Tuesday, July 31, 2018

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress



Another highlight of the 2018 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuba Economy is the Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address. The 2018 Address was delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Entitled "The Role of Congress in U.S. Policy toward Cuba," the lecture provided a fascinating overview of the interplay between the executive and legislative branches in formulating and implementing U.S. Cuba policy. The Address provided a equally fascinating look at the legal structures of the Cuban embargo from a Congressional perspective and suggested the extent to which Congress might have broad authority to constrain the foreign affairs authority of the president. In addition, the speech provided a context for considering possible new U.S. initiatives in shaping the U.S. side of U.S.-Cuba relationship.
 
This post includes a brief summary of the remarks of Mr. Sullivan's remarks (with links to key documents mentioned in the remarks). Much food for thought.

ACSE 2018 coverage: 

Conference Program HERE.

ASCE 2018 Presentation Summary: "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times--Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy "

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, "Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy," delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile

 ASCE 2018: Summary of Opening Plenary "Cuban Economic and Political Situation" / Resumen del Plenario de Apertura "Situación Económica y Política de Cuba"

"Cuba After Raúl?" Program of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, Miami, Florida 26-28 July/La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl?
 ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress

Monday, July 30, 2018

New From the Conference Board: Anke Schrader, "China, United Naitons Sustainable Development Goals--Policy Priorities and Business Strategies (2018)



The societal obligations of corporations has increasingly broadened since the start of this century.  Once grounded almost exclusively in a toleration (memorialized in and constrained by law) of philanthropy, these societal obligations have become deeply embedded in larger political battles over the administration of globalized economic activity, and the destabilizing effects of trends toward the governmentalization of what might once have been understood as the private sector, along with the privatization of what was once the public sector. As these trends have matured, law (and the state) has also returned to and now is embedded in initiatives to manage these social (and perhaps now increasingly legal) obligations of enterprises with respect to their economic activities. These trends are apparent both in the drive toward the legalization of the human rights related obligations of enterprises (see, e.g., here), and in the increasing importance of sustainability as part of the core objectives of enterprise operation (see, e.g., U.N. Sustainability Goals).

This convergence of public and private space in the context of sustainability obligations is much in evidence in China. Our friends art the Conference Board have recently released a report that considers these trends (Anke Schrader, China and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Policy Priorities and Business Strategies (Conference Board July 2018). The Press Release describes the report as follows:. 
Many of China’s most pressing domestic policy priorities—chiefly, poverty alleviation and pollution control—are closely aligned with the 17 goals set in the UN’s 2030 Agenda, and China has a vested interest in achieving permanent, continuous improvements in these areas. Companies, through their commercial and sustainability activities, have a crucial role to play in realizing these goals, but most don’t know how to leverage the opportunities. This report examines the approaches Chinese policy makers are adopting to implement the SDGs, describes the targeted focal areas for each goal, and identifies the government resources that companies can use to assess the relevance of focal areas and their respective aspects for their business.
The Report is worth reading.  What follows are its sections on "Business Engagement Opportunities"  and Resources (with links) on Sustainable Development Goals and China provided by the author in the Report.


Sunday, July 29, 2018

ASCE 2018 Presentation Summary: "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times--Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy "



I have been posting about the recently concluded annual meeting of the 2018 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuba Economy (please see here, here, and here). I was delighted to have been part of a panel organized for the conference, entitled "Cuba's Political/Economic Culture in the Post-Raúl Period." It was organized by Gary Maybarduk, U.S. Department of State (retired), who among his other assignments served in the U.S. Mission in Havana during a critical period in U.S. Cuban relations.
Cuba's Political/Economic Culture in the Post-Raúl Period
Chair: Gary Maybarduk, U.S. Department of State (retired)
     Larry Catá Backer, Coalition for Peace & Ethics and Pennsylvania State University, "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times"
     Arturo López-Levy, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and Ralf Otto Niederstrasser, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "Five Keys to Cuba's Presidential Change in 2018"
     Luis Carlos Battista, Center for Democracy in the Americas, Washington, D.C., "Cuba’s Post-
Revolutionary Foreign Policy"
      Gary Maybarduk, U.S. Department of State (retired), "Cuba's Political and Economic
Arteriosclerosis: It is not just the Castros."

The panel was recorded; the video of which may be accessed HERE.  In the meantime this post includes the PowerPoints of my presentation:  The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times. The presentation considered three questions:(1) what adjustments might Cuba have to undertake if it is to embed itself within the structures of global trade and finance?; )2) to what extent is Cuba is disposed to consider these possible reforms?; and (3) what may be possible in the aftermath of the U.S. Presidential election of 2016?


ACSE 2018 coverage: 

Conference Program HERE.

ASCE 2018 Presentation Summary: "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times--Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy "

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, "Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy," delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile

 ASCE 2018: Summary of Opening Plenary "Cuban Economic and Political Situation" / Resumen del Plenario de Apertura "Situación Económica y Política de Cuba"

"Cuba After Raúl?" Program of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, Miami, Florida 26-28 July/La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl?

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress



Thursday, July 26, 2018

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, "Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy," delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile



A highlight of the 2018 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuba Economy is the Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture. The 2018 Lecture, entitled Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy, was delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile. The Lecture was entitled Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy. In these remarks Professor Velasco considered the rise of identity politics, especially in its extreme form of populism, and its consequences for the understanding of democratic governance. 
 
This post includes a brief summary of the remarks of Professor Velasco's remarks. Much food for thought. The Lecture was recorded and may be accessed HERE.

 ACSE 2018 coverage: 
 Conference Program HERE.

