Evidently Former President Obama arrested and deported "record numbers of undocumented immigrants," according to the recent New York Times piece.  The focus was clear: stay with the criminals and those that just got to the US.  President Trump is going a bit further: go after everybody that is here illegally.

The difference in approach here should sound familiar to those aware of repression research.  For a while now scholars have been differentiating between what they call "indiscriminate" and "selective" targeting.  The former concerns where state perpetrators do not care about who they go after.  The latter concerns where state perpetrators care a great deal.  Later work highlighted another tactical selection: "collective".  This is where state perpetrators concern themselves with only going after certain people but within that category they really do not care who they get (i.e., old, young, political or apolitical).  

The differences in targeting are relevant to the current discussion of ICE targeting because researchers have identified that if targeting can be made to be more selective, then non-targeted individuals are less likely to care.  This allowed President Obama to escape negative attention on this point (at least that which got raised up to a very large criticism) because he was going after individuals that had few supporters and a relatively underdeveloped network.  In contrast, President Trump is largely sending ICE agents out in a manner that looks more indiscriminate in nature but targeted against a specific community.  This is classified as collective targeting.  Now, indiscriminate behavior is believed to be problematic to governments because it sends those potentially subject to it against political authorities and into the arms of the opponents.  Collective behavior is not as likely to have this impact because the targets can still be portrayed as the other.  

This is just where things get interesting though from an anti-repression stance.  The degree to which the targets can be made to look just like other Americans: de-otherizing as it were, then support for the policy will be diminished and folks will rise up against the use of state coercion/force.  Consequently, keep a look out for the stories about ICE arrests and always, always, always look for the framing.  For example, the image above shows the target with their back to you.  There is no discussion of context.  There is no discussion of what their life was like before they got got.  They just look like a criminal.  In contrast, one could have the photo taken of the target looking at you - compelling you to consider their humanity, their americanness and their worth.  One could have a photo taken on their empty chair, empty family or empty neighborhood - post extraction.  In line with my Rashomon argument, I am sure that the direction varies with the ideological orientation of the source or, at least, it should.

First they came for the immigrants and i did not speak up because i was an immigrant...

Caveat Civis people

Runaway Train was this great film with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.  I'm not talking about the Denzel Washington movie Unstoppable.  

The film?  Well, there's this train, its a runaway, it's moving really fast and it's heavy.  Pretty straightforward stuff.  It's Hollywood after all.  Now, the train while runaway is not lost like a runaway child.  Everybody knows where it is going:it's going to crash somewhere and whatever/whoever it hits is going to be devastated. That's the movie.

The moral?   Well, we cannot stop the train from crashing.  Its going to crash.  It has to crash.  The train and film were built for this.  Call it fate.  Destiny even.  For those off the train, all we can try to do is minimize the damage done wherever it hits by trying to send it in a direction that will do the least amount of damage.  

Strangely, I think that this is where Americans find themselves at the moment.  Trump is Jon Voight - tough, hard-headed, ready to rumble and little idea of the technicalities involved with his journey.  Trump's son might be Eric Roberts: earnest but a little naive, a bit more polished, a bit more sympathetic, likely to inherit what is left by Voight.  The train is the US government and the executive is driving the train.

​Who are the rest of us?  Well, we are simultaneously the people potentially in harms way and we are the people in the booth frantically trying to figure out what could be done do diminish damage.  

Thus far nothing is working.  The American populous tried to protest.  Still rolling.  They tried the courts.  Still rolling.  An investigation was called (kind of).  Still rolling.  There was some media scrutiny.  But with fake news and a distrust of facts, thats not going to do it.  Still rolling.  Ridicule and parody.  Still rolling.

How does one establish acceptability in a democratic system when the leader ignores the cues set forth within a democracy and several have failed already?  Well there are some interesting options.

1) Double down and engage in more effective efforts among those strategies already applied.

