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[Christian Davenport]

Black to the Future, Part 2: 1967 @ 2017, a 50 year Retrospective of the Republic of New Africa

7/24/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Series Intro

Almost two years ago, my book about the Republic of New Africa (RNA) came out entitled "How Social Movements Die: Repression and Demobilization of the Republic of New Africa. Who and what is the RNA?  Well, I'll get to that later in a blog or two.  In the book, I attempted to strike a balance between acknowledging the theoretical insights that guided my reflection about what I had collected versus simply telling the story of the RNA.  It was a hard needle to thread.  For rigorous social scientists, there were no tests of the claims that were made. Instead, I used a detailed reading/writing of the case to flesh out what I thought was going on and I was doing plenty of testing in another book and series of articles co-authored with Chris Sullivan so I did not feel that I needed to address some of the things that hinder reading rigorous work.  There was also the issue of what to do about the case. Were the dynamics I was seeing specific to African Americans and/or the US or were they generalizable? Would someone in/out of political science and sociology feel comfortable arguing about conflict dynamics in another place/time based on a disaggregated group and individual analysis of some black folk?  Not clear yet.  I'm not optimistic for political science but I hope that I am wrong.  Sociology has had less of a problem in this regard.

For those who just wanted the story though, there was this theory stuff to wade through and for some reason skipping some chapters did not seem to feel right for them.  In my new series, I will then revisit the story of the RNA from the beginning - diving into the archives that underlie the project as well as simply telling the compelling story of who did what to whom and why.  Enjoy.

Give in and we will stop it

On the second day of the Detroit rebellion/riot, the following telegram was sent to the mayor of Detroit along with several other political officials:

Regarding insurrection in Detroit, speaking for Malcolm X Society
We will ask for cessation of all hostilities by insurrectionists
By seven PM today provided following eight points are accepted
1. Withdraw all troops
2. Release all prisoners
3. Give amnesty to all insurrectionists
4. Set up district police commissioners
5. Agree to urban renewal veto by residents
6. Divide city council and school board by districts
7. Provide funds and community owned businesses
8. Institute compensatory and compulsory equal employment enforcement.


Officials did not quite know what to make of this.  They did not believe that the mayhem they were seeing on the streets was coordinated enough to stop and they did not believe that any one organization thus could speak for what was taking place.  

Essentially what happened though was a point of miscommunication.  The Malcolm X Society was not referencing the random looting or fires that was occurring.  They were referencing sniping and other forms of militarized collective action such as storming of gun stores.  As conceived, they would talk to the individuals that engaged in these activities, if the objectives were met.  

The objectives were not met and, while dispatching police agencies to monitor the Society, they were largely dismissed.  They would be back though.

Who/what was the Malcolm X Society?  Well, they viewed themselves as the "children" of Malcolm X - those who would follow in the fallen leader's direction.  They would do what Malcolm would have done had he lived.  Not the Malcolm that was misunderstood and mischaracterized by Marable but the Malcolm that inspired tens of thousands to adopt a critical political perspective and mobilize accordingly.  

The Malcolm X Society was not the first attempt at organizing undertaken by the individuals associated with it.  The people associated with this organization (largely based in Detroit), previously found themselves in the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL) which was a much more mainstream organization.  GOAL attempted to lead through example, through experimentation, through critical thinking but perceiving that this was not enough and following Malcolm X's assassination, the group formed to push things a little further.  The telegram was among the groups first public actions and their timing could not be more important for getting the attention of the powers that be(ish).  Things were just getting started though.  In the meanwhile, Detroit was burning.
1 Comment

Black to the Future: 1967 @ 2017, a 50 year Retrospective of the Republic of New Africa

7/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Series Intro

Almost two years ago, my book about the Republic of New Africa (RNA) came out entitled "How Social Movements Die: Repression and Demobilization of the Republic of New Africa. Who and what is the RNA?  Well, I'll get to that later in a blog or two.  In the book, I attempted to strike a balance between acknowledging the theoretical insights that guided my reflection about what I had collected versus simply telling the story of the RNA.  It was a hard needle to thread.  For rigorous social scientists, there were no tests of the claims that were made. Instead, I used a detailed reading/writing of the case to flesh out what I thought was going on and I was doing plenty of testing in another book and series of articles
co-authored with Chris Sullivan so I did not feel that I needed to address some of the things that hinder reading rigorous work.  There was also the issue of what to do about the case. Were the dynamics I was seeing specific to African Americans and/or the US or were they generalizable? Would someone in/out of political science and sociology feel comfortable arguing about conflict dynamics in another place/time based on a disaggregated group and individual analysis of some black folk?  Not clear yet.  I'm not optimistic for political science but I hope that I am wrong.  Sociology has had less of a problem in this regard.