ASCE 2018 Presentation Summary: "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times--Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy "

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, "Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy," delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile

 ASCE 2018: Summary of Opening Plenary "Cuban Economic and Political Situation" / Resumen del Plenario de Apertura "Situación Económica y Política de Cuba"

"Cuba After Raúl?" Program of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, Miami, Florida 26-28 July/La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl?

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress


ASCE 2018: Summary of Opening Plenary "Cuban Economic and Political Situation" / Resumen del Plenario de Apertura "Situación Económica y Política de Cuba"




The Association for the Study of the Cuba Economy began its 2018 Conference this morning with an opening Plenary Session the objective of which was to give a picture of the current state of Cuban politics, economics, society and law.
OPENING PLENARY Cuban Economic and Political Situation
Chair: Helena Soto-Gabriele, University of Miami and ASCE President
Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, Centro Cristiano de Reflexión y Diálogo, Cárdenas, Cuba
Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College, City University of New York
Dagoberto Valdés, Centro de Estudios Convivencia, Pinar del Río, Cuba
This post includes a summary of the remarks of the speakers at this plenary session. Much food for thought. The Opening Plenary was recorded, and may be accessed HERE.

ACSE 2018 coverage: 

Conference Program HERE.







Wednesday, July 25, 2018

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Turns its Attention to Xinjiang and the Uyghurs: "Surveillance, Suppression, and Mass Detention: Xinjiang’s Human Rights Crisis"




The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 "with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President." (CECC About). The CECC FAQs provide useful information about the CECC. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues (e.g., here).

CECC tends to serve as an excellent barometer of the thinking of political and academic elites in the United States about issues touching on China and the official American line developed in connection with those issues. CECC becomes an even more important barometer of coherence and fracture in policy approaches as the discipline of activities between the political parties and the President and Legislature fractures in new and dynamic ways. As such it is an important source of information about the way official and academic sectors think about China. As one can imagine many of the positions of the CECC are critical of current Chinese policies and institutions (see, e.g., (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

The CECC has now turned its attention to a critical consideration of Chinese policies toward its autonomous regions, and its treatment of religion (in general) and religious minorities)specifically). That consideration is worthy in its own right, of course.  To that end, the CECC program-Surveillance, Suppression, and Mass Detention: Xinjiang’s Human Rights Crisis--looks specifically at Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The analysis, however, may tell us more about the state of U.S: politics than it might about the value and rectitude of Chinese efforts, judged either by international standards or in its own terms.

The CECC concept note for the hearings follows below along with links to access the the live stream of the hearings from Washington, D.C.

The Video of the Session may be accessed HERE. The Program and links to the written testimony of witnesses may be accessed below.


Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Eckpunkte der Bundesregierung für eine Strategie Künstliche Intelligenz/Key points of the Federal Government for an Artificial Intelligence strategy As of 18 July 2018



Germany is a key player in the global development of regulatory structures for the use and operationalization of artificial intelligence (AI) (see here for discussion of emerging national AI strategies).  Artificial intelligence regulation is particularly interesting not merely in its own right, but also as a critical element in the construction of data analytics that, when embedded in algorithms, make it possible to manage behavior, to regulate, in real time beyond the conventional structures of law. 

In a sense, a curious transformation emerges from the efforts to use law and conventional administrative regulation as a means of constraining and shaping AI, and AI related systems of management. Law, in this context, becomes much more remote--it is transformed from a first to as second order regulatory device.  That is, law becomes most useful (and the administrative regulations through which it is amplified and made enforceable) as a means of constructing operational systems, rather than as the basis for the set of direct command that its objects must obey.  Law increasingly is best used to constitute systems rather than to serve as the means for operaitonalizing systems once constituted through meta-legal documents (constitutions, etc.). Clearly, of course, law will continue to operate in direct relation to its object in the conventional manner for some time.  Yet, emerging AI and data driven management points already to a change in the relation of law to governance, even within the conventional structures of public law.

One gets a sense of these shifts in the purpose and function of law from a reading of an important new report distributed by the German Government: Eckpunkte der Bundesregierung für eine Strategie Künstliche Intelligenz/Key points of the Federal Government for an Artificial Intelligence strategy (as of 18 July 2018).
Künstliche Intelligenz hat in den letzten Jahren eine neue Reifephase erreicht und entwickelt sich zum Treiber der Digitalisierung und Autonomer Systeme in allen Lebensbereichen.. . . Die Bundesregierung ist dabei bestrebt, die KI in sämtlichen Politik-feldern aktiv mitzugestalten. [Artificial intelligence has reached a new phase of maturity in recent years and is becoming the driver of digitization and autonomous systems in all areas of life. , The Federal Government strives to actively shape the AI in all policy fields.] (Ibid., p. 3).
"To achieve these goals requires the collective action of business, science, political and civil society" ("Um diese Ziele zu erreichen, ist gemeinschaftliches Handeln von Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft erforderlich.") (Ibid., p. 5). The entire report is worth a careful read, both for its focus on the efforts to bend AI and data driven regulation to the principles enshrined in Germany's political system, while conceding both the centrality of AI and its uses as well as the blending of social, economic, and political power it represents. 

The summary of the goals for this regulatory and policy project (Ibid., pp. 1-3) follow in the original German and in a crude English translation.


