability

I have commented before on the fundamental importance of how one defines “stability” in international relations. Given the many current world problems directly tied to violent instability and violent efforts to eliminate it (for example), a brief focus on the often-overlooked ways in which instability may be provoked seems worthwhile.

The diagram pictures some causal relationships between state policy and tension in the populace, based on the following hypothesis:

Stability is a function of tension.

The hypothesis implies the intuitive: if social tension rises, so will instability. Other causes are of course possible, but the underlying psychological state of the populace is one that is all too often overlooked. The diagram posits four causal loops, each of which may increases tension:

1) Foreign aid may induce the repression of minority rights (by giving the regime the confidence to turn its back on the minorities);

2) Civil rights may be repressed;

3) Arms imported by the regime may be used against the people.

A couple points are worth making about this simple diagram. First, reality is of course more complex. There may be loops that mitigate violence, connections directly from one loop to another, etc. But this diagram is already complicated enough – with three separate ways that tension might be raised, which leads to the second point. One might well implement a policy that successfully mitigated one of these causal pathways and not even notice an impact on social tension because the other loops were still provoking so much of a rise in tension and resulting instability. For success, policies will need to be developed that address each causal loop that is operating in the given situation.

Does anyone see a connection between these ideas and any of the world’s current violence?

Stability..for Whom?

Accuracy of definitions*** lies at the core of any effort to understand reality and do science. The term that may be the single most critical term in international relations (IR), is “stability.” Tragically, we either do not know what the word “stability” means or we intentionally twist its meaning for our personal profit.

Scrutinize very carefully politicians’ glib references to bringing stability to the world, the context in which they make the remarks, and the resulting policies:

• Bush: “Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet, that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime’s torture chambers and poison labs in operation”
• Bush: at the United Nations, senior officials from many countries will meet to discuss the design and deployment of the multinational force. Prime Minister Blair and I agree that this approach gives the best hope to end the violence and create lasting peace and stability in Lebanon

• Cheney: “For sixty years before September 11, we believed that we had to choose either freedom or stability, either democracy or security. We believed, in the case of the Arab world, that we could either uphold our principles or advance our policies. We were wrong. By purchasing stability at the price of liberty, we achieved neither.”

Everyone of course would claim to know exactly what “stability” in IR means. In fact, the meaning is so obvious it is axiomatic. But, on this academic, hair-splitting definitional exercise rests the very lives of millions of living, breathing human beings: not hundreds or thousands but millions and not millions over the course of history but millions in our lifetime.

More importantly—at least in the minds of some members of various elites, defining stability wrong costs a lot of money.

A country is presumably stable if it experiences domestic peace and the regime type is maintained. From that simple definition, much follows. If outside powers desire stability as a basis for investment or, indeed, as a basis for bases, they check to see if domestic peace exists and the political system has some staying power, then implement their policy, which will surely include steps to reinforce that stability.

But how is a system to respond to a changing environment without changing itself? If globalization requires efficient competitive practices, does this mean that a socialist dictatorship must evolve enough to allow businessmen the freedom to make decisions and develop a rule of contract law sufficient to attract foreign investment? How much such evolution can occur before the system has turned into a new system in which policy process and control mechanisms are fundamentally different? If a third world dictatorship in which the army can commit atrocities against its own people at will is undermined by an international financial crisis to the point that the people can assert sufficient political power to bring army officers who have violated civil rights to trial, does this mean a new system has evolved? Both the jailed army officer and the empowered villager could be forgiven for thinking so.

A more accurate picture of political stability is that of a system in which information flows into the system, which makes decisions leading to the implementation of new policies, which in turn modify the system. This system will, over the long run, have a good chance at achieving far more stability in our contemporary world environment of intense evolutionary pressures than the unchanging pressure cooker system, as any old-fashioned cook who puts the lid on too tight will understand.

But what have I just done? We began by stating that stability meant maintaining the system, while I have just said that an evolutionary system—one which by definition changes into something new—leads to greater stability.

Herein lies the point of belaboring the definition of “stability.” The first definition of stability as “screwing the lid on tight” is based on a definition of the stability of the political system that focuses on the governing elite. As long as the army protects the elite and the leader either endures indefinitely or is replaced on schedule and without violence (especially violence that affects the elite), stability is claimed, regardless of seething frustrations and desperate daily struggles for survival among the populace; secret police arrests of civil rights activists; paramilitary massacres of villagers; or persistent, low-scale civil war in remote rural regions.

An alternative definition of stability might respond to the question, “Stability for whom?” and require that the term “stability” be reserved as the term for a society that is stable for the majority of its population. Such a definition would be broadened to include the degree of tension, time, and direction. How long will stability last (e.g., only as long as popular demands are repressed?) and whether current policies are solidifying or imperiling that stability are crucial considerations. To call a volcano stable when the pressure just beneath the surface is rising may have some value for a day hiker but is a statement of no utility for local villagers.

