Stalking the Big Beasts

For the past few days, as I’ve commuted between the mountains and the plain, I’ve been considering starting a(nother) series of posts – this time on the lessons I feel I’ve learned during the 45 years I’ve been working on the promotion of democracy and the building of the appropriate institutions, first in Scotland and latterly in Central Europe and Central Asia. This was going to build on various papers I’ve written over the years – not least the draft “Search for the Holy Grail”  But I then came across some recent academic valedictories and realized that there was bigger game to stalk – namely the anglo-saxon political scientists who have shaped how we perceive the political system in the post-war period.

Readers will know that I have always had a problem when I’m asked what I do – even my mother had a problem understanding this after, in 1985, I quit the respectability of academia and became first (for only 5 years) a full-time Regional Politician and then something called a “consultant” working in various countries which, until then, had highly dubious reputations. But her brother had been a famous British academic in political studies (Wilfrid Harrison) so I was allowed my louche inclinations….My focus was more mundane – an idiosyncratic combination of traditional public administration and more radical urban studies.

But, suddenly I was in Central Europe in the early 1990s - nobody had ever lived through a triple transformation (Markets, nations, democracy) ever before. People had been writing profusely about the transition from capitalism to communism – but not the other way around. The collapse of communism was a great shock. Few – except the Poles and Hungarians - were at all prepared for it.

And understanding such systems change requires a vast array of different intellectual disciplines – and sub-disciplines – and who is trained to make sense of them all?

In the 1990s I basically used my experience of Scottish local government (described, for example, in this paper) to draft advice notes to those trying in Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Latvia to decentralize power…..But I understood only too painfully how I lacked a real understanding of the processes of change in those contexts – and did rapid “teach-yourself” exercises in both European systems of local government and in organisational change….

I was also reading what anglo-saxons were writing about both democratization (in The Journal of Democracy) and about public administration reform. And there was so much writing – not least after the Clinton/Gore initiatives and the 1997 New Labour programmes…..

The names of Donald Savoie, B Guy Peters, Chris Hood, Chris Pollitt and Chris Foster became particularly important to me – I grasped their work like a drowning man…..

A paper I drafted and presented to a couple of Annual Conferences of the body which brings together specialists in training and public administration reform in Central Europe tried to summarise a critique I had been developing for a decade - it was called The Long Game - not the LogFrame. 

Those of us who have got involved in these programmes of advising governments in these countries had a real moral challenge. After all, we were daring to advise these countries on how to construct effective public organisations – we were employed by organisations supposed to have the expertise in how to put systems together to ensure that appropriate intervention strategies emerge to deal with the organisational and social problems of these countries. We were supposed to have the knowledge and skills to help develop appropriate knowledge and skills in those in charge of state bodies in these countries!
But how many of us could give positive answers to the following 5 questions? -
·         Do the organisations which pay us practice what they and we preach on the ground about good organisational principles?
·         Does the knowledge and experience we have as individual consultants actually help us identify and implement interventions which fit the context in which we are working?
·         Do we have the skills to make that happen?
·         What are the bodies which employ consultants doing to explore such questions – and to deal with the deficiencies which I dare to suggest would be revealed?
·         Do any of us have a clue about how to turn kleptocratic regimes into systems that recognise the meaning of public service?  

Identities

In 2011 did a post about identities which recounted how, when I was going through some difficult times, a friend tried to help by encouraging me to explore the various roles I had – father, son, husband, politician, writer, activist etc. I didn’t understand what she was driving at. 

The penny dropped only those few years ago – when I realized that I had become a collector – and could also add the word “explorer” to the list of more conventional epithets such as - lecturer, politician, maverick, leader, writer, consultant, resource person

I was reminded of this earlier this week by a review of a collection of Stefan Zweig’s stories in which Zweig was described as an 

“affluent Austrian citizen, restless wandering Jew, stupendously prolific author, tireless advocate for Pan-European humanism, relentless networker, impeccable host, domestic hysteric, noble pacifist, cheap populist, squeamish sensualist, dog lover, cat hater, book collector, alligator shoe wearer, dandy, depressive, cafe enthusiast, sympathizer with lonely hearts, casual womanizer, man ogler, suspected flasher, convicted fabulist, fawner over the powerful, champion of the powerless, abject coward before the ravages of old age, unblinking stoic before the mysteries of the grave.” And this is only a partial catalogue!!

