Ovchinnikova: Good morning from Yaroslavl.

kkuhns: Good evening everyone. Hello Yaroslavl! As universities enter the forum, please identify yourselves so I know who is here.

Glotov: Good morning from NOSU, Vladikavkaz!

Ukhanova: Dear colleagues, greetings from Petrozavodsk. Weinstein: Hello everyone. I am looking forward to your questions.

Kukharenko: Hello, everyone. Good morning, Yaroslavl, Petrozavodsk. Good evening, Stanford.

kkuhns: So far, university order is Yaroslavl, North Ossetia, Petrozavodsk, Blagoveschensk. We'll start with that in a moment.

Weinstein: Please accept my apologies in advance. I have never done this before, and I may be slow in responding at first with some typos, etc...

Besedin: Good evening (morning) to everybody! Glad to meet you once again.

kkuhns: Let me take this opportunity to introduce Professor Jeremy Weinstein, Political Science Department at Stanford...

Tkacheva: Good morning from Blagoveschensk.

Vlasova: Good morning from Yekaterinburg!

Moiseenko: Hallo from Chelyabinsk!

kkuhns: We are happy to have Professor Weinstein with us for the first time, so let us all remember the rules of the game....

kkuhns: I will call on one university at a time to post one question. Once the question has been answered in full, we will proceed to the next university....

kkuhns: So far, the university order is Yaroslavl, NOSU, Petrozavodsk, Blagoveschensk, and Chelyabinsk....

kkuhns: Let's start with the first question from Yaroslavl.

Ovchinnikova: How can we determine the exact time then situation demands international intervention? How long autonomous recovery can last before this?

Weinstein: This is a difficult question to answer with multiple parts... First, one needs to keep in mind that the arguments I make about the prospects for autonomous recovery depend on a range of fairly specific conditions... Most importantly, I argue that war is something that produces good institutions only when military actors are in a position of needing to finance their activities with the donations of their constituents... But to answer the question of when intervention makes sense is to ask both an empirical question (is it likely to be effective?), but also to raise a normative one (are we most concerned with long-term goals, or stopping bloodshed in the short-run?).

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from North Ossetia.

Glotov: Mr. Weinstein, according to your opinion, will the US military intervention in Iran be productive in case it takes place? Thank you.

Weinstein: I am not an expert on Iran, so I hesitate to make predictions. It is also not entirely clear that the US intends to invade Iran... That being said, the democratic inklings that the Khatami regime represented were some of the best indications of a growing discontent with Islamic rule in the country... Those were not created by external actors, but instead driven, as far as I can tell as a causal observer, by the interests of young Iranians disconnected from the revolutionary fervor of previous decades.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Petrozavodsk.

Ukhanova: Dear professor, what countries are the main powers today and what impact Globalization will have on further distribution of powers?

Weinstein: I think it is beyond dispute that the US is what some call a "hyperpower"... It is unparalled in its economic might, military power, and global reach... That being said, power is exercised generally by the leadership of the G-7/G-8 which includes all major economic powers... The G-8's reach has extended to include issues of political and security significance, beyond its traditional focus on the economy... Will globalization change the membership of the G-7/G-8? It's hard to imagine... But recent debates about UN security council reform suggest that some of the up and coming regional powers, including Brazil and India, will not sit quitely without prominent leadership roles in policy debates in the coming years.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Blagoveschensk.

Parfenova: Respected Professor Weinstein, does the absence of international intervation during autonomous recovery of the state imply absence of international financial support to the country (in accordance with your theory)?

Weinstein: This is a key issue. Thank you for raising it...

Malardyrova: Hello! Yakutsk State University is here.

Weinstein: Central to the idea of autonomous recovery is the belief that good institutions come from a social contract... between rulers and the ruled, which exchanges taxes for a whole set of public goods including security...

kkuhns: Hello Yakutsk. You will be after Ekaterinburg in the order of questions.

Weinstein: One of the real challenges inherent in providing financial assistance to developing country governments... is that aid severs the link between governments and their constituents... indeed, in africa (my area of expertise), some governments receive more than 60% of their annual budgets from outside assistance... this has not been a recipe for greater democracy, representation, or even positive economic reform.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Chelyabinsk.

Moiseenko: SUSU The United Nations now are less similar to the organization, engaged in preservation of the peace on Earth. It has extended up to a huge corporation; affiliated structures do not need its help. The United Nations is too bureaucratic to solve serious internal conflicts, problems. What do you think about that?

Weinstein: I am not convinced that the major constraints on UN effectiveness relate to its internal structures... My concerns about UN effectiveness relate much more to its ability to generate political will for action... It is an institution borne of another era, and the distribution of power in the UN security council reflects this... Given the veto structure on the Security Council, it is difficult for the UN to act quickly and decisively... Its inability to confront genocide in Darfur, Sudan is only the most recent example of this problem... Undoubtedly, its bureaucracy is large and perhaps a bit of a mess... But where the UN has gone with the political support of its key members, it has managed to effect positive change... Observers often point to peace processes in El Salvador, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone as good examples of UN effectiveness.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Ekaterinburg.