Monday, July 23, 2018

Detailed Summary of the Draft Cuban Constitution--Principal Provisions Outlined by Officials

 


As part of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics's Technical Assistance Project--Reforma de la Constitución del Estado cubano 2018/Reform of the Cuban State Constitution 2018, I have been considering aspects of the current effort to reform the Cuban constitution (see, e.g., here, here, and here). The second stage of that project has now concluded with the end of the two day consideration of the proposed changes submitted for the consideration of the Asamblea National del Poder Popular. The official summary of the debates before the National Assembly may be accessed here: (1) Minuto a minuto: Proyecto de Constitución es presentado y debatido por diputados cubanos (I); and (2) Minuto a minuto: Concluye debate de diputados cubanos sobre Anteproyecto constitucional (II).

Once the changes discussed at this session of the National Assembly are incorporated into a revised text, it is expected that a draft of the proposed constitutional revisions will be circulated for public discussion, and eventually submitted to a popular referendum (here).  The circulating draft has yet to be distributed. Until then, one must rely on summaries of changes provided by authorities and others.

The most detailed summary I have found was provided through the media organ of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma: Carta Magna con intencionalidad transformadora y sensibilidad política (23 July 2018). It follows below (Spanish only).

I will post a copy of the official finalized draft as soon as it is publicly circulated. The current constitution may be accessed HERE.


The Constitution as Nkisi: Hope, Desire and Distrust in Cuban Constitutional Reform/La Constitución como Nkisi: esperanza, deseo y desconfianza en la reforma constitucional cubana

Kongo (Solongo or Woyo subgroup). Power Figure (Nkisi Nkondi), late 19th-early 20th century. Wood, iron, glass, fiber, pigment, bone, 24 x 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (61.5 x 17.0 x 21.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 56.6.98. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 56.6.98_front_PS6.jpg)  

La Asamblea Nacional de Cuba (Parlamento unicameral) concluyó este domingo (22.07.2018) dos días de debates sobre el anteproyecto de reforma de la Constitución, cuyo contenido será sometido a consulta popular entre los próximos 13 de agosto y 15 de noviembre. Antes, se incorporarán al texto las modificaciones aprobadas durante el debate parlamentario, y no es descartable que tras la consulta popular se puedan introducir nuevas variaciones al anteproyecto de Carta Magna, que finalmente deberá ser aprobado en referendo en una fecha aún por anunciar. [Cuba's unicarmeral national assembly concluded this past Sunday (22.07.2018) two days of debates on the preliminary draft of reform of the Constitution, whose content will be submitted to popular consultation between the next August 13 and November 15. Before then, the amendments approved during the parliamentary debate will be incorporated into the text, and it is not ruled out that after the referendum, new revisions may be introduced to the draft Magna Carta, which must finally be approved in a referendum on a date yet to be announced.] (Concluye en Cuba el debate sobre la reforma de su Constitución).
As part of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics's Technical Assistance Project--Reforma de la Constitución del Estado cubano 2018/Reform of the Cuban State Constitution 2018, I have been following the commentary that has sprung up around the project of constitutional reform in Cuba.  That interest emerged at the end of a long process of constitutional reform. It's beginning did not occur in 2018 with the delivery of a set of constitutional reforms to the Asamblea Nacional de Podel Popular by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) ostensibly on behalf of the people.  Rather it began a decade earlier when the PCC started a long and quite complicated journey of self reflection and debate about the conception of its political and economic system, the role of the PCC in state and social organs, the centrality of central planning and the complementary nature of private enterprise, and the character of global trade.  Much of that earlier work has made its way into the current debate about the form of the document that will serve as the vessel for all of those objectives, principles and outlooks.

Yet that arc of development, and of the role of the PCC in its construction, appears disconnected from analysis that seems singularly focused on the words of a document to be produced. That disconnect between the current analysis of the drafting of the emerging Cuban Constitution, and the longer term debates that produced the foundations for the current reform, can produce a parallel disconnect between an analysis of the words to be inserted into the revised Cuban constitution and the trajectory of Cuban constitutional reform. That disconnect might be on display in the current coverage of the Cuban constitutional reform effort, especially with respect to the objectives of state and party.

This post considers two examples. The first looks at foreign press coverage; the second at the coverage of constitutional reform from the perspective of the Cuban independent press. Both consider the ramifications of constitutional reform that now appears to place Cuba on a socialist (but not communist) path. For the West and its press, that change sometimes appears significant; for independent journalists in Cuba, it appears beside the point. My brief comments and some examples follow (in English and Spanish).

Sunday, July 22, 2018

"Cuba After Raúl?" Program of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, Miami, Florida 26-28 July/La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl?



The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, on whose Board I serve, will be convening its 28th Annual Conference in Miami, Florida 26-28 July 2018.  The theme of this year's conference is "Cuba: After Raúl? 
La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl? El evento de tres días será todo el jueves, 26 de Julio y viernes 27 de julio, así como el medio día del sábado, 28 de julio y contará con presentaciones académicas y mesas redondas a cargo de expertos de clase mundial, incluyendo a participantes de Cuba. Una amplia gama de temas se discutirán: cambios en la situación política interna (incluyendo la reciente elección de un nuevo presidente), modificaciones previstas en la constitución cubana, la evolución reciente de las relaciones de Cuba con Estados Unidos y Venezuela, las actuales políticas económicas de Cuba y su sistema de doble moneda, el auto-empleo, la agricultura, la energía, el turismo, las perspectivas para el cambio y el crecimiento futuro, y los problemas sociales y legales que afectan a la economía. Créditos educacionales legales están disponibles para los participantes. [The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) will hold its XXVIII annual conference entitled Cuba: After Raúl? The three-day event will be held on Thursday, July 26 and Friday, July 27, as well as on the half day of Saturday, July 28 and will feature academic presentations and round tables by world-class experts, including participants from Cuba. A wide range of issues will be discussed: changes in the internal political situation (including the recent election of a new president), modifications planned in the Cuban constitution, the recent evolution of Cuba's relations with the United States and Venezuela, the current economic policies of Cuba and its dual currency system, self-employment, agriculture, energy, tourism, prospects for change and future growth, and the social and legal problems that affect the economy. Legal educational credits are available for participants.]

