Debating Myself

My second senior thesis is finished. This paper, written in German, was much more of a challenge in some ways than the Politics and Government thesis. Having chosen specifically to write two senior theses instead of simply writing one larger thesis on a topic that overlaps both subjects, I had a hard time finding my way to a topic of interest to me involving Germany.

My main problem was finding available resources in German to conduct strong academic research from. In the end I chose as similar road as my POLS thesis–namely reanalyzing an existing case-study.

I am interested in theories of federalism, generally, and the European Union as a sort of interesting new experiment in multi-level governance. However, looking specifically at environmental policy within Germany and the EU is ironic, because it is perhaps the type of politics that interests me the least. Luckily I was able to focus my paper on the theoretical implications of the division of power between Germany, the EU and the German Länder in the realm of environmental policy, and avoid tedious discussions of allowable levels of pollutants in rivers and streams.

Mainly, it is just really hard to write a substantial research paper in a foreign language you have studied for only four years–and I am probably most proud of my thesis not for its clear and original analysis (of which it has much less than my POLS thesis) but for my use of the German language. Since coming back to Germany I think my mastery of written German has probably increased significantly due to the outstanding support of my German professor (Professor Lorely French) and the insane amount of papers I had to write in German this year.

Oddly, I wrote more pages/papers in German this academic year than in English. Crazy.

For comparison’s sake, here are the vital stats on my German thesis:

• Pages: 43
• Words: 10,773
• Footnotes: 30
• Words (with footnotes): 11, 476
• Sources Cited: ??
• Sources Consulted: 83
• Appendixes: 0

And, I’m done. If anyone out there is fluent in German and interested, please feel free to read the attached PDF below. For those of you not fluent in German here is an English description of the theme of the paper:

The Federal Republic of Germany is a founding member of the European integration project and a strong supporter of the European Union. Yet the rapidly increasing centralization of European policy in the form of mandates from the EU is particularly complicated for Germany due to its federal structure. The sixteen German states, or Länder, have become increasingly active in the politics of integration in the last twenty years in an attempt to protect their traditional constitutional sovereignty. The Länder have been particularly active, sometimes against the wishes of the federal German government. The struggle against European environmental standards exemplifies how integration can be burdensome and costly for the Länder to implement. This study analyzes the different strategies employed by the Länder in defending their sovereignty.

“Purely Administrative Entities”? The Role of the German Länder in the European Union (PDF)

It was a big week for NATO this week. First, President Bush put pressure on the organization to set a timetable for Ukrainian and Georgian membership. Though Ukraine has made clear its desire to join NATO, which is seen as a first step along a path to EU membership, the timing of the announcement comes amidst much saber rattling by Russia–and a change of power, at least officially, from Vladmir Putin to Dimitriy Medvedev.

Further, membership invitations were extended to Albania and Croatia, and membership talks were intensified for Bosnia and Montenegro. Interestingly, Serbia, the site of recent riots and the burning of a US Embassy, was encouraged to apply for membership.

There was more going on in Bucharest at the NATO summit than just talks of expansion. A historic agreement was reached on the controversial deployment of US missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as well. After years of negotiations an advanced radar facility will be built in the Czech Republic and ten anti-ballistic missile missiles will be deployed in Poland.

Significantly it appears Russia played a key role in shaping the outcome of the summit. Not only did the NATO press release concerning the agreement on the ABM systems specifically urge Russia to drop its objections, but some argue that the rejection of an invitation to Georgia and Ukraine may be the key to achieving Russian consent on the issue.

What does all of this mean? Well, the aggressive expansion of NATO could precede an expansion in EU membership–though it appears the EU is a bit worn out from expansion. Another factor that NATO expansion has is a larger pool of troops to draw on while fighting the war in Afghanistan. Indeed, the summit did conclude with a larger commitment of troops to Afghanistan.

Most importantly, however, is the increasing tension between Russia and NATO. Russia’s implicit veto of membership talks with Georgia and the Ukraine are significant.

While the United States, Canada and nine Eastern European nations supported putting Ukraine and Georgia on the path to membership, Germany, France, Italy and other Western European nations resisted, arguing that the two were still too unstable and expressing concern about poking Russia in the eye.

That West European countries are acting out of fear of some form of Russian retaliation, perhaps through a rationing of gas supply, signals the weakness of Europe’s “core” in dealing with nation-states outside of the liberal democratic consensus. While the EU has been wildly successful at enticing nations who have an interest in the liberal market and other benefits of EU membership, the Union has been just as unsuccessful at adequately coping with those that wish to stay outside of that consensus (for example, Iran, North Korea and Russia).

