2013-05-25T16:39:59-04:00 Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=joel-faulkner-rogers Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Joel Faulkner Rogers Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2615817 2013-02-04T19:00:00-05:00 2013-04-06T05:12:01-04:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
Notwithstanding, Cameron and his Franco-American allies are correct, of course, that the new front of North African jihadism must be closed down before the Maghreb-Sahel region duplicates the dynamics of Afghanistan and Somalia in the 1990s - namely a petridish for terrorism and organised international crime; a training ground for wannabe extremists; and a geopolitical playground for misbehaving regional powers.

Meanwhile, and perhaps predictably, recent YouGov polling shows a shift in British public opinion, with fears of terrorism back on the rise, doubtless helped by the dialled-up rhetoric, military intervention and hostage tragedy of recent weeks.

In July 2010, we asked a nationally representative sample of British adults whether they thought the threat of terrorism in Britain had increased or decreased in the last five years.

In these results, 25% said the threat had increased, compared with 70% overall who thought it had stayed the same (53%) or decreased (17%).

Then in late January this year, we re-asked the same question to a similar sample of British adults.

This time, 45% said the threat had increased, versus 51% overall who said it had stayed the same (38%) or decreased (13%).

(See full results here - follow @YouGovCam for updates on our latest academic research.)

It's an irony, therefore, that a number of those factors now upping the public fear-factor and putting al Qaeda back on the front page are also factors that indicate a creeping decline for al Qaeda as the kind of globe-trotting bogeyman we once feared.

Its very emergence in the Maghreb-Sahel is a story of retreat as well as expansion: al Qaeda and associates Fled into Pakistan after losing much of their original base in the founding homelands of Afghanistan; political rejection in Iraq and an escalating US drone programme in the Afghan-Pakistani tribal areas helped to squeeze the movement into new manifestations across Yemen and Somalia, before new operational hubs appeared most recently in North Africa.

Controversial as it may be, the drone programme has been credited with repeatedly decimating all but the junior ranks of al Qaeda, leaving a thin core struggling to maintain both experienced authority or symbolic figureheads who can replace the unifying icon of Osama bin Laden.

In the years since 9/11, myriad initiatives for enhanced cooperation across sovereign intelligence communities have greatly improved their predictive and preventive capacities.

Similarly, greater cross-border coordination of forensic accountancy has hampered the kind of long-range, international financing that was necessary to facilitate an event such as 9/11.

These factors combined have helped to dry the flow of foreign wannabes making pilgrimage to the training camps, and undermined both the conditions and cachet of student life when they get there.

Meanwhile, from Anbar and Swat to Timbuktu, al Qaeda groups or affiliates have consistently alienated communities where they have attempted to take root beyond Afghanistan, and suffered strategic defeat as a result. This trend gave a helping hand to coalition surge-strategies in Iraq, for instance, in helping to sway the loyalties of local factions alongside the provision of largesse and political shares in future regional and national governance.

As noted here by Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator and member of the YouGov-Cambridge Advisory Board, 'Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb' (AQIM) might sound scary, but it is more an off-shoot of the Algerian insurgency than of bin Laden, with much of the membership more experienced in smuggling and kidnapping than taking on the world's most powerful intelligence communities.

This points to a larger fact: the al Qaeda movement doubtless remains lethal, virulent and wholly requiring of the coordinated international response that just prevented Mali from collapse and subjugation. But it is also being incrementally pushed into an age more like the 1990s, where its activities were sporadic, lacking ideological or logistical coordination, and more confined to localised and non-Western theatres. As the experienced correspondent Jason Burke duly notes, a refinery in the Sahara is hardly the Twin Towers or the Pentagon, and represents the growing difficulty of these militant networks to hit new targets that resonate so powerfully across their Muslim constituencies.

Sweeping definitions of an existential Islamist threat largely went out of political fashion in Britain and the United States after 2003, as the Iraq War proved to be more a recruiting poster for terrorism than a bulwark against it, and the language of 'global war' was gradually recognised as helping to inflate the mythical reach of increasingly localised enemies and warring factions.

The recent Mali intervention has been decisive and justified. But since generating terror is a key aim of terrorists, we should mind some of the existential hype around AQIM, or we're handing them an undeserved and much coveted marketing victory.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2315220 2012-12-17T09:03:53-05:00 2012-12-17T10:47:33-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
The agreement could be more important historically than the recondite details suggest: it affords greater power to the European Central Bank (ECB) in supervising some two hundred of the largest banks in the Eurozone (in the first instance), and makes a step towards facilitating direct capitalisation of struggling banks, therefore hopefully circumventing the European crisis-cycle of national-debt-leads-to-weak-growth-leads-to-more-borrowing and so on.

Crucially for the UK, it introduces a double-majority voting system allowing EU members beyond the single currency zone to block new banking rules that don't suit them.

Thus the agreement is being claimed by some as a tangible example that it might be possible, even while the Eurozone core pushes for ever deeper union, to move towards a looser arrangement in the outer ring of a two-tier European concert, where the UK retains the economic benefits of the single market, but avoids marginalisation from key decisions affecting economic interests and competitiveness.

This proposal was the highlight of a recent speech by London Mayor Boris Johnson when he told reporters earlier in December that what the UK needs, and what many of its voters allegedly want, is a pared-down form of membership, where the UK stays in the single market but pulls out of deeper union, along with various common European commitments. He further called for a specific kind of UK referendum, using a question such as "Do you want to stay in the single market as renegotiated? (Yes or No?)".

Johnson has a good feel for the public pulse, it seems, at least on British attitudes to the EU. As polling research suggests, a significant portion of British public opinion now leans towards the notion of 'EU lite'. It also retains great expectations, however, of keeping a seat at the European leaders' table.

Europe and the importance of question wording


Few subjects in public polling have emphasised the importance of question wording as much as Europe. In the UK's first ever referendum in 1975, voters were given the chance to decide whether the country should stay in or leave the 'European Community', as the European project was then called.

The build-up to referendum saw a vigorous debate among pollsters, with some warning about the known tendency for survey respondents to agree with offered propositions rather than disagree, meaning that a question like "Should Britain stay in the Common Market" was potentially biased in favour of staying in, while a question asking "Should Britain leave" could be similarly biased towards leaving.

Some method-puritans went as far as arguing that the only way to ask the question in a truly non-leading way would be a ballot of just two words, saying:

"In"

"Out"

YouGov and its academic think-tank, YouGov-Cambridge, have conducted various surveys exploring the challenges and pitfalls of framing public opinion on Europe. (Follow @YouGovCam for updates)

In November, for example, we asked a nationally representative sample of 1812 British adults how they would vote in a referendum on EU membership, with the answer-options being: vote to remain a member; vote to leave the Union; or would not vote. (The survey was latest run of an-going tracking question)

According to this kind of question, roughly half of the British public (49%) would choose to leave versus 32% who would vote to stay. (19% chose either "would not vote" or "Don't know" - see full results here on page 6).

These results further show predictable, political break-downs:

- 64% of those intending to vote Conservative would vote to leave versus 21% choosing to stay.
- In approximate reverse, 60% of those intending to vote Liberal Democrat would vote to stay versus 26% choosing to leave.
- Labour voters were more evenly split, with 39% choosing to leave versus 45% to remain.

The British electorate as a whole also stands out on this question next to various EU neighbours for their apparent preference towards an EU exit. When asked the same question in a separate survey of European public opinion, only 28% in Germany chose "vote to leave" versus 52% choosing "vote to remain a member". Smaller but still significant pluralities in France (41%), Denmark (54%) and Finland (44%) chose " vote to remain" versus 35%, 30% and 35% respectively choosing "vote to leave" (see full results here).

Support for EU-lite spans the major party divides


However, according to results from a different question fielded to the same British sample cited above, the strongest preference among British voters is actually to remain within the Union.

Respondents were asked which one of four options they would most prefer for the UK's relationship with Europe.

- This time, only 26% overall said they preferred "Britain leaving the European Union completely".
- 46% said they preferred "Britain remaining in the European Union, but having a more detached relationship that is little more than a free trade agreement".
- 19% preferred "Britain remaining in the European Union as it is", with 9% choosing either "None of these" or "Don't know" (see full results here on page 6).

Political break-downs in this case also show a cross-party preference for staying in:

- Only 24% of those intending to vote Conservative supported Britain leaving the Union completely in this context, versus 63% supporting the pared-down option for staying in.
- 40% of those intending to vote Labour supported the pared-down option versus 26% supporting continued membership as it is and 25% preferring to leave.
- 43% of those intending to vote Liberal Democrat chose the pared-down option versus 38% preferring continued membership as it is and 14% preferring to leave.

In other words, there's a strong pull in the British electorate towards EU-lite, but not EU-exit, which spans the party divide and includes a significant portion of Conservative voters. These opinion-trends also sits at odds with the headline answer that comes from a straightforward stay/leave question, as some propose for the basis for a referendum.

Little appetite to be a Switzerland or Norway


Separate YouGov-Cambridge research supports the idea that British public opinion leans towards greater independence from Europe, but not to the extent of becoming a Switzerland or Norway. Earlier this year, we posed a similar question in slightly different ways to two nationally representative samples of the British population. In the first instance, respondents were shown a list of policy-areas and asked whether these should be controlled by the EU or by national governments, producing strong, cross-party opposition to EU control in most areas, including: rights for workers (with 66% overall in favour of national control); military action (69%); relations with non-Euro countries (60%); tax rates and national budgets (89%); crime and justice (85%); reducing poverty (62%); deciding laws on trade unions and strikes (80%); recovering from recession (74%); regulating banks and financial institutions (68%); weights and measures (67%); immigration (79%) and agriculture (74%).