Vlasova: Dr. Weinstein, in your opinion, what type of international community actions would be useful to support the processes of internal change required to build stable institutions for the long-term if there are signs that autonomous recovery won’t be successful?

Weinstein: There are two ways that I would encourage you to think about this question... The first is the following: what can the international community do to make autonomous recovery more likely... Here I would argue that we need to make war more costly... In particular, the international community needs to make it more difficult for insurgencies to get off the ground by cutting down on the small arms trade and limiting the flows gained from trade in licit and illicit resources... But the international community also needs to make sovereignty conditional: that is, governments incapable of protecting their populations and delivering public goods should not get the benefits of access to international financial flows, a seat the UN, and so on...

Weinstein: Part of the reason that weak and failed states persist in Africa is that the UN and other international agreements reinforcing sovereignty have made it difficult for credible challengers to unseat them... The second question, though, is the following: if we know that war is not going to produce a good outcome, what should we do?... Here I encourage you to think about the case of Sierra Leone... The international community, in contrast to most missions, went in and defeated the rebel group... Outsiders committed to back the democratic government that was unseated and gave it the resources and strength it needed to reassert control... This is not what we usually see from the UN which tends to have a short time horizon and be averse to shedding blood... It is too early to know whether it will be effective, but the early signs are good.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Yakutsk.

Malardyrova: Prof.Weinstein, what is your attitude to the situation in France? YSU

Weinstein: I assume you are referring to the riots? Is that right? Well I will proceed assuming that is the case...

kkuhns: I think that is what the question referred to.

Malardyrova: Yes we mean riots in Paris.

Weinstein: From what I read in the paper, I believe the car torchings and violence are much more like the urban riots we have experienced in the US than anything related to political Islam... Immigrants to France face enormous obstacles in gaining access to an inflexible labor market with rigid hierarchies... To make it worse, they are corralled into public housing projects on the outskirts of major cities... There is no evidence that imams or other religious leaders encouraged the riots; in fact, they are on record as asking people to remain calm... But I would warn that urban unrest represents an opportunity for fundamentalist forces in France to identify new recruits... The challenge for the French government will be to offer new public services, while at the same time finding ways to better integrate the African immigrants into the French labor market.

kkuhns: Thank you. We'll start another round with Yaroslavl.

Ovchinnikova: In your lecture you given three conditions of autonomous recovery. Are we really could determine if these conditions exist or not in every situation ? Are these conditions universal for every situation or not?

Malardyrova: Thank you!

Weinstein: I believe it is possible to identify these conditions in a set of cases, ex-ante... For example, with the state collapsing in Zaire after the fall of Mobutu and the wealth of exploitable resources in the East... it would have been easy to make a prediction that violence in that context would not have generated (and it did not) the sorts of political movements that might bring about positive change... the key is to identify contexts in which the barriers to organizing violence are high... the reason this matters is because those seeking political change must be put in a position of needing to gain consent for their political movement... this is the key to, and the origins of, good governance... Are the conditions universal? definitely not... As the Zaire example suggests, war will not always lead to autonomous recovery... And as my discussion of Uganda in the lecture suggests... : there may be some problems with autonomous recovery as well, at least concerns that should be taken seriously... it may be that the victors from war experience growing authoritarian tendencies... why this happens is open to debate.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from North Ossetia.

Glotov: Mr. Weinstein, can autonomous recovery be applied to the conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia, and do you believe the UN humanitarian intervention is effective there? Thank you.

Weinstein: Since I am not an expert on the post-Soviet space, I would really need your expertise to answer that question... Secessionist movements have often been forces for positive political change... Indeed, that is the case with the Eritrean movement I describe in the lecture... And the SPLA, in SOuthern Sudan, fought a long war of secession from the North... in which it built fairly extensive government structures in the south... to deliver basic services because the government in Khartoum had been discriminating against the South for too long...

Weinstein: do you have some of your own thoughts about how my arguments apply to the case of South Ossetia?

Glotov: We believe that South Ossetia should be left on its own.

Weinstein: Has the UN intervention impeded the ability of South Ossetia to realize its own effective governance?

Glotov: The UN intervention is not effective in South Ossetia as we see it.

Weinstein: Maybe we should move on to the next question.

Nazarova: Prof.Weinstein, do you agree with the assumption that democratic regime could be installed in a country where is no sufficient conditions for it? If yes, in what way? What organizations or may be countries could do the democracy building process?

kkuhns: Yes, let's move on. Next question from Petrozavodsk.