Departure

Death we prefer not to face…I’ve reached that age where I understand the essayist Joseph Epstein when he wrote the other day that 

I now not only read the obits, but do so before all else in the paper. A good day in the obituaries for me is one in which everyone who has died is above 90; a poor one is one in which everyone listed is younger than I. Henry James remarked that, at the age of 50, someone he knows dies every week. With the increased longevity since James’s time to our own, I’d say the age currently is closer to 70. I cannot say, like James, that someone I know dies every week; someone I know dies every month is closer to it. Sometimes people I know die in clusters of three or four. My friend Edward Shils, who died at 85, used to warn on such occasions, “Be careful, Joseph, the machine-gunner is out.”
I find myself thinking of the dear friends who have died, with foreknowledge that they will soon enough be followed by many more. If one turns out to be long-lived, part of the deal is that of the friends one most cares about more are likely to be dead than alive…….(but he later asserts that, at most, 4 people will really care when he is gone!)

Perfectly natural to think about death, to be befuddled and anxious and even terrified of it, but it would be a mistake to let it spoil your day.Truth is, most of us don’t. We keep our appointments, cherish our small victories, suffer our defeats; if moderately well-balanced, we recognize our true insignificance without letting it interfere with attempting to realize our dreams. If we are serious about our religion and we feel we have lived decent lives, the question of the afterlife will have been settled. For those of us—I include myself here—who do not closely follow the dictates of a religion yet believe in a higher power ruling the universe, we have to seek such wisdom on the subject of death where we can find it….

I have had a good and lucky run, having been born to honorable and intelligent parents in the most interesting country in the world during a period of unrivaled prosperity and vast technological advance. I prefer to think I’ve got the best out of my ability, and have been properly appreciated for what I’ve managed to accomplish. One may regard one’s death as a tragic event, or view it as the ineluctable conclusion to the great good fortune of having been born to begin with. I’m going with the latter.

I don't know why the site had clothed this post in a white shroud! I've tried to get rid of it - but can't!! Que sera, sera! Anyway RSA Blogs chose a similar theme today!

Surprise and Delight

I notice that I’m not reading other blogs as often as I once did. Of course I’ve been busy writing a lot – and also dealing with the pile of books which have arrived over the last couple of months but, somehow, the blogs which used to delight me have palled a bit. There are almost 20 such blogs on my blogroll – as well other, more cultural links – where I can access the thoughts of people such as Craig Murray, Ann Pettifor, Yanis Varoufakis, Matt Taylor, for example, but rarely do. The more intense Boffy ("theory of the crisis" part 103 for god’s sake!!), John Ward and Eva Balogh in Hungarian Spectrum no longer invite me in (how do they keep it up?) – nor do the more academic and technocratic sites – such as Fistful of Euros or Stumbling and Mumbling 

A few still retain their interest – the RSA blogs which come to me almost daily from a variety of people offering insights into aspects of the projects in which they are engaged are always fresh; and European Tribune is also a team effort bringing different angles.

Too many blogs, it seems to me, are ploughing the same furrow over and over again. 

We need more surprise and delight….In the past week, I;ve come across three such delightful blogs – the first, More than Wine, has a passion also for paintings and….motor bikes (with the latter taking up too much space for my liking)

Jost a Mon is a guy with great maverick tastes –  whether for buildings or mores….

But my favourite at the moment is Rio Wang whose raison d’etre completely escapes me but seems to have central European/Spanish/jewish provenance. But just great, eclectic stuff  wherever you go – whether it’s sketches from the  Petrograd revolution; photos of Maramures; photographs of an early 20^th century german photographer or of even more harrowing scenes from Warsaw. 

One of the posts called Brave Old World does offer a list if you scroll down the page.....

The delights are the painting blogs on my blogroll - and my friend Keith's photography and text about his amazing mountain walks. His snaps capture remote Scottish lochs and superb perspectives from the mountain tops ..... 

Reflections on my years in Kyrgyzstan

The curiously named William and Mary College in the US contacted me today to invite me to take part in a survey about the development of Kyrgyzstan – where I worked as a Team Leader from 2005-2007. 
My first inclination was to decline – not just because of US imperialism (or of the connotations of William and Mary - "King Billy" as he was known in our neck of the woods !) but because of the risk of the attachment being spam. 
But my second thoughts were more generous – and I took the risk. 
The site was genuine - and indeed offered the most interesting (and interactive) internet questionnaire I have ever taken part in. It automatically honed in on my answers to probe them more deeply.....

I had only one small criticism - once the questionnaire software had identified me as a European "Commission" consultant, it then didn't really ask questions about the EC programmes, choosing instead to focus on the other development bodies I had identified in the country - US Aid; World Bank; UNDP and Swiss-Aid.