La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) es una organización sin ánimo de lucro, no política, organización constituida en el estado de Maryland en 1990, cuya misión es promover la investigación, publicaciones, y la discusión académica sobre la economía cubana en su sentido más amplio, incluso en los aspectos sociales, económicos, legales y ambientales de una transición a una economía de libre mercado y una sociedad democrática en Cuba. ASCE se ha comprometido a una discusión pública de todos los puntos de vista. [The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) is a non-profit non-political organization founded in 1990. Our mission is to study the structure and operation of the Cuban economy, and the processes of transition to a market economy in Cuba; and to promote scholarship, research, and publications by its members.]
Conference Information may be accessed HERE. The Conference Program (English) follows.

 ACSE 2018 coverage: 
 Conference Program HERE.

ASCE 2018 Presentation Summary: "The Challenge of Preserving the Revolutionary Moment in Changing Times--Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy "

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, "Identity, Pluralism, and Democracy," delivered by Andrés Velasco, Former Finance Minister of Chile

 ASCE 2018: Summary of Opening Plenary "Cuban Economic and Political Situation" / Resumen del Plenario de Apertura "Situación Económica y Política de Cuba"

"Cuba After Raúl?" Program of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, Miami, Florida 26-28 July/La Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana (ASCE) realizará su XXVIII conferencia anual titulada Cuba: Después de Raúl?

ASCE 2018 Conference: Summary of Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address delivered by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress


Tuesday, July 17, 2018

"Tenemos trabajo para los periodistas:" On the Meaning and Utility of Press Freedom in Cuba; Fidel Castro (1961) and Díaz Canel (2018)





"Tenemos trabajo para los periodistas. . . . " 
[We have work for journalists]
(Discurso Pronunciado Por El Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Ministro Del Gobierno Revolucionario, En El Acto Homenaje Al Periódico Revolución, Con Motivo Del Premio Que Le Fuera Otorgado Por La Organización Internacional De Periodistas, Efectuado En El Salon De Embajadores Del Hotel Habana Libre, El 25 De Marzo De 1961).

"[N]i los medios públicos cubanos ni sus periodistas están en venta." 
[[N]either the Cuban public media nor its journalists are for sale.]
(Discurso pronunciado por Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, en la clausura del X Congreso de la Unión de Periodistas de Cuba, en el Palacio de Convenciones, el 14 de julio de 2018, “Año 60 de la Revolución”). 

A neglected but interesting exercise that is worth the trouble is to consider the arc of transformation of notions of the rights and duties of (to use an increasing ancient term) the press. That is particularly useful for those who study the evolution of the Latin American strains of European Marxist-Leninist political organization.  It becomes even more interesting in the context of Cuba as the West (again) entertains notions of Cuba's evolution or transformation or development into something that more closely resembles. . . .them!   

It is with that in mind that I thought it useful to consider in parallel two important speeches made by those in leadership positions in Cuba both of which focus on the nature and role of a free press as those terms are understood by them.  The first was a speech delivered by Fidel Castro in 1961 (Discurso Pronunciado Por El Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Ministro Del Gobierno Revolucionario, En El Acto Homenaje Al Periódico Revolución, Con Motivo Del Premio Que Le Fuera Otorgado Por La Organización Internacional De Periodistas, Efectuado En El Salon De Embajadores Del Hotel Habana Libre, El 25 De Marzo De 1961 (Departamento De Versiones Taquigráficas Del Gobierno Revolucionario). The second, was delivered 57 years later by Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Raul Castro's successor to lead the Cuban state apparatus (Discurso pronunciado por Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, en la clausura del X Congreso de la Unión de Periodistas de Cuba, en el Palacio de Convenciones, el 14 de julio de 2018, “Año 60 de la Revolución”).

Both are worth a careful read, and neither can be read profitably without the other. Both remind the reader that press freedom continues to be understood quite differently within other political systems (and not just Marxist Leninist ones; one can as easily transpose the ideas below to political systems grounded on other principles) and that engagements with press freedom (as a norm and as a method) has evolved in the face of changes in tastes, desires and technologies, as well as the capacities for individuals, entities and others to use them.

 The text of both follow, along with some very brief introductory thoughts.


Monday, July 16, 2018

The Law of Private Sector Reform in the Shadow of Constitutional Transformation in Cuba; The Limits of Market Reform In Centrally Planned Economies

d more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article214620125.html#storylink=cpyThe Miami Herald)


On July 14, 2018, Cuban Communist Party (PCC) authorities announced substantial changes to its 1976 State Constitution (Visión hacia el presente y el futuro de la Patria Aspectos principales del Anteproyecto de Constitución). The changes represent an effort by the PCC apparatus to build the changes it had instituted since 2011 into the formal structures of the governmental apparatus of the state (A New Constitution for Cuba--Principles and Reform). The reforms are being reviewed during  Cuba's 7th Plenary Session of the PCC Central Committee (Tele-Sur).  Once finalized will be delivered for consideration and approval by the state apparatus (scheduled for 21 July 2018) and eventually submitted to the masses for discussion and popular affirmation (Granma).