A “level of analysis” problem lies at the root of this confusion over the meaning of “stability.” Is a country stable as long as the political system endures, even though the lives of individuals are in perpetual chaos? The answer depends on how closely you look, as shown in the figure “Level of Analysis.” But a political system is dynamic, so the answer also depends on the timeframe.

The effects from one level to another may be obscured by time delays, e.g., the causal link between a regime atrocity such as bombing a city and the formation of a fundamentalist insurgency weeks or months later.

Recognition that stability need not mean stasis opens the door to fundamentally new policies. Dictatorships no longer need to be propped up by foreign powers interested in establishing commercial or military ties because one’s imagination is opened to the possibility of a new system that would both address the desires of the population for, say, social justice or political participation and address the foreign power’s interests.

• An oppressed population helped to gain social justice by a foreign power might well find it had no problem selling oil to that power.
• A foreign power that chose to support a rise in the wages of banana pickers against the wishes of international corporations might find the new country a much more stable source of bananas.

Definitions matter because definitions influence perceptions and perceptions influence, to put it mildly, behavior. We may all agree that instability read as chaos, disease, and war is bad, while stability read as peace, progress, economic development is good. Nevertheless, there is a world of difference between saying A.) that stability requires that the current leaders, current customs, and current inequities remain in place and B.) that stability permits all desired changes at whatever desired speed in leadership, custom, law, power relationships as long as those changes are achieved peacefully and with tolerance.

It would be difficult to imagine how to conduct a serious evaluation of the performance of any system without considering the concept of stability. In international relations, a misunderstanding of stability lies at the root of much of our constant surprise at the “sudden” onset of crises that were so typically forewarned for years by the distress suffered by some oppressed or marginalized group.

***My thanks to my departed friend and colleague, Professor Lee Frost-Kumpf, for stimulating me toward the line of thinking in this blog mere days before his tragic death.

Fundamentalisms Preying on Lebanon

A force roams the world searching out opportunities to weaken democracy, to undermine moderates, and to spread its belief in a fundamentalist, messianic, violence-worshiping version of politics justified by a particular interpretation of some religion. Appearing in many forms, these twisted, extremist perspectives on global affairs hunt for victims and power in the dark jungle of global affairs. They function in part as sad, desperate answers to problems seen with some reason as insoluable by any moderate means and in part as carnivores exploiting the imperfections of a world of winners and losers, where winners increasingly seem to gloat and rub it in rather than extending a helping hand to those less fortunate. This force opposes democracy because democracy means debate, choice, and variety–all anathema to the fundamentalist self-image of perfection. This force thrives on chaos and searches for weak points in the global system of governance where chaos can be fomented.

The Islamic version, which although hardly the only or even the most powerful version of political fundamentalism, is certainly the one most Americans tend to worry about; it may be referred to by the shorthand “al Qua’ida (al Queda),” though the extent to which al Qua’ida remains a single, unified organization is open to question. When al Quai’da surveys the world searching for new opportunities to “make friends and influence people,” what land could look more fertile for sowing its violent seed than Lebanon?

Lebanon has been shattered by a vicious, multi-sided, two-decade-long civil war; victimized by repeated Israeli invasions that seem, judging from Israeli tactics, to have been designed to destroy the cohesion of Lebanese society and prevent any real Lebanese independence from ever emerging; strangled by Syrian occupation; and exploited by a host of others, from Palestinian refugees driven out of their homeland to rich countries on all sides. On top of everything else, Lebanese rich and poor cannot find a way to share the political space, and outsiders keep egging the two sides on like spectators at a cock fight.

With this as the context, through the smoke of the current fighting in Tripoli, what useful analysis can be undertaken?

• Demographics: 10% Palestinian refugees ; 30% Shi’a
• Political Participation: effectively denied to the above 40% of the population
• Governance: minimal government provision of services for the above 40% of the population (for the Shi’a, local government provided by Hezballah).

Given such circumstances, pressure by foreigners on their Lebanese allies/clients to reject compromise in favor of hardline policies enforced by violence can only be expected to generate endless violence. Such pressure obstructs the inclusion of marginalized Lebanese groups from participating in Lebanese politics and opens the door to advocates of extremism.

Careless remarks about “reining in” extremists, like that made by President Bush this week that ignore the underlying conditions and implicitly endorse violence by the military which can only further antagonize already marginalized groups (in this case, the Palestinian refugees) pour gasoline on the fire. Why? Because they serve as evidence the extremists can use to persuade Lebanese to join them. “You see,” they can and will say, “no one cares about your problems. No one is listening, no one will help. The government attacks you, and foreigners support the government. No one cares that you are endangered or out of food. Your only hope is to join us and fight back.” Whether or not this message may be true is not the point: the issue is perceptions, and in Lebanon advocates of democracy do not appear to be winning that battle.