For those who just wanted the story though, there was this theory stuff to wade through and for some reason skipping some chapters did not seem to feel right for them.  In my new series, I will then revisit the story of the RNA from the beginning - diving into the archives that underlie the project as well as simply telling the compelling story of who did what to whom and why.  Enjoy.

Detroit Explodes on July 23, 1967

In many ways, the roots of the Republic of New Africa (like many radical/radicalized black nationalist movements) can be found in one of the most important mass expressions of dissatisfaction in US history.  On this day 50 years ago today in Detroit, after a police raid of an African American after hours club, large numbers of blacks hit the streets and engaged in what many whites generally call(ed) "rioting" and what many blacks call(ed) "rebellion".  While labeled/understood differently, the content of the activities were the same: there was looting, there were fires started and there was some shooting (from people in the neighborhood as well as the police).

Here is tv coverage of the event from the time; here are some photos.

The differences in labeling is crucial if one is to understand political conflict and violence.  For one side, the activities of this day represented a moment where victimized individuals decided to stand up for their humanity and they did this with the only thing that they could figure out at the time.  For the other side, the activities of this day represented a moment where diverse citizens engaged in what was believed to be criminalistic behavior.  The conflict lies in the difference.  One cannot understand what happened or what happens without dealing with that fundamental point.

The differences here are not unique to Detroit, 1967, to black folk or to the US.  These differences are what conflicts are about.  This is the reason why it is so important to identify, document and understand the different sides and sources of information about a conflict.  This is what I attempted to do in my book Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression.  The key however is that we need to retain the distinct voices/opinions/events so that we can better understand the conflict as lived.  Much of what we attempt to do as students of conflict/contentious politics reflects a position where we try to identify everything that happened but this is not really what matters quite frequently.  We need to understand what individuals/groups at the time were paying attention to and what they were doing with that information.  The most comprehensive accounting/the acceptable narrative is not always what we want to know.

In this vein, seeing Detroit 1967 on July 23 as either a rebellion or riot misses the point.  It is both.  How does the RNA get involved?  Well, that happened on July 24th.....

Sample Maps from the Period (Check the Labels)

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Cross-Posting: The Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop Revisitation - Episode 19

7/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Series Intro
​
While the project mourns the loss of its Co-Founder, Co-Director, friend and colleague (Will H. Moore) as well as contemplates the way forward, we wish to revisit one of the things that Will did best and loved to do: interact with scholars about their work.  

Like with many things, it all started with a conversation about how we thought our existing way of "doing" political science was missing something.  We thought that conferences were kind of broken and, as a result, the opportunity when scholars were brought together was being lost: e.g., you never got enough time to present, you never got enough feedback, you often had strangers and people who knew nothing about your topic put on your panel so that the conference could sell as many memberships as possible and you were largely caught within the networks that your home institution put you into and in order to get out of this (as a junior person) you would kind of have to put yourself out there - vulnerable, exposed, subject to the vagaries of personality types that populate the profession (scary thought). Upon thinking about this, we were like: that sucks and it does not need to be that way.  In that spirit, we launched the Conflict Consortium which was kind of a shot across the bow, a wake-up call, a series of questions and a series of attempts to make things better.  Some things took off well.  Some did not.

The Virtual Workshop is something that we both thought did what it was supposed to do.  ​As we stated at the beginning:
  • The Conflict Consortium (CC) Virtual Workshop (VW) is an opportunity for junior CC members (Assistant Professors & PhD students) to get feedback on their working paper.  It is a 90 minute session that runs in accord with Charles Tilly's Seminar Rules of Engagement [ungated PDF], which we summarize below, and will take place via Google Hangout (or a similar platform). The co-convenors, Christian Davenport and Will H. Moore recruit 3-5 additional scholars to participate and provide the feedback. 
Others seemed to share our opinion that we were on to something.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we are very pleased that our CCVW has inspired others to create virtual workshops.  

