Spincycle

Prospect Theory in Retrospect

June 6, 2009 in General

Tversky and Kahneman, in “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice”, “describe decision problems in which people systematically violate the requirements of consistency and coherence, and […] trace these violations to the psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of options.”

They start with the following example –

Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

[one set of respondents, condition 1]
If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. [72 percent]
If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved. [28 percent]

[second set of respondents, condition 2]
If Program C is adopted 400 people will die. [22 percent]
If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die. [78 percent]

They add -
“[I]t is easy to see that the two problems are effectively identical. The only difference between them is that the outcomes are described in problem 1 by the number of lives saved and in problem 2 by the number of lives lost. The change is accompanied by a pronounced shift from risk aversion to risk taking.”

Given the empirical result, they propose ‘prospect theory’ which we can summarize as – people exhibit risk aversion when faced with gains, and risk seeking when faced with losses.

Why is Program A less “risky” than Program B?

Expected utility of A can be seen as equal to that of B over repeated draws. However over the next draw – which we can assume to the question’s intent, Program A provides a certain outcome of 200, while Program B is a toss-up between 0 or 600. Hence, Program B can be seen as risky.

Looked at more closely, however, the interpretation of Program B is still harder –
Probability is commonly understood as over repeated draws. Here – Given infinite draws – 1/3 of the times it will yield a 600, and the rest of the 2/3 of times a 0. (~ Frequentist) Tversky and Kahneman share the frequentist take on probability (though they frame it differently) – “The utility of a risky prospect is equal to the expected utility of its outcomes, obtained by weighting the utility of each possible outcome by its probability.” (This takes directly from statistical decision theory that defines risk as integral of the loss function. The calculation is inapplicable for any one draw.)

What is the meaning of probability for the next draw? If it is a random event, then we have no knowledge of the next toss. The way it is used here however is different – we know that it isn’t a ‘random event’ and that we have some knowledge of the outcome of the next toss, and we are expressing ‘confidence’ in the outcome of the next toss. (~ Bayesian) Transcribing Program B’s description in Bayesian framework, we are 33% confident that all 600 will be saved, while 66% confident that we will fail utterly. (N.B. The probability distribution for the predicted event emanates likely from a threshold process – all or nothing kind of gambling event. Alternate processes may entail that the counterfactual to utter failure is a slightly less than utter failure, and so on and so forth on a continuum.) Two-third confidence in utter failure (all die), makes the decision task ‘risky’.

Argument about Rationality and Equality of utility (between A, B, C, and D)

According to Tversky and Kahneman, utility of Program A is same as Program B. As we can infer from above, if we constrain estimation of utility to the next draw – which is in line with the way the question is put forth, Program A is superior to Program B. An alternate way to put the question could have been – “over the next 100,000 draws, programs provide these outcomes. Which one would you prefer?” Looked at in that light, the significant majority who choose Program A over B can be seen as rational.

However, the central finding of Tversky and Kahneman is “preference reversal” between battery 1 (gains story) and battery 2 (losses story). We see a reversal from majority preferring ‘risk aversion’ to a majority preferring ‘risk taking’ between the two ‘conditions’. Looked independently, the majority’s support in each condition seems logical, but why is that the case? We have already made a case for battery 1, and for battery 2 the case would run something like this – given overwhelming number of fatalities, one would want to try a risky option. Except of course, mortality figures in A and C, and B and D, are the same, and so is the risk calculus.

For Tversky and Kahneman’s findings to be seen as a testimony of human irrationality, Program A should basically be seen as equivalent to Program C, and Program B to Program D. And the lack of ‘consistency’ between choices an indicator of irrationality. In condition 1, our attention is selectively moored towards the positive, while in condition 2, towards the negative, and respondents evaluate risk based on different DVs (even though they are the same). The findings are unequivocally normatively problematic, and provide a manuscript for strategic actors for how to “frame” policy choices in ways that will garner support.

Brief points about measurement and experiment design

1) There is no ‘control’ group. One imagines that the ‘rational’ split would be one gotten in condition A, or condition B, or as the authors indicate some version of 50-50 split. There is reason to believe that 50-50 split is not the rational split in either of the conditions (with perhaps 100-0 split in either conditions being ‘rational’. This doesn’t overturn the findings but merely provides an interpretation of the control. Definitions of control are important as they allow us to see the direction of bias. Here – it allows us to see that condition 1 allows for more people to reach the ‘correct decision’ than condition 2.)
2) To what extent is the finding an artifact of the way the question is posed? It is hard to tell.

A 50-50 split response condition would be achieved if respondents think that both choices are equivalent, and hence pick one choice randomly. But given respondents are liable to imagine that a ‘unique’ solution exists, given they have been brought into a university laboratory and asked a question, people are likely to try to read the tea leaves. Of course, people systematically reading tea-leaves in one way means something else is perhaps going on, but still it is very likely that deviations from 50-50 split would be much less if one were to provide a response option that both choices are equivalent. This is so because some number will choose 3, and then you can either eliminate that sub-sample, and calculate new percentages of deviations from 50-50 by constraining to the two choices (which will likely yield a larger percentage swing) or include everyone, and find a smaller percentage swing.
The stump for condition B (that offers Program C or Program D) is the same as stump for condition A – the disease is ‘expected to kill 600 people’. In light of that, description of Program C (“If Program C is adopted 400 people will die”) offers no information about the other 200. Respondent can imagine that 200 will be saved, but isn’t particularly sure of their fate. On the other hand, with the same stump, information about ‘200 will be saved’ allows us to weakly infer that 400 people will die. This biases the swing in favor of the results that we see.
If we are to imagine that results are driven entirely differential risk aversion in losses and profits, and not some other cognitive malaise, then it would have been nice to see clearer enunciation of the outcomes. For example, description of Program A could have reworded as ‘If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved, and 400 people will not. Or only 200 out of the 600 people will be saved’. This would have likely attenuated the swing that we see, though it is open to empirical investigation. The larger point perhaps is that there are multiple ‘manipulations’, and that the results we see may be artifactual, coming instead from another source. For example – Kuhberger (1995) noted that outcomes in the Asian disease problem are inadequately specified. When Kuhberger made the outcomes explicit (e.g. stating that 200 will be saved and 400 will die), ‘‘framing’’ effects vanish[ed].”

Further Reading

Bless, H., Betsch, T. & Franzen, A. (1998). Framing the framing effect: The impact of context cues on solutions to the ‘Asian disease’ problem. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 287–291.

Druckman, J. N. (2001). Evaluating framing effects. Journal of Economic Psychology, 22, 91–101.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291.

Kühberger, A. (1995). The faming of decisions: A new look at old problems. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 230–240.

Levin, I. P., Schneider, S. L. & Gaeth, G. J. (1998). All frames are not created equal: A typology and critical analysis of framing effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making Processes, 76, 149–188.

The problem of Pakistan

April 20, 2009 in Pakistan

The following article is by a regular contributor to the blog, Chaste. The article is a comprehensive analytic exploration of the extent of problem that we face in Pakistan, and a considered exploration of the possible alternatives.