In the second instance, a different sample of respondents was shown the same list of policy-areas, but asked in each case if they thought European countries should cooperate more closely, or should loosen links and handle the issue more at the national level. Conversely, results in the second survey showed strong preference for more cooperation in nine out of sixteen policy-areas, including seven where preferences for control and cooperation went in different directions, meaning that a majority or plurality wanted national control in the first survey, while calling for more cooperation at the European level in the second. (For more details see here)

Brits still want a seat at the leaders' table (even in Europe), but minus the price tag


The picture becomes more layered still on British attitudes to Europe if we include concepts of influence and leading-power status.

In pilot research for its on-going collaboration with the House of Commons on UK national strategy, YouGov-Cambridge recently questioned a nationally representative sample of 1854 British adults on attitudes to the UK's wider role in the world. (See full results here)

63% of British people, according to results, believe it's important to national interests for the UK to remain "a leading voice in the European Union", versus only 28% who say it's unimportant. Political, social and demographic variance leaves majority-trends essentially unchanged.

Results further show that this preference belongs to a wider, prevailing belief in the British electorate that the UK should still seek to play a leading role across numerous areas of the world stage for the sake of national interests:

- 74% of British people agree with the statement that the UK needs a major role in the world in order "to protect its economic interests", versus 8% who disagree.
- 63% agree the UK needs a major role in the world "to protect its national security", versus 14% who disagree.
- 74% say it's important to UK national interests to be "a leading voice in NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)", versus 17% who say it's unimportant.
- 79% say it's important to UK national interests to be "a leading voice on the United Nations Security Council" as one of the Big Five Permanent Members, versus 12% who disagree.
- 66% say it's important to UK national interests to have aircraft carriers to send our Armed Forces anywhere in the world, versus 25% who disagree.
- A slightly lower but still significant 59% also said it's important to UK national interests to act as a bridge for communication between the United States and Europe.

Interestingly, the British public shows significantly less support in four key areas of international engagement that directly imply cost.

- Only 36% said that "sending financial aid to the developing world" was important to UK national interests, versus 56% who said it was unimportant.
- 40% said using military force to protect human rights in other countries was important to UK national interests, versus 48% saying it was unimportant.
- 52% said it was important to UK national interests to help finance international efforts to tackle global warming, versus 39% who said it was unimportant.
- 47% said it was important to UK national interests to have our own nuclear weapons, versus 42% who said it was unimportant.

These figures duly add context to the trend-lines of British attitudes towards EU membership.

Recession, outsourcing, immigration and other by-products of globalisation may have boosted the British appetite for detachment from the measures and momentum of European integration. But they are failing to galvanise a significant draw-bridge mentality, even in Europe.

On the contrary, mainstream public opinion in Britain still aspires to a UK seat at the international leaders' table, and views the maintenance of leading-power status in numerous areas to be fundamental to the UK's national interests. Crucially, this includes retaining significant influence in the European concert, as well as notably less public support for key expenses of foreign influence, such as foreign aid, independent nuclear deterrence, humanitarian intervention or investment in climate change mitigation.

From Europe to the global south to the high seas, therefore, the spokespeople of UK foreign policy could likely face repeated challenges over the coming decade in balancing the great British expectations of both retrenchment and influence.

Follow @YouGovCam for updates.

Joel Faulkner Rogers is the Academic Director at YouGov.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2187871 2012-11-25T19:00:00-05:00 2012-11-25T15:32:02-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
The results belong to an on-going collaboration between YouGov-Cambridge, (YouGov's academic think-tank) and Dr June Edmunds of Cambridge and Sussex Universities, focussing on the politics of human rights in Britain and Europe. (Follow @YouGovCam for updates)

Party differences in the results are significant, but still point in the same direction: 81% of those currently intending to vote Conservative preferred deportation regardless, alongside 65% of those currently intending to vote Labour and 48% of those currently intending to vote Liberal Democrat respectively.

Interestingly, the older you are, the stronger your preference for deportation is likely to be, with 49% of those aged 18-24 saying Qatada should be deported regardless, next to 58% of 25-39s, 75% of 40-59s and 81% of those aged 60 and over. The study also showed that working-class (C2DE) voters were marginally more likely to support deportation no matter what (72%) than middle-class (ABC1) voters (67%).

A tale of two rights: no trial by torture-evidence versus the state's right to protect

Widely suspected of senior involvement in al Qaeda by authorities in Britain, Europe, the United States and the United Nations, Abu Qatada has been held in a UK prison for the last seven years under UK anti-terrorism laws, having arrived nearly twenty years ago as a Palestinian-Jordanian seeking asylum from alleged religious persecution in Jordan.

Following years of protracted debate between the government and its law lords, UK authorities got the green light for deportation this year, but the decision was blocked in January by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on grounds that Qatada might be tried in Jordan based on evidence gained through torture. He was then released on strict bail conditions in November after the UK's Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) upheld an appeal against his deportation.

Behind the public wrangling ultimately lies a clash of two proclaimed rights: on one hand, the right of individuals to protection from trial by torture-evidence; on the other, the right of the state to deport a suspect deemed dangerous without having to convict them of a crime.

In Qatada's case, the polling shows public opinion strongly in support of the latter. It also points towards a burgeoning trend, namely that the political fault-line between London and Europe now increasingly includes human rights.

Prison votes: right or luxury?

European Courts and the British public appear similarly at odds in the on-going debate on prison votes.

Downing Street came under renewed pressure last week from the ECHR to explain how it would comply with the European Court's verdict that the UK ban on prisoners voting is illegal.

Supporters of lifting the ban (either wholly or partially) argue that having a democratic say is a basic human right rather than a civic luxury, which also potentially helps to engage or reintegrate the convicted with society. Supporters further contend that the UK accepted a partial ceding of sovereignty to the Council long ago, when it signed up to abide by the "final judgment" of the European Convention in 1951, and that a policy of picking and choosing on ECHR rulings could undermine the body's overall authority to act on more serious human rights abuses in other countries, not to mention eroding British soft power while potentially incurring significant cost in financial punishment from Europe or litigation from UK prisoners.

Opponents counter that if you go to prison for breaking laws, you should forfeit the civic right during imprisonment to help in formulating them. They also proclaim that Parliament is ultimately sovereign and retains the right to a democratic override of external rulings, adding that both the European Court's remit and its definition of human rights have expanded significantly without much of a catch-up debate since the immediate post-war period.

Here again we see a clash between European legal and British popular definitions of the inalienable human right.

In last week's YouGov poll of 1812 British adults, 63% of respondents said that 'no prisoners should be allowed to vote at elections', versus only 8% saying that 'all prisoners should be allowed to vote', 9% who said 'prisoners serving sentences of less than 4 years should be allowed to vote', and 15% saying 'prisoners serving sentences of less than 6 months should be allowed to vote'.

These trends are of a broad continuity: in an earlier YouGov survey of 752 British adults in late 2010, 76% of respondents said that in principle, prisoners should not have the right to vote, versus 17% who said they should and 7% who selected 'Don't know'. Meanwhile public opinion may have hardened on the possibilities of compromise: in a YouGov survey of 3,812 British adults from January this year, 38% said that people serving short prison sentences (less than 12 months) should have the right to vote in British elections.

60 years and shrinking (?) - British enthusiasm for the ECHR

Perhaps ironically, given its periodic bashing by British pundits and politicians, the ECHR is the European offspring of a British idea, established in 1959 in Strasbourg to enforce a treaty of common multilateral agreement on civil and political rights - the European Convention on Human Rights - which began life (arguably) as a post-war ambition of Winston Churchill.

Six decades on, there's a perceptible preference in British public attitudes for a return of sovereignty on questions of human rights, and a significant consensus that believes the ECHR does less to protect Britain's interests and more to protect its criminals. In a YouGov survey of 2419 British adults last year, 63% of respondents said it's wrong for the ECHR to make rulings on subjects that the British Parliament or courts have decided, versus 25% who said it was right and a vital protection against the British government abusing people's rights.

57% said that "Britain's membership of the ECHR has been abused by lawyers making spurious cases on behalf of criminals and on balance it has been a bad thing", versus 19% saying that "Britain's membership of the ECHR has been a valuable protection against the government ignoring the human rights of British people, and on balance has been a good thing". 55% said that Britain should not remain a member of the ECHR, and should have its own Bill of Rights instead, with the British Supreme Court as the final court of appeal, versus 24% saying that Britain should remain a member of the ECHR, with the European Court in Strasbourg as the final court of appeal. (Follow @YouGovCam in the coming weeks for updated numbers on UK attitudes to the ECHR, plus the subject of wearing religious symbols or clothing in different public places)

The bigger challenge for European integration: survival versus legitimacy

The ECHR is commonly mistaken for sitting inside the European Union (EU) framework or for having responsibilities similar to the EU Court of Justice in ensuring compliance with EU law and rules on the application of EU treaties.

It does neither of those things. But UK frustrations towards the role and rulings of the ECHR help to underscore a wider challenge, both for EU-UK relations and the continued health of the European project overall.

The initial stages of post-Cold War globalisation were a golden age for the Third Way philosophy of economic dynamism plus social security that characterised governments such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder and other avowed, post-Soviet centrists.

Over the last half decade, however, while globalisation has given rise to more state-centric government beyond the West, the political centre within its borders has been wilting.

Across Europe, hard times have energised the differences between Hard Left and Hard Right, while helping smaller parties to field cogent single-issue insurgencies. At the more fearsome edges, a political admixture of recession, outsourcing, immigration, multiculturalism, ethnic tensions and the threat of terrorism have given boost to populist xenophobia and fringe right electoral gains from east to west. Mainstream European opinion has also supported softer but renascent nationalisms, or tugs towards greater detachment, including within the UK.