The Western press focused on several of the changes--principally the institutionalization of free markets and private property ownership.  The BBC reported that "Recognising private property could potentially mean more protections under law for private entrepreneurs - and foreign investors."(BBC). Others noted that "The constitution does, however, create new recognitions of the free market and private property in Cuban society, and creates a new presumption of innocence in the justice system." (CTV News; Los Angeles Times; US News&WorldReport). Still others declared that "Cuba is set to officially recognise the free market and private property for the first time under sweeping reforms to its constitution intended to boost the island’s economy." (Independent). Reuters was more careful, noting with respect to enshrining market reforms that these "could mean enhanced legal protections for Cuba’s fledgling entrepreneurs, and foreign investors too, even though Granma said the constitution reaffirmed that central planning and state enterprise are the pillars of the economy overall." (Reuters).

This post briefly sketches the evolving understanding of free markets--and the space reserved for its functioning within the political economy of Cuba--that emerges from the actual practices of the Cuban state in the last several months.  It is this practice that will likely inform the meaning and utility of any markets protective language in the proposed Cuban constitution.  These suggest a very different, and quite modest and collateral understanding of markets and market mechanisms in Cuba from understandings of markets in other places. More importantly, it also elaborates the means by which markets are subsumed within a centrally planned economy.  This serves as a caution for those who might be tempted to read far too much into the revisions of the proposed Cuban constitution. This post and those that follow form part of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics's Technical Assistance Project--Reforma de la Constitución del Estado cubano 2018/Reform of the Cuban State Constitution 2018.


Sunday, July 15, 2018

A New Constitution for Cuba--Principles and Reform (Visión hacia el presente y el futuro de la Patria Aspectos principales del Anteproyecto de Constitución)

.


The current version of the Cuban Constitution was adopted in 1976 (the first after the 1959 Revolution) and last amended in 2002 (effective the next year). It is a constitution drafted in the fashion of the old Soviet constitutions of the post-Stalin era.

But much has changed in the period since the last amendments. Most well known of these changes was the retirement and then death of Fidel Castro Ruz, replaced first by his brother Raul Castro, and thereafter by Miguel Diaz-Canel, who in 2018 assumed the duties of the presidency (though Raul Castro retained his position as first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party) (e.g., here). Less well known have been the great ideological changes that have been developing over the course of the last decade. These have been driven by the PCC and its efforts to reform the political and economic principle sunder which the state is organized and operated.

These changes were memorialized in three key documents, the products of the 6th and 7th PCC Congresses. The first was the Lineamientos de la política económica y social del partido y la Revolución (Partido Comunista de Cuba April 18, 2011) (Guidelines for the political economy and social policy of the party and the Revolution) As approved by the VIth Party Congress, the Lineamientos consist of 313 Sections. Each provide suggestions for action that affects nearly every aspect of Cuban economic life, with consequential effects on social, cultural, educational and other sectors of activity that had been under the direction of the State (See, e.g., here). The second and third were products of the 7th PCC Congress. The first, was the Conceptualización del modelo económico y social Cubano de desarrollo socialista (e.g., Larry Catá Backer Comment to the Conceptualización; Flora Sapio Comment to the Conceptualización). The Conceptualización serves to answer the question: what sort of theoretical model will guide the development of Socialism in Cuba. The Conceptualización is of particular interest for its potential divergence from the construction of Chinese post-Soviet Socialist Market theory within the context of socialist modernization (generally, "Central Planning Versus Markets Marxism: Their Differences and Consequences for the International Ordering of State, Law, Politics, and Economy," that appears in the Connecticut Journal of International Law 32(1):1-47 (2017)). The second was the Plan nacional de desarrollo económico y social hasta 2030: Propuesta de vision de la nación, ejes y sectores estratégicos in which the PCC posited that development can be better managed by rejecting the central role of markets, and substituting state planning in its place, taking an all around view of economic planning as inextricably bound up in social, political and cultural progress of a nation (e.g., The Algorithms of Ideology in Economic Planning).

The three documents framed substantial changes to the conceptualization and approaches to the operationalization of the Cuban political economy, at leats at the margins. The principal changes included a limited opening for the holding of private property (and its sale), the development of a limited private commercial sector (heavily managed by the state), and the possibility of aggregations of labor through cooperatives for approved economic activity. These changes have been implemented through a series of law, regulations and decisions under the direction of the PCC. The changes were at the margins in the sense that they reaffirmed the central role of the vanguard party, of central planning (and the rejection of market mechanisms for economic planning), and of the state sector as the primary engine of economic activity at home and abroad.

Now the PCC has proposed, through its state organs, to change the Cuban constitution to reflect these changes as well. The new constitution was overseen by a Commission chaired by Raúl Castro Ruz, which also included Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, José Ramón Machado Ventura. Most Western coverage has treated these changes as if they mattered, in the sense of producing innovation in the political economy of Cuba,  But of course, that is not the case.  Constitutional changes, in this case, merely memorialize the innovations that were first developed by the Communist Party and then implemented through quite complex sets of legislative initiatives.
Cuba’s current Soviet-era constitution only recognizes state, cooperative, farmer, personal and joint venture property. . . . Ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma published a summary of the new constitution on Saturday, saying a draft it had seen included 224 articles, up from 137 previously. Details were not immediately available, and Reuters did not see the draft. But Granma said it enshrined recognition of both the free market and private property in Cuba’s new Magna Carta. (Communist-run Cuba to recognize private property in new constitution).