I will first sketch the history of and the situation in Pakistan, and then suggest a range of options. Throughout the piece, I will use “Jihadist groups” as an umbrella term for groups including the Kashmiri terrorists, LET, UJC, AQ, Taliban, and the like. My apologies to those who see Jihad as an internal spiritual struggle; I cannot think of a more efficient term.

In 1965, Old Pakistan tried unsuccessfully to annex the part of Kashmir that fell to India during the spoils of independence / partition. Six years later, in 1971, an East Pakistan (Bengali) based party won national elections. Because the party was East Pakistan based, the West Pakistan dominated military refused to recognize the election results, and launched a coup. What followed was an incredibly bloody suppression of a Bengali insurgency. The West Pakistani military action caused the killing of about 1.5 million people in a space of nine months; that would average out at five thousand killings every day during the whole of those nine months. These are controversial numbers, difficult to verify, so I have halved the numbers claimed by Bangladesh. Ten million Bengalis became refugees in India. India started to support the insurgency, and Pakistan declared war on India at the end of 1971. With the help of Bengali insurgents, India forced a surrender of Pakistani forces in the area, and East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh.

In nearly forty years of independence, Bangladesh has coexisted peacefully with both Pakistan and India, viewing neither as a threat or even a rival. It should be noted here Bangladesh’s population is roughly equal to that of Pakistan, and is about 90% Muslim. On the other hand, West Pakistan took ownership of the identity of Old Pakistan – viewing India as a rival and a threat, and itself as the lands of the Muslims of the subcontinent. It did this despite having just lost about half of its population to Bangladesh, and being reduced to a nation of Punjabis, Sindhis, and a host of peoples in the mountainous Northwest of the subcontinent. West Pakistan chose to overlook its slaughter of up to three million Bangladeshis (West Pakistan would point out in its defense that it murdered and raped a disproportionately high number of Hindus). Instead, West Pakistan held India fully responsible for the breakup of Old Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh. West Pakistan (henceforth Pakistan) forged a new Pakistani national psyche, which dramatically reinforced India as Pakistan’s existential nemesis. Pakistan forthwith embarked on its project to acquire nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons project was easily accelerated in the 80s because the West was happy to look the other way. In exchange, Pakistan channeled Western money to Jihadist forces, among others, in order to overthrow the Soviet backed regime in Afghanistan. The channeling of vast moneys through the ISI made it much more powerful, even as it was radicalized both by its common cause with Jihadist forces, and by the Islamization under General Zia.

The end of the 80s saw Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and the successful conclusion of anti-Soviet action in Afghanistan by the alliance of the West, the Jihadist forces among others, and Pakistan’s ISI. The former gave Pakistan carte blanche to pursue any military action against India short of a frontal assault; the latter placed at Pakistan’s disposal, a considerable Jihadist force and the bureaucratic / political structure (ISI) to manage these forces. Pakistan decided to capitalize on the sense of grievance in the Muslim majority state of Kashmir over two instances of opportunistic behavior by the Congress party earlier in the 80s (the Congress had behaved similarly in most other Indian states). Accordingly, it set up extensive terrorist training camps in Pakistani Kashmir, and unleashed a violent, partially Jihadist insurgency in Indian Kashmir. One of the first actions of this insurgency was to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Hindus from the Kashmir valley. This insurgency has continued since, claiming on average three thousand lives every year. Pakistan’s usual rationalization for supporting this partially Jihadi insurgency is that it helps defend Pakistan by keeping a large part of the Indian army tied down in Kashmir. This reasoning is patently absurd: India could retain territorial control over Kashmir during any hostilities with a fraction of the army it currently needs to maintain law and order. Besides, Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent should forestall any hostile intentions India may ever have had. Meanwhile, among the various groups that Pakistan supported to a greater or lesser extent, the Taliban not only consolidated its hold over most of a fractious Afghanistan, but also became a reliable ally of Pakistan until 9/11 shook things up a little.

The past two decades in Pakistan have been characterized by an unstable political equilibrium. There are three important political factions: The Bhutto party with its base in Sindh, the Sharif party with its base in Punjab, and the military with its base in a combination of raw power, and popular dissatisfaction with the extreme corruption in the other two political factions. Neither the Bhutto nor the Sharif faction has compromised on their core interest of corruption: neither party has indicated an interest in good governance as a means of staying in power. The military, though more interested in good governance than the others, has not compromised on its core interest of absolute power – has not accepted any power sharing as a means of co-opting ambitious civilians. All three factions share the national consensus about supporting the violent, partially Jihadist insurgency in Kashmir. All three have a similar approach to the Taliban, namely, that they are a core ally of Pakistan who must be protected even as Pakistan needs to guard itself against some of their excesses. All three also approve of groups, which carry out bombings of movie houses, markets, commuter trains, and the like in major Indian cities every few months. The most “spectacular” of these were the attacks on various targets in Bombay including the Taj Mahal hotel and the Victoria Terminus railway station.

For those inclined to deem this a rather harsh assessment of Pakistani political players, consider the following sample of responses (largely from moderate parties or moderate military figures at a time when Pakistan had great external pressures and incentives to act moderately:

General Musharraf cut deals with the Jihadi forces by ceding parts of FATA to them and allowed other Jihadi groups like LET full freedom to operate in Pakistan; all this despite the fact that these groups supposedly tried to assassinate Musharraf himself on at least three different occasions.
When Ms. Bhutto was assassinated by Jihadi groups, her party directed blame at elements in the government allied to those groups rather than at the groups themselves. Part of this was because it was more expedient to blame the government (governing party) during an election campaign. But part of it is also because of the reluctance to openly criticize Jihadi groups. This latter construction is reinforced as Ms. Bhutto’s widower recently concluded a deal with the Taliban in which the government ceded the Swat valley to the Taliban. The Taliban has promptly taken control of the lucrative emerald mining operations in the area.
For several weeks after the Indian government released the names and addresses of the Bombay attackers, the Pakistani government refused to admit that any of the attackers was Pakistani. Indeed, Mr. Sharif was raked over the coals when, within a couple of weeks, he acknowledged that the captured attacker at least was Pakistani. Along similar lines, in the wake of the recent attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team, a Pakistani minister promptly blamed the Indian government for carrying out the attacks. The MO of the Pakistani political establishment is always the same: while they vehemently condemn terrorist attacks (thereby giving the appearance of sanity), they rarely attribute it to any group (other than the Indian government). This lack of attribution preempts any obligation to publicly condemn the Jihadi groups.
When faced with Jihadi groups induced instability: increased suicide bombings in Pakistan including in Punjab, the tenseness surrounding the attacks on Bombay, the attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team, the ceding of Swat to the Taliban after a vicious campaign including wide spread school burnings, and the like crises, the Bhutto faction responded not by trying to undermine the Jihadi groups, but rather by trying to undermine the Sharif faction. Accordingly, they have packed the courts with partisans, and recently both Mr. Sharif, and his brother (the governor of Punjab), were disqualified from running for office. The Bhutto faction backed down only after massive street protests threatened its own hold on power.