Accordingly, the European project is now afflicted with a fundamental contradiction: in order for the Union to survive, a number of its institutions must become a whole lot more European, with deeper political union and more sovereignty surrendered in areas such as tax and spending. This comes at the very time, however, when many constituent peoples and demographic groups are pushing with new vigour to become more national.

In which case, the anti-recession drive for deeper European integration may have to include some newly imaginative, perhaps even radical, ideas for more direct European democracy between national publics and transnational institutions, or risk a continent-wide crisis of popular legitimacy.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2127676 2012-11-14T05:06:41-05:00 2012-11-14T10:23:53-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
Well sort of.

It hardly takes a sage to notice that an anti-rich backlash has gone global. But this is about more than the standard fare of anti-business sentiment that comes with cyclical recession.

In September this year, YouGov gathered a range of experts from government, business and media for the annual YouGov conference at Cambridge University to discuss the theme of 'Reputation in the Age of Protest', and how nations, corporations and political parties variously manage the modern challenges of reputation.

As the conference helped to explore, a core proposal of Western-age globalisation has been challenged in the last half decade - i.e. the social value-model of trickle-down economics, and the notion that everyone benefits from enriching the top.

This doesn't mean there's broad appetite for the sort of radical change advocated by some on the American and European Left. As YouGov cross-country polling has shown in Germany, Britain, Sweden and the United States, there's little support for questioning the market economy in principle, with no real difference in opinion-trends between countries associated with guided 'European' capitalism or the Anglo-Saxon free-market approach.

What is obvious, however, is a newly strengthened tendency to see prospering companies and socio-economic progress as zero-sum. According to another recent YouGov report , for example, large numbers of British retail customers still believe, some five years after onset of the sub-prime crisis, that self-interest and the common good remain fundamentally decoupled in the UK banking sector.

From CSR to SV

Moving past the latest corporate scandals and FTSE reputational nose-dives, many companies remain trapped in outmoded approaches to value-creation that essentially treat the process as a natural by-product of normal business, plus a dose of arm's-length philanthropy via annual budgets for corporate social responsibility (CSR).

As some of this year's YouGov conference speakers emphasised, such as former Northern Rock boss Gary Hoffman and the Royal Mail's Chief Executive Moya Greene, large businesses in particular will have to work considerably harder from here on to protect their reputations in ways that extend beyond the old "social responsibility" mind-set. It almost goes without saying that customers and stakeholders have more power than ever to scrutinise, to protest, and to join standing armies of freelance watchdogs ready for battle. Networked technology and its social effects have created a new kind of 'bubble reputation', which assumes the volatile, behavioural characteristics of financial markets. Digital leverage among close-knit groups magnifies the epidemic power of a message or idea, as Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell has explored in his thesis on the "laws of the few". Confidence can be amplified into speculative bubbles or collapse in hours and minutes with a run on reputation.

A significant outcome from these developments is a shift among the more innovative business-thinkers towards 'shared-value' models that do more to connect profit with progress at a strategic level, and less to place each in short-term trade-off with the other.

According to the management-consultant firm Booz & Company, to be a successful global brand today means being a 'global attractor', which in turn means incorporating at least three dimensions into a common platform: first, appealing to aspirational values; second, being a trend-setter of new ideas and standards; and third, staking out positions as a responsible global citizen, where social issues and the company's business intersect organically.

Letting go to keep control - from business to communism

In turn, the notion of shared value is also being broadened by consumer empowerment. Few chief executives suggest running a business entirely through open-sourcing and crowd-surfing. But an increasing number of companies accept the idea that relinquishing 'some' control of the communications process to public dialogue is now central to managing trust and reputation among customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.

This includes a more open, hands-up approach to criticism. A trenchant example can be seen with McDonalds, having taken steps as bold as listing calorie-counts on menus and uploading footage of slaughterhouses on open company blogs.

Accordingly, many successful brands are shifting away from being assets owned by corporations towards being socially constructed, collectively owned and shared identities. As the media company Raconteur has explained, effective brand strategies no longer rest on the old way of command and top-down centralised control, and consumers no longer want force-fed advertising. Brand-owning companies are not like armies, says Vicky Bullen, Chief Executive of the branding agency Coley Porter Bell: you can't just order people to be consistent; you have to make them want to be consistent.

It's a small irony, therefore, that the reputational challenge facing big business is not entirely dissimilar from the challenge faced by the Chinese Communist Party and other market-authoritarian governments.

There's a difference in China between online activism for the cause of better service from government authorities and barefaced dissent against the Chinese Communist Party's right to one-party rule. A majority of Chinese online activism is careful not to cross this line. For those who do, China has an Internet police force with a staggering size of over 50,000, further bolstered by countless bloggers working secretly for the government, who activate when it's time to debunk potentially harmful stories

The government in Beijing consciously tolerates a limited measure of online empowerment as part of a semi-official bamboo strategy - bending to social winds rather than standing straight and breaking like Soviet Communism. In fact, from Pacific Asia and Russia to the Gulf states and Latin America, governments are learning to tolerate a certain measure of online dissent in the form of demands for better services and efficiency. This is different from challenging the underlying theory of state, however, and functions in many cases to reiterate the ultimate legitimacy of government rather than undermine it. Digital media in this context offers a useful kind of 'pseudo-democratic steam-valve'.

The common rule here seems to be: letting go and giving stakeholders a louder say in how things are run is now - paradoxically - a core component of staying in control for many large organisations, whether capitalist or communist, or a fashionably modern mixture of both.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2088663 2012-11-07T12:19:49-05:00 2013-01-07T05:12:01-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
Akin was one of two Tea Party favourites, alongside Richard Mourdock, the GOP's Senate candidate for Indiana, who should have won but didn't after killing their campaigns with controversial remarks about rape and religion.

If the Obama Team struggled this time to ignite the buzz of previous elections, then so did the Tea Party, in a movement that originated as a thoughtful renaissance of secular, founding ideals and got broadly hijacked by religious populists and knee-jerk political lock-steppers.

Beyond choosing a Tea Party poster-boy for running-mate, much of the Hard Right profile that Mitt Romney developed to win the Republican Primaries subsequently faded as he reincarnated into a centrist Republican. In a gracious speech proclaiming the need to "reach across the aisle and do the people's work", Romney also ended his election bid with a clear appeal to temper the kind of Congressional deadlock that has come to epitomise the avowed approach to government by many Tea Party activists and fellow travellers since 2010.

Beyond the ensuing debate, however, about how much help or hindrance these elements bring to Republican electability, the course of American conservatism faces an arguably larger problem of slow-motion demographic crisis, as highlighted by last night's election results, which could significantly diminish the party's relevance to American society over the next 30 years.

YouGov surveyed approximately 36,000 Americans in the final week of the Presidential race, calling the right victor in every state bar Florida, where results still fell well inside the margin of error, showing a one-point lead for Mitt Romney. (See final pre-election analysis here)

Omitting the small number of 'Don't knows' and supporters of minor candidates, YouGov's final survey results show that support for Romney was stronger among male respondents (54% for Romney v. 46% for Obama), white respondents (58% for Romney v. 42% for Obama), and older respondents (54% for Romney v. 46% for Obama among those aged 45-64 and 62% for Romney v. 38% for Obama among those aged 65+), while support for Obama in this sample was stronger among female respondents (44% for Romney v. 56% for Obama), black respondents, (7% for Romney v. 93% for Obama), Hispanic respondents, (38% for Romney v. 62% for Obama), and younger respondents (35% for Romney v. 65% for Obama among those aged 18-29 and 41% for Romney v. 59% for Obama among those aged 30-44). (See results and further analysis here)

These results help to confirm wider analysis, namely that Republicans secured a base among male, white, older, higher-income and more evangelical voters, while Democrats held on to younger, African-American, female and Jewish voters (albeit with varyingly smaller margins than in 2008), as well as increasing support among Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

There could be a serious, long-term problem for the Republican Party implied by these results. As the late Samuel Huntington noted in his last major book "Who Are We?", (which like others managed to stir its fair share of heated debate), levels of American immigration after 1965 have differed from previous periods in at least two vital ways: first, in being both high and continuous by the country's own standards, when previous waves were either low and continuous or high and sporadic; and second, in being less diverse and more consistently Latin American.

Huntington duly focused his analysis on California, predicting that by 2040, its population could have transitioned from that of 57% White and 26% Hispanic in 1990 to being 31% White and 48% Hispanic. Interestingly, while the state voted Republican in every Presidential election between the late 1960s and the end of the 1980s, it has voted Democrat consistently ever since.

Nearly ten years after Huntington published his thesis on the changing nature of American identity, social scientists continue to debate his predictions, but they doubtless helped to energise a debate with long-term implications for the GOP.

As it stands, roughly 63% of America is white. But White America is currently shrinking, and non-white America will only continue to grow its proportion of the electorate, by some predictions leaving whites in the minority in at least ten states by 2020, and representing less than half of the overall population by the 2040s.

The United States Census Bureau officially announced this year that white births are no longer a majority in the United States. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6% of all births in the 12-month period ending in July 2012, while minorities including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race reached 50.4%, making them a majority for the first time in America's history.

Republican and Tea Party pundits have talked about the potential for these burgeoning groups to change their voting preferences over time.

But the GOP clearly risks long-term demographic suicide if its leaders continue their love-hate relationship with the centre without finding more imaginative ways to meet these voters halfway.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2077347 2012-11-05T12:47:42-05:00 2012-11-06T14:02:26-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/ See results)

According to a majority of these practitioners, President Obama's Afghan and counter-terrorism policies are broadly on the right track, while popular perceptions of US decline, diminishing European importance and Chinese supremacy are overstated. However, the Obama administration is also seen as having failed to improve US foreign relations in most key areas, particular with regards to Russia and the Middle East.

