Political Theory-Migratory Policy: States Social Identity and how they Establish their Political Interests. Fixed

As we have seen on previus post Corporate identity is the engine that provides the initiative to the Political Theory-Migratory Policy: States Social Identity and how they Establish  their Political Interests.actor/States for their actions, but these are conditioned by the social relations of the actor, therefore the corporate identity depends on the relations of the subject with others (Wendt 1994; 356). Here is where we introduce the concept of social identity where the actor attributes meaning to itself and by doing this it takes perspective of the others actors, it is impossible to think an actor as a person who is completely alone in the world, likes it or not it must interact with others, to a greater or lesser extent this depends on each State. The two identities have a strong interrelation and feedback in to each other, to strengthen over time. But there is something one must keep in mind, that an actor has one corporate identity, but may have multiple social identities, but it is always limited and determined by the historical and cultural background of the actor. When one assumes an identity the actor also gives identity to others and in this context the vision of the State is born. Social identity can be simplified   in these terms, it the way the actor sees itself, how he sees others and how it’s seen. The vision of the actor in the world is born of this social identity. In the case of migratory policy we’ll see how the definition of a social identity condition de decisions of an actor, in this case Argentina.

Identity determines interest and therefore a change in any aspect of the Sates identity, will drag in a new group of interests. We are using the example of Argentina Migratory Policy in my post, to explain this point.  Initially you can see that the previous Immigration law caused dissociation between the actions ^[6] of the actor, social reality in its borders and its identity. Argentina’s view on migrants had a serious distortion of what was happening on a domestic level and on a international level, the old law that established its migratory policy did not serve the countries best interests, you can si a similar situation in the US  that has a high dissociation between its migration policy, social reality and their national identity, which has sparked a strong debate on what the government should do, this point will be developed in detail later in other posts. What we can say preliminarily is that currently that the Argentine identity revolves around the fact that sees itself and is seen by other States ( especially in the region), as a democratic country that respects human rights and that it had a historic role of reception of migrants.

Within the process of identity formation Wendt says that the actor uses imitation and social learning (Kowert; 2001), this is a borrowed concept from other constructivist author from another area of investigation, that is Jean Peaget, an expert in the psychology of education. We must establish whether Argentina immigration policy is the result of imitation or is a product of social learning. The actor learns to change their knowledge and perceptions of the world, and this is a dynamic process that is maturing over time, the perceived world is not a static place but is always changing.

Also can be exposed ahead of time that there is no doubt that the Argentina learned from their past mistakes committed during law 22.439 and capitalizes on that to create an immigration policy that is much more efficient, functional and that fits the needs of the country. One must ask what could have changed in the Government/State or within the population or what modification on the basis of their social relations, would lead to a change Argentina’s view, that made it change its migratory policy? Because something triggered an adjustment in policy and created a whole new theoretical body of knowledge, to be able to operate a new international and domestic reality. But this knowledge is not a copy of reality, here comes the factor of perception, one tends to see what best suits ones interests best, may be relatively selective according to the subject and this in turn is determined by the experience, needs and how the actor encodes and decodes the information that it receives from the world. The perceived world is a subjective world that can be shared by other actors or not.


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Book Review and Analysis: How to lose a war (and why) by Shimon Tzabar

Note  I have a Argentinean edition published in 2005, but from what  I've seen on line is that in other International editions the book is called "The White Flag Principal: How to lose a war (and why)

Shimon Tzabar 2005

Author:Shimon Tzabar, the author himself is probably one of the most interesting aspects of this book, it's 
to take a peak into the writers past, which is explained in first person in the prologue of this book, Shimon writes that he  was born in Tel Aviv in 1926, that he was a member of  a couple Jewish military organization/terrorist groups Stern Gang, Etzel and Hagana fighting the British occupation up to the Second world war ( the book actually uses the word terrorist groups to describe the organization Shimon took part of). he fought in Israel's First three wars and immigrated to Great Britain where he landed a job as a librarian in the British Museum and also he became a journalist over time.

Some core ideas of the Book: (Everything  in this book is pretty debatable):

So here we go with this curious book:  How to lose a war, and why this is a good Idea, which author sustains the idea that the loser in a war tends to be better off than the victor, that ends up bogged down by their post war responsibilities,  now the  example of the Iraq war, the one George W Bush started,  popped in my head,  which  invalidates most of this book if you sit down to analyze it in detail using the core arguments of this book, even though this book is a interesting read  and at moments it's  pretty fun, theoretically this book goes nowhere.

The book presupposes the actors in conflict are mostly States that have territories, or that conflict revolves around the possession of land, and that a war has only two sides that are in conflict, but for example the Syrian civil  war that has been raging on since the early days of the Arab spring, and that has been internationalizing even since, at least has 4 or 5 sides confronting each  other.

The author affirms that there is only one constant in war that an actor can be absolutely control, giving up and capitulating, which very interesting concept, victory depends on defeat of the but not the other way around, defeat generates rights and obligations for the winner in a conflict, but with one observation from my behalf only if they choose to follow international law, but  the actor can possibly  for religious reasons (for example) is hell bent   annihilate you, so capitulating isn't an option. 

The writer establishes two types of enemies, the ones you  have shared frontiers with and  the  enemies that we do not share a frontiers with. Book only establishes that States can only have enemies that are other States, or with some interpretation international actors that are  aspiring to be States, so  groups like Al Qaeda cannot fit in the concept that Shimon is trying to build.

Tzabar  establishes that most effective means to create any enemy is to use territorial reclamation against another State,( I must explain in a important  level  absurdity the book recommends that a head of State must find an enemy in the first place, so you can get defeated so good fortune can follow). But I must recognize that territorial spats can be effective, Russia make a good use of this strategy, but terrorism is probably the most effective method to  make an enemy pretty quick. There are  three ways to reclaim a territory, for the author, legally (through historic documents), emotional reclamation through speeches and accidently, but the author seems to have forgotten the most effective way of gaining an enemy direct occupation of its territory. 

The Bad:

Authors establishes countries like Japan and Germany are better off since their defeat pretty much ignoring the historical context when this happened, ignoring the tremendous human cost these countries suffer and caused during and after the wars , and  omitting that there was a strong political will from the central western counties the help these countries from allying themselves with the USSR. Another example the Afghanistan, explaining that the country is better off since the fall of the Taliban, but this isn't the best example, it has been 14 years since the US invasion, and the Taliban are still fighting to take over the country. Georgia lost a short war against Russia in 2008 loosing part of its territory and up till today this small country is in a pretty complicated situation.

Now using the logic you need a enemy to lose a war, enemies tend to unite population of a State, producing a period where the peoples will be strong,  united and with high moral, in this book this is a bad thing, so the head of State must generate internal strife to make sure to lose the war. The author offers a few examples that a head of State can do like adopt a official religion and impose it on every one or just let immigrants in, and the way the author presents this point is so political incorrect that I can't believe it especial being the fact the author is a immigrated that moved from Israel to Great Britain.

From page 63 to page 145 (the end of the book), there  isn't anything  very relevant, nothing goes in the direction of proving the Shimon's affirmation that losing a conflict is better than winning, even though there are a couple of historical anecdotes the are pretty fun to read.

Book somewhat confusing at moments you do not understand if the author is talking seriously or he's being ironic, maybe there are translation issue with this book  I have a edition in Spanish, but most of this book just doesn't make sense.

Establishes a hypothesis that is never answered in the book, actual there is no conclusion.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10

Guys read this book  and give me your opinions