The foregoing represents what we can expect from the Pakistani political establishment under any modification of business as usual. The reason for this is simple if rather uncomfortable, namely, that the central and defining element of what it means to be Pakistani is a hatred of India. This is not to suggest that every single Pakistani Muslim hates India (only an overwhelming majority do), or that it is a consuming passion (most have more immediate and concrete matters to preoccupy them). Rather, the view that India is Pakistan’s existential nemesis is assumed to be a self-evident truth. This has made hatred of India the preeminent national value. Establishing extreme anti-Indian bona fides has become a surefire shortcut to legitimation for any group whatever. Any Jihadi group knows that it only has to establish its anti-Indian bona fides (by fighting in Kashmir, bombing Indian civilians, or in any other way) to have carte blanche to do anything in Pakistan (including killing Pakistanis). As long as the extreme anti-Indian sentiment and the legitimation shortcut exists, and it will under any business as usual scenario, Pakistani Jihadi groups will be ineradicable.

But is the current unstable equilibrium satisfactory for the primary stakeholders? I will focus only on Pakistan, America, and India (Afghanistan is powerless to effect any change, so I will ignore it). All three stakeholders have grounds for dissatisfaction. Pakistanis are dealing with a deteriorating and unstable equilibrium. Extremists have struck in the heart of Punjab, the Pakistani army is often engaged on the front at the frontier, and Pakistan has become the centre of much unpleasant international attention. America has sunk a lot of money and prestige in its Afghanistan operation, and would dearly like to proclaim it a success. There is also a significant if quite minor security angle to the American operation. India has become more integrated into the global economy. Spectacular attacks like those on international hotels in Bombay are likely to jeopardize India’s status as a business and investment destination much more than the mundane attacks on commuter trains and movie houses.

Yet it may be more than arguable that the unstable equilibrium is preferable to the unknown consequences of any action that would disrupt business as usual. It cannot hurt to remind ourselves of the different responses of India and America to comparable attacks. India has largely taken them in its stride without making a big fuss. As a consequence, it has continued to maintain an 8% growth rate even as several hundred people are killed every year in bombings, and a few thousand in Kashmir every year (the latter are primarily Kashmiris unsympathetic to the Indian cause). A severe disruption of the status quo could have the highest cost for India since it shares a long and at places an unmanageable border with a nuclear Pakistan (think dirty bombs), not to mention that its important cities are within range of Pakistani missiles.. Gaurav has suggested that India can reduce the adverse effects of spectacular attacks on India’s international image as an investment destination by a few careful media regulations. Starving western (and probably Indian) media of video feeds would turn these from “spectacular” attacks to mundane deaths and killings worth only perfunctory coverage.

America has already paid the price for disturbing a stable if unpalatable equilibrium in Iraq. Indeed the primary victory of the 9/11 attackers was in knocking America off balance psychologically. What should have been no more than a $200 billion loss has turned into a multitrillion loss (the worth of the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks was only about $20 billion assuming the rather generous $6 million per life used by the government in its usual cost benefit analysis). America could settle for maintaining a nominal, internationally recognized client regime in Kabul. America could check Jihadi forces by retaining the right to bomb targets of interest all over Afghanistan. Under such an arrangement, even if the Taliban held parts of the country (nonhostile warlords would hold most of the rest), they would not be much more of a threat to American security than they are now. In the alternative, America could actually try to win hearts and minds by helping the people of the area. No one in the region save the Jihadi forces regard America as an existential nemesis: indeed, America has been a friend of several Afghan groups in the past and present, and has been Pakistan’s most loyal ally for decades. Unfortunately, this is not a practical solution since America will need to spend significant money in helping the region’s peoples. The American people and foreign establishment have shown themselves far more willing to spend $100 billion on killing and occupying a people and their lands (it is called “supporting the troops”) than spend $1 billion on helping those people.

Pakistan has little to lose from the unstable equilibrium. It can revel in its national identity as the lands of the subcontinent’s Muslims by nurturing extreme Islamic groups, and by continuing to be a thorn in India’s side by supporting a partially Jihadi insurgency in Kashmir, and terrorist attacks by Jihadi groups in India. Pakistan will not need to acknowledge its role in the slaughter of millions in Bangladesh, fulfill its duties as a nuclear armed nation, or face the consequences of exporting terrorism to other countries.

But what if the unstable equilibrium ceases to be an equilibrium, and becomes a slippery slope where the Jihadi forces have a real shot at getting power in Islamabad? Though still very improbable, this scenario is not as outlandish as it was even a couple of years ago. If Pakistan were not nuclear armed, the world might have allowed the struggle between fundamentalist and moderate groups to play itself out over the customary few decades. However, its nuclear status ensures that the world will not leave Pakistan alone if there is a threat of a fundamentalist takeover. Such is the price to be paid for becoming a significant power! With this in view, I will discuss some of the measures that can be taken by outside players (America and the international community) to forestall this outcome. It should be understood that these measures should be considered only when the equilibrium is seriously threatened, or if there is a very high chance of the measure succeeding. The equilibrium persists because Islamic fundamentalists have never garnered significant support in the key provinces of Punjab and Sindh, which contain close to 80% of Pakistan’s population. It will not be seriously threatened unless extremist parties gain significant support in Punjab. Currently, they hold around 1% of the seats in Punjab, and received just over 2% of the nationwide vote. However, we must remember that the government of NWFP surrendered Swat to the Taliban despite the extremists winning just over 10% of the seats and votes in NWFP. Thus, “significant” support which should trigger the softer option means anything approaching a double digit share o the vote, and “substantial” support which should trigger the hard line option means a vote share well short of the 29% that gave the PMLN a near majority in the Punjab.

The softer option is to exert extreme economic pressure on Pakistan to achieve definite outcomes. The economic conditions must include generous aid on the one hand, and extreme sanctions including extreme trade sanctions and denial of practical access to international financial institutions on the other. The outcome sought should amount to no less than a revamping of Pakistan’s identity. This would include among others: taking strong action against all terrorist groups, surrendering all listed government officials to an international court to face charges of supporting terrorism (the names of a few ISI officials submitted by America to the UN can be the starting point for such a list), a settlement of all outstanding issues with India by a date certain (de facto acceptance of the status quo), and a revamping of the education system to exclude not only extreme Islamism, but also extreme anti-Indian sentiment. Pakistan has a recent record of changing the course of governments through popular pressure. A sufficiently tight squeeze on all sectors of society couple with generous incentives and an effective public campaign could well deliver even such a radical shakeup. These would doubtless be seen by Pakistan as humiliating conditions, and an assault on its national identity. But one must also remember that the right to support and orchestrate terrorist attacks in India has been seen by Pakistan as a nonnegotiable part of its national identity. A very mild version of this option is seen in the Obama administration making significant aid to Pakistan conditional on Pakistan stopping its support of groups, which carry out terrorist attacks in India. Even this version, which only asks Pakistan to stop supporting terrorist groups (as distinct from taking action against them), has become quite controversial.