2) Try something new: mobilize the population that did not vote and prepare them for the next electoral contest (i.e., inform them about the issues, the candidates, the process and illustrate the train).  Looking at the Archigos data, there are some other options:

Leaders can lose office in 1) a regular manner, according to the prevailing rules, provisions, conventions and norms of the country, 2) an irregular manner, 3) through direct removal by another state, and 4) as a result of a natural death, under which we include illness or suicide. Examples of a regular loss of office include voluntary retirement, term limits and defeat in elections. A loss of office is considered irregular when the leader was removed in contravention of explicit rules and established conventions. Most irregular removals from office are the result of the threat or use of force as exemplified in coups, (popular) revolts and assassinations (more on this below) and occur at the hands of domestic opponents. Assassinations may or may not have a clear political motivation; we prefer to make no judgments about the “real” intention behind assassi- nations. In a few cases, it may be disputed whether a leader dies of natural causes or is assassinated. We clarify our judgments in the case descriptions. As in the case of entry into office, we restrict removal by another state to direct interventions, as in the case of a successful invasion. We do not code cases where another country is perceived or known to have orchestrated the removal of a leader through a coup carried out by domestic forces (for example, Allende in Chile or Mossadeq in Iran) as foreign removal, but simply as an irregular loss of office. 

We are on/watching the train and we have some idea of what is coming.  All that remains is who is going to do what, what the president is going to do in response or proactively as well as where the train ends up.  One thing that we can be sure of: this one is not going to be pretty.

In the conventional view, the President runs the government and all the other sections come in line - following the initiative of the leader.  Here, the President basically answers to no one and they gloriously do what they wish as depicted in the famous Charlie Chaplin scene below (perhaps one of the best scenes in film ever):

This is democracy at its finest - not messiest, mind you, but most beautiful.  In this context, we see that if one ball of the democracy (the executive for example) attempts to move upward/downward in a direction that is not believed to be favored by others (e.g., putting forward a ban on travelers coming into the US), then another ball of the democracy (e.g., a federal or state court, the media or the citizenry) kicks in to respond to the offensive behavior (respectively with a ruling, an article or a protest).  

​Of course, the executive in the example might try again and another part of the democracy might yet again step up but this is when/where the other balls can start responding.    

What is interesting about the vid is that for the one section where the one ball is bouncing by itself it just seems kind of lonely, out of sync and a bit sad.  Stay beautiful democracy!

Recently the ACLU put out some information that suggested that political protest is under assault and implicitly they are suggesting that the current US government as well as the sentiments that they have provoked by it, have led to this.  While this is an interesting proposition and clearly newsworthy, it is somewhat ahistorical and maybe a little alarmist.  There has been a longer term war on protest and protestors in the United States that extends back several decades now and the current wave with its bizarre qualifications (i.e., participating in "violent riots" in Oregon  or hitting protestors with a car in Tennessee - who is for these?), is just a bit odd to focus on.    Indeed, the only thing that has probably changed in the anti-protest stance of US political officials is the tactic being employed.

Things kind of get started in the 1960s (as many things repressive in the US).  At that time, government responses to protest were largely aggressive and often violent.   Researchers refer to this approach as the "escalated force model" — a strategy known by five distinct characteristics:

1. Limited concern with the First Amendment rights of protesters and police obligation to respect and protect those rights;
2. Limited tolerance for community disruption;
3. Limited communication between police and demonstrators;
4. Extensive use of arrests as a method of managing demonstrators ; and,
5. Extensive use of force in order to control demonstrators.

This model of protest policing later gives way to a more "negotiated" and peaceful style whereby those engaged in dissent need to seek permission to protest through permitting, there is a discussion of what is going to take place and what will not be allowed to take place and challengers were subject to a mode of control that was more akin to death by a thousand paper cuts than bullets.  Note that this change takes place only after the most radical claimsmakers/making had been eliminated from the scene (e.g., gone are calls for nationalization, redistribution and an end of profit).  

Now, this is not to say that the state treated challengers any more kinder and gentler.  In a paper written a few years ago, entitled "Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, Or Even Hand? Protest Policing in the United States, 1960-1990", we discover that when challenged in a substantive manner (i.e., when the claim/objective is radical, when property is damaged, when tactics are highly confrontational), the US government is more likely to respond with aggressive and violent tactics.  In this regard, there was no change in how governments policed protest.  Invoking Bob Marley, when somebody moved (in a particular way), they got hurt - the same as it ever was.

Although not tremendously well documented, I recall reading about the reduction of spaces being made available for protest on US campuses throughout the country.  Indeed, at one point, I had a class assignment to find the protest zones available for 20 American Universities over time and it turned out that all of them had the sheer number of places reduced and the locales were generally moved to places with the smallest amount of traffic.  Protest was simply being made more convenient and less threatening.  

But, this is all par for the course in a democracy.  There are many people who might be in favor of free speech, assembly and protest but there are a great many who are not in favor of these - especially, if they do not particularly care for the messages being put forward.  What is alarming however is that we know very little about the effects of such shifts on subsequent challenges.  We do not know about the short, medium and/or longer term effects of such activities.  Some were excited to see protests associated with the Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter and the global action of woman around the world to show dissatisfaction and solidarity but these activities were few and far between.  Additionally, the objectives of these movements and the effectiveness of the relevant activities were not always clear.    

