anthony giddens, daniel kimmage and kathleen ridolfo - global newsstand essays, arguments, and...

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Global Newsstand: Essays, Arguments, and Opinions from around the WorldAuthor(s): Anthony Giddens, Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen RidolfoSource: Foreign Policy, No. 163 (Nov. - Dec., 2007), pp. 86-88, 90Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25462236 .Accessed: 02/07/2014 05:41

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NE1:WS STbAN D [ ESSAYS, ARG U M ENTS, AN D OP I N I O N S FRO M ARO U N D TH E WO R LD ]

Doubting Diversity's Value By Anthony Giddens

D Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 2007

F rom Paris, France, to Paris, Texas, almost all Western countries are becoming

more ethnically diverse. The main reason is rising levels of immigra tion. The flow of people across borders can stimulate innovation, dynamism, and creativity, as well as help reduce the social and econom ic effects of declining birthrates. But does growing heterogeneity pose a threat to overall social solidarity? According to leading Harvard polit ical scientist Robert Putnam, the answer may very well be yes.

In an article titled "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century," pub lished in the June 2007 issue of Scandinavian Political Studies, Putnam elaborates on his celebrated work on social capital-defined most simply as social networks upon which people depend. He analyzes material from a large, nationwide

Anthony Giddens was director from 1997 to 2003 at the London School of Eco

nomics and Political Science, where he is

currently professor emeritus of sociology. He is also life fellow at King's College at the

University of Cambridge and a member

of Britain's House of Lords.

study of ethnic diversity carried out in the United States in 2000. Putnam finds that trust in others is high and social capital correspondingly well-developed in homogeneous communities, such as largely white suburbs. Both are low in more diverse neighborhoods, such as ethnically mixed inner-city areas.

Such a correlation is probably to be expected. After all, we feel most at home with people who are like ourselves. However, Putnam also finds something he didn't anticipate: In more diverse com munities, Americans distrust not only people who aren't like them but also people who are. Diversity seems to encourage social isola tion, not enrichment. In diverse neighborhoods, all citizens display lower levels of confidence in local government and media; are less likely to be involved in local vol untary groups; are less likely to vote; and have lower levels of expressed happiness.

Can these results be explained by factors other than diversity? For example, diverse communities might have higher crime rates, be larger, or experience more poverty than less mixed ones. However, Putnam shows that these factors do not account for his results. Greater diversity goes hand-in-hand

with reduced trust in neighbors in poor, crime-ridden areas, just as much as in rich, relatively crime-free areas. It is ethnic difference, as such, that reduces trust and social capital. Putnam's conclusion, pithily put, is that "[m]any Americans today are uncomfortable with diversity."

For social liberals, of whom Putnam is one, this finding is itself distinctly uncomfortable. Perhaps multiculturalism just will not work? Putnam rejects such a pes simistic conclusion. The negative effects of diversity can be over come by a mixture of positive social change and enlightened public policy. He provides a num ber of encouraging examples. For instance, a generation ago the U.S.

Army was divided along racial lines, but today it has become a "relatively color-blind institution." American soldiers today on aver age have many more interracial friendships than Americans as a whole. The same is true with cer tain religious institutions, particu larly evangelical megachurches,

which are much more racially diverse than in the past.

Until now, the aim of social policy has nearly always been to reduce the segregation between ethnic groups, concentrating mainly upon racial minorities. Putnam's

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Alone in a crowd: Research suggests that the more diverse a community, the less happy and trusting it will be.

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research, however, strongly implies that getting all groups to identify with a community is most impor tant-that is, trying to foster an overall sense of pride and involve ment with an institution or neigh borhood. Pride in the military and identification with its goals almost certainly was a prime factor that explains the changes in the army.

How far do Putnam's findings apply elsewhere-for example, in Europe? We do not know for cer tain, because the detailed materials Putnam was able to analyze for the United States do not exist even for individual European societies, let alone across national borders. Yet there is a lively debate about the tensions between diversity and the welfare state that certainly

makes Putnam's work relevant for Europe, too.