The more hard line option involves a redrawing of the regional map, and a dissolution of Pakistan. The redrawing would create ethnic nations in the area. Thus, Punjab, Sindh, and most of Baluchistan would become their own nations. Northeast Baluchistan, NWFP, and FATA would be joined with southern and eastern Afghanistan to form a Pashtunistan. The rest of Afghanistan would form its own nation, or choose to be absorbed into neighboring nations like Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Iran, based on regional demographics. There would have to be a solution for the Pakistani regions of AK and FANA, which will not ally them with Punjab. The military action would need to be NATO based, and exclude India to avoid a nuclear incident. Naturally, this solution should be implemented only when the extremists gain substantial support in Punjab.

Though this is a high risk strategy, there are a couple of reasons why it is likely to deliver the best long term outcome for all the peoples involved. The two most prominent recent examples of failed states falling to Islamic extremists are Afghanistan and Somalia. Both were riven by ethnic or clan factions. Since the primary role of traditional governments is to reallocate resources, a factionalized nation is much more likely to be unstable due to competition among the factions for a larger share. Islamic governments hold out not only the prospect of religion as a unifying force amid the actions; they proclaim that their primary role is the establishment of an Islamic way of life. This is what made the Islamic fundamentalist regimes (the one in Somalia was not particularly intolerant) remarkably stable until they were overthrown by foreign invasions. Pakistan also has strong regional factions, which would find an Islamic fundamentalist regime attractive in difficult circumstances, and find self-determination attractive if it can be easily achieved. As mentioned before, Islamic fundamentalism has a greater draw for Pakistan, which sees itself as the lands of the subcontinent’s Muslims, and which sees largely Hindu India as its existential nemesis.

I have mentioned before how the visceral anti-Indian sentiment among Pakistani people gives any groups that attack India and Indians a shortcut to legitimation. This visceral anti-Indian sentiment is unlikely to survive a dissolution of Pakistan. The largest postdissolution nation would be Punjab with a population around 8% of the Indian population, and an area barely a quarter of the current Pakistan. The fiction that this nation comprises the lands of the subcontinent’s Muslims would be even more difficult to maintain. Any credible rivalry with India will be equally unrealistic. The new nations would likely settle into a pattern of peaceful coexistence similar to Bangladesh. Like Bangladesh they will derive their national identity from internal cultural history rather than by positing an external nemesis. Western hopes about Pakistan have always rested on the hypothesis that the moderate peoples of the Punjab and Sindh can be leveraged to defeat the Jihadi forces in the frontier regions. However, given the virulent anti-Indian (and increasingly anti-American) sentiments, the Jihadi forces have found it much easier to manipulate the sentiments and resources of Punjab and Sindh. There is no chance that this situation will change organically in the next few decades. Dissolution of Pakistan will starve the Jihadi forces of the logistical, human and technological resources of Punjab and Sindh. They will therefore become much less dangerous, and their smaller inconsequential state will be easier to manage. The moderateness of the people of Punjab and Sindh, when freed from the polarizing influence of anti-Indian sentiment in a postdissolution situation, will likely create modern secular nations concerned with economic progress.

The three broad options I have laid out here: the status quo, the softer option of squeezing the Pakistani people to deliver an overhaul of their institutions and identity, and the hard-line option of the redrawing of the regional map are not necessarily preferable in a descending order. Indeed, the probable outcomes would make them preferable in an ascending order. It is primarily my risk-averseness and cost benefit analysis approach to civilian casualties that makes me rank them as I do. It is important to understand that if Pakistan starts sliding down a slippery slope, the mild half-hearted policies that have marked the international approach to Pakistan hitherto will be dangerously ineffective. The options I have outlined here are among the more credible approaches to avoid the serious consequences of a nuclear Pakistan turning into a failed state. Policy makers must have clear thresholds for deploying these options, based on the extent of support for extremists in Punjab. Until then we will continue to see the half-hearted pressure for superficial results, which will not address the need for the overhaul of the Pakistani institutions and identity that make it susceptible to Jihadist forces.

Pakistan

March 31, 2009 in Pakistan

Pakistan Military Budget

Unflattering portrait of Zardari (James Traub, NY Times)

Spincycle Select: March 2009

March 18, 2009 in General

Rambo- Dead and Deader By John Mueller, Los Angeles Times

US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites by Mark Danner, NY Books

‘Tasteless’ T-shirts worn by Israeli army soldiers (BBC)

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques – IDF fashion 2009 by Uri Blau, Haaretz

The trouble with Frida Kahlo by Stephanie Mencimer, Washington Monthly

Percentage Increases, Increases in percentages (BBC)

Slow death of handwriting (BBC)

Shall we get ride of the lawyers? Anthony Lewis, NYRB. Lewis, a celebrated journalist, is the author of a superb book – Gideon’s Trumpet that documents the history, and particulars of the seminal sixth amendment case – Gideon Vs. Wainwright.

The paradox(es) of Condorcet’s jury theorem when applied to democracy

March 18, 2009 in Democratic Theory

Majority preferences were seen by Rousseau (The Social Contract) as expression of general will. With Condorcet, the ‘general will’ has also been imbued with the notion of ‘correctness’. As contradictory evidence is ample, it is time to remove to the false comfort of any epistemic benefit accruing from such aggregation.

Condorcet Jury Theorem, formalized by Duncan Black based on the elliptical essays of Marquis de Condorcet, runs roughly as follows -

If -

Jury has to decide between two options using simple majority
If each juror’s probability of being correct is greater than half (~ competence)
Each juror has an equal probability of being correct (~ homogeneity)
Each juror votes independently (~ independence)

Then -

Any jury of odd juror is more likely to arrive at the correct answer than any single juror
As n increases, probability of arriving at the correct answer approaches 1

(The above summarization of the key points is paraphrased from ‘Aggregation of Correlated Votes and CJT’ by Serguei Kaniovski)

There have been multiple attempts at ‘generalizing’ Condorcet – mostly by showing that violations to one or more of the assumptions doesn’t automatically doom the possibility of achieving an ‘epistemically’ superior outcome. One of the generalizations, offered by Christian List and Bob Goodin, is that the result still holds if people are posed with k options, and they have higher than 1/k chance of being correct.

Suppose there are k options and that each voter/juror has independent probabilities p1, p2, …, pk of voting for options 1, 2, …, k, respectively, where the probability, pi, of voting for the “correct” outcome, i, exceeds each of the probabilities, pj, of voting for any of the “wrong” outcomes, j ≠ i. Then the “correct” option is more likely than any other option to be the plurality winner. As the number of voters/jurors tends to infinity, the probability of the “correct” option being the plurality winner converges to 1.

Other ‘generalizations’ outline modified versions of the theorem if independence doesn’t hold, or when competence is unevenly distributed, etc.

One way to summarize the theorems is that math works to the extent the assumptions hold. Assumptions are at best poorly realized, and at worst inapplicable when we transpose CJT to democracy.

Problems of Applying Condorcet’s Jury theorem to Electoral Democracy

Introduction

To apply CJT to democracy – we must assume citizenry to be a jury, and the decision task in front of it as choosing the “right” party or candidate.