While I am one to quickly identify when governments are engaging in restrictions of civil liberties and personal integrity violations, we should be cognizant of larger trends as well as other questions regarding freedom that emerge.

Relevant reads:

Kraska, Peter B., and Victor E. Kappeler. 1997. “Militarizing American Police: The Rise and Normalization of Paramilitary Units.” Social Problems 44(1): 1-18.
McCarthy, John, and Clark McPhail. 1998. “The Institutionalization of Protest in the United States.” Pp. 83-110 in The Social Movement Society, edited by David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

President Trump says he has information that we are threatened.  To quote him directly: "While I’ve been president, which is just for a very short period of time, I’ve learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president,” he said. “And there are tremendous threats to our country."  This raises some interesting questions though. What "things" is he talking about?  What evidence backs these things?  And what is new?  Did Former President Obama see this evidence but did not act, leaving us at risk?  Can Obama tell us his opinion about these "tremendous things" to get some corroboration or did he sign some agreement that he would not?  

This leads to still other questions: Why should we believe the current president or any president for that matter?  We have been misled before.  Remember discussions regarding weapons of mass destruction from former President Bush, Soviet superiority in nuclear weapons across numerous US administrations or that there were Communists under every rock? These were all falsehoods that cost American lives and money.

Why are we back here again and what does it mean for those of us interested in state repression and human rights?Well, fear is big business and it is one that is immensely important for political authorities. But herein lies the biggest weakness in a democratic form of government: the people with the information about what threatens the citizenry and polity are the same people who have a vested interest in providing protection from said threats.  This is the essence of the "protection racket" discussed by Charles Tilly and William Stanley.  Societies cannot rely upon the agency that has a vested interest with providing protection to generate information on the very threats that prompt/legitimize threat protection.  

In a sense, we should "publicize" not privatize threat assessment (in diverse senses of the word).  Transparency, reliability and validity require it.  Why not have some panel of relevant scholars provide assessments and let these be publicly vetted for reasonableness from another set of scholars?  At this point, I am not even suggesting having all this information be released to public.  Folks could sign away rights to talk about what they see for a few years but they would provide some check.  After 10 years this info is released to the public. 

Threat assessment is too important for political democracy for its evaluation and process to be hidden from public view.  What criteria are used for good information?  How many sources were used?  How credible are the witnesses?  Are there witnesses?  How much error is included within the threat assessment (there is always error)?  How "tremendous" is tremendous? - I need some kind of baseline.  Is it Grand Canyon tremendous or is it strawberry milkshake after a few years kind of tremendous? 

I say this in part because the part about crime and people being threatened by it is just kind of wrong.  

If people are not actually being threatened by crime, however, then it might be possible that we are not really threatened by terrorism/terrorists either.  In that context, President Trump is playing to an old dynamic within American politics: the politics of fear/fearing up.  The minute this is done however, the peace and lowered repression that is normally associated with democracy, is undermined as discussed in my Domestic Democratic Peace book.  In this context, where it is believed that some threat is apparent, then the path to repression is facilitated.  

Caveat Civis  

Observers and students of state repression quite frequently ask about what is/is not included within the concept.  There is also some interest in trying to demarcate whether something is domestic in orientation (either under American politics or comparative politics) or international.  The new immigration order put forward by President Trump a few days ago reveals that there are some policies that are all of these things.

As I stated in my review of the repression literature a few years ago (State Repression and Political Order):

By most accounts, repression involves the actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against an individual or organization, within the territorial jurisdiction of the state, for the purpose of imposing a cost on the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices or institutions (Goldstein 1978, p. xxvii). Like other forms of coercion, repressive behavior relies on threats and intimidation to compel targets, but it does not concern itself with all coercive applications (e.g., deterrence of violent crime and theft). Rather, it deals with applications of state power that violate First Amendment–type rights, due process in the enforcement and adjudication of law, and personal integrity or security.

First Amendment–type rights include (Goldstein 1978, pp. xxx–xxxi):

•  Freedom of speech, assembly, and travel. Freedom of the press up to a very narrowly defined “clear and present danger” point, regardless of the views communicated.
•  Freedom of association and belief without governmental reprisal, obloquy, or investigation unless clearly connected with possible violations of existing laws.
•  The general freedom to boycott, peacefully picket, or strike without suffering criminal or civil penalties. 