Legislative Studies Virtual Workshop (LSVW)
Online Peace Science Colloquium (OPSC)
Virtual IPES
Virtual Workshop on Authoritarian Regimes (VWAR)

We hope you might consider creating one for your scholarly community.  Please steal our idea!

Once a week, we will post a new session.  There you can see, Will, myself and the participants bringing it (time after time) in the most caring, interactive and useful way imaginable. Indeed, it is very heartwarming to see the exchange - on many levels, as it shows political science as it could be, not frequently how it is. Now, unfortunately, we were not up and running with the recording initially and thus there are some sessions that were not videotaped.  While Will would normally apologize for this (on our behalf), I will do this for him.  It is kind of like starting Star Wars at Episode IV though.  We just kind of jump in and perhaps at some date we will find some way to take you back in time.  

For now: Enjoy The Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop, Episode 19 (apologies for not counting properly before) 
4 Feb: Justin Schon (PhD student, Indiana University), "Does Violence Actually Increase Displacement?: Uncovering Civilian Security Calculations."
​

            Discussants:  Laia Balcells, Casey Delehanty, Jessica Trisko, Thorin Wright and Amy Yuen.

            Watch The Video
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Human Rights vs. Repression: A Reflection on Will H. Moore

7/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Reflecting on Will H. Moore as he was and how he is now discussed, one phrase has stuck with me: “Will was a scholar of human rights”.  Well, yes and no.  He gets there but Will did not start as a “scholar of human rights” nor do I believe that he would say that this was what most of what his work was about.  Rather, Will became one who focused on human rights – among other topics.  He (and I who have come to adopt the label) went this way after some extended conversation and reading the direction of the literature.  When we were coming up, nobody used the phrase human rights. Instead, we used “negative sanctions” or “state terror” or "political coercion". Actually, nobody was really studying the topic at all at that point but after awhile there were more folks.  Over time, we adopted the human rights label and went with the wave.  You gotta go where the audience is.
 
This is not where we had our roots though – where we felt our work, approach and understanding was found/grounded.  Those would be found in what would be labeled "state repression studies" (that is if it were given a name, which it wasn't). This would be the distant stepchild of Harry Eckstein’s “Internal War”, Ted Gurr’s “Civil Strife/Conflict” and Charles Tilly as well as Sidney Tarrow’s “Contentious Politics”. These lines of inquiry never actually focused on state repression as a thing to study on its own but they included certain aspects of the phenomenon in their investigations of non-state behavior to be close enough.  They were out of mainstream political interactions (a key component) and thus it seemed more like these than democratic processes for example (a point for later).
 
As conceived, human rights scholars generally focus on the list of activities associated with the international covenant on civil and political. You know them:


  • the right to life, 
  • freedom of religion, 
  • freedom of speech, 
  • freedom of assembly,
  • electoral rights and
  • rights to due process and
  • a fair trial.

The consistent/wise/snarky would quickly note that there was another listing within International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which includes:
  • Principle of progressive realisation
  • Labour rights
  • Right to social security
  • Right to family life
  • Right to an adequate standard of living
  • Right to health
  • Right to free education
  • Right to participation in cultural life

but they would also have to quickly note that hardly anyone in the now extensive literature on repression that I am referencing studied these – a big weakness in my opinion.   

Most of the time research in the relevant area tried to figure out why governments do or do not comply with international or some federal law.  This is why Michael Stohl and Mark Gibney started collecting the Political Terror Scale as well as why Steve Poe and Neal Tate started analyzing as well as popularizing these data.  Accordingly, listening to theorists like early Robert Dahl and occasionally Thomas Hobbes, researchers here talked about electing the right politician, limiting executive power, signing treaties, creating national constitutions
, judicial independence, being sanctioned for bad behavior or valueing trade (as liberal threats would tend to push).