The word ‘jury’ is saddled with association with courts in the current American context, and it is important to disambiguate how the citizenry differs from the ‘jury’ of citizens summoned by court for disambiguation will allow us to cover central issues that affect the epistemic utility of any “aggregations” of human beings. In the court system, a jury is (randomly ~ within certain guidelines) selected from the community, generally subject to a battery of ‘voir dire’ questions so as to assess their independence, lack of conflict of interest, biases etc., sworn to render a “rational”, and “impartial” verdict, instructed in applicable law (including evidentiary law), asked not to learn about case from any other source other than what is presented within the court (which itself is subjected to reasonably stringent evidentiary guidelines), guarded from undue influence (for example – bribes by interested parties), made to at least sit through presentation of extensive presentations from ‘both sides’, and their rebuttals, and generally asked to deliberate the evidence (among what is generally a ‘diverse’ pool) before reaching a verdict etc. On the other hand, citizenry that comes to vote is a self-selected sample (roughly half of the total body), highly and admissibly ‘non-independent’ in how they look at the evidence, generally sworn to ‘parties’, unconstrained by law on what evidence to look at, and how to look at it, generally extensively manipulated by interested ‘parties’, rarely informed about the ‘basis’, rarely arriving at decision after learning about arguments by ‘both sides’, and rarely ever deliberating etc.

The comparison provides a rough template for arguing against positive comparisons between the epistemic competence of juries and that of the citizenry. However Condorcet’s argument is a bit different – though many of the above lessons apply – and hinges on the enormous n in a democracy. The only other assumption that one then needs is each juror having more than ½ chance of having it right, or some variation thereof. The central contentions that can be made against Condorcet can come from two sources – theorization of the sources and extent of violation of the assumptions, for example – independence, and competence; inapplicability due to incongruence etc. The various contentions – emerging from the two sources – are covered below (in no particular order).

Rational voting, Sincere voting

While it is one of the weaker cases against applying Condorcet – mostly because the counterargument imagines a ‘rational’ voter – the argument deserves some attention – mostly because of its salience in the political science literature. One of the axioms of political science, since Downs, has been that information acquisition is costly. Hence it follows that as the decision making body becomes larger, and as the chance to be a ‘pivotal voter’ goes down, the incentives to shirk (free-ride) increase.

Austen-Smith and Banks, among others, have shown that ’sincere voting’ – voting the best choice based on information signal – is not ‘equilibrium behavior’ as rational voter votes not only based on the signal but also on the chance of being pivotal. Feddersen and Pesendorfer (1998, APSR), taking the claim (perils of strategic voting) to its logical extreme – and applying it to ‘unanimity rule’ (not majority rule though similar less stark contentions apply – which they note), have shown that as jury size increases, the probability of convicting an innocent increases.

Extreme Non-independence

Given p > half is a ‘reasonably high’ threshold – jurors performing better than random – especially in circumstances of misinformation, problems can arise quickly.

In the current state, about 90% of the voters exhibit high forms of non-independence emerging from apathy and partisanship. (It also reasons that reduction in either one will lead to higher probability of citizenry choosing the ‘better choice’ on offer, and arguably better choices on offer.) Partisanship also means that people have different utilities that they intend to maximize. The other 10% err on average on the side of manipulation.

The flawed choice task

To the extent there are two inferior choices to choose from, one can imagine that in the best case the polity will choose the slightly better one among the two inferior choices. Condorcet offers no comfort for what kind of choices are on offer – perhaps the central and pivotal role of any normative conception of democracy. In fact, it is likely that the quality of choices on offer (’correctness of choices’) is likely to be a function of probability with which a body politic knows about the ‘optimal correct choice’, and probability that it chooses the ‘optimally correct’ choice (which is likely to be collinear with odds of picking the ‘better choice’).

Policy Choices

Policy choices are an array of infinite counterfactuals. To choose the ‘most correct’ one would mean a population informed enough to disinter the right choice with a higher probability than any other wrong choice. Given infinite choices, the bar set for each citizen is very high, and chances of citizenry constituted as such crossing that bar – non-existent.

The well known paradox from 3 or more choices

The manipulability of system offering more than 2 choices is well documented and filed alternately as Condorcet’s Paradox and Arrow’s impossibility theorem. Much work has been done to show that propensity of cycles in democracy is not great. (For example, Gerry Mackie, ‘Democracy Defended’) One contention however remains unanswered for the binary choice version -American Democracy often reduces larger sets into two options. One can imagine that the preference order for citizens will depend on unoffered choices. Depending how multiple choices are reduced to two choices, one can think of ways ‘cycling’ can work even in the offered binary choices. (David Austen Smith) More succinctly – all binary decisions in democratic politics can be thought to come from larger option sets, and the threat of cycling hence is omnipresent.

‘Correct decisions’

CJT – a trivial result from probability -when applied to voting with two choices is just that an electorate is most likely to arrive at the more likely choice of each of its members. The probability of achieving that comes close to 1 as n increases.

If we assume that electoral democracy is a competition between interests, then we just get majoritarian opinions, not ‘correct’ answers. As in there is no ‘common’ utility function but different set of utilities for different groups – so people look at a common information signal and split based on their group interests. In that case, the ‘correctness’ of the decision really reduces to the ‘winning’ decision.

Median Voter – Condorcet in reverse

Applying Condorcet to democracy is in many ways applying things in reverse. We know that politicians create policies that appeal to the ‘median voter’ (not to be confused with median citizen, or anything to do with ‘correctness’). Politicians work to cobble together a ‘majority’ such that the p of the majority picking them is the greatest. Significantly – policy preferences that can be sold to the majority have no similar claims as made by CJT. Another important conclusion that can be drawn from the above is that since the options on offer can manipulate the population, it is likely that the errors are not at random.

Democratic errors don’t cancel

Benjamin Page and Bob Shapiro, in ‘The Rational Public’, argue that one of the benefits of aggregation is that errors cancel out. Errors may be seen to cancel if they are at ‘random’ but if they are heteroskedastic, and strongly predicted by sociodemographics, they are likely to have political consequences. For example, we know then that such ‘errors’ will reduce the likelihood certain constituencies from making a demand, or from coalescing into raising political demands in line with their interests.

Formation of preferences, aggregation of preferences

Applying CJT to democracy, we can roughly proxy that preferences emerge from available data. Assuming people have perfect lens to the hazy data, the “probability that the correct alternative will win under majority voting converges to the probability that the body of evidence is not misleading.” (Franz Dietrich, and Christian List, ‘A Model of Jury Decisions Where All Jurors Have the Same Evidence’)

While even the probability calculated thence is optimistic – as we know that evidence isn’t same for all jurors, and the lens of most jurors is foggy – it is a good start to thinking about the – what data is available to the jurors, and how it is used by the jurors (citizens), and what are the consequences of different information and ‘analytic lens’ distributions.

