Aug 16, 2013 | Current Events, Foreign Affairs, International, National
Post developed by Katie Brown in coordination with Darrell Donakowski
Yesterday, The Washington Post released an internal report from the National Security Agency (NSA) revealing the agency broke its own privacy rules thousands of times per year since 2008. The source? Edward Snowden, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and analyst at NSA contractor Booz Allen. The Post release is the latest chapter in the story of Snowden and government trust.
Photo credit: Thinkstock
In June and July of this year, UK’s The Guardian published a series of news articles revealing surveillance by NSA. The US charged Snowden with espionage and revoked his passport. On the lamb, Snowden flew to Hong Kong from Hawai’i. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange worked to broker asylum for Snowden in Iceland to no avail. Snowden moved onto Russia, residing in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for over a month. On August 1, Russia granted Snowden a one-year asylum. Snowden has an additional 20 applications out for asylum.
Snowden’s asylum prospects complicate US international relations. Obama canceled a summit with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Senator Lindsey Graham (R) called for a boycott of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, a plan rejected by Speaker of the House John Boehner. On July 2, Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was denied entry to several European nations’ airspace and airports amid rumors Snowden was on board, stressing European and US relations with several Latin American countries (Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua granted Snowden’s request for asylum).
In the wake of the story, questions turned into a debate in the media as to how to understand Snowden. Leaker? Traitor? Punk? The American public appears to see Snowden as a whistleblower. Further, the media linked the immediate fallout – plus the IRS scandal and Benghazi trials – with an 8 point drop in Obama’s approval rating. Hovering around 44%, Gallup shows Obama’s recent ratings below the presidential average of 54%.
But what about trust in the government in particular? The American National Election Studies offers a glimpse of trust in government across time. Asked how much of the time the government does what is right, respondents could choose between three answers: “just about always,” “most of the time,” and “some of the time,” with some respondents volunteering “none of the time.” The graph below displays the spread across time and across answers.
How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?
While this graph does not correspond to the Snowden event, it contextualizes the attributed decrease in trust across time. That is, the decrease in trust attributed to the leak would correspond to a generally decreasing trend.
Last week, Obama announced an overhaul of NSA surveillance. Though Obama refuses to acknowledge Snowden as a catalyst for the changes, Assange claims the move vindicates Snowden. The move suggests a push for transparency and restored trust in the government.
Aug 7, 2013 | Conflict, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, International
Post developed by Katie Brown in coordination with Christian Davenport
Photo credit: Thinkstock
On August 5, 2013, a Turkish court convicted 275 people, including ex-military officers, of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Though the court case took five years, the verdict comes at a tenuous moment in Turkish politics, deepening the divide between Ergodan and critics.
This summer, protests erupted across Turkey. Initially a movement against the planned development of Taksim Gezi Park, a rare patch of green in the city of 13.5 million, the uproar spread as general government dissent. A small fraction of the protestors resorted to violence. The government cracked down with force in response. Erdogan initially presented a mixed message, alternating between ultimatums, violence, and agreeing to meet with protestors. By the end of June, his message and tactics showed more force. More than 5,000 were injured and 4 killed. Doctors tending to the wounded were arrested, a fact verified by Erdogan. The government also worked to block social media, blamed for spreading the word. And Ergodan lashed out against international media, claiming false representation.
The violence is noteworthy in a country with an emerging democracy with dreams of ascension into the European Union. But is the violence really a surprise?
Research on violent dissent by Center for Political Studies researcher Christian Davenport sheds light on the current situation in Turkey, through his work on the power of democracy to ease repression. A central thesis of the work asserts the calming power decreases in the face of violent dissent. Using a cumulative index created by Polity, Davenport published an article with David Armstrong. The authors find that lower levels of democracy, unlike higher levels of democracy, have no calming influence on violent repression.
A graph from Polity shows the trend over time, illustrating that Turkey is not just a weak democracy, but emerging in many senses. Davenport’s work helps us understand that the violent reaction in response to anti-government protests is not surprising given Turkey’s relatively weak democracy. Turkey’s democracy is weak enough that it cannot pacify repression of this sort.
The EU passed a resolution in response to the violent repression. Erdogan fired back that the EU should, “know [its] place!” The repression was not quelled by Turkey’s weak democracy, nor it seems the EU, both of which are challenged by the violence.
Interestingly, the protests in Turkey are credited with inspiring anti-government protests in Brazil. And while initial protests in Brazil were met with tear gas and rubber bullets, the number of injuries rests near 100. Prime Minister Dilma Rousseff even supported the right to protest, while expressing interest in listening: “These voices need to be heard, my government is listening to these voices for change.” Yet the protests continue and are forecasted to continue up to the 2014 World Cup, hosted in Brazil and a source of dissent.
Jul 29, 2013 | Current Events, National
Post developed by Katie Brown in coordination with Michael Traugott and Ashley Jardina.
On February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman fatally shot unarmed African American teenager Trayvon Martin in a Florida gated community. Several weeks later, amid media hysteria and public outcry, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second degree murder.
On July 13, 2013, a jury of six women found Zimmerman not guilty of murder or manslaughter.
Polls after the verdict show that while blacks generally disagree with the verdict, whites tend to support the ruling. A few days after the verdict, President Obama gave a twenty minute press conference. In his address, he said that, “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
Obama’s comments also speak to suspicion he has faced as a black male in the United States. Has race figured into evaluations of Obama? In particular, how does race figure into beliefs that Obama was not born in the United States, a.k.a., the Birther movement?
Center for Political Studies (CPS) researcher and Professor of Communication Mike Traugott, along with Political Science graduate student Ashley Jardina, conducted a study on Birtherism and its antecedents. Since Obama’s first White House campaign, speculation about his citizenship and origin has made headlines. Belief to the contrary has decreased only slightly, even though Obama’s birth certificate has been released twice: the short form in 2008 and the long form in 2011. The figure below presents the results of 17 different surveys to show this trend over time.
Traugott and Jardina administered a web survey with a stratified sample to include 300 white, black, and Latino Americans. The survey asked, “Was Barack Obama definitely born in the United States, probably born in the United States, probably born in another country, or definitely born in another country?” Comparing the results between white and black shows that whites are more likely than blacks to doubt Obama’s American origins. The graph below displays the answers by participant race.
The survey also suggests that a belief Obama was born outside the United States is also related to lower levels of political knowledge and education, and higher frequencies of forwarding political emails.
In his statements after the Zimmerman verdict, Obama called on the nation to do some soul searching on race. His statement that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago” reverberates to today, when belief that he is American remains in question to some, more so among whites than blacks.