Defence experts are less convinced than the wider public of US decline and long-term Chinese pre-eminence

In positive news for US strategists, experts were notably more convinced of America's continued primacy than wider public opinion, and less convinced about elements of the infallible 'China Rising'.

When asked to say which country would be the world's leading power at the end of the next US presidential term in 2016, 84% chose the United States from a list of seven powerful countries, while only 11% said China.

By comparison, YouGov-Cambridge also recently conducted a major cross-country study including nationally representative samples in the United States, Britain, France and Germany, plus a pan-regional sample of the Middle East and North Africa (the MENA), and samples of the online populations in Pakistan and China. (See results) In every case, a much smaller proportion of people surveyed across Britain (49%), the United States (55%), Germany (49%), France (34%), the MENA (54%), Pakistan (36%) and China (62%) believed the United States is currently the world's leading power, and significantly more said that China has already overtaken America's leading status. (Accordingly: 25% in Britain; 21% in both the United States and Germany; 37% in France; 16% in the MENA; 55% in Pakistan and 29% in China)

The defence panel also showed its reservations about Chinese pre-eminence in other ways:

• 69% agreed that China's economic growth model is unsustainable over the long term, versus 18% who disagreed
• 60% also agreed that China's political model is unsustainable over the long term, versus 23% who disagreed.

Experts put more faith in the 'special relationship'

There was little doubt among our surveyed defence experts that the US-UK alliance remains a keystone of UK foreign relations:

• 80% agreed that the United States is "the United Kingdom's most important ally".
• 85% described the US-UK relationship as either "fairly" or "very" close, while only 15% described it as "not very" or "not at all" close.
• 88% agreed that it's important for the United Kingdom "to have a close relationship with the United States".

Here again we see significant differences between expert views and wider public opinion. YouGov surveyed a nationally representative sample of the adult British population earlier this year and found both less enthusiasm and less faith towards the notion of a special US-UK relationship. (See results)

By comparison in the wider British sample:

• Just 56% of British adults surveyed agreed that the United States is "the United Kingdom's most important ally".
• 64% of British adults surveyed described the US-UK relationship as either "fairly" or "very" close, while nearly a third (29%) described it as "not very" or "not at all" close.

For the defence and security specialists, however, the perceived importance of the US alliance also comes with two caveats.

First, in contrast to the high number of defence panellists who emphasised the importance of US-UK intimacy, only 42% further agreed that the success of the UK economy depends on good relations with the United States (versus 30% who disagreed and 28% who neither agreed nor disagreed).

In other words, America's importance is no longer synonymous with being the centre of economic gravity.

A second caveat reflects the majority view that US-UK relations are imbalanced. Next to the 80% of respondents from the defence panel who see the United States as the United Kingdom's most important ally, 57% also agreed that the United States generally does not consider the United Kingdom's interests, compared with only 26% who disagreed.

A gap in the BRICs

In other results, the experts' panel showed recognition of the new US 'pivot towards Asia', but also substantial faith in the continued stability of US-old world relations, and a sense of diminishing geopolitical reach for Russia.

When asked if they believed various countries and organisations would become more or less important to the United States over the next four years, large majorities of respondents unsurprisingly predicted that China (85%), India (68%) and Brazil (65%) would grow more important.

But there's also a schism in the BRIC story, at least according to these experts.

Russia is hardly alone among emerging markets in having suffered from serious economic slowdown and burgeoning domestic resentment since 2008. But as survey results imply, Russia's claim to be a rising or resurgent power has been more diminished than that of China, India or Brazil, with only 27% of respondents predicting it will become more important to the United States during the next Presidential term.

Meanwhile, various fixtures of transatlantic power retain an overall perception of stability in their importance to US foreign policy, according to majorities or pluralities of respondents from the defence panel. 66% predict the United Kingdom will retain its current level of importance to the United States over the next four years. 56% say the same for Germany, 55% for France, and 49% for the European Union, versus 14%, 39% and 31% respectively who say these actors will lose importance. Similarly, 51% predict the chief collective security organisation of Western power, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), will stay the same in its importance to Washington, versus 37% saying it will become less important.

Experts say Obama has changed little in US foreign relations

As this survey further implied, President Obama has largely overseen a period in which few fundamentals of US foreign relations have changed their status.

Respondents were asked if they believed Obama has improved, worsened, or made no difference to US relations with a number of countries, regions and organisations.

In every case but one, the majority or plurality view was that the US president has made little or no difference to relations with the subject in question.

For example, despite the Obama administration's optimistic declarations of pressing the 're-set' button in relations with Russia shortly after entering the White House, 54% of respondents from the defence panel said "Obama has made little or no difference" to relations with Russia, versus 18% saying he has improved and 21% saying he has worsened relations.

In similar patterns:

• 62% said "little or no difference" to relations with the European Union, versus 19% saying "improved" and 13% saying "worsened".
• 63% said "little or no difference" to relations with Germany, versus 22% saying "improved" and 6% saying "worsened".
• 60% said "little or no difference" to relations with France, versus 22% saying "improved" and 9% saying "worsened".
• 65% said "little or no difference" to relations with NATO, versus 17% saying "improved" and 13% saying "worsened".

The three cases in which Obama was seen to have made the most progress were vis-à-vis China, Brazil and India, although a plurality still saw little or no improvement in each case:

• 47% said "little or no difference" to relations with China, versus 27% saying "improved" and 18% saying "worsened".
• 45% said "little or no difference" to relations with India, versus 33% saying "improved" and 5% saying "worsened".
• 42% said "little or no difference" to relations with Brazil, versus 29% saying "improved" and 4% saying "worsened".

Perhaps expectedly, the area that saw least consensus was the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where 32% of respondents from the defence panel said "Obama has made little or no difference to relations" overall, versus 28% saying he has improved and 34% saying he has worsened relations.

But high scores for Obama's Afghan and counter-terrorism policies

There are two policy-areas, however, in which the Obama Administration scores highly with this sample of the UK defence community.

57% of respondents said the US should stick to its current policy of withdrawing most troops by 2014, and then keep a smaller number of troops there in support and counter-terrorism roles. A further 11% supported the target of withdrawing troops gradually, but also urged Obama to bring all troops home by 2014. Only 5% said the US should bring home all troops immediately, regardless of the situation there, while 12% said the US should keep most troops in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to make the country stable, and only 7% said the US should speed up the pace of withdrawal and bring ALL troops home before 2014.

Finally, a significant 69% said they believed that al Qaeda has grown weaker since the beginning of the Obama Presidency, a perception no doubt aided by Obama's biggest public opinion triumph from this administration, with the killing of Osama bin Laden.

See heree for full results and methodology, plus further insights and reporting from the Royal United Services Institute.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1961205 2012-10-30T13:44:56-04:00 2012-11-04T15:03:14-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
Beyond the usual sparring over which candidate is more reliable in the face of foreign threats, or which party is more to blame for them, there were few major differences in substance, from support for drone attacks in Pakistan to a 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, non-military solutions in Syria and strict sanctions plus force if needed to forestall Iranian nuclear capability.

Leaders' debates can often provide few genuine signposts for what's to come after an election, and they seldom swing voters by much. Even less so on questions of foreign policy when the most important issues by far for most US voters are the economy, taxes and healthcare, as recent YouGov polling shows (see results).

A more telling comparison between rival foreign policy narratives arguably came earlier in October, when President Barak Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney strived for message-dominance over the Libyan Embassy attacks.

Obama has plenty of critics who say he botched the public response with insufficient speed and gusto in condemning the violence as an act of terrorism, and such accounts need little retelling here.

Meanwhile, the Romney Team gave an interesting signal of how they would re-craft America's voice to the world, which has gone less remarked.

For four years, the White House has fielded a more cosmopolitan and less classically American vocabulary of foreign policy, addressing the Muslim world in presidential Arabic while talking of re-set buttons in Moscow and leading from the back in Europe.

Beyond policy-specifics, something else was also missing in this period that punctuated America's rhetorical approach to the world after 9/11.

This is the national tendency to reduce foreign affairs to a mini-version of the American Revolution, in which the nation fights again to save a singular, universal brand of modernity from its singular, universal enemy.

Romney's efforts to deliver a signature foreign policy speech to the Virginia Military Institute amidst the Libyan brouhaha in mid-October were widely dismissed by many foreign newspapers as vague and short on specifics. But these pundits missed the point of what the speech was partly designed to do - and to exploit.

Behind questions of policy was an overt reinstatement of some powerful but arguably bad old habits of articulating US foreign policy that we haven't seen for - well, about four years, along with some of the same neoconservative advisors and speechwriters who came to prominence in the previous administration.

It would be wrong to call this process a 'Bush era thing'. Democrat politicians also periodically give it a go. But the Republican Party has long been better, more comfortable and more organised at doing it.

Writing as a former Washington ghost-writer, who worked for a former US Presidential speech-writer, here's a go at explaining the new-come-old rhetorical recipe.

Take a crisis, as Romney did, with the attack on the Libyan embassy. Then argue that events were not just "random attacks" or "an isolated incident" or the work of a single set of individuals, but are part of a larger, direct attack on the American homeland. In this case, Romney explained, the attacks were "the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland" eleven years ago on 9/11. In other words, there's only one group of Middle Eastern terrorists and it's coming to get us (again). Finally, make it clear, as Romney did, that America is under attack because of what it is: the leading proponent in an expanding system of global liberty.

This kind of all-American speech-framing has at least two advantages.