Letting experts speak

If our interest is limited to getting the ‘correct outcome’, then we ought to do better (in terms of likelihood of arriving at correct decision) by polling people with higher probabilities of getting it right. We will also save on resources. Another version of the idea would be to do a weighted poll, with weights proportional to probability of being correct. The optimal strategy is to have weights proportional to log p(correct)/p(incorrect). (Nitzan and Paroush, 1982; Shapley and Grofman, 1984)

It isn’t as much a contention as a prelude to the following conclusion – Any serious engagement with epistemic worthiness as a prime motive in governance will probably mean serious adjustments to the shape and nature of democracy, and in all likelihood abandonment of mass democracy.

When 60% differs from 51%

The key consideration in CJT is choosing the ‘right’ option from the two on offer. Under this system, 51% doesn’t quite differ from 60% or 90% for all yield the same ‘right choice’. Politics works differently – presidents tout and base their policy agendas on ‘mandates’, Congress and Senate have a slew of procedural and legislative rule that buckle under larger numbers. Thinking about Congress and Senate brings new complications, and here’s why – while election of each member may be justified by CJT, the benefit produced by elected representatives needs another round of aggregation – without some of the large n benefits of mass democracy. Here again we may note – as McCarty and Poole have relentlessly shown – that the ‘jury’ is extremely ‘non-independent’, prone to systematic biases, etc. In addition, no longer is choice limited to two – though each choice task can be broken down into a series of Boolean decisions (arriving at the ‘right decision’ in this kind of linear aggregation over choice spectrum will follow a complex function of p(correct choice) for each binary decision.

In Summary

Conjectures about epistemic utility of electoral democracy are particularly rife with problems when seen through the lens of Condorcet. This isn’t to say that no such benefits exist but that alternate frameworks are needed to understand those benefits.

‘Disproving’ God

January 24, 2009 in General, Science and Technology

A tribute for the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin…

Why science can talk about ‘God’ –

One of the reasons why people argue that science should be absent from discussions about God is because while science concerns itself with the material, God concerns himself with the ‘spiritual’ nonmaterial realm. But there are a number of theories of God (and ‘by God’ – if Bible is to be taken at its face value) that explicitly deal with the material realm. To that extent science has ‘standing’, in the judicial sense.

One prominent theory of the ‘divine’ made with ‘ungodly’ frequency is that God has a direct impact on the material well being of humans. But here’s how the claim falls short –

Given systematic temporal and geographic variance exists in poverty, life-expectancy, etc. and given we have been able to attribute a majority of the ‘causes’ for such to human action, ‘God’ inarguably plays only a peripheral part in the destiny of man, albeit a larger role in destiny of women (mostly through hands of believers). What I mean by that is simple – mortality rates differ by geography (US versus say Africa, or within US – maybe god likes the ‘godless’ NE liberals), and by time (we live longer today than we did 200 years ago). The variance in mortality and life-expectancy also seems to respond to human intervention, variedly defined as discovering new technologies, to committing war. So unless we believe God systematically dislikes Africans, or liked people less 200 years ago -when arguably people were more ‘moral’ on some variables favored by the current fundamentalists – we have little grounds to believe that God is a large force in determining life-expectancy, or mortality.

Let’s assume for the ‘devil’s’ sake that ‘God’ is a confounding variable, which can be seen as true in more than one way – first, given that he is alleged to work in mysterious ways, and second in the statistical sense i.e. God determines both temporal, geographic, racial and other kinds of variance in distribution of poverty, the human action to which it is causally attributed, and life-expectancy. But that version of God conflicts with our theories about human action (say greed) and our theories about God – who allegedly ought not to reward people motivated by such things as greed. But then punishment can come in the ‘after life’- via hell, where an ever larger number of people are being systematically tortured through great expense of energy, and in a manner that will leave the Bush administration officials chagrined. Even if we imagine that theories of after-life action are true, their impact on the material world is limited to the extent people believe in the threat of punishment. To that extent, God is an instrumental identity for achieving some version of morality.

Another challenge to the presence of ‘God’ comes from the probabilistic nature of our causal models. ‘God’ theories ought to be perfect (explain about 100% of variance) while theories of social action can be probabilistic. To ascribe probabilistic thinking and action to God would significantly conflict with theories of God, though one can imagine that he sets the mean, and ‘will’ causes the error term. A starker version of the same would be that God allows free will, and to that degree that he allows for it and the world is shaped by ‘free will’, and God is immaterial to bettering social condition. Another reason to discount challenge to God theory can be the following – we just don’t know the generating mechanism (or life/death) and probabilistic conditioning seems to come from fitting known world models onto data generated by God model – which is by the way synergestic enough with world model (more poverty = earlier death) to be disturbing.

One way to look at the argument presented here is that God may exist, but s/he/it isn’t particularly strong. And if strength/omnipotence is taken to be a fundamental descriptive attitude of the object (God), it is likely that the object doesn’t exist as well. The counterargument to the above would perhaps need to factor in differing conceptions about the object and its power. For example, one may say that s/he/it is doing all it can to reduce evil to its lowest form – and that is indeed the present condition. Perhaps then more minimally – since he is already doing all he can and rest depends on us – we can argue that God isn’t a particularly useful intervention for changing one’s situation in the world.

Israeli assault on Gaza

January 21, 2009 in Middle East

The scale of murder, and devastation

“Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians were killed, nearly a third of them children, and 5,500 injured during the conflict.” [ BBC ]

“Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left homeless and 400,000 people still have no running water, it says.” “Electricity is available for less than 12 hours a day, and 100,000 people had been displaced….A total of 50 UN facilities and 21 medical facilities were damaged.”

“Separately, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that 4,100 homes were totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged during the conflict.

About 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques, 31 security installations and 10 water or sewage pipes were also damaged, it added.

The bureau estimated that the overall physical damage so far amounted to about $1.9bn (£1.4bn), including about $200m (£140m) of damage to infrastructure.”

“The worst-hit areas in the Gaza Strip after Israel’s three-week offensive look as if they have been hit by a strong earthquake, aid agencies say.” [ BBC ]

Heart of Darkness

“The Israeli army used white phosphorus, a weapon with a highly incendiary effect, in densely populated civilian residential areas of Gaza City, according to indisputable evidence found an Amnesty International fact-finding team which reached the area last Saturday.” [ Amnesty , BBC ]

The UN said that “according to several testimonies, on January 4 Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians – half of whom were children – into a single-residence house in Zeitoun, warning them to stay indoors. Twenty-four hours later Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30. [Sydney Morning Herald]

While the vast majority of Palestinians were killed by conventional weapons, a Norwegian doctor, Erik Fosse, said injuries he had seen in Gaza were consistent with the use of Dime (dense inert metal explosive) bombs. “It was as if [patients] had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wounds,” he said. [Independent]

BBC catalogs some of the more troubling types of weapons used – Flechette shells (shells with nails), Tank shells (with high degree of inaccuracy), Drone missiles (atypically inaccurate or deliberate murder).

‘Wanton’ destruction of homes in Gaza. [BBC ]

The reasons

Israel’s stated reasons for the assault on Gaza were roughly the following – “that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network” (LRB) and as part of ‘reaction’ or ‘response’ to violations of its borders. Dr. Siegman, professor with University of London, in the same LRB column, refutes these casually stated reasons, repeated ad infinitum in the news media, exposing both media’s complicity, and Israel’s wantonness in committing murder of 1300 plus people.