Presumably the designers assumed that I could not be objective - but I have in fact been very critical of EC programmes - as should be evident from this long paper I drafted for a NISPAcee Conference a few years a back...

And I did volunteer quite a few thoughts about the Kyrgz experience in several extensive papers - also on my website - first on the experience of developing a Roadmap for Local government in the country; then one on Municipal Capacity Building; and a final, shorter one on Building Local Government in a Hostile Climate.

Only the Roadmap was part of my terms of reference - and even that was not quite a normal technical paper; I wrote them because of my commitment.....something in short supply, I have to add sadly, amongst consultants!!

There were few open questions in the questionnaire - I would like to have put on record my appreciation of the open way these other external development organisations worked with one another in Bishkek in that era. And the great support I got from the EC Delegation - and from the German Ambassador....

Not a typical experience in my experience of working in 10 countries!!!

I should also add that the EC commissioned a very full report on the EC experience of decentralisation globally and included KR in the survey. Their report - commissioned by ECDPM - was published in 2007 with the title Decentralisation and Local Governance and is a useful reference......

I was there from 2005-2007. It was the third project in almost a decade I  spent in Central Asia and the Caucusus - and have to say that these years gave me the most professional satisfaction. In 2 of the countries I was working with the Presidential Office - who ruled the country with a tight grip. But in Azerbaijan I was given my head - and managed to turn a hopeless situation around...And in both I was working with people who seemed to appreciate getting a sense of how things worked ( or didn't) in other countries. Consultants were thin on the ground....  

Kyrgyzstan was, of course, more "fluid" with the President in fact escaping to Russia a few weeks after I arrived!  

Caledonian Dreaming?

My readers know that I like a good dissection – I like to see a country stripped of its pretensions.

A book called "Caledonian Dreaming" about the various myths with which the country sustains itself is as good as it gets in that respect…The author, one Gerry Hassan, is one of the few Scots who doesn’t seem to mind being called an intellectual. In fact, just as Bulgaria only seems to have one intellectual (Ivan Krastev) so Scotland has Gerry. The book doesn’t really seem to take a position on the burning issue – although I understand he is a “for” rather than “agin”. He certainly doesn’t mince his words -

 ‘Scotland is not a fully-fledged political democracy. It has never had a democratic moment which has brought its elites to account, defined public institutions and seen the people as a historic collective agency of change.’

For many in the Yes campaign, it is the dysfunctional nature of British democracy and politics, and in particular the democratic deficit (whereby Scotland, more definitely on the left, is currently, and seems likely to be increasingly governed by parties it did not elect) which is the driver for independence.

 In my 20s, I was angry about that power structure which, of course, was evident in the shipbuilding town I grew up in. I read avidly the early New Left Books – such as “Conviction” and critical material about “exclusion” which was coming from the Community Development Programme of the 1970s. I did my own bit about encouraging community activism – and actually wrote a small book in the late 1970s with a title “The Search for Democracy” which has echoes with Hassan’s sub-title - “the quest for a different Scotland”.

Although I voted (ultimately) in 1979 “for” a Scottish Parliament, I did write (in my contribution to the famous Red Paper on Scotland) that the discussion of the time was a “distraction” from more important issues. The caution of my Labour colleagues on the local and then Regional Councils I served for 22 years until 1990 was evident – their subservience, with honourable exceptions, to the power of their professional advisers transparent….

Hassan is ruthless in his critique….

‘despite all its radical and outsider roots, Labour was never a party of democratisation of British institutions but rather of using them for progressive ends.The central instrument of change in this was the British state, which was seen as neutral and benign.’
But only one pillar of state is elected, the House of Commons. The unelected House of Lords (the largest upper house anywhere in the world), the monarchy, the proliferation of quangos and public bodies, the outsourced state and its “myriad contractors”, the City of London, the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories - many of them major tax havens - the security state of NATO, Trident and the military-industrial UK/US alliance, engaging in mass citizen surveillance, “all unelected, all democratically unaccountable, have served to entrench a version of the UK centred on power, privilege and money’

Hassan is keen on the stories we tell about ourselves – and warns about falling into the trap of believing all of our own stories or myths- and he identifies several such myths  which Scots propogate–

·         of egalitarianism
·         of educational opportunity
·         of holding power to account
·         of social democracy
·         of open Scotland.

Much of "Caledonian Dreaming" is a deconstruction of these myths.