First, it blends enemies and challenges into a single versatile bogeyman that is easily moved across borders and theatres. We last saw him running across the American public space so prominently during the heaviest years of the recent Iraqi civil war, when Saudi plane hijackers in the US ended up on the same team as Shiite nationalists in Iraq and Pashtun elders in Pakistan.

More YouGov polling shows there's still plenty of traction in the American electorate for generalised Islamic scare-scenarios. When asked about the YouTube film protests, 37% of Americans overall agreed that most or at least half of all the Muslim world supported the violence directed against the US. This figure increased to nearly 60% among Republican voters, while falling to 18% among Democrats. 64% of Republicans also agreed there's a fundamental conflict between the West and the Muslim world, in which one or the other must eventually prevail (see results).

A second advantage is how it returns debate to the most familiar theme of American daily life, often with a chloroforming effect on national audiences, media outlets and political institutions.

Largely on account of how the nation was born, America has an institutionalised reverence for its founding story that stands out from other Western countries. The short version of this story says that America was born of special circumstances that bequeathed a unique burden as the global leader of human progress. This notion of 'America The Different' remains the sacred cow of national discourse and an on-going force just beneath the public surface, from school assemblies and public buildings to car bumpers, strip malls, constitutional amendments and major declarations of foreign policy. It also rises up at times of national stress and is capable of suppressing key democratic functions, opening the way for flamboyant orators and interested parties to stigmatise scepticism towards patriotic orthodoxy as dangerous. Deviation from the consensus in this context becomes a form of political incorrectness. Precisely this atmosphere was inhaled by various US media outlets in the build-up to War in Iraq, leading several national newspapers to apologise later for a lack of impartial rigour.

American commentator Walter Lippmann once described these dynamics as the US temptation to "absolutise" major foreign challenges into a binary contest between the American way of life and its absolute antithesis. A short history of the recurrent syndrome could include the 19th Century Spanish threat in Cuba, the Red Scare of the early Cold War, America's entry in Vietnam and the War on Terror after 9/11.

This tendency also incurs another liability in how it sets Americans up for repeated disappointment in foreign affairs by squeezing the international realm into a false dichotomy.

According to Romney and his speech-writers, the recent Benghazi crowds were split between two camps, with "vicious mobs shouting Death to America" versus those protesting against the militias with signs saying "Libya is sorry", and who "share our values" instead.

In increasing ways, however, they do not. YouGov polling of the Arab Spring suggests that far from helping different societies to converge, Middle Eastern reformers are intensifying national, cultural and religious differences, while forging new political expressions of Islamic modernity, religious-social conservatism, and sectarian populism (see results). There is scant liberal homogeneity here.

These trends are also a portal to the bigger story of 'new-look, post-American globalisation', which got little attention in the final Presidential debate. From illiberal capitalism in Asia to Islamic democracy in the Middle East, rising polities and powers no longer face a simple choice (if they ever did) between confronting or integrating with the American way. They are increasingly finding legitimate and sustainable development-alternatives that route around both options.

If Romney were to win this race for the White House, at least one prediction seems reliable: enter more Rose Garden references to a time when US policy-makers wore powdered wigs and knee-high breeches.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1259347 2012-02-07T06:36:18-05:00 2012-11-22T12:37:39-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that medium-level uranium enrichment is underway in northern Iran, while experts vary between months and years in worse-case predictions about when Tehran might have enough highly enriched uranium to produce a bomb. A continued approach of diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions could fail to derail Iran's nuclear programme, leaving us with various scare-scenarios, including a more aggressive Iranian leadership, the diffusion of materials to allied non-state actors and a panicky Israeli defence establishment itching for pre-emptive strikes. Alternatively, overt military measures against Iranian facilities could send oil prices through the roof and the global economy into recession, while Western and Israeli interests become targets for Iranian proxy-groups in an arc from the Eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan. Even then, the tough option might yield little effect against a nuclear programme likely fortified in mind of lessons learnt from events over the border in 1981, when Israeli F-16s flattened Saddam Hussein's burgeoning nuclear capacity at the Osirak reactor outside Baghdad.

Perhaps it's unsurprising, therefore, that Iran's nuclear programme is being hampered by a steady tempo of covert vandalism, offering a limited and 'anonymous' helping-hand to economic sanctions with the assassination of nuclear scientists, complex cyber-attacks (e.g. the 'Stuxnet' computer virus) plus mysterious explosions and 'accidents' at Iranian military bases.

By definition, public opinion is little consulted on a government's covert activities. Accordingly, YouGov asked respondents to what extent, if at all, they would support various measures - both covert and overt - to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In early February 2012, YouGov and its university research arm, YouGov-Cambridge, conducted a cross-country study of attitudes to the Iran question in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. The poll was conducted using a nationally representative sample of British, German, Danish and US adults, and the Middle Eastern poll was conducted using a representative sample of adults from North Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Levant.

As results show: significant majorities in the US (64%), Britain (70%), Germany (74%) and Denmark (76%) believe Iran is enriching uranium "probably to build a nuclear weapon as well". In comparison, a much smaller majority of those in the Middle East (53%) say the same.

All countries show significantly greater support for increased sanctions over the application of force. In Britain's case, for instance, 70% of people support increased sanctions, while 14% support assassinating scientists working in Iran's nuclear programme, 15% support assassinating senior political figures in Iran, 23% support bombing Iran's nuclear installations and 12% support launching a ground invasion.

However, results also indicate interesting regional differences in attitude:

Americans are significantly more likely to support aggressive measures against Iran than those in either Europe or the Middle East.

• 44% of Americans support bombing Iran's nuclear installations, versus 18% in Germany, 23% in Britain and 20% in the Middle East.



• 30% of Americans support assassinating senior political figures in Iran, versus 13% in Germany, 15% in Britain and 14% in the Middle East.



• 26% of Americans support assassinating scientists working in Iran's nuclear programme, versus 9% in Germany, 14% in Britain and 12% in the Middle East.



• 22% of Americans support launching a ground invasion, involving troops from their own country, versus 18% in Germany, 12% in Britain and 14% in the Middle East.

In fact, European and Middle Eastern opinion-trends remain broadly similar on the Iran question in most cases. Within this demographic, Germany usually reflects the smallest appetite for taking action against Iran.

In two instances, Middle Eastern opinion differs significantly from both European and American trends.

• Only 44% of respondents in the Middle East support increased economic sanctions against Iran, in comparison with 70% in the United States, 74% in both Germany and Denmark, and 70% in Britain.



• Similarly, just 30% of Middle Eastern respondents support the application of cyber warfare to undermine Iran's nuclear research, in comparison with 56% in the United States, 46% in Germany, 44% in Denmark and 42% in Britain.

These differences likely indicate greater reluctance among those with borders nearby to support 'softer' measures that might impact on the economic health of the region as a whole.

It should also be noted that in each case, support is notably higher in Denmark than other parts of Europe, where 37% of Danish people support bombing Iran's nuclear installations versus 18% in Germany and 23% in Britain; 22% of Danes support assassinating senior political figures in Iran versus 13% in Germany and 15% in Britain; 17% support assassinating scientists working in Iran's nuclear programme versus 9% in Germany and 14% in Britain; 27% support launching a ground invasion, involving troops from their own country. Incidentally, this is also the one occasion where a European country shows (marginally) higher support for action than Americans (22%).

Focusing on Britain, survey results remind us that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat halves of the current Coalition Government are unusual bedfellows in key areas of foreign policy.

Beyond the act of increasing economic sanctions, which enjoys broad majority support from all three parties (CON: 87%/ LAB: 68% LIB DEM: 76%), conservative voters are significantly more likely to support tougher measures against Iran than their coalition partners. Labour support, meanwhile, sits varyingly in the middle in most cases.

• Where 20% of Conservatives support assassinating scientists working in Iran's nuclear programme, a smaller 6% of Lib Dem supporters and 12% of Labour supporters say the same.



• 35% of Conservatives support bombing Iran's nuclear installations, while 17% of Lib Dems and 21% of Labour supporters say the same.



• 22% of Conservatives support assassinating senior political figures in Iran, versus 10% of Lib Dems and 11% of Labour supporters.



• 15% of Conservatives support launching a ground invasion, involving Britain's troops, versus 3% of Lib Dems and 11% of Labour supporters.



• 53% of Conservatives support cyber warfare to undermine Iran's research, versus 43% of Lib Dems and 39% of Labour supporters. (This is the one occasion where more Lib Dems than Labour support activism)

Commenting on the UK results as guest-experts at London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Andrew Somerville and Andrea Berger observed that British people showed a clear preference for both sanctions and cyber warfare over more violent or direct policy options. Of the military options, they added, "the most palatable option appears to be the strategic bombing of Iran's nuclear installations, gaining more support and weaker opposition than either targeted assassinations or a ground-based invasion that evokes memories of Iraq. However, with public opinion buoyed by the recent successes in Libya, there are questions over whether the public would also support the other ramifications of this type of action. Air strikes on targeted nuclear installations are unlikely to be limited to those installations alone. It is likely that suppression of air assets and air-defence installations would also be necessary to ensure the success of such a mission, which may not be as supported as the direct strikes themselves".

(Fieldwork was conducted 27 Jan-2 Feb, 2012 using a nationally representative sample of British, German, Danish and US adults, and the Middle Eastern poll was conducted using a representative sample of adults from North Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Levant.)]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1164851 2011-12-23T01:58:01-05:00 2012-02-21T05:12:02-05:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
A number of heavyweight political figures have since announced their decision to join the PTI, including some thirty current and former ministers, several of whom convened a press conference on 20th December to declare their defections variously from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the 'N', 'F' and 'Q' factions of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML). Prominent PTI-converts now include: Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's ex-Foreign Minister; Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, former Foreign Minister; Syed Iftikhar Hussain Gilani, former Law Minister and founding member of the PPP; Iftikhar-uddin Khattak, former Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; Umar Farooq Khan Miankhel, former Member of the National Assembly; and various others such as Jehangir Khan Tareen, Jamal Laghari, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Ishaq Khan Khakwani and Syed Nusrat Ali Shah.

