Back to Clive Crook's blog homepage
Military intervention to promote development
November 18, 2008
Paul Collier’s well-received book, “The Bottom Billion“, advocated military intervention alongside economic aid to improve security and economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries. Iraq notwithstanding, the idea has caught on in official development circles–rhetorically, at any rate. In this review essay, Bill Easterly is unimpressed. By the time his tanks have rolled through, not much of Collier’s thesis is left standing. Bill’s article is recommended reading not just as an attack on Collier but as a warning about the social-science method as applied to development more generally.
In fairness to Collier, it is very difficult to demonstrate causal effects with the kind of data we have available to us on civil wars and failing states. As Collier writes, “our model cannot be used for prediction.” In the research papers on which his book is based, Collier does give abundant caveats that show he understands the limits of correlations for inferring that actions cause outcomes. But the caveats are not as apparent in the book, and Collier does not explain to the reader just why he recommends precise actions so confidently on the basis of mere correlations.
Of course, governments take many actions even when social scientists are unable to establish that such actions will cause certain desirable outcomes. Presumably they use some kind of political judgment that is not based on statistical analysis. What is unusual about Collier’s book is that he seems to offer statistical analysis as a replacement for political judgment, or perhaps unintentionally gives scholarly cover for actions that governments want to take anyway. The press shows a certain reverence for social science work with statistics that can make this cover quite effective. The paradox is that many social scientists familiar with this kind of analysis do not share the press’s reverence.
Next topic please, CC.
Posted by: J.J. | November 19th, 2008 at 2:33 pm | Report this commentIt’s a brainless idea from the start.
There has been a lot of related nonsense in recent years.
I’ve actually seen columns by Americans assuming America generally intervenes on the side of justice or the needs of the powerless.
It is a comic-book idea. The record is, of course, just the opposite.
There have been at least three genuine genocides since the Holocaust. In all cases, the U.S. either directly contributed to the horror or ignored it deliberately.
In Indonesia after Sukarno - 500,000 with their throats cut and bodies dumped into rivers - the U.S. actually had State Dept officials on phones contributing names for the horror, because it was communists and suspected communists being slaughtered.
In Cambodia - a million or so slaughtered - the U.S. did nothing to stop the horror, actually blubbering stuff at the time about the “domino theory” and “see, I told ya so.”
Of course, it was America’s secret bombing and incursions that de-stabilized Cambodia and caused it to fall into chaos.
In Rwanda - 800,000 slaughtered - the U.S. deliberately turned its back and wouldn’t even listen to those trying to do something (and that was Clinton).
No, great powers, the only ones capable of serious interventions, do not intervene for any humane purpose. Their power is used for their own narrow interests.
I do not see this changing any time soon.
The intellectual garbage about intervention for development likely has roots in America’s propaganda around the original Afghanistan invasion.
Soccer moms in the U.S. were fed stuff about women’s rights there. It was a delberate propaganda ploy, and it worked because the best propaganda is based in some truth.
But the U.S. only truly went into Afghanistan for vengeance and bravado. It wanted Al Qaeda and the Taleban killed in huge numbers to show the world you don’t mess with us. Anything else it has done or tried to do is ancillary at best to its main purpose.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | November 19th, 2008 at 5:10 pm | Report this commentCould someone please provide an English translation of the above-quoted passage from Easterly’s review? Other than that, I generally agree with John Chuckman in opposing military intervention, but there are always exceptions.
I can think of two - the Burmese junta and Robert Mugabe. And, John, let’s not forget how the Pol Pot regime was overthrown. It was not through a UN vote.
Posted by: algasema | November 20th, 2008 at 1:17 am | Report this comment