Politics

Reservations don’t affect bureaucratic performance

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Bhavnani and Lee have a counterintuitive insight.

the performance of bureaucrats hired through affirmative action is similar to those who were not, is striking within the context of the polemical debate on affirmative action, in which strong claims are often made for the positive or negative effects of affirmative action. We find that reservations have neither led to hiring of officers unable to perform their jobs or led to a dramatic change in institutional output, at least for one important government program.

They use the provisioning of MGNREGA at the district level as a proxy for bureaucratic performance. Their major finding is that MGNREGA provisioning does not worsen in districts where the IAS officer is a beneficiary of reservation.

Two possibilities arise if this result is reflective of the reality. One, UPSC exam performance does not reflect aptitude for governance. Or two, getting into the IAS is so competitive that despite reservations, efficiency of those with lower ranks is not compromised.

 

Cute Cats Are Good for Online Activism

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Ever wondered how social media has helped activism in your country? Ethan Zuckerman, an American scholar and activist, coined the “Cute Cat Theory“. This helps make sense of why online movements succeed, especially once they are banished from the web by unhappy governments.

According to this theory, social media is the best stage for activists to rally the masses for a political cause – exactly because the people who visit these websites are there to browse mindless content and not to rage against the system. Digital activists can use these platforms to have easy access to generate mass awareness, and also not be targeted by the government for posting unwelcome content.

And so, although a majority of us who visit Facebook do so to stay connected with our friends or to browse cute cat videos, digital activism is likely to get more traction on these platforms than anywhere else on the web.

Story time!

In the early 2000s, dissatisfaction in Tunisia against its President (Ben Ali) had escalated to a boiling point. Various activist groups started chronicling the shortcomings of the Ali government online. This was also a way of rebelling against the highly authoritarian Tunisian government, which would often censor the internet and online speech. In 2009, when certain dissidents called “Astrubal” posted a video concerning the President on Dailymotion, the government took down the site almost immediately. As knee-jerk reactions go, this is classic – the Tunisian government responded defensively to an action as soon as it could so that any hint of dissent is curbed.

However, this plan backfired because of – you guessed it – the Cute Cat Theory.

Although Astrubal’s footage had received only a few thousand views before the site went under, the abrupt, arbitrary unavailability of Dailymotion to the other millions of residents of Tunisia only ended up creating more publicity for this footage and ultimately, sufficient traction to end Tunisia’s regime under Ali.

The Cute Cat Theory shows that it is actually detrimental for a government to ban entire websites to curb dissent – especially social media. What’s better, because of this entire Dailymotion ban debacle, the number of people protesting against the Ben Ali regime on the streets shot up rapidly. If anything, the attempt to shut the digital vigilantes up ended up backfiring badly for the government.

India’s China Reset ≠ China’s India Reset

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Global Times carried an op-ed on 12th April applauding India’s reported China Reset policy.

With regard to their ties in the past three years, many Indian media outlets and scholars believe New Delhi has gone astray with its China policy. Following a misjudgment of China’s development and the international landscape, the Indian government chose to confront China and consequently damaged India’s own development.

In typical Global Times style, the op-ed didn’t miss a chance to take a dig at India:

The rise of China actually constitutes an opportunity for India instead of posing a threat. China’s GDP is nearly five times that of India, so the two are at different levels of economic development. New Delhi can hardly expect to exert powerful leverage against China. The primary priority for India is mulling over how to take a ride on China’s development and realize its dream of national rejuvenation.

The bluster aside, what should be clear to us is that a China Reset in New Delhi does not imply an India Reset in Beijing. In fact, China’s recent foreign policy conduct shows that the reverse is likely to be true. With every Indian acquiescence to China’s aggression, China will escalate provocations.

Ask Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, if you are still in doubt.