As Dr Kamal Munir, Professor at Cambridge University and a frequent commentator on Pakistan, noted for this research: the movement of senior political figures towards the PTI means the party is now extending its political base across both urban and rural parts of the electorate.

These events have duly been interpreted as a wake-up call to Khan's political rivals. They also suggest two significant opinion-trends among both politicians and ordinary voters: a new willingness to abandon established parties and growing consideration of the PTI as a serious alternative.

Whereas before the Lahore rally the PTI had credibility, it now looks to have increasing viability.

YouGov-Cambridge, (the academic research arm of the global pollster, YouGov), conducted three separate studies of public opinion in urban Pakistan over the course of 2011. Results show that Khan is the most popular political figure by far, and the PTI is seen by large majorities of respondents as notably more popular, more capable and more trustworthy than establish parties such as the PPP and PML-N.

Polls also suggest there are two main elements in the PTI's manifesto driving its popularity: first, its stand against corruption, and second, its critique of official policy towards America, Afghanistan and the tribal areas, which closely reflects the views of many Pakistanis.

Imran Khan and his party the most popular by far

• When respondents were asked which party they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow, 66% said they would vote for the PTI.

• Just 9% said they would vote for PML-N, while PPP was chosen by 3%.


• 81% of respondents chose Imran Khan from a list of 19 candidates as the person they think is best suited to lead Pakistan.


• Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and leader of the PML-N, was chosen by 18%, while Asif Ali Zadari, the current President of Pakistan and Co-Chairman of the PPP, was chosen by 2%

.

The order of popularity remains largely the same in separate areas of policy.

On eradicating corruption and nepotism...

• 83% described Khan as capable versus 13% who described him as incapable.


• 36% described Sharif as capable versus 60% who described him as incapable.


• 6% described Zadari as capable versus 89% who described him as incapable.

On tackling Pakistan's foreign policy problems...

• Khan = 81% capable versus 15% incapable.


• Sharif = 46% capable versus 49% incapable.


• Zadari = 15% capable versus 81% incapable.

On tackling Pakistan's economic problems...

• Khan = 83% capable versus 13% incapable.


• Sharif = 50% capable versus 46% incapable.


• Zadari = 10% capable versus 86% incapable.

On dealing with lack of access to constant electricity...

• Khan = 86% capable versus 10% incapable.


• Sharif = 47% capable versus 49% incapable.


• Zadari = 10% capable versus 87% incapable.

On solving Pakistan's escalating food crisis...

• Khan = 82% capable versus 14% incapable.


• Sharif = 48% capable versus 47% incapable.


• Zadari = 10% capable versus 85% incapable.

No.1 priority for respondents: fighting corruption

Many Pakistanis seem to view their country as a kind of 'klepto-state', where the core institutions of national and local governance are plagued by endemic corruption and graft. Consequently, the fight against corruption is cited by respondents as consistently more important than other perceived priorities and threats.

• When asked what they see as the greatest threat to Pakistan as a nation, respondents ranked 'corruption within Pakistan' in clear first place above 'the United States' (in 2nd place), 'extremist militants from within Pakistan' (3rd), 'India' (4th), 'foreign extremists militants' (5th) and 'Afghanistan' (6th).


• 94% of respondents believe corruption is widespread among government leaders.


• 88% say it is widespread among law enforcement authorities.


• 78% say the same about local government officials.

Thinking about different kinds of corruption...

• 78% of respondents say the country faces a "huge problem" with bribery.


• 76% say it has a "huge problem" with nepotism.


• 72% say it has a "huge problem" with jobbery/making profit from public office.

When asked what they think the main priorities of the Pakistani government should be, respondents ranked "eliminating corruption" in clear first, with "education" second and "economic growth" third, followed by "reducing terrorism" (4th), "employment" (5th), "political stability" (6th), "healthcare" (7th) and "improving relations with India" in last place (8th).

When respondents were asked what democratic values they would most like to see improve in Pakistan, they ranked "a transparent judicial system" and "transparency in government" in first and second places respectively, followed by "equal rights" (4th), "freedom of religion" (5th), "the emergence of new political parties" (6th), "political freedom" (7th), "freedom of expression" (8th), "freedom of the press", (9th) "freedom of privacy" and "women's rights" (10th).

It is politically relevant, therefore, that the PTI is viewed by respondents as the only party with a genuine intention to tackle corruption.

• 60% of respondents say the PTI is the party most likely to eradicate corruption and nepotism.


• The PML-N and PPP were each chosen by just 6% and 5% respectively, as the party most likely to do so

.

PTI policies on the US and the tribal areas closely reflect the views of many Pakistanis

It should be noted that popularity in Pakistani politics doesn't necessarily translate into political power and the survey samples in question are focused on urban rather than rural areas. Notwithstanding, the lead of Khan and the PTI is dramatic, highlighting significant political momentum among key demographics.

Accordingly, as a Pakistan-advisor to YouGov-Cambridge, Professor Anatol Lieven suggests that senior parliamentarians are potentially not the only establishment heavyweights looking to associate with the PTI's growing popularity. Lieven predicts that the PTI might win enough seats to take second place behind PML-N. If this were the case, senior military figures could be looking to support the PTI for several reasons.

First, the Army remains highly apprehensive towards a possible return to power for the PML-N since Sharif attempted to replace General Pervez Musharraf as Chief of the Army and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with his preferred choice, General Ziauddin Butt, in 1999 - an event that ultimately led Musharraf to depose Sharif as Pakistan's leader through a military coup. In this scenario, the PTI could be seen a useful political ally for the Army in preventing Sharif and the PML-N from entirely dominating the Parliamentary Assembly.

Second, the PTI's foreign and security policy holds growing resonance within military ranks, where anger towards government intervention and US sovereign violations in the tribal areas have sparked fears of a possible officer-soldier cleave, and even a worst-case scenario of mutiny. The PTI's strategy includes the complete withdrawal of US/NATO forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan; a negotiated settlement with tribal militants in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan who agree to make a break from, and to help isolate, al Qaeda; the use of smaller scale targeted raids by Pakistani commando forces to replace the use of drones and helicopter gunships; and an end to Pakistani reliance on US aid (which totalled approximately $2.7 billion in 2010 for security purposes and $1.7 billion for civilian aid).

As survey results indicate, in contrast to the actions of the Zadari government, the PTI's suggested policies towards America and the tribal areas closely reflect the preference of many Pakistanis.

• 70% of respondents disagree with their government's policy of accepting aid from the US.


• 71% say the US should withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan now.


• Only 24% see the presence of US forces as positive for the security of Pakistan and just 21% see the presence of US forces as positive for the region as a whole.


• 86% disagree with allowing or having allowed US drone attacks on militant groups.


• 84% say they oppose the presence of US troops in Pakistan.

A majority of respondents also view the Afghan Taliban as engaged in a legitimate war of resistance against foreign aggressors with a right to play their role in the future governance of Afghanistan.

• 62% believe the Afghan Taliban should play a part in an independent Afghanistan.


• Just 21% describe themselves as completely opposed to the Afghan Taliban.

This should not be confused, however, with attitudes towards the Pakistani Taliban.

Only 13% of respondents think their government should support the Taliban living inside Pakistan, while 49% believe the government should use every means at its disposal to push them out and keep them out.

In other words, a majority of respondents respect the Taliban's right to exist, to govern and to fight for their cause north of the Durand Line, but a majority of respondents also reject the Taliban's right to exist and grow in Pakistan.

These trends are linked with significantly low levels of trust and support for the US.

• Just 11% of respondents believe the US Government respects Islam and wants good relations with Muslim countries.


• 74% say the US Government does not respect Islam and considers itself at war with the Muslim world

.

On a related issue, respondents believe that suicide attacks in Pakistan are mostly caused not by religious extremism, but rather by Pakistan's official support of US policies along with economic inequality and corruption.

When asked what reasons best account for why people undertake suicide attacks in Pakistan, respondents ranked "Pakistani support for US military operations" at the top of the list. This was followed in second place by "Pakistani relations with the US". Interestingly, "Religious extremism" was ranked fifth after "Economic inequality and poverty" (3rd place) and "Corrupt government" (4th place).

--------------------------
The full version of this report can be found on the YouGov-Cambridge website here.

Fieldwork was undertaken in three waves (Wave 1: 4th-5th May, 2011 with a total sample-size of 1039; Wave 2: 4th-11th August, 2011 with a total sample-size of 1097; Wave 3: 5th-14th September, 2011, with a total sample-size of 1020) and is broadly representative of the online population in Pakistan. See here for full survey results of Wave 1, Wave 2 and Wave 3.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.921325 2011-08-08T19:00:00-04:00 2011-08-08T18:25:44-04:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/ latest survey of Egyptian public opinion, a majority of 67% want Hosni Mubarak, their deposed president, to face a death sentence if convicted of the charges against him. This compares with only 22% who oppose the sentence. Among the age groups of 18-24 and 25-29, support for execution rises to 77% and 70% respectively.

It may be popular, but this event could actually do more harm than good to the progress of reform in Egypt.