The EU’s continued lack of both a cohesive foreign policy and a sizable military force is beginning to spillover into NATO and cause tensions within the defense community. The EU, according to the Economist this week, has already shown its commitment to the fight in Afghanistan to be half-hearted at best (with the exception of the Brits, of course).

The current weakness of NATO only emphasizes the need for a stronger and more unified EU to help build a stable bloc to offset rising Russian power, and continue the fight and rebuilding in Afghanistan.

Microsoft was recently slapped with a record fine for failing to comply with a 2004 ruling in an anti-trust case. PaidContent.org has a good summary of the European Commission’s decision, which found that Microsoft still was charging too much for licensing of its server data to enable competitors’ products to be compatible. (Another sticking point was the bundling of the IE with the Windows OS.)

The Economist’s Free Exchange blog gives a good description of the rocky history between Microsoft and the EU:

In 2004, the European Commission used its awesome trade regulation powers to fine the software firm €497m, followed by a further €280m in 2006. Now, the commission has fined Microsoft €899m ($1.4b, £681m) for failure to comply with an earlier 2004 ruling, centred on its bundling of Explorer internet software with its Windows operating system.

Clearly Microsoft is a successful and financially stable company (stable enough to attempt to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion) but as the Economist points out, this fine is larger than Sweden’s net contribution to the EU budget in 2006. Microsoft has continually faced much stiffer resistance to its business practices in Europe than in the United States—and certainly this latest setback does not bode well for Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo! either.

Certainly bloggers over at the Guardian feel that Microsoft got what was coming to it—there is a great discussion in the comments section of this blog debating the evils of Microsoft. I’m not sure I agree. Microsoft’s market dominance perhaps stifles the development of operating systems, but no one seems to complain that if I were to purchase a MacBook (until recently) I only had one choice of operating system on that platform as well. Microsoft has, in fact, been facing stiff competition from cost-free open-source competitors in the form of various incarnations of Linux. It seems to me that the punishment does not fit the crime—and certainly bundling XP with IE seems a rather minor affair in an era when browsers are obtainable in a matter of seconds.

After puzzling this for some time, I began to think, what if Microsoft struck back at the EU? A blogger at 22Hundred.net had this to say:

To Microsoft I say this…..pull out of Europe! Not completely obviously but give the EU exactly what they want. Remove IE, Windows Media and all other additional software from XP now, after all it’s only going to be supported for a few more months anyway. Then let the people who have just bought their shiny new OS try to use the damn thing without the bundled applications and ensure that the OEM’s do not bundle software to make up for it. It’s time to make the EU suffer.

My girlfriend and I were having a similar discussion, but she wasn’t as concessionary. Imagine if Microsoft pulled out completely. European consumers would be furious at the European Commission, because love it or hate it the Microsoft monopoly means that all of their computers can talk to each other. Most consumers are familiar with Windows and switching to Linux or Mac would be difficult, costly, and inefficient. Server farms running on Windows Exchange and other software would not be able to upgrade to Vista. Even the lack of Office support and service alone could bring the massive bureaucracies of the EU and its member-states to a halt.

Of course public opinion would prevent Microsoft from doing anything like that. But, if any corporation is tough enough to take on an overzealous regulatory regime like that of the EU, Microsoft is. I’m not saying it would (or should)… but it is an interesting thought experiment.

Perhaps a safer solution comes from the Economist:

Perhaps Bill Gates should cut his losses and buy a small EU nation state (Malta is nice at this time of year), keep paying the same money, but this time ask for voting rights at EU summits.

He could rename it something catchy too—like Zune Island.

I am having a hard time understanding the logic behind this one. Kosovo secedes from Serbia. US and other countries support secession. Serbs in Belgrade riot and burn the US embassy in Belgrade killing one unidentified person. Huh?

I understand the outrage over losing a part of your country–and it is unlikely military force is a solution the Serbs can employ in regaining it–but why attack the US embassy? How will that accomplish the goal of getting Kosovo back–or, if Serbs are ready to be more progressive, how will it establish a new reputation for Serbia as respectful of international law? But, I guess ethnic tensions are still high in the region and that is what this misplaced aggression is really exhibiting.

Maybe Serbs were politically aware enough not to burn the embassies of EU countries because they still think Serbia has a good chance at accession. I don’t quite think mass chaos over a long planned secession is really going to help the Serbian government make its case strongly–nor will assaulting the sovereign territory of a strong European ally.

The next few weeks will be very telling for the entire Balkan peninsula. Are the Balkan countries willing to embrace diplomacy and peace, or will the situation devolve back to violence, bloodshed and war crimes?