Repression scholars, as I conceive them, have a somewhat different grounding.  These scholars are less interested in specific behaviors linked to international documents than they were with paying attention to the activities undertaken by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Stoessner, Nixon, McCarthy and Hoover - listed by Robert J. Goldstein, Jennifer Earl and Jules Boykoff.  These scholars drew their motivation from victims/targets, social movements and activists around the world but also theorists who were quite critical of the state’s monopoly of coercive power as well as their illegal /immoral/inappropriate use of their power.  Here, one would be more likely to hear about John McCamant, Alexander Dallin and George Breslauer, Kautilya, Kropotkin, Malatesta and Foucault. The differences between the two are worth noting. 

The human rights scholar does not really probe the motivation behind why political authorities wish to engage in repression. These researchers kind of maintain a position that most governments wish to repress or bad things are done by bad leaders/governments and it is the job of researchers to discover what could stop authorities/governments from doing these things.  The decision calculus usually relied upon to explain violations is helpful in structuring this work but it does not seek to find the deeper motive behind the behavior, merely the parameters of the decision to proceed: here and here.

In contrast, a repression scholar is generally interested in political domination broadly conceived and state coercive power as well as understanding how it functions.  These researchers would be interested in ferreting out why as well as how political authorities wish to dominate their societies with force, violence and coercion.  This is one of the reasons why repression researchers were interested in trade dependency and economic sector inequality back in the day.  Here, the economic dependency on a few external-oriented products reduced a government’s allegiance to its domestic population.  Abouharb and Cingranelli as well as Richards try to take us back to this agenda but by the time they came out, the liberal wave was rolling and the wave has rolled one way (thus far).

The differences in approaches explain the reported confusion about the democracy-repression nexus. Some scholars like Robert Dahl and V-DEM tend to conflate democratic institutions and behavior on the one hand with repressive behavior (never repressive institutions) on the other, suggesting that restrictions on speech or just having killed the leader of a political party distorts/suppresses the democratic nature of the political system.  Perhaps this is true.  Perhaps, it is not though.  Who has studied this?  If repression always distorts/suppreses democratic expression, then how do we get transitions away from autocracy/revolution?  Does torture, arrests or bans influence 
turnout, who individuals vote for, how representative parties might be, who can become president, etc? Do these repressive practices lead individuals to engage in more democratic practices? Good questions.  

In the repressive tradition, repression does not guarantee an outcome – many an authoritarian leader and empire would agree with this position.  Repression might signal the potential vulnerability of democracy but it is does not define it.  Repression in the repression scholar perspective is an attempt at domestication and influence (i.e., what used to be called a "power attempt") but it is not a system of governance. Many a democratic citizen would like there to be no repression, better wages, better/frequent healthcare but just because these outcomes are not delivered does not mean that democracy does not exist – by definition.

Indeed, the repression literature would prompt us to step away from conflating democratic institutions and coercive behavior enacted through security force agents by separating political leaders and institutions on the one hand from security force agents on the other as well as the economic elite that might be driving them.  Principal-Agent arguments offer an opportunity to disaggregate in this manner but they only make a vague connection to political authorities.  They also do not go that extra step to consider economic elites/institutions/conditions/practices that guide what the principal pursues.  Hell, I now miss the days of the relative autonomy of state debates driven by the Marxists.   

There are other differences.  The liberally-oriented human rights scholar is more optimistic about curbing state coercive power.  Here, all we need is the right document or identification of the right incentive and state violence will stop.  More anarchically-oriented repression scholars are a bit less optimistic about the prospect of curbing state coercive power.  Here, they need a little but more than a document or incentive.  They need economic inequality to be decreased or eliminated entirely (i.e., wealth, income and land).  They need the security apparatus to be made more accountable or eliminated entirely and they need the mass citizenry to be trained in the way of non-violence.