Due process transgressions involve violations of “generally accepted standards of police action and judicial and administrative behavior related to the political beliefs of the person involved” (Goldstein 1978, p. xxxi). Personal integrity rights are those concerned with individual survival and security, such as freedom from torture, “disappearance,” imprisonment, extrajudicial execution, and mass killing. 

​Within this context, the current ban is "repressive" in that it uses the actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against individual or organization (i.e., forced detention) and the threat of such (e.g., incarceration, removal from the country). This is taken against people from the United States in order to influence individual behavior as well as the expression of beliefs.  Now, the activities might not seem that problematic as they are presumably to counter terrorism but it is not clear exactly how the US government would know this and the criteria for a terrorist has never been provided.  In a sense, the activities here would simply be more indiscriminate than they would be selective.  I am presuming that deep "vetting" (discussed by President Trump) would only be able to reveal associations and prior actions.  It is not clear how this would be figured out however.  Additionally, there has been no discussion of reading into people's brains/minds and/or gauging future activity like in the Minority Report with Tom Cruise.  If the precision of the crime and its detection could be established, then this would fall outside the parameters of state repression.  The open-ended nature of the designation is key.

While attempting to influence people living in the country (e.g., green card and visa holders) is clearly within the domain of state repression, the attempted influence of people from other countries is a different matter.  The latter makes the action international and I will leave the proper designation/label to those that have interest in such things.  I just highlight that it is not what we common think of as state/political repression.  Perhaps we need to start using the phrase "international state repression" to designate such behavior (couldn't help myself). Perhaps IR and American colleagues should work this out so we have an idea what each is talking about.  

The complexities from the ban are clearly worthy of attention.  For example, they reveal how actions from a single political authority can simultaneously have both domestic and foreign implications.  They reveal how actions from a single political authority can prompt both behavioral challenges both within the relevant territorial jurisdiction as well as across different territorial jurisdictions.  Regarding the former (a frequently neglected aspect of democratic governance), it will be interesting to figure out why certain airports engaged in dissident activities while others did not. It will be interesting to figure out how tactics were selected (e.g., marches, sit-ins, shut-downs) and which ones were considered but not employed. It will be interesting to figure out whether the places that put forth behavioral challenges at the airports are the same places where protest normally kicks in.  

It is also interesting that the actions of the executive have prompted still other aspects of democracy to take action (e.g., civil society organizations like the ACLU and the Federal District court).  Indeed, the swiftness with which the initial legal actions were taken, the court respond and the action countered was quite something.  That said, the ban is said to still be in effect.  This should prompt investigations into what repressive actions could be countered by what strategies and also what sequence of actions need to undertaken to stop policies before they are enacted, monitor the actions as they are rolled out, halt them after they are underway as well as counter-act spinoff repressive policies that emerge after the first one.  

Clearly the ban has issued a call to action across various divides but it is also a call to build intellectual bridges as well. The ban prompts Americanists, IR scholars and Comparativists to communicate with one another.  It prompts people with interests in the subfields of contentious politics, state repression and political democracy to communicate with one another. The ban also prompts political scientists to talk with sociologists, legal scholars, public policy experts, communication scholars, anthropologists, historians and a whole list of people.  In short, democracy is about to get a run for its money folks.  Strap yourselves in for a wild one.

Always fascinating to look at documents concerning state repression as it provides some useful insights into what governments are thinking.  ​

For example, looking at declassified government documents concerning the Republic of New Africa detailed in my latest book "How Social Movements Die", one can see that the US government was concerned with

• who showed up to challenging events; 
• what the person's name and institutional affiliation was (names were) - so that they knew who to look for;
• who said what - so that they could be held accountable for such utterances as well as actions related to them;
• where people lived - so that they knew where to look and where to go if they needed to pick them up; 
• what events were undertaken - so that they had some idea of the nature of threat confronted; and,
• what events were being planned - so that they could be monitored or pre-empted.

Informant names were left out to protect those working for the authorities within the social movements themselves.  The contact in the relevant policing organization is also blacked out.  

​What do you see?

At the 20th anniversary of the genocide and war in Rwanda during 1994, it is useful to reflect.  For example, of the people sought for crimes relevant to this conflict how many have been sought?  How many have been caught?  In short, who are Rwanda's "Most Wanted" and what happened to them?

