Author: pstaniland

This is a fascinating piece that tries to map out different types of neighborhoods in Chicago. Well worth a read for any past, future, or current Chicagoan.

Bangladesh is one of the most under-studied countries in political science, certainly in American political science, and the kind of data that exists for other countries is either unavailable or un-used. This is why it’s particularly interesting and exciting to have a new International Republican Institute survey, run in April 2023.

For my IR/foreign policy purposes, I was especially glad they asked about views of foreign countries, giving a rough sense of how different major international players are viewed by Bangladeshi respondents. In the full report PDF, they also compare these responses to the same question in 2019 to see if there are trends. The key findings are on pp. 42-45.

Overall comparison in 2023:

When looking at the three 2019-2023 comparisons, the main trend is a major drop in the proportion of respondents with “Don’t Know/Refused to Answer” responses. The allocation of new responses varies a bit across countries but seems broadly similar with the slight exception of India (which didn’t pick up any favorability bump: -2, compared to +8 for PRC and +9 for US, but some of this may simply be that fewer DK answers were given for India in both 2019 and 2023, so there was less potential “floating” opinion yet to be decided). This shift since 2019 could reflect some shift in survey methodology, or a greater awareness and interest in these foreign powers at a time of growing major power competition that touches on Bangladesh.

As a next research step, it would be fascinating to learn whether these views are correlated with variables like intended vote choice, priority political issues, views of the Prime Minister, etc – do domestic political cleavages map onto foreign policy preferences, or are they largely autonomous?

Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism Under Suharto: Ideology and Politics, 1959-65. A fascinating narrative of the PKI’s strategies, ideologies, and goals under Sukarno as it tried to carve out a path to power while navigating a tumultuous international situation and complex internal political competition. Part of my current book research on 1950s-1960s Indonesia in comparative perspective.

A grim, excellent report from the New York Times using a variety of methods to show how Myanmar’s military is engaging in pervasive civilian targeting:

“Internet shutdowns and digital surveillance prevent much information from trickling beyond Myanmar’s borders. But behind the veil of secrecy, the military is carrying out a devastating and indiscriminate campaign of violence.”

The violence in Manipur has been a bit hard to get a handle on from a distance, especially since I have always found it the most challenging case to understand in the Northeast in general. Despite some quibbles (actually very few NE insurgencies had their start “soon after independence”), the International Crisis Group has a new report that provides an extremely valuable overview of how the state got to this point. Go check it out.

A new report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict:

“explores the consequences of Jokowi’s lack of interest in keeping the military in check and what the consequences could be if Prabowo, now a candidate for president, is elected in 2024.

The backsliding on civilian control has involved opening up more and more civilian positions to active-duty officers, replacing civilian defence ministers and many of their subordinates with retired officers, expanding the TNI’s non-military roles, expanding its territorial command structure, and failing to subject military budgets and procurement procedures to close scrutiny.

These developments have often served Jokowi’s interests of building a circle of trusted allies, expanding his political coalition, and encouraging faster and more efficient infrastructure development. He has been aided in his reliance on the military by the TNI’s generally positive image among the Indonesian public.

The report notes that while the interests of the TNI as an institution and Prabowo Subianto as Defence Minister and political candidate do not always coincide – indeed are often at odds – Prabowo as president could seek to further expand the military budget, territorial commands, and some internal security functions. He is on record as advocating an increase in the number of regional military commands from the current 15 to 38 – meaning one in every province.

Under the circumstances, the report notes, the most effective check on military power will lie in the national parliament and a strong political opposition.”