Ukhanova: How do you estimate the growing role of China? Will the USA deter China and whether it is possible to say about coming new bipolar world?

Weinstein: Let me take the first question about democratic regimes... You wouldn't be surprised that I am skeptical of the ability of outsiders to create democracy... Indeed, Africa has experienced a democratic renaissance in the 1990s, largely because outside donors have pushed for it... Yet the renaissance has been shallow at best.... As political leaders have found manifold ways to manipulate the democratic system in their favor...One needs the conditions to be right... outsiders can help on the margin, but they can't drive change....

Weinstein: On China, it will be a really long time before China rivals in military power the United States... But I think the fact that the Bush administration is following an engagement approach similar to that of Clinton is a good step... China and the US are becoming strategic partners, as one sees in regard to North Korea... And with China tied to the economic fortunes of the globalizing economy, both countries have a stake in stability.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Blagoveschensk.

Tkacheva: Honorable Professor Weinstein,taking the conflict in Sudan, will the UN intervention lead to any effective results?

Weinstein: Let's be clear... At this point, there is no UN intervention... The African Union has an observer mission on the ground...without the mandate or the force numbers to effectively carry out its mission of civilian protection... International intervention, in a robust way (UN or NATO)... might be enough to stop the Sudanese government from carrying out these atrocities... But without serious pressure on the government in Khartoum, I don't see positive change for the long-term... it took the SPLA in southern Sudan nearly twenty years of war with the Arab North to get secession... Darfurians, and a whole host of other groups for that matter, don't want to be ruled by Khartoum anymore either. The UN isn't ready to deal with this big big issue.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Chelyabinsk.

Moiseenko: How do you consider, whether politics and moral can co-exist together? Can a policy be a moral one? Can you give any example from history? Thanks.

Weinstein: Let me slightly reframe your question... I think what you are really asking is whether..moral considerations can dominate in the decisions made by policymakers over strategic ones... progress that has been made on the genocide convention since WWII... and changes in the notion of sovereignty and the responsibility to protect... are evidence, i think, that moral considerations are coming to play a role in foreign policy making... but one of my goals in this lecture was to complicate the idea that if we act for moral reasons, that is likely to produce good outcomes... sometimes it will. sometimes it will not.

kkuhns: Thank you. Next question from Ekaterinburg.

Vlasova: Dr. Weinstein, what might be the role of humanitarian aid organizations in terms of the theory of autonomous recovery? Thanks.

Weinstein: Let's be clear by what we mean about humanitarian aid... If you mean organizations that act to protect the welfare and interests of the population, this raises a host of complexities... Indeed, humanitarian organziations are often motivated by the most wonderful of purposes... things such as providing clean water, offering people shelter, feeding them, and so on... the problem is that, when outsiders do this stuff, governments are off the hook to get it done... think about Zimbabwe, where the international community has been feeding starving people while Robert Mugabe sends his wife shopping in Paris...I think there is a place for humanitarianism... It can make an important difference, but it also has the potential to undermine the conditions needed for people to hold their governments accountable.

kkuhns: Thank you. Last question from Yakutsk.

Malardyrova: According to intervention policy, US - Iraq relations and Russia - Chechnya are identic?

Weinstein: I am not exactly sure what you mean by the phrase "intervention policy"... But if you mean the theory of autonomous recovery, the two cases are entirely different...More comprable, is the Kurdish struggle against Sadamm and the Chechnya struggle for secession... The question from my perspective would be: in both cases, are we getting resistance movements that have gone and obtained the consent of their constituencies... I know in the Kurdish case this was true... The Kurds ruled the northern part of IRaq on their own in the late stages of the Sadam regime... But what has happened subsequently, with the US intervention... has fundamentally thrown into disarray a process of secession that was working for the Kurds... in short, and something for you to think about... is that the international community should be willing to recognize good governance where and when it exists.. no matter whether it is provided by states or insurgent groups... and when it doesn't exist, as it does not throughout much of Africa... the benefits that flow from sovereignty should be curtailed. Thanks for your questions

kkuhns: Please join me in thanking Prof. Weinstein for his participation.

kkuhns: And thanks to all of you for great questions.

Besedin: Thank you Professor Weinstein for your taking part in this chat

Kiselev: Thank you for the chat.

Glotov: Professor Weinstein, thank you very much, and thanks to everybody for the interesting discussion! Good luck!

Parfenova: Thank you very much for informative discussion. Blagoveschensk is signing off.

Moiseenko: Thank you Prof. Weinstein for sharing you evening with as.

Nazarova: Thank you for your answers Prof. Weinstein it was very useful.Bye.

kkuhns: Professor Weinstein, thank you very much for taking time from your evening to "chat" with our students. We all appreciate it.

Vlasova: Thank you Dr. Weinstein for your time and interesting answers.

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