•  We are only slightly less unequal than England in wealth and have the worst health inequalities than Europe, and though egalitarianism is a deeply embedded ideal, this has never been translated into any programme or political will for the redistribution of power and wealth.
•  Educational inequalities similarly abound, with huge social exclusion of the poorest at every level, even in some of our most cherished institutions.
•  And though change may have begun with the advent of the Scottish Parliament, we are still largely deferential to those in power in the public sector, the professions, in business and in land ownership, there has been a marked lack of political will to challenge these vested interests and powerful voices.
•  As for our social democratic credentials, they have primarily been exercised by the middle classes for the middle classes, in a country ‘distorted by seismic inequalities, poverty and exclusion’, in areas for which the blame cannot be simply laid at Westminster’s door. Hassan suggests that Scotland’s social democracy “has offered a legitimising political story of the middle classes to validate their position in the system, and that Labour, the SNP and ‘civic Scotland’ have all played a contributory role in maintaining this”.

At the moment, I would fault only one thing – that he does not sufficiently recognize the efforts of those who struggled in the 1970s to develop, in his words, “a different Scotland”. He is (probably justly) caustic in his dismissal of the fashion in the 1970s for “community education” – but might have mentioned those like Ken Alexander and Geoff Shaw who dared to speak (and act) for a different Scotland. 

Or perhaps he dismisses them as “the great and good”? I met a lot of leftists who took such a dismissive view – and took exception to it. The usual divisive story – “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. Even Lesley Riddoch, in her celebration of community activism, fails to mention the pioneers of community business in Strathclyde in the 1980s…. talk about being whitewashed out of history……

Scenarios after an independent Scotland?

We’ve hit the hundred-day mark before the Scottish referendum – so I need to discipline myself and get back to that theme. An article in today’s Open Democracy – Should Scotland vote for what is best for Scotland? has helped me steel my resolve.

 First off, let me say that I’m one of 750,000 Scots living out of Scotland who will not be entitled to vote – and I resent that. Indeed I’m “scunnered” to use a good Scots word. I lived in the country for 48 years; contributed a lot; and yet I'm being allowed to vote. ....

The author of today’s Open Democracy has a name “Kieran Oberman” which sounds as if he is one of the 366,000 expats living in Scotland who will be entitled to vote and wrote a good piece about all this last December - but his article today is one of the few which tries to take the debate outside  the rather narrow confines into which it has been so far restricted eg

If Scottish independence generates a rightward shift in UK politics, then this will affect the rest of world to the extent that UK foreign policy affects the rest of the world. Again, the right should welcome the shift, but the left should be troubled. A UK without Scotland might be even more likely to support US-led wars, even more reluctant to take action on climate change, even more restrictive of immigration, even more hostile to EU efforts on consumer and worker rights, even more eager to back neo-liberal economic policies overseas.

It's fairly obvious that a vote in Scotland for Independence on September 18^th would be a pretty fatal blow to the chances of Labour ever winning another election in what we now call “rUK” – the remainder of the UK. A block of 50 odd Scottish Labour votes has been a reassuring boost for Labour leaders for the past few decades (although the Scottish nationalists could bite quite strongly into that in any 2105 General Election). That would confirm the neo-liberal grip on rUK – indeed many would argue that New Labour has never– even after Bliar – made any attempt to shake free from that grip….

That is indeed one of the arguments of those who have, with some reluctance, recently joined the “yes” argument – and who, with others, look to the “Nordic” neighbours for a social democratic vision….

But even if we accept the idea that an independent Scotland would be some kind of Scandinavian-style social democracy (writes Oberman), the role-model argument seems far-fetched. After all, if the rest of the world wanted a Scandinavian role model to inspire it, it already has one: Scandinavia. What need has it of a Scottish imitation? Moreover, no one should underestimate the capacity of large countries to ignore the affairs of smaller neighbours. The UK’s ignorance of the politics in the Republic of Ireland is rivalled only by the US’s ignorance of Canada.

I’m reading Scottish intellectual Gerry Hassan’s “Caledonia Dreaming” whose main themes are sketched by the author in this advance summary in the Scottish Review of Books and he is also a bit dismissive of the Nordic option which does, however, attract my support - as well as that of journalists such as Lesley Riddoch 

But emotional attraction is not enough! The Nordic Option (we used to call it Sandinavian!) is one which – as Hassan rightly emphasized – took almost a century to develop. In the meantime, with the best of intentions, an independent Scotland would be competing with an England even more disposed to compete “in a race to the bottom” on corporate and income tax. What then for our much-vaunted social democratic model?