The YouGov figures are hardly surprising, given that justice for Mubarak was a key demand of the protesters who led the revolution earlier this year from Cairo's Tahrir Square. The same survey results also emphasise how important this sentiment still is: when asked what they saw as the most important issues facing Egypt at this time, respondents ranked Mubarak's trial an overall third out of sixteen possible options. Only "eliminating corruption" and "economic growth" were listed as more important. This means that getting the former leader into court is a more immediate priority for many Egyptians than "education and literacy", "employment" and "healthcare", among other items. (See the full list here)

Accordingly, in its role as caretaker government, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has wasted little time in acquiescing to protesters' demands for such a trial. Among a group of senior officers who owe appointments and promotions in many cases directly to the man in the cage, this clearly has less to do with justice or progress and everything to do with keeping reformers away from Tahrir Sqaure and a second revolution.

Putting Mubarak on trial is widely viewed within Egypt (and in parts beyond) as an important historic step for political progress in the Arab world. It could easily function otherwise, however, if popular passions are used to justify a short and shallow trial for Mubarak and fellow travellers, including his two sons, Alaa and Gamal. An Army-sanctioned show-trial will surely find easy traction in a national atmosphere that still demands immediate and decisive action. But it could also help the residual establishment to avoid a more detailed, time-consuming and complex trial process, and thus a more genuine accounting of the underlying misrule and czarism that still permeates many of the county's key institutions.

If the Army has an ambiguous role in Egyptian progress, however, it is hard to discern much recognition of this in public opinion: 91% of respondents describe themselves as favourable towards it, and while senior military ranks might wish to temper their perceived role in national politics, a sizable majority of 68% believe the Army can play an important mediating role for the various political and social groups vying for influence in the new Egypt.

By comparison, it also remains significantly more popular than other key institutions. Just 40% of respondents described themselves as being favourable towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, a majority of 55% describe themselves as unfavourable towards it. By a similar token, al-Wasat, a religious party originally founded by break-away members of the Brotherhood with the manifesto of being 'liberal' and 'centrist', was viewed as favourable by only 36%.

These numbers put paid to the more reductive scare-scenarios of Western observers who perceive the demons of 1979 and an Iranian-style revolution hanging over the country's new politics, most notably in the form of the Brotherhood, either in its moderate or more radical expressions. Correspondingly, in a YouGov poll of Egypt conducted shortly after Mubarak's fall in February, we asked respondents to select their preferred choice for Egypt's new leader from a list of eight possible candidates. The top three received a combined 70% of the vote, none of whom represent the Brotherhood. Overall winner was Amr Moussa, former Secretary-General of the Arab League, with 49% of support, followed by Ahmed Zweil, the Nobel scientist, with 12%, and Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief and briefly Vice President, with 9%.

Doubtless whatever emerges in post-Mubarak Egypt will, to some extent, reflect an increased role for political Islam that is more attuned to local circumstances and less defined by international narratives such as a the War on Terror, which was exploited by the country's erstwhile leadership as an excuse for suppressing political and economic reform.

But as YouGov's results also help to illustrate, Egyptian society reflects relatively low levels of enthusiasm for any kind of Islamist government.

If there's a serious challenge to the evolution of a new liberal politics for Egyptians, it comes from the fact that the military regime underpinning the Mubarak-era still retains considerable control over key institutions of government, including law and order, much as it did before.

In their understandable enthusiasm for a fast and furious show-trial, Egypt's new reformers should make sure that a stand against old-guard legal practices isn't used as a fig-leaf for it.

Fieldwork was undertaken from 11-12 August, 2011. The survey was carried out using YouGov's online Middle East panel of 260,000. Total sample size was 1012 Egyptian residents and the data was weighted to be representative of the urban adult population of Egypt, aged 18 plus.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.905587 2011-07-21T10:00:01-04:00 2011-07-21T10:24:45-04:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
In a recent opinion poll conducted in Pakistan by the think-tank YouGov@Cambridge, respondents were asked to choose the person they considered best suited to lead Pakistan from a list of nineteen possible candidates.

As the figures show, Khan was the most popular by far:

• 61% of respondents ranked Khan as their first choice, with a total of 77% selecting him as either first or second preference.
• By comparison, the next most popular candidate, former President Pervez Musharraf, was ranked first by only 12%, and either first or second by a total of 23%.
• Below this, the Army Chief ,General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was ranked first or second by 13%, while Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan and Co-Chairman of the country's largest party (the Pakistan People's Party/ PPP) was either first or second choice for a total of just 2%.

Khan finds the "outside edge"

This survey sample focused on urban rather than rural Pakistan, but Khan's lead in popularity is still simply striking.

The man is not without his critics in Pakistan, and a favourite jibe of Pakistan's political elite has long been that he's a celebrity outsider riding on little more than sporting status. But these critics miss the point: it is precisely Khan's status as an outsider to the various fiefdoms of national power that has helped to underwrite his popularity.

A word that other Pakistanis use repeatedly when they describe him to this writer is "clean" - a rare adjective in any discussion of the country's political class. Khan duly founded the PTI on a manifesto that aspires to unravel the vested interests of every major hub and club in the Pakistani establishment, from the army and civil service to the industrial and agricultural elite.

Let us not get carried away, however, with opinion-polls and liberal wish-lists, before we remember the single largest obstacle in the way of budding young parties like the PTI: this is not a democracy; it's Pakistan.

Pakistan's national caretaker: the Army

At times, the politics of this country read less like a national history and more like a lost script from the Godfather films. The national stage has been dominated since Independence in 1947 by two fundamentally undemocratic cliques: the Army and a small oligarchy of feudal and industrial landlords. The power of both groups arises to no small extent from the very circumstances of Pakistan's birth.

Propelled by the elegant rhetoric and downright stubbornness of its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country was established on a platform of two simple ideas: first of being Muslim and second of not being India. Beyond these platitudes, however, there was little consensus on a discourse of national identity to enfranchise a range of ethnic groups with arguably little in common beyond the sharing of artificial boundaries hastily drawn in Whitehall offices.

While India inherited various institutions of state directly from the British, Pakistan's new leaders had to build many structures of governance from a standing start. The precarious foundations of nationhood were further jeopardized when Ali Jinnah died just over a year later. The politicians who replaced him evidently lacked the same aptitude for leadership and consensus, as the country entered nearly a decade of uncertainty before establishing a constitution in 1956. When General Ayyub Khan took charge two years later and declared martial law, large sections of public opinion reacted with relief that order was being established - an atmosphere not unlike initial domestic reactions to Musharraf's bloodless coup some four decades later.

Thus the Army made early claim in the nation's history to a role it has successfully perpetuated ever since as the ultimate and benevolent caretaker of Pakistan, a country whose integrity has only remained intact against the backdrop of historically weak, political institutions precisely because of the army (or so it claims). The parallel plank in this narrative, of course, is the ever-present threat from India, equally entrenched in the national psyche via the race to seize Kashmir and the bloody population movements that immediately followed British partition, replete with estimates of a million in total dead from both sides.

The Barons of Pakistan

Meanwhile, the process of transition to independence left national wealth concentrated largely among a handful of families, whose position only grew stronger through alliances with undemocratic but business-friendly leaders and federal bureaucrats. Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq famously remarked in the 1960s that 66% of the country's economy, 70% of insurance and 80% of bank assets were controlled by twenty families, which he later extended to twenty-two. A similar figure from the 1950s claimed that two hundred and twenty-two people commanded two thirds of the national credit facility.

Such a limited distribution of wealth has translated into an entrenched grip on the National Assembly. When electoral politics are not entirely substituted for direct military rule, they are dominated by a tiny class of land and business owners commanding an often inveterate devotion from economically dependent, local communities.

This elite has come to occupy a kind of feudal, baronial role as the dispensers of largesse and livelihoods to an indentured population, who provide an often reliable political base in return. It is not unusual for seats in the National Assembly to function like family heirlooms, with the younger generation commonly packed off for a Western education in preparation only for their return to inevitable political inheritance. In this way, dynastic bloodlines frequently provide greater assurance of political authority in Pakistan than genuine ideas and ability.

The triumph of patronage and lineage becomes self-reinforcing, as it propels ineffective and corrupt politicians to the forefront of national politics, thus enhancing the weakness and ineptness of state institutions, which in turn further strengthens the reliance of citizens on their local overlords to fill the gap in basic services, such as law, order and dispute resolution. (It is not uncommon for these estates to run their own private prisons with the acknowledgment and cooperation of local police authorities.)

Likely the boldest example of dynastic Pakistan in recent years came with the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who bequeathed the leadership of her party, the PPP, to her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, through her will. He subsequently recalled their son, Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, from undergraduate studies at Oxford to share the position. In this way did a 20-year old university student assume chairmanship of Pakistan's largest political party.

The disconnect between political mobility and public opinion in these events is underscored by the same YouGov/Cambridge survey quoted above, in which not a single respondent ranked Bilawal as their first choice to lead Pakistan. On the contrary, just 1% ranked him in their top three choices at all, with 97% leaving him unranked. It was telling of the same gap between official title and genuine role when Bilawal told this writer he was unable speak on behalf of the PPP or its policies, despite being its chairman.

The army and the wealthy elite have therefore combined to impose lasting limits on political and social change in Pakistan. This also means that regardless of sky-high popularity ratings, independent candidates like Imran Khan face a mixture of cultural and systemic obstacles to winning seats in Parliament.

The importance of tax and land reform

We would be mistaken, however, to discount Khan's potential influence on the national debate in the build-up to Pakistan's next election, as scheduled for 2013.

The "Lawyers' Movement" of street protests that grew in response to Musharraf's sacking of the country's Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in 2007, has injected a lingering atmosphere of optimism among Pakistanis that systemic change is actually possible. The PTI might lack the parliamentary sway of established power-blocs like the Bhutto and Sharif families, or the bureaucratic muscle of Army chiefs. But as its chairman, Khan has projected a bold and simple argument for how to begin leading Pakistan out of its current crisis, which finds increasing traction in the popular atmosphere that now grows beyond the military and parliamentary confines of patronage-politics.