 
Western in some respects is curious.  It tends to read the changes from its own perspective, and to project its own desires and hopes into its coverage.  Thus, for example, the Western press has emphasized the enshrinement of the recognition of free markets.  But that may be misleading to the extent it implies any embrace of Western style free markets. Indeed, Cuba has made it clear that it continues to reject notions of Western style markets in favor of managed private sector activity.  

The announcement and detailed description of the provisos of the daft constitution follow (Español), along with the current state constitution.  A summary of the proposed changes are discussed in English by Reuters, the BBC, CTV News, the Independent, and Havana Times.  To understand the new Constitution one has to know the Conceptualización.


Thursday, July 12, 2018

The NATO Meeting's Agit-Prop Moment--Is this Any Way to Run an Alliance in the Age of Media Spectacle? On Reshaping Discourse in NATO

With 28 other heads of state, Mr. Trump signed the 23-page NATO declaration, which reflects months of negotiation and drafting ahead of time. Credit Jasper Juinen/Getty Images

Agit-prop has moved from technique to to the center of the way in which power communicates; it has moved from the playhouse to the world ordering now made possible in this Internet age (e.g., here). To paraphrase that often ill-used cliché (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the world’s a stage]), All the world's live streamed, And all the men and women are staged to serve it. One had a sense of this at the recently concluded G7 meeting in Canada (Picture and Communique: Agit Prop at the G7). The self conscious use by leaders of the tactics of agit prop (long used against them) was both self conscious and deeply revealing.  Agit prop, once reserved for the outside, appears more and more to be a useful part of the toolkit of public private partnerships in the production of governance optics.

The July 2018 meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) civilian leadership provides yet another example of the style of the "leadership meeting" (common now to all sorts of governance institutions) to moments of targeted agitation. The picture above is a great example, one in which the viewer is invited to read all sorts of things--the isolation of Turkey, the strong Franco-German bond, the relationship between U.S. and U.K. the emptiness of the center, and the quite clear boundaries between primary and secondary actors.

But that picture did not capture the 2018 NATO meeting's great agit-prop moment. It's agit prop moment--which one might label "breakfast with Mr. Trump"-- occurred on the side in a carefully scripted moment of virtual theatre.


 ("In what was supposed to be a brief photo op ahead of a breakfast meeting, President Trump launched a verbal attack against NATO defense spending as cameras clicked away. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP; Image form "Trump Blasts Allies At NATO Summit")

Yet it might also be understood, if only for its aftermath, as another element in the construction of a powerful cult of personality for the President of the United States. This might appear odd given the "new normal" for reporting about Mr. Trump in the midst of the vicious but as yet mostly non-violent civil war among Western elites more eager to secure their own power (and that of their ideologies) than to govern. It might, indeed, appear even more odd if one considers the premise that reporting around Mr. Trump has degenerated more into mere editorializing around facts than engagement with them.  Yet, these very mechanisms constructed for demonization of Mr. Trump may, instead, be the most important instrument for the construction of his cult. I say that surmising that cults of personality can be as easily built around fear and loathing as it can around love and admiration (as managed by those actors who create the media records of the times).

None of this is worth the time it has taken to write it, except perhaps for some lessons we might draw from this (mis)adventure. A brief consideration of those potential lessons follows.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

China's New Supervision Law: Resources and Links 纪委监察委执纪执规执法 (查办职务违法职务犯罪案件及涉黑案件) 电子手册 目 录



“The concept of bureaucratic authority has always been central to the analysis of formal organizations. Bureaucratic authority is distinguished from other types of authority relationships in being based on the office, not the person; it is authority which has its ultimate legitimacy in abstract norms and regulations rather than only in the wishes of a superior.” (Marshall W. Meyer, “The Two Authority Structures of Bureaucratic Organization,” Administrative Science Quarterly 13(2):211-228 (1968)))
All large bureaucratic apparatus--whether in public governments, large economic enterprises, or religious institutions--requires a means of ensuring that the bureaucracy works more or less as intended.  Over the course of the centuries a number of fundamentally distinct systems have been created to solve the problem of supervisory supervision. Boards of Inquisition, civil service commissions, prosecutorial bodies, close public supervision and regimes of transparency, and the development of state agencies with sometimes broad authority to police functional bureaucracies have all been used, sometimes with some degree of success for a time. 
March 2018 meeting, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) approved a constitutional amendment creating a super-sized anti-corruption body called the National Supervision Commission and adopted a Supervision Law to govern its operations. A massive institutional restructuring plan subsequently issued by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) makes clear the Commission will be co-located with — and integrate its anti-corruption functions with — the CCP’s own powerful anti-graft body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). (What’s so controversial about China’s new anti-corruption body?)

The Chinese experiment in supervision will prove to be a very fruitful source of study for those interested in the construction and maintenance of collective organization. It has already proven to be quite problematic for Western critics (e.g., here).  "But party-state think tanks hail the National Supervision Law as proof of the Communist Party’s self-asserted aspiration to “limit state power” and “establish the rule of law.”"(China’s Anti-Corruption Bill Exposes the Achilles’ Heel of Xi’s Legal Reforms). It is particularly interesting for the way in which it seeks to solve the problem of disciplining governance were power is divided between an administrative and a political apparatus which jointly exercise power. through a variety of collective mechanisms.   

Chinese authorities have provided online resources for those interested in the construction of the new supervision apparatus under the Supervision law: 纪委监察委执纪执规执法 (查办职务违法职务犯罪案件及涉黑案件)电子手册 (Discipline Inspection Commission (Investigating and handling job-related crimes and black-related cases) Electronic manual). These follow below 目 录 [Table of Contents] 仅限中文. Links may also be accessed HERE.




