South Sudan’s Tangled Crisis →

Although there are plenty of reports indicating that the current crisis has unfolded along tribal lines, this is an extremely simplistic and dangerous way to frame events. The real source of South Sudan’s violence is political, not ethnic — and Western policy makers must grasp this reality before it’s too late.

U.S. Advisers Sent to Help Somalia Fight the Shabab →

But in a reflection of the administration’s caution in deploying United States forces to the strife-torn nation, the presence is tiny, at least for now — three advisers, a Defense Department official said on Friday.

The advisers were deployed to the Somali capital of Mogadishu last month to help provide logistics, planning and communications assistance to Somali and other African forces combating the Shabab, the Islamic militant group, according to the official, who spoke anonymously to discuss the mission.

I helped destroy Falluja in 2004. I won't be complicit again →

The violence began just over a week ago, when Iraqi security forces disbursed a protest camp in Falluja and arrested a politician who had been friendly to the protestors' goals. This camp was part of a non-violent protest movement – which took place mostly in Sunni cities, but was also receiving some support from the Shia community – that began a year ago. Iraqi security forces have attacked protestors in Falluja and other Sunni cities on several occasions, the most egregious example taking place in Hawija, when over 50 protestors were killed.

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The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people – people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements – who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government.

Coffee With Refugees: In Lebanon’s Mountains, Syrians Face a Grim Future →

According to the government, there are no camps in Lebanon. But you only have to drive into the Bekaa Valley to see that this is a lie. Every two hundred yards is another shanty town -- tents, kids not in school, tiny stoves meant for wood but now burning plastic bags. The refugees know this will kill them. They do it anyway. They have no choice. Several refugee children would freeze to death by the end of December. It is cold in these camps that do not exist.

Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? →

According to a Caltech/MIT survey of both registered and unregistered eligible voters who did not cast a ballot in 2008, disapproval of candidate choices, busyness, illness, transportation, and registration/ administrative problems were the leading causes of non-participation, with considerable variation across groups...

...Taken together, the surveys suggest that white citizens who abstain from voting do so primarily by choice, while the majority of minority non-voters face problems along the way.

The Means Matter As Much For Democracy As The Ends →

One of the tricky things about democracy is that we think of it as being an end-state that a country can hopefully achieve and maintain – hold regular elections with peaceful transfers of power, establish rule of law, incorporate and protect civil rights – but the pathway to getting there matters. It matters for two main reasons. First, democracy is not only about substance, but also about procedure. Countries that have hollow democratic institutions, where you have parties and elections but ones that are rife with corruption, patronage, irregularities, may look democratic from the outside but are not because their process is fundamentally undemocratic. Elections themselves do not magically confer democracy. Second, people and governments are not inherently democratic. Democracy generally emerges as a way out of a political stalemate or as a compromise between parties who are not powerful enough to impose their will on everyone, and as democratic behavior is repeated and becomes habituated over time, genuine democracy takes hold. In other words, behaving democratically is not innate, but it becomes second nature as it is carried out.