Here is information on 177 of them: name, what they are accused of, probable whereabouts, interpol arrest warrant status, official extradition in host country, mention in the media, application for asylum and whether they were indicted in their host countries.  All source information was publicly available.  

Glancing at the list one thing immediately becomes intriguing: look at what crimes were sought for investigation and prosecution?  This reveals a somewhat more complex problem.  Of all the violence undertaken in 1994 (discriminatory behavior, interstate war, civil war, genocide, random violence and sexual violence) there have only been some activities that resulted in identification as well as investigation and thus only certain criminals that were pursued by diverse institutions.  When mandates of legal proceedings have been questioned or rarely still attempted to be changed (e.g., in the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda when they attempted to consider the behavior of the Rwandan Patriotic Front), the current Rwandan government employed diverse procedures for retracting the effort and the dismissal of those that attempted to change the mandate.  As a result, the focus has been exclusively on those that committed genocide and crimes against humanity. Now, this is clearly under the jurisdiction of international law and these people should be pursued.  At the same time, there are other criminals who have evaded identification, pursuit and persecution.  

For example, what about pursuing the individuals that engaged in discriminatory activity against ethnic Tutsi before 1990?  Isn't it illegal for people to harass, beat, restrict, hinder, terrorize and discourage specific parts of their population from engaging in political, economic or cultural life?  What about the members of the Ugandan and RPF forces that engaged in interstate war/invasion?  Isn't it illegal for a group of individuals to invade another country.  What about the members of the RPF that engaged in interstate invasion of the DRC after the genocide?  Isn't it illegal to invade a second country after invading the first?  These crimes have not been considered but they also fall under international law.  Don't they?

The Year..:  2014 is the year of ENDKILL.  A 365 day journey into my research archive and active agenda, reflecting on what we know and do not know about mass atrocities and how to stop them (delivered once weekly so as not to burden the viewer/reader/audience).  (Sent via proxy while traveling)

With renewed discussion of Human Security Report and Jay Ulfelder's reflection about the possibility of declining violence, I wished to step back or to the side for a second.  At present, much of the discussion about trends in violence is problematic.  

First, much of the discussion seems to be based on war - both the interstate and civil varieties. These are of course historically important but they are not the only games in town. Indeed, by some accounts, these have been side shows to the arguably more lethal state sponsored mass killings like the destruction of native americans in the us, jews and others during the holocaust or mass purges of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes. Steven Pinker also talks about homicide but essentially he seems to be talking about what takes place in Europe.  What of the rest of the world?  Detroit and the Democratic Republic of Congo are not trending downward anytime soon.

Second, the current discussion seems to conflate perpetrators in an unsettling way. Homicide is undertaken by ordinary citizens; terrorism, insurgency and revolution by behavioral challengers; and genocide and most human rights violations by governments. These all take the same types of cues and respond to means, motive as well as opportunity in the same ways?  Ummmmmmmm.  

Third, there seems to be little discussion about the substantive meaning of the trend. A lower or declining number is believed to be better but I would like to reflect on this for a few minutes.  

If political authorities no longer kill those under their jurisdiction because they have subdued, beaten, "pacified" the relevant populations (e.g., removed challenging ideas to those in power and those associated with them), does this mean that things have actually gotten better? I can see the logic of saying yes as there are fewer dead bodies but I can also see this as limiting as it does not prompt us to assess the quality of life for the bodies that are left walking around. 

Before I am accused of saying that some people are better off dead, let me clarify.  Within the trendology discussion there appears to be little discussion regarding what the live bodies do/think/feel that are left on the earth.  If we were found to live in a world where we were less likely to be killed but we were all only thinking one idea (insert random idea here), is this a world that we would like to be in?  I think the question merits consideration. 

Accordingly, I would like to see and will participate in a more detailed conversation about the causal mechanisms driving the trends under discussion.  We may be in a "long peace" but if "peace" is only conceived of as non-violence, then I would suggest that that peace is an empty one.  I do not wish to only live in a world that is only less violent (a conclusion that I am not willing to completely accept yet). I also wish to live in a world that is more diverse in terms of ideas regarding how we should/could/ought to live. I wish to live in a world where the different people of the world are respected for the beliefs that they have held throughout time not the ones they are wiling to adopt as they move forward.  I wish to live in a world that is more equitable, which is something that rarely enters into these discussions about trends. Finally, I wish to feel more not less connected to those around me (insert crack about social media and video games here).  In short, I wish to have a deeper conception of life beyond violence/non-violence.  All I am saying is "give peace a chance".