Three years ago, David Good hart, the editor of the British mag azine Prospect, caused a storm in a number of European countries when he argued that increasing immigration could undermine the

welfare state. The welfare state is based upon sharing; yet sharing is in conflict with diversity because people feel stronger obligations to others when they are like them selves. Goodhart argued that the very reason the United States has a minimal welfare state is its diversity, which is much more long-standing than in Europe. He claimed that multiculturalism and the European welfare state are intrinsically at odds. Putnam's work is much more

rigorous than that of Goodhart, but it does provide some backing for it. If diversity does compromise solidarity, it is a fact that should be brought out in the open, not dis missed for ideological reasons. It might make multicultural ideals more difficult to realize, but, as Put nam shows, it is not a reason to abandon them. The strong impli cation, paradoxical though it might sound, is that multiculturalism will only work in countries that can, at the same time, foster a strong sense of national identity.

At the moment, I am not wholly convinced by the arguments of either author. Putnam says diver sity weakens social capital within a community, but what, actually, constitutes a community in today's

NOVEMBER I DECEMBER 2007 87


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society? In an era of electronic networking, it cannot necessarily be identified with a physical neigh borhood. Moreover, he does not really explain how it is that diver sity undermines the social capital of all groups living in a certain area. Goodhart's thesis seems questionable at best. Sweden, for instance, is a country that has experienced a good deal of recent

immigration-about 13 percent of its population is foreign-born. Yet it has sustained its generous and effective welfare system, albeit with many stresses and strains.

I would certainly like to see Putnam's work taken further, and I imagine he will do so. It is based

mainly on statistical correlation rather than studies of actual local neighborhoods. As he recognizes, it

has no time dimension. The next step should be to look at specific areas as they change over time. This is work that would profit from hav ing a comparative dimension. If such work were replicated in Europe, it would shed light both upon Putnam's claims and the question of whether the European welfare state can serve the many as well as the few. Ik

Iraq's Networked Insurgents By Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo

W hen U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus briefed Congress on

the status of the troop increase in Iraq, he commented on an often overlooked front in the struggle against Iraqi insurgents: the Inter net. Petraeus told Congress that the United States needs to "contest the enemy's growing use of that impor tant medium to spread extremism." The general's admission that "this war is not only being fought on the ground in Iraq but also in cyber space" drew a quick response from the Islamic State of Iraq, the latest incarnation of al Qaeda in Iraq. A September 13 statement posted to a jihadist Web site by the group boasted that the United States is try ing to shut down insurgent Web sites because "media is an effective weapon that can crush thrones and destroy armies."

Iraqi insurgents have been marshaling the media to "destroy armies" since they began their

Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo are regional analysts at Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty. They are authors

of a recent report titled, Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas.

armed campaign in 2003. Their media campaign uses the Internet to target educated, influential segments of the Arab population, and they can reach an audience of millions when the mainstream media pick up their diatribes or news bulletins. Unencumbered by a centralized bureaucracy or a brick-and-mortar infrastructure, the Sunni insurgent

media network is lean, mean, and fast-moving. In recent months, al Qaeda-affiliated organizations, each with its own "media brigade," have appeared in Algeria, Morocco, and Lebanon. The insurgency's ini tial message of uncompromising opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq has mutated over the years,

with anti-Shiite sectarian hate speech now abundant, and a very public rift between nationalist and jihadist groups roiling the sites. But Sunni insurgents remain united in using the messages they create not to inform but to spin, shape, and shift opinion-in short, to wage a war of images and ideas.

Indeed, there is nothing impar tial about Iraqi insurgent media; their primary goals are to recruit foreign fighters, raise money, incite violence, and foment religious

hatred. Insurgent Web sites-both nationalist and jihadist-publish daily press releases and operational statements recording alleged attacks against coalition and Iraqi govern ment forces. They also distribute books, magazines, and biographies of jihadist martyrs. Their video con tent is particularly potent. Visitors can download short clips of suicide bombings, as well as longer, fea ture-length Arabic-language films full of Islamist rhetoric, many of them subtitled in English, German, Kurdish, Turkish, and Urdu. One recent clip posted to the Islamic Fluga (Fallujah) Forums showed the destruction of a $3.2-million U.S. armored vehicle with a bomb that supposedly cost only $32, implying that insurgents can get a $100,000 return in damage for each dollar they invest in destruction in a matter of seconds.