Some have argued that Israeli action was part of a strategy to pre-empt any doubts about Israel’s resolve to “protect” its territory, and punish even minor violations as a way to ward off imagined subsequent more major violations. One can draw of Tzipi Livni’s statement, the assault on Gaza “restored Israel’s deterrence …Hamas now understands that when you fire on its citizens it responds by going wild – and this is a good thing” as corroboratory evidence. However, the argument falters on a variety of grounds. Firstly, Israel carries a strong nuclear deterrent, and perhaps more powerfully, a superpower deterrent (America) – which pre-empts hostile countries or ‘hostile entities’ within countries from attempting anything. Secondly, most Arab nations have come around the idea of Israel, so no real or implied threat has been made.

From a strategic perspective, Israeli action may be seen as an effort to dent the nexus between Iran and Hamas. But, Israel’s continued allegations of a close nexus between Iran and Hamas (a Sunni organization) seem to falter under closer inspection. [Economist]

Most ‘independent’ analysts have argued that the assault was committed with forthcoming elections, due February 10th, in mind; a recent Ha’aretz poll revealed that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, profited the most. Albeit the most cynical of the explanations, it seems the most plausible for the following reasons – given massive political benefits likely to accrue for any significant military action, no real down sides – except if the invasion is ‘botched’ as in Lebanon in 2006 – the incentives to commit a large scale invasion, and little respect for Palestinian lives, are many.

A Selection of Published Analysis and Reflection about the Conflict

LRB also carries a selection of responses by a variety of political analysts and authors on Israel’s action in Gaza.

Roger Cohen writing for NYRB reflects – “I have never previously felt so despondent about Israel, so shamed by its actions, so despairing of any peace that might terminate the dominion of the dead in favor of opportunity for the living.”

Understanding Delhi, and ‘The Delhi Walla’

January 8, 2009 in General, Personal

The article was written for The Delhi Walla

‘The Delhi Walla’ is a journalist’s blog, albeit without the drama and urgency with which journalism and journalists are often associated with today. The writing on the blog represents that prior tradition among journalists which was about subtle observation, gentle humor, as evinced in journalists’ travelogues, and in shows like BBC’s ‘From our own correspondent’.

The blog is a significant achievement. More so because reporting on cities is generally skillfully and purposefully bankrupt, formulaic and inane, an orgy of crummy descriptions of pointless people, and events, and soulless corporate jingles about places to eat, and entertain, infested almost always with a touch too colorful poorly shot photos.

With an eclectic choice of topics, a choice that is many a times dictated by the city rather than by an urge to puppeteer description in grips of pincers of prejudice, with gentle and subtle humor, Mayank shines a weak but almost always pleasant humanistic light on the myriad facets of Delhi, and the occupations, preoccupations, habits, of its residents. The wonderful aspect of the blog is that it catalogs “real life”, an all too absent commodity in newspapers, be it then a story about the need to find a ‘second home’ in a city with cramped homes that provide all too little privacy, the rather oddly structured stories on colonies (as they are called in Delhi), or the succession of charming articles on bookstores, and their proprietors. Perhaps seen hence, it is a writer’s blog. And that is probably a more accurate description of the sensibility of the blog, and the author, and explains the void comparisons to newspapers that I make above.

Understanding

One can try to ‘understand’ things of interest by disinterring things, breaking them apart skillfully – through analysis – and connecting those parts into an ‘explanation’ or simply ‘description’ conjoined by some connective tissue. It is a bit like looking at white light through a prism, with colored rainbow being the distillate. Of course more often we just describe a part of one color, and the rest is at best in penumbra. Analysis is generally purposive, and demands specificity. It struggles to contain, and cast, and organize, and too often the aim is to achieve that ‘aha’ moment. For all these reasons, the enterprise is often fraught with problems of myopia, and of force.

Another feature of the analytical method is the method of writing – it is writing through contestation. For example, the account that I provide here is often times a ‘negative’ account – describing what this blog isn’t, rather than simply focusing on what it is. The method may be insightful, if the analysis has legs, but it is seldom enjoyable.

The Delhi Walla chooses differently; he observes, describes, narrates, engages in reverie, and gently analyzes. He does it with great modesty, and some charm. His method of ‘understanding’ isn’t analytic introspection, but subtle observation that produces that warm flush of vague but liberalist accepting, even embracing, empathy, and exultation in the shared existence. It is akin to the ‘understanding’ and exultation one feels while standing on the roof of the house on a pleasant summer evening, and looking over the gullis and Mohalla.

Delhi

Delhi is an easy city to caricature – bleak, dirty, loud, and crowded. And it is certainly all that. But reality is simultaneously substantially more mundane, and textured. Likewise, people sometimes mistakenly make the inferential leap from ‘bleak’ surroundings to ‘bleak’ lives; all too often ‘bleak’ surroundings are peripheral to the fuller psychological lives lived among acquaintances, friends, relations, and more.

Delhi is a city that carries the hopes and aspirations of people living in it, the location of deaths, marriages, jobs, cars, monuments, history, politics, money, and more. One can take respite, if so is needed, in the beauty of some of its monuments, sometimes in just its familiarity, in its ‘traditions’ and ‘landmarks’, even in its oppressive heat, as Mayank occasionally does, food, conversation, and intimacy of friends and family, among other things.

The Delhi Walla

The Delhi Walla is an eclectic account of Delhi. It is an ode to the ‘passions’ of Delhi Walla – the Muslim heritage of Delhi, books, Arundhati Roy, and gay life in the city. It is an account of his questions, and more interestingly a “live” account of an unfailingly interesting life.

Spincycle Select – December 2008

December 18, 2008 in Spincycle Select

Right’s leftist appeals

Jawed Naqvi astutely points out how many of the right wing appeals of Mullahs are basically plagiarized left-wing appeals. He points out how cries for ‘anti-imperialism’ etc. have been usurped. “The mullahs have motivated their rank and file in Pakistan with verses from leftist poetry, often to attack left politics.” He further argues (rightly)-

“Just because religious extremists or terrorists have usurped a secular critique of imperialism and harnessed it to their bigoted worldview doesn’t mean that Zionism becomes kosher [my comments - interesting choice of words] or imperialism becomes acceptable or right wing Hindu revivalism deserves legitimacy.”

Iran’s essentially communist revolution came to an Islamist end. Hopefully anti-imperialist voices in South Asia and Middle-east won’t suffer a similar fate.

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Tintin

Economist has a superb story on Tintin.

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Paul Krugman comments on the Ponzi Economy.

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Make love, not war

US Military gives Viagra to Afghan warlords. (Naipaul would be feeling vindicated)

Pakistan’s reponse to Mumbai: Beyond denial, and incapacity

December 6, 2008 in Pakistan

“Nearly 200 people lost their lives in the serial bomb blasts in India’s financial capital of Mumbai..deliberate planned massacres have this cruel meaninglessness to them that rile up the hearts of even the stoics.,” I wrote two years ago right after the serial train blasts. Now another atrocity of similar magnitude has spurred me to write another column. The message remains about the same.