Tuesday, July 10, 2018

“新时代”的新解读 - - 评强世功教授《哲学与历史 —从党的十九大报告解读“习近平时代”》一文 作者:白轲(Larry Catá Backer) 译者:戴苗强






作者:白轲(Larry Catá Backer)
译者:戴苗强


English Version HERE:  Reflections on Jiang Shigong on ‘Philosophy and History: Interpreting the “Xi Jinping Era” through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCP’ [ 哲学与历史 —从党的十九大报告解读“习近平时代” 强世功 ] 

也包括在随后的材料中 哲学与历史 ————从党的十九大报告解读“习近平时代” 强世功



A Peek at the Slow Emergence of Cuban Economic Activity Within Global Capital Flows


Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2017

Cuba's tourist sector continues to draw interest among global financial and management markets, especially those in Europe.  This trend appears to have drawn some interest in recent months.  Cash strapped Cuba has long sought to attract foreign investment as well to leverage operational and technical know-how of operators from European tourist sector managers to ensure the appropriate development of the tourist sector ultimately controlled by the state for the purpose of funding programs central to its political objectives. These efforts are undertaken under the shadow of the U.S. Embargo and targeted sanctions that are meant to cripple the ability of the Cuban state to profit from its investment in the tourist sector directly.  Beyond the threat of U.S. political objectives is the ever present danger that the holders of Cuban sovereign debt, now quite sizeable, can use any effort by Cuba to access financial markets as an opportunity to recover at least some of their investment. Access to capital on its own terms has been the greatest challenge of the Cuban economy for the last generation, yet one that has made Cuban authorities quite adept at exploiting political fracture to its own economic advantage if only on a just-in-time basis.

Within this environment, small European firms have become more interesting objects of investment and management. Recent reporting has suggested that some elements of global finance appears to be betting on continued growth of the tourist sector, enough, at any rate, to make modest investment worth the risk. My brief thoughts and reporting by Marc Frank in Havana and Karin Strohecker in London (Asset manager Aberdeen Standard to run first Cuba fund) follows.


Sunday, July 08, 2018

New Paper Posted: "Data Driven Governance: Building Data Driven Accountability Based Regulatory Systems in the West and Social Credit Regimes in China"



I have just posted a draft manuscript for comment.  Entitled (for the moment) Data Driven Governance: Building Data Driven Accountability Based Regulatory Systems in the West and Social Credit Regimes in China, the draft has two principal objects.  The first is to consider the parallel efforts of both Western states and China to develop data driven accountability fueled governance systems. The second is to suggest the scope of the challenges that such system construction will likely encounter.

The development of data driven governance has provoked substantial angst and uncertainty everywhere.  There is good reason for this angst, but perhaps not for the usual reasons conventionally advanced. Data driven governance systems (including the quite ambitious project of Chinese social credit) grounded in accountability and managed through the self-reflexive operations of an analytics that incorporates social, economic, political or religious objectives through algorithm represents a new form of governance, with its own language, its own structures, and its own ecologies. It exists still within traditional systems of law and regulation and was originally understood as a technique for the implementation of the policies and objectives of those systems.  Those traditional systems have developed their own language, modalities, ideologies and structures within which the integrity of the system can be maintained.  Yet in this "new era" of governance, data driven governance already exhibits signs of producing its own language, its own structures and its own modalities for enhancing and protecting system integrity within ideological parameters in the context of  which the traditional language and forms of constitutional political government operated through complex bureaucracies intertwined with judiciaries and popular representative organs may n longer be particularly relevant.

This "new era" of governance thus not not necessarily call for yet more efforts to "tame" data driven governance within the cage of traditional government and its structures and methods of operation.  Instead it may require the development of new sensibilities, new interpretive language, and the recognition of new classes of system operators whose injection into the process of governance may profoundly affect the way societies understand and engage with governance organs. This trend may be understood (and encouraged) within those organizations at the vanguard of these changes (within vanguard enterprises in the West (and public security apparatus) and embedded within certain organs of collective organization in China). Yet among those deeply embedded within conventional governance-power systems it has produced resistance or efforts at domestication, which pepper scholarly journals and the regulatory efforts of state and international organs.  Yet rather than or in addition to resistance and domestication, it may now be time to turn to the business of building principles of Demokratie, Sozialstaat, Bundesstaat und Rechtsstaat into and through the language of data and data analytics to ensure that algorithmic governance, like that of the law-regulatory systems that preceded it, will operate under appropriate ideological constraint. And if the politician, the lawyer, and the bureaucrat will not engage in these projects, then it is likely that the engineer, the econometrician and manager may. Power relations will not be the same thereafter.

The Abstract and Introduction follow. The draft may be accessed HERE. Comments and reactions most welcome!

Saturday, July 07, 2018

The Affair of the Sonic Weapons Attack and the Weaponization of Noise; From the Front Lines in China, Cuba, the United States and Elsewhere

A police officer with a Long Range Acoustic Device at a protest in Times Square. The use of such devices against protesters in 2014 is at issue in a federal lawsuit accusing the Police Department of excessive force.Credit John Minchillo/Associated Press; From "Noise as a Weapon? Police Use of Sound Cannons Questioned", New York Times 1 June 2017).