The breadth of insurgent media is startling, with thousands of state

ments appearing on dozens of forums and other Web sites. Our research on two forums used by insurgent groups operating in Iraq-the World News Network and Mohajroon-showed that in

March 2007 alone, insurgents

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:[ Global Newsstand ]

issued roughly 1,000 press releases documenting operations and com menting on politics. Many of these are cut-and-paste claims from other sites about unverifiable assaults on "crusaders" and "apostates," but the total adds up to more than 30 unique statements a day.

The content of insurgent media doesn't rest solely on simplified rhetoric of martyrdom and accounts of victories over the "Great Satan" within Iraq's bor ders. Iraqi insurgent media also demonstrate an acute awareness of policy discussions and political battles in the United States and Europe. Since the "surge" began in February, insurgents have regular ly quoted and commented on bat tles between the White House and the U.S. Congress over Iraq policy, often in real time. Forums also allow supporters to weigh in and give their assessments of the ongoing

insurgent campaign against the United States and its allies.

One example of how closely insurgent media follow U.S. politics came in a July statement from the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), a promi nent nationalist group that has tan gled publicly with al Qaeda in Iraq. As usual, the statement appeared both on the group's Web site and on a host of sympathetic forums. It made a bold prediction about the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presi dential elections simply by using the feminine form of the Arabic

word-ra'isah instead of ra'is-for "president." Noting that the "U.S. Congress holds marathon meetings in which partisan interests take precedence over the American national interest, which is an exit from the Iraq quagmire," the IAI concluded, "What all of this means is that the Americans, and espe cially the neoconservatives, will

pass the crisis on to the next [female] president and the Demo cratic majority [in Congress], which is timidly crawling toward a solution...."

Bread-and-butter issues lie closer to home, however, and insurgents' real interest in U.S. pol itics is what it means for Iraq. Their commentary on the Petraeus report claimed that it supported the insurgent view that the Iraqi government is near collapse, coali tion forces are on the verge of

withdrawing, and victory for the insurgency is near. And although the al Qaeda jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq acknowledged in their September 13 statement recent U.S. attempts to shut down insurgent Web sites and arrest operators of jihadist forums, they also praised contributors to insur gent sites and forums, telling them they were a tool to aggravate the enemies of God and support Islam. They advised these contributors to be patient, fearless, and stead fast in their work, saying: "Your media is an instigation for the monotheists and an announcement to join the fight."

For the United States, address ing insurgent media is vitally important. But it's not an easy task. For every site that is pulled down, another pops up, often carrying archived content from the preced ing site. Moreover, insurgents are adept at finding new and provoca tive ways to spread their message, from free upload-download sites to compressed film files for mobile phones. For groups that firmly believe that "media is half the bat tle," as one insurgent statement put it, the Internet is a lifeline to hearts and minds. They will surely con tinue to fight for their foothold in the virtual world, just as surely as they fight with bombs and bullets in the real one. Cl

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Article Contentsp. 86p. 87p. 88p. 90

Issue Table of ContentsForeign Policy, No. 163 (Nov. - Dec., 2007), pp. 1-16, 1-8, 17-96Front MatterBad Habits [pp. 1-1]LettersTo Legalize, or Not to Legalize? [pp. 4, 6, 8]The Promise of American Intelligence [pp. 8, 10, 12-14]Engaging the Brotherhood [pp. 14-16, 18-19]

In Box [pp. 20-22]Think AgainOil [pp. 24-26, 28, 30]

Prime NumbersA Matter of Life or Meth [pp. 32-33]

EssaysHow Slim Got Huge [pp. 34-42]The War We Deserve [pp. 44-50]The World's Biggest Myth [pp. 52-55]

Globalization at WorkIt's a Hip-Hop World [pp. 58-65]

The FP IndexThe Globalization Index [pp. 68-76]

In Other Words: Reviews of the World's Most Noteworthy BooksItaly's Untouchable Caste [pp. 78-79, 81]Africa Trades Down [pp. 81-82, 84]

Global Newsstand: Essays, Arguments, and Opinions from around the World [pp. 86-88, 90]Net Effect: How Technology Shapes the World [pp. 92-93]Missing Links: The Battle of Beijing [pp. 95-96]Back Matter

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