Despite the difficulties with adopting the more pessimistic approach it may be useful to do so.  This might help in focusing less on leaders or structures of government then the benefits accrued to the parts of the population involved with repression.  Will as a repression scholar repeatedly attempted to bring us here in evaluating the simultaneous/reciprocal relationship between governments and challengers.  Will knew that there was an "internal war" raging within nation-states and that in order to understand what was going on the researcher had to theorize, document and analyze the actions of both sides.  In this case, repression served the state in their attempts to maintain control and occasionally transform society just as terrorism/insurgency/rebellion served the challengers in their attempts to disrupt or transform society.  Governments were not just set on a coercive/forceful path and were restrained (although some of his/our work went in this direction).  No, governments were engaged in a battle for the soul of the polity and they used torture, mass killing, arrests, censorship and assassination to get there.  They didn't stop there though (the theorists here reminded us); governments also used religion, education, propaganda, language and, food against the population.  Combining repression with coup proofing moves in the right direction but combining repression with discussions of law, social services, education and marketing would go even further.  Perhaps equally as important and something forgotten: repression scholars always approached the topic knowing that the stick was only one part of the governments/elites arsenal.  Normative, material and coercive power were a better representation of the fuller repertoire.  We need to get back there.
0 Comments

Cross-Posting: The Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop Revisitation - Episode 16

7/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Series Intro
​
While the project mourns the loss of its Co-Founder, Co-Director, friend and colleague (Will H. Moore) as well as contemplates the way forward, we wish to revisit one of the things that Will did best and loved to do: interact with scholars about their work.  

Like with many things, it all started with a conversation about how we thought our existing way of "doing" political science was missing something.  We thought that conferences were kind of broken and, as a result, the opportunity when scholars were brought together was being lost: e.g., you never got enough time to present, you never got enough feedback, you often had strangers and people who knew nothing about your topic put on your panel so that the conference could sell as many memberships as possible and you were largely caught within the networks that your home institution put you into and in order to get out of this (as a junior person) you would kind of have to put yourself out there - vulnerable, exposed, subject to the vagaries of personality types that populate the profession (scary thought). Upon thinking about this, we were like: that sucks and it does not need to be that way.  In that spirit, we launched the Conflict Consortium which was kind of a shot across the bow, a wake-up call, a series of questions and a series of attempts to make things better.  Some things took off well.  Some did not.

The Virtual Workshop is something that we both thought did what it was supposed to do.  ​As we stated at the beginning:
  • The Conflict Consortium (CC) Virtual Workshop (VW) is an opportunity for junior CC members (Assistant Professors & PhD students) to get feedback on their working paper.  It is a 90 minute session that runs in accord with Charles Tilly's Seminar Rules of Engagement [ungated PDF], which we summarize below, and will take place via Google Hangout (or a similar platform). The co-convenors, Christian Davenport and Will H. Moore recruit 3-5 additional scholars to participate and provide the feedback. 
Others seemed to share our opinion that we were on to something.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we are very pleased that our CCVW has inspired others to create virtual workshops.  

Legislative Studies Virtual Workshop (LSVW)
Online Peace Science Colloquium (OPSC)
Virtual IPES
Virtual Workshop on Authoritarian Regimes (VWAR)

We hope you might consider creating one for your scholarly community.  Please steal our idea!

Once a week, we will post a new session.  There you can see, Will, myself and the participants bringing it (time after time) in the most caring, interactive and useful way imaginable. Indeed, it is very heartwarming to see the exchange - on many levels, as it shows political science as it could be, not frequently how it is. Now, unfortunately, we were not up and running with the recording initially and thus there are some sessions that were not videotaped.  While Will would normally apologize for this (on our behalf), I will do this for him.  It is kind of like starting Star Wars at Episode IV though.  We just kind of jump in and perhaps at some date we will find some way to take you back in time.  

For now: Enjoy The Conflict Consortium Virtual Workshop, Episode 16: 
3 Dec: Molly Inman (Visiting Assistant Professor, Georgetown University), "Ethnic Politics, Federalism, and Anti-regime Rebellion."
​
            Discussants:  
Dawn Brancati, Rob Carroll, Jim Piazza, Emilia Powell, and Jennifer Whitten-Woodring 

             Watch the Video.
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    Analog - The Anti-Blog

    By "Analog" I am referring to the adjective (i.e., relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage) and not the noun (i.e., a person or thing seen as comparable to another) for I wished to give voice to my thoughts which have come to me in a more or less continuous manner but which do so in a way that is not consistent in content or form. Thus you will see short stories, brief thoughts, haikus, low-kus and even a political cartoon or two. 

    Winner of Best Blog Post for 2014 by International Studies Association

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