As Khan explained to this writer, there is little in Pakistan that can be changed until we wean the country off its addiction to two vices: corruption and tax-evasion. The national mountain of other challenges can only be met if these two hobgoblins are confronted first and foremost, whether it's separatism and religious intolerance or a debt-trapped economy and stagnation in public services.

YouGov/Cambridge survey results certainly support this emphasis, showing that Pakistani respondents ranked "eliminating corruption" a clear first out of eight possible options for what they thought the main priorities of the Pakistani government should be.

Principal among his proposals to achieve this, Khan emphasises the need to continue strengthening the new post-Musharraf Judiciary, and to create some new kind of "Accountability Bureau", which is represented by figures of respected national status who are independent from the membership of party or army blocs. (Previous versions of this role have been appointed by the ruling party, making them little more than tools to victimise the opposition.)

Following Khan's thesis, a new campaign against corruption must go hand in glove with genuine efforts to build a legitimate tax system. In a population of some 180 million, fewer than 2% of Pakistanis pay income tax. Successive generations of the country's ruling elite have refused to subject major economic sectors to a workable, federal tax. With more than half of the population employed in agriculture alone, for instance, the benefits of such reforms are self-evident.

Serious efforts to reduce the wide disparity of income also imply some kind of land reform, which could involve proposals such as a limit on family holdings and the redistribution of excess land to the landless and small-holders, in return for some form of compensation.

The effects of tax evasion

The consequences of Pakistan's corruption-riddled tax system are at once serious, numerous and obvious - both for Pakistanis and the wider world:

-The yawning rich-poor gap is filled and exploited by extremists.
-Systemic poverty and lacking essential services swell the ranks of organised groups like the Haqqani network and other powerful non-state actors beyond the reach of Islamabad.
-Inadequate investment in education has boosted the growth of independent madrasses and Islamic seminaries that provide a petri-dish for new recruits to radical organisations like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
-Unequal federal dispensation has exacerbated long-standing grievances in regions like Baluchistan, where local resources are habitually exploited with little financial return or involvement in decision-making for local populations.
-The deficit in national income has been alleviated by a stream of financial aid that has stifled domestic development and consumption.
-The centrality of privilege and entitlement in the democratic process has served to hollow out Pakistan 's civil institutions and helped to justify continued intrusion into civilian life from the Army, leaving it with a de facto veto over much of foreign and security policy, as well as key domestic areas.

Khan and fellow travelers within Pakistan are now supported by a chorus of international voices, including U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Baroness Catherine Ashton, and officials from the International Monetary Fund, who reiterate that reforms to expand the tax base will likely proceed meaningful change in most other areas of Pakistani life.

Saving Pakistan: horticulture not architecture

This is why, if Pakistan should ever escape the current darkness, it will happen more through the horticulture of organic change and less via the architecture of incentivised aid, trade and lending from Washington and the international community, which largely only perpetuates the status quo as it funnels through the channels of established fiefdoms.

Consequently, the importance of Imran Khan lies not simply in the detail of how many seats he'll win at the next election; it also lies in what he represents in the wake of the Lawyers' Movement, as the most recognisable figurehead for a new-found sense of Pakistani confidence about the power of social crowds to challenge an undemocratic status quo.

To this extent, as Khan himself notes, the Pakistani public square is not entirely immune to the (equally precarious) atmosphere of change emerging in other parts of the Islamic world.

(Fieldwork was undertaken May 4-5, 2011. The survey was carried out online and is broadly representative of the online population in Pakistan. Total sample size was 1,039 Pakistani residents.)
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.858585 2011-05-06T11:49:02-04:00 2011-07-06T05:12:01-04:00

Joel Faulkner Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-faulkner-rogers/
YouGov, the global opinion pollster, in association with Polis at Cambridge University, conducted a survey in Pakistan shortly after bin Laden's demise, using a recruited online sample (therefore focusing on more educated respondents among the three big cities, Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore). The fact that this survey excluded rural and less educated demographic groups actually makes the results more striking: according to the YouGov poll, a staggering 66% of Pakistanis think the person who was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in the compound outside Islamabad was not bin Laden.

It would be a mistake, however, to confuse this with generalized sympathy for the man. Survey results also suggest that Pakistan was an imperfect hiding place for the world's most wanted outlaw:

• 48% of Pakistanis say bin Laden was not a true Muslim leader.

• 35% believe he was a mass murderer of Muslims, compared with 42% who disagree.

• 35% think he actually declared war on Pakistan, with 45% who disagree.

• Roughly half of all respondents feel negative about the idea of an association between Pakistan's national intelligence agency (the ISI) and al Qaeda.

In other words, Osama bin Laden is neither outright hero nor downright villain in the Pakistani public square. What is clear, however, is a consensus of distrust towards the American version of reality, and a majority who oppose U.S. policies in the region:

• 75% of respondents disapprove of U.S. actions in hunting bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

• Less than a quarter think he authorized the 9/11 attacks.

• 74% believe the US government does not respect Islam and considers itself at war with the Muslim world.

• 70% object to the Pakistani government's policy of accepting economic aid from the U.S.

• 86% oppose the government's allowing, or having allowed, US drone attacks on militant groups.

YouGov is still in the process of growing its polling access to be fully nationally representative of Pakistan. Suffice it say, results so far suggest that majority opinion in Pakistan is walking a complex third way between the narratives of both White House policymakers and militant leaders.

Take the Taliban, for instance: 61% either have sympathy for the Taliban or believe they represent views that should be respected, compared with only 21% who flatly oppose them. A majority also contends, however, that the Pakistani government should use every means at its disposal to push them out of Pakistan and keep them out. Put another way, Pakistanis broadly sympathize with the Taliban's right to exist and have political influence. But similar numbers also want them out of Pakistan.

Pakistani public opinion equally challenges the popular scare-scenarios of both Western and Pakistani defense establishments. By far the most acute fear of Western policymakers looking at the region is that close ties between the country's intelligence services and al Qaeda could become the basis for a coup that puts militant extremists or their sympathizers in control of the country's embryonic nuclear arsenal. A significant portion of Pakistani public opinion refutes these allegations of close associations between the ISI and al Qaeda, with 56% saying they don't believe it, next to only 12% who do. Pakistanis also embrace the expansion of their nuclear arsenal, rather than fear it, with 81% who support the government's policy of producing nuclear weapons.

Pakistanis similarly appear to reject some of the core preoccupations of their own security forces. It's no secret that large portions of American and international aid, meant for supporting the fight against terrorism, has been channeled by the defense establishment since 2001 into traditional armaments aimed at potential conflict with India. Tensions have simmered between Pakistan and India as two rival centers of Asian power since British-controlled India was originally partitioned to provide Indian Muslims with a state of their own. These dynamics underscore the rationale by which elements of the ISI have supposedly continued to support the Taliban in Afghanistan, as a bulwark against potential power vacuums that could be filled by their Indian rival. Public opinion, meanwhile, fails to reflect this same preoccupation. While Pakistani defense officials fixate on the threat of India, the issue ranks low for the general population on the list of perceived threats to Pakistan, behind corruption, the United State and foreign militants.

A majority of respondents also challenge Western depictions of a now weakened al Qaeda. 86% expect the violence from extremist groups to remain constant or increase in Pakistan following recent events in Abbottabad and 82% predict similar outcomes for Afghanistan. Over half think that the celebrations in the US following the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden will incite further violence against the US. These attitudes point to a potential new challenge for Western policymakers, namely that bin Laden might become more useful to groups such as al Qaeda now that he's dead. His star had been arguably waning in rhetorical terms across the Islamic world for the last half decade, as pan-Arabic calls for democracy followed the Sunni rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and the fragmentation of the Afghan insurgency into ever more parochial factions. As regional experts such as Ed Hussain now warn us, bin Laden's death may rehabilitate his status as the mythological archenemy of Washington, and even promote him to a new kind martyred icon, despite U.S. efforts to hide his body and prevent the emergence of a 'Laden shrine."

This is not to say that Pakistanis are fixated on the issue of militant extremism. Survey results equally show that if the preoccupation of Western governments in Pakistan is counter-terrorism, then the single largest preoccupation of Pakistani people themselves is the problem of corruption. When asked what the main priorities of the Pakistani government should be, eliminating corruption came a clear top of the list, followed by education and literacy, economic growth and employment. Only then, in fifth place out of eight, came reducing terrorism, followed by political stability, healthcare and improving relations with India. By a similar token, when asked what democratic values they would most like to see improve in Pakistan, respondents ranked a transparent judicial system top of the list, followed by equal rights.

Interestingly for the bigger picture, this emphasis on "equal rights" fails to translate into support for gender equality or women's rights. Reactions to the now infamous decision of the Pakistani Supreme Court to acquit five men originally accused of raping Mukhtar Mai were closely divided, with 36% in support of the verdict, while 23% were neutral and 25% disagreed. These numbers underscore an important caveat with broader implications, as Western policymakers pledge to guide the Muslim world towards a more liberal, pro-Western form of modernity. Even if politicians succeed in fostering a peaceful modern state of Pakistan -- or Egypt or Tunisia or Libya -- the growing empowerment of peoples across the Arab-Islamic world also means the expansion of certain principles and values that are inimical to the traditional motifs of Western liberal society, from social codes of shame and honor to intrinsic tendencies towards gender inequality and a closer relationship between church and state.

Accordingly, watch this space for more YouGov studies on the bigger picture of the Arab Spring over the coming months.

Fieldwork was undertaken May 4-5, 2011. The survey was carried out online and is broadly representative of the online population in Pakistan. Total sample size was 1,039 Pakistani residents.]]>