SOUNDING BOARD is an outlet for opinions on good and crazy things going on at home (wherever I may be). All are welcome. You are not expected to bring anything except your common sense & sense of humor.
'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
-Robert X. Cringely (from geek wisdom)
SOUNDING BOARD
Thursday, April 24, 2003
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When international diplomacy worsens domestic politics: Arroyo's humanitarian and peacekeeping mission to Iraq
Here she goes again, making decisions with poor political and economic sense.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday said her decision to send humanitarian and peacekeeping forces to Iraq was about goodwill, not money, as the government would shoulder the initial expenses of the country's 500-man humanitarian mission. In her own words, "Let's not frontload the issue of money as if this were a market sale. This is about international goodwill and democracy'' (INQ7.net 23 April 2004).
So if government spends for the mission, it ceases to be a monetary issue? All the while I thought her economics is better than her politics. When people complain that money and effort should rather be spent to domestic problems such as the situation in Mindanao, that's about money. To talk in the language of economics, that's opportunity cost, loosely defined as what is given up when one decision is made over another, or in monetary terms, the benefit that the resources could have yielded if used elsewhere.
Decisions on competing uses of resources are always entangled with political issues. Arroyo would rather spend the resources to the Iraq mission than anywhere else. It wasn't enough for her that US commended her country's all out support for going to war against Iraq even without UN backing. It is as if she wants to overwhelm US with her support.
Robert Putnam, in his 1988 article 'Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games' (International Organization, 42[3], 1988: 427-460), discussed how national political leaders must come to terms with domestic and international stakeholders. While it is clear that domestic politics and international relations are often entangled, it is generally pointless to debate whether domestic politics determine international relations or the other way around. In Arroyo's case, however, it is crystal clear that her international diplomacy (or diplomatic relations with US, to be exact) is taking its toll on domestic politics.
So don't blame the President's detractors if they want to impeach her even if it's almost 2004. A colleague of mine once said, 'We get the leaders we deserve.' Maybe he's right - if, and only if, we do nothing about it.
posted by Allan at 11:28 AM (GMT+8)
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