Whatever the particular spark that caused this week’s violence to flame up, it is the gasoline-soaked rags in every political corner of Lebanon about which we should be concerned. The surprise is not the violence this week. The surprise is that the Hezbollah-led protest movement against the current government has remained peaceful for the roughly six months it has so far endured. The surprise is that it has taken al Qua’ida so long to figure out a way to exploit Lebanese conditions to its own advantage. The surprise is that the long-suffering Palestinians remain quiet in their camps. The surprise is that Lebanon’s civil war ended despite its failure to resolve the issues that caused it in the first place.

Future Analysis

History may not repeat, but historical patterns do. Although the future cannot be foreseen, rigorous analytical methods can systematically reveal forces that will form the future and help us form logical judgments about how those forces can be expected to interact under specified circumstances.

• When the battle against extremism is fought with military means, governance suffers.
• Garrison states and hegemony provoke resistance.
• Injustice not only radicalizes the desperate but begs for exploitation by those who are already radical.
• Isolation provokes military buildup, and that provokes everyone else to do the same.
• Treating bilateral ties as a zero-sum game is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Refusing to talk to opponents is self-defeating.
• Failure to define a coherent policy leads to loss of control.
• Hostility empowers hardliners.

Historical patterns exist. To get an idea of what the future may hold, it is valuable to identify patterns that are dominant, but if the underlying causal dynamics are not understood, a tipping point can arrive with little warning, and flip the situation over, leading to sudden dominance by a different dynamic: a sudden loss of popular confidence in leadership, an explosion of violence, or a run on the banks. So looking at the future entails both studying patterns and dynamics.

Dynamics are not events but processes and as such exert continuous influence over behavior. Since they are continuous, they can have a huge impact even though building slowly and sometimes long remaining hidden beneath the more obvious surface events. If, using the ocean as an analogy, tides, currents, wind, and gravitation are dynamics, then events are the individual waves: not very significant unless you happen to get smashed by one. Since dynamics are cyclical (A causes B, which in turn causes more A, which…), the effect can be exponential change, leading to surprising cumulative impact. Since in practice patterns are both hard to identify and hard to separate when several are interacting, a good starting point is to look for one of a dozen or so classic patterns, “system archetypes,” that tend to take people by surprise.

One such system archetype that applies in all walks of human endeavor is “fixes that fail.” Global affairs is filled with examples. The “Fix that Fails” pattern is a problem that is “fixed” in a way that works at first but slowly generates an unexpected consequence that causes ultimate failure (the classic case being a medicine that cures the disease but kills the patient).

A good question to ask when trying to figure out whether a new plan will work is, “Even if the proposed solution works as promised over the short term, does it contain the seeds of future problems?” The answer, by the way, is “yes,” and that’s life, so the trick is not to search for a perfect solution but to be aware that short-term and long-term consequences are seldom in sync. Good planning requires recognition of and preparation for the long-term consequences.

A symptom is identified, a fix applied, and the symptom is alleviated,
but the underlying problem continues and perhaps be worsened by an
unintended consequence resulting from the fix.

One example is a country bedeviled by corrupt, feuding parties and an extremist protest group. External forces attempt to fix this problem by supporting the corrupt establishment parties in a domestic context where the extremist reformers are being cut out of the political scene. This “fix,” in black below, may work for a time, as external aid strengthens the establishment parties and enables them to form a government without the extremist group’s participation. However, this development may generate two additional outcomes – frustration within the extremist group driving it to even more extremism and, if the other parties ignore the interests of those represented by the extremist group, popular frustration from poor governance that raises the extremists’ popularity. These two trends in combination could result in rising extremism, a cycle of violence, and civil war. Sketching dynamics focuses the mind on the underlying forces governing behavior and begs critical questions about relative strength, when and how relative strength might shift (leading to a surprising reversal of behavior), and the logical completeness of one’s explanation.

Sketching dynamics focuses the mind on the underlying forces governing behavior and begs critical questions about relative strength, when and how relative strength might shift (leading to a surprising reversal of behavior), and the logical completeness of one’s explanation. The “Fixes that Fail” concept is one of numerous tools that can help us to look beneath the misleading headlines and decipher what is really happening.

Methodological Lenses for Viewing Global Affairs

One goal of this blog is to explore ways to design effective foreign policy. Comments, some of which have already appeared in previous posts, on principles that should serve as guidelines for foreign address the issue of how to design effective foreign policy.

A second goal is to explore how global affairs are developing, how the international political system is evolving. This is of course closely related to the first since the foreign policies pursued by various countries affect the evolution of the system. But a fundamental distinction exists between what policies ought to be pursued and the actual course of events. For the second, two conceptual approaches (or, if one wishes, “lenses” for viewing international relations) of central concern are:

1) underlying causal dynamics and
2) the international political system as a complex system.

Needless to say, the second goal feeds back into the first since it would be difficult to design foreign policy for longterm effectiveness in the modern world without viewing the system through each of these two lenses. Future posts will expand on these points.