History matters

By Kelsey Bischot

Spending six weeks in a hut in the mountains of rural Thailand, I left feeling quite pessimistic about the state of the country and its institutions. I can’t help but wonder what countries like Thailand would have been like if it had been colonized like all of its neighbors. Likewise, it is hard to imagine what the world would be like today if there had been no colonization.

History matters and it is important to be critical of our history such as colonialism, which I will show is not the only path for past institutional change. Ferguson claims that the British disseminated many features in their colonies such as: the English language, the common law, and the idea of liberty. This is exactly what Thailand seems to be missing in its institutions so it would be easy to say that it would have gained these features, had it been colonized. Yet, we must look at history and institutions critically. Yes, it would be more likely that the living standards would be higher but it is important to realize that Thailand could have or will “naturally” gain these features without the British’s bloody path to modernity. Japan for one, is known to have high living standards like many Western nations although it escaped formal colonization.

This is where I disagree with Ferguson. Colonization is not the most successful way to create the above-mentioned features in an institution. As it may seem that many of the British Empire’s colonies have the characteristics of a “democratic or successful nation,” the empire built these institutions on oppression and exploitation.

Hence, it is important to understand history but it is likewise crucial to be critical of history’s effects. 

Women's right to vote in Saudi Arabia

By Josh Treacher

The recent policy change in Saudi Arabia, allowing women to vote and run in municipal elections, has been easily compared to women's suffrage across the rest of the world. However, these rights have been rightfully won by women today due to reasons completely unique to the cultural, religious and technological conditions of Saudi Arabia that have developed through history. The only similarity in fact that can be clearly drawn, is that women had to campaign at great lengths to win this right.

According to Sven Steinmo, historical institutionalists focus on how institutions affect political action based on their historical context. In the case of Saudi Arabia, which has been a strongly Muslim country since the 7th century, conservative interpretations of the Qur'an have led to a patriarchal culture of 'protecting' women. It could be argued that religion in the context of Saudi Arabia has played a very strong role in delaying women's right to vote, as both the government and the monarchy continue to intertwine traditional religious values with both formal (political rights) and informal institutions (e.g. cultural allowances). 

Social media as a tool for communicating the realities of Saudi women to the rest of the world alongside pressure for societal change- brought about by the recent Arab Spring- may also have strongly influenced the decision to allow women to vote. And as the monarchy's opinion of Saudi affairs heavily influences government policy, the fact that women's suffrage has only been supported by the monarchy in the last few years adds weight to the list of institutional changes that have influenced this recent political action.

This change could simply be a result of a sociological institutionalist's perspective- being that the decision to allow women to enter the political stage may have simply been a perception that Saudi women are satisficers- acting habitually rather than to maximize self-interest. However whether this is an appropriate response to outcries for social change or not will be proven by how far Saudi women will continue to demand it now that they finally have the traditional, political means to do so.

Colonialism

By Geerte Verduijn

In 1911, Agnes Ferguson decided to leave her life in Scotland and headed to the United States of America. Dating back over a million years, migration is no new phenomenon. Yet media reports of citizen’s animosity against migrants intensify in frequency. With David Cameron referring to ‘a swarm’ of refugees, and foreign secretary Philip Hammond predicting ‘a threat to the EU’s standard of living and social structure,’ explicit opinions now have reached the United Kingdom’s government. When expressing such worries however, there are several things the British might want to take into account. 

First of all, the country’s fairly recent past. It is interesting to see how easily is spoken in generalized terms – ‘the swarm’, ‘Africans’ - when addressing great groups of migrants, as if all that is foreign is homogenous. Meanwhile, when referring to ‘our country’, the outspoken Britain’s seem to conveniently forget ‘’their’’ ancestors who massively migrated to the furthest corners of the world. Those journeys moreover showed that migration is not a priori negative. It has even been argued that the presence of refugees can supply a country with labor and stimulate economic growth. Is the British standard of living really as threatened as its people fear?

On the other hand, even comparing current affairs with past migrations of the British would not suffice. While Ms. Ferguson was ‘enticed by alluring pictures of the Canadian prairies,’ and economic migration is still happening, the motives of many refugees anno 2015 have exceeded such luxuries. People are fleeing from ‘apocalyptic’ civil wars, willing to risk their lives trying to reach safer ground.

How long does it take before people get used to a certain standard of living? Before having Maslow’s first needs fulfilled and owning the most powerful passport in the world starts to weaken their empathy for the less-lucky or unknown? Perhaps the British should reconsider the treasured but ‘threatened’ social and institutional structures that allow them to make such impassive statements when human lives are at stake.