Preface

The article is split in two parts -the first part deals with a narrow question in detail, and the second part deals with a broad question cursorily. The choice of style, and issues, is an artifact of the fact that the article is an extension of a conversation with a friend. Should I have dealt with the issue independently, I might have chosen to focus on different questions.

First part analyzes whether Pakistan can do something to counter the media inflamed passions, while at the same time taking steps towards dealing with some of its own long standing problems. The second part tries to address the reasons behind support for terrorism, and the role of media.

Pakistan’s response

Irfan Husain, one of the most erudite and incisive columnists, writing in Dawn on the latest Mumbai blasts, finds Pakistan government’s denial of access to 20 terror suspects to India on basis of legalese, patently disingenuous.

“While defending Pakistan recently, our foreign minister was quoted as saying that we were a “responsible state”. And when India presented our government with a list of the names of 20 people accused of terrorism against our neighbour, spokesmen immediately demanded to see the proof against them. This legalistic approach would have carried more weight had the Pakistani state shown this kind of respect for the rule of law in the past. But given the frequency with which ordinary Pakistanis are picked up and ‘disappeared’ by organs of the state without any vestige of due process, the claim to responsibility rings a little hollow.

Indeed, a responsible state would hardly allow the likes of Maulana Masood Azhar of the Jaish-i-Mohammad; Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-i-Taiba; and the Indian criminal Dawood Ibrahim to run around loose.”

While Mr. Husain frames the argument for handing over the 20 odd terror suspects rather minimally, focusing on the hypocrisy, and the definition of a ‘responsible state’, a stronger argument can be made on basis of rather minimal costs for such an enterprise, and reasonable benefits to such a move. Here’s a brief analysis of benefits, and costs of such an exercise -

Benefits

The Mumbai terror attacks led to not only the resignation of a left of center Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, and middle of the line Congress Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, but also widespread furor against the Congress government. Handing over suspects will likely strengthen the hands of moderates in India, and perhaps dampen the chances of BJP coming to power in elections next year. This argument is reasonably important given negotiating with sane people is a necessity, though arguably BJP at least for some of its time in power was predisposed to following a sane strategy.
It will be a potent gesture towards extremist organizations (domestic), India, and US. I believe any such handover ought to be accompanied by negotiations with India and US and perhaps getting some guarantees on issues of interest, and it ought to be done in blaze of media glory to burnish Pakistan’s image.
Handing over 20 people to India – even if they aren’t involved in the attacks – is probably the most painless of the gestures that Pakistani government can make to address the media inflamed demands of India and US.

Costs

As Mr. Husain argues, the arguments made about inability of handover aren’t real – not because of legal issues, and not because of stated weakness of Pakistani political establishment. The latter point needs further explication. Pakistani political establishment lacks power due to two reasons – lack of public support for measures which may be seen as blatantly catering to Indian whims, and existence of a powerful military with interests that are different than the political establishment.Politics is often circumscribed by incorrect perception of political costs; Public opinion constituencies can be ‘shaped’ to line up behind cogently argued, and aggressively marketed policy initiatives. It is lack of political entrepreneurship behind good policy – which probably stems from rampant cynicism and preference for ‘safe’ choices – that dooms most policy exercises. There is perhaps even a genuine opportunity for some Pakistani leaders to craft constituencies by taking an appropriately framed response around handover of the 20 people to appeal to vast majority of Pakistanis.The second point would about weakness of political forces vis-à-vis military establishment is powerfully highlighted by Gen. Kayani’s refusal to allow ISI chief to travel to India, in spite of initial assurance by Gilani. However, it is but one instance and ought to be considered in lieu of the following facts – ISI chief is probably directly under the protection of the military, India’s demand for ISI chief was mostly a political maneuver and India would have used the visit for primarily political point scoring. On the issue of handing over suspects, it is quite likely that the PM and president can use the leverage provided by Indian and US pressure, and the media brouhaha, to negotiate some kind of deal.
Even if we assume that handing over all 20 people may be a particularly costly strategy for Pakistani establishment given its weakness, it is always possible to ferret out more than a few of these people by negotiating deals with others. I say this because we know that the interests of even ‘jihadi’ organizations are often contraposed.

While handing over terror suspects is perhaps an optimal strategy to quickly firefight the situation at limited cost, and to likely benefit, other strategies remain – including setting up a joint security force with India, actively cracking down on militant organizations in Pakistan, and increasing transparency through sharing information. While ideally all the measures should be pursued, handover of suspects, in being public, in its incontrovertibility in being a media event with characters, and in its explicitness in providing something tangible and coveted would likely be of the most help in the near term.

Caveat and long-term policy

The above analysis occasionally borders on being a limited cynical strategic model of signaling, with emphasis on lowering costs, and maximizing benefits. Sometimes lost within it is the argument that attacks provide politicians with an opportunity to initiate action that is in line with long-term interests of Pakistan. Strategic signaling should not be the guiding principle of long term policy. For thinking about long term interests, Pakistan will do well to think of what kind of policy it would like to implement if India (Kashmir) wasn’t on the table.

The past

Earlier in the article, Mr. Husain presents an overview of how Pakistani establishment has traditionally handled negotiations with the West over India.

“Years ago, a western diplomat wrote that Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument, long familiar to aid donors, goes something like this: If you don’t give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.”

How much of the assertion is true isn’t particularly analyzed, for few are ready to call the bluff that seems to gain in reality through recitation, than facts. Without discounting the perils to the Pakistani state, it is likely that the overly conservative assessments drawn by analysts aren’t warranted. There exists a political opportunity to create coalition in cities – as was powerfully demonstrated in elections earlier this year – to address trenchant problems – albeit nimbly.

Terror!

The fact that poverty is not a sufficient condition for terrorism is easily surmised. So is the inadequacy of inequality as an explanatory variable. We also know that arms and munitions take organization, access, and funds. The simplest version then of terrorism is the following – cynical political actors exploiting a select few feeling disenchanted. But there is more to the story. Why is there support for terrorism? The answer to that perhaps lies in the fury of the impotent. The fury of the potent (powerful), of course is never called such, and is mostly realized through indifference – be it 3 million Vietnamese dead or half a million plus Iraqi dead. And the fact that life continues to be abstract, and death more abstract still. At the heart of both emotions lies however how people typically engage with politics, especially in face of violence. The motivating force – though editorials may be full of condolences, and streets full of candle light vigils- isn’t concern for fellow people or loss, but seething personal anger amplified over countless discussions with the like minded, and the similarly aroused. It is then that the perceived inequalities, the depravity of the act(s) start to loom much larger, and harsher response seems to look like a necessity.

Given this latent disposition of the public, media plays a critical role, in inflaming passions and extracting unreasonable demands from governments. While the West may be able to afford the toll that a 24/7 scandal obsessed media culture that does 99% of its reporting before less than a percent is known, given the extreme paucity of resources at disposal of third-world governments, they can ill-afford such distractions in policy making agendas. Such media coverage is all the more perilous for India – given the frail and fraying relations between Hindus and Muslims.