I have noted in recent posts that the Affair of the Sonic Weapons Attack--once consigned to the periphery of U.S.-Cuban relations, has now moved center stage to the relations among the United States, China, Russia, and their surrogates around the world.  That makes the Affair both more interesting, and its consequences more potent. It also suggests  that the Affair is playing some sort of part in the "great game" of power realignments among the powerful states with an appetite for this sort of adventurism. At the same time, that great game appears to have generated a carefully controlled set of disclosures to the masses int he affected states.  One gets the disquieting sense that there is far more here than meets the eye--and that it is to every state's advantage to ensure a very carefully controlled exposure to "news" of these events to suit the interests of the combatants without giving too much away.  

While these musing must remain mere conjecture, the chronicling of the drip, drip, drip of information (and its sometimes inadvertent exposure of something useful) need not be.  It does not appear that any of the major actors appears close to any resolution.  The science is unclear, the technology is shrouded in ambiguity, and the motives and techniques beyond the reach of the reporters, whose coverage of the events have assumed a rhythmic and repetitive character, with each new discovery of injury producing a similar wave of reportage, of accusation and denial, and of medical and scientific experts running off in search of something. All of this misses the point, of course--and the point is in the rhythmic ululations of attack and response within the wider context of the interactions among these actors to advance their strategic interests.

This post provides a short update of developments in the now global Affair of the Sonic Weapons Attack, that draw in not just China and Cuba, but the United States as well. 

Thursday, July 05, 2018

Recently Released: OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct




I was delighted to hear that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had recently published its OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct (Paris: OECD, 31 May 2018).   The OECD describes this work in the following terms:
Businesses can play a major role in contributing to economic, environmental and social progress, especially when they minimise the adverse impacts of their operations, supply chains and other business relationships. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises recommend that enterprises conduct due diligence in order to identify, prevent or mitigate and account for how actual and potential adverse impacts are addressed.

The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct provides practical support to enterprises on the implementation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by providing plain language explanations of its due diligence recommendations and associated provisions. Implementing these recommendations can help enterprises avoid and address adverse impacts related to workers, human rights, the environment, bribery, consumers and corporate governance that may be associated with their operations, supply chains and other business relationships. The Guidance includes additional explanations, tips and illustrative examples of due diligence.

This Guidance also seeks to promote a common understanding among governments and stakeholders on due diligence for responsible business conduct. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy also contain due diligence recommendations, and this Guidance can help enterprises implement them.
This is a quite useful addition to materials available to business ion implementing their responsibility to identify, assess, mitigate and remedy adverse impacts of their economic activity, at least within the scope of the OECD Guidelines for Multinationals.  This Post includes some brief thoughts, along with the Press Release of OECD Watch and links to some useful sites.

Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Ruminations 79: On American Independence Day 2018--The Meaning of Grievances Beyond the Principles at Its Edges; The U.S. Declaration of Independence in the New Era





For some time, and from time to time, I have considering questions touching on the essence of American political ideology as my way of celebrating American Independence Day. American Independence Day seemed a particularly good moment to reflect, if only briefly, on the character of the great principles that serve as the bedrock of American political ideology. 
--2006: Some Thoughts On The American Declaration Of Independence And Its Irish/European Connections At Century's End, 
--2009:  Reflections on the Declaration of Independence: From a Crisis of U.K. Constitutionalism in the Americas to a Global Constitutional Crisis in Honduras;
--2013:  Democracy Part 28/Ruminations 51: On the Contradiction of Voting, Democracy and Revolution in the U.S. and Egypt; -- Ruminations 52: Surmizing Liberty and Equality in American Political Ideology;
--2015: Ruminations 56: On Symbols in American Political Ideology--From Russian Imperial Anthems to Confederate Battle Flags, Marriage, Legislature, and Statute;
-- 2016: Democracy Part 36: Representative Democracy in an Age Beyond the State--The United States in a Global Political Society;
--2017: Ruminations 73: On American Independence Day 2017—Collective Rights Individually Performed at the Dawn of the Age of Data;
And, indeed, since the election of Mr. Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2016, there has been an awful lot of exhuming of the principles (even if sometimes uncited), strategically unpacked for the ends of emerging wars of "liberation" as these things tend to be undertaken in an age in which the more abstracted control of the mechanics of asabiyah (group feeling among the masses) is substituted (in many ways quite mercifully) for the more straightforward violence of the past.  Indeed,
Americans don't think much in ideological terms; Americans think even less in historical terms, except perhaps to the extent necessary to reach back to a term useful in new ways for current debates. Americans invoke ideology instrumentally, especially in defense of their customs and traditions, or sometimes against them, in either case with sometimes profound effects. And sometimes Americans use their ideology strategically to manage or rework historical perception--but only when it is practical, that is when it furthers some political, social, economic or cultural objective with respect to which sufficient political mobilization can be cultivated.(Democracy Part 36: Representative Democracy in an Age Beyond the State).
For 2018, I prefer to avoid the herd instincts of intellectuals whose  search for detached principles usefully extracted has become a wearisome intellectual tic. Instead, in this increasingly abstract and incorporeal age, I thought I would return to the Founders (for that is what we continue, for the moment, to call them--except, of course, for that part of the contemporary  intellectual class that sees in our Founding Generation the current state of tyranny against which that generation's own principles must be turned).  It might be useful, now, to re-consider those facts, the acts, the relations,  to which the great principles of the Declaration of Independence were meant to give meaning and suggest action.  From these facts, perhaps, there is a foundation for whatever truth it is we think we seek--whether that is to reaffirm a determination to detach principle from historical context, or to find in that context useful lessons for their application in this "new era" of American independence.  For there ought to be more to the Declaration of Independence than its edges.  And what has occurred over the last two centuries is that its admirers are far more attached to the frame of the document than to the picture.