Oaps 2011 - Usc

O
A
OUTSTANDING
ACADEMIC
PAPERS BY
STUDENTS
A collaborative, international program
P
by academic research libraries
to encourage, recognize, and preserve
excellence in student scholarship
S 2011
USC LIBRARIES | USC DANA AND DAVID DORNSIFE
COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
www.usc.edu/libraries/oaps
OAPS
O U T S TANDING
AC A DE MIC
PA P E R S BY
S T U D E N TS
APRIL 2011
USC LIBRARIES | USC DANA and DAVID

DORNSIFE COLLEGE of LETTERS, ARTS and SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
USC LIBRARIES
USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Published by
Figueroa Press
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University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2540
© 2011 USC Libraries

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission
from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.
ISBN-10: 1-932800-87-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-932800-87-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927460
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
USC Libraries
OAPS: Outstanding Academic Papers by Students
Contents
4 FOREWORD Catherine Quinlan
6 INTRODUCTION Steven L. Lamy
8 OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES: A MULTILEVEL NEURAL

NETWORK IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ITERATIVE REPROCESSING
MODEL Phillip J. Ehret
28 ROCKETS OF BABEL: WAR AND TECHNOLOGY IN GRAVITY’S

RAINBOW Marc Kohlbry
72 THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL CAUSES OF

THE DISPARITY BETWEEN WATER SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS IN
URUGUAY AND ARGENTINA Zara Lukens
130 TEENS, TODDLERS, AND TOTORO Victor Luo
144 EFFECTIVENESS IN PEACEKEEPING: A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

COMPARING THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
Andrew Matson
216 DEAD LETTERS, DEAD AUTHORS, LIVE READERS Sarah Thermond
228 REIMAGINING THE FIGUEROA CORRIDOR, 1960-2005:

GROWTH POLITICS, POLICY, AND DISPLACEMENT Daniel Wu
Foreword
CATHERINE QUINLAN
Dean of the USC Libraries
5
In 2010, the University of Southern California Libraries became the first North American
institution to participate in the Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS)
program with 11 universities throughout Asia. With our inaugural campus partner—
the USC School of Social Work—we showcased excellent research and writing by
USC students to an international audience. We are very happy to continue sharing USC
students’ work with the OAPS community, as we collaborate this year with the USC
Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
The papers in this volume represent an excellent but very small fraction of the
outstanding scholarship produced by students across the USC Dornsife College.
Through the Problems Without Passports initiative, the Center for International Studies,
and more than 50 study-abroad programs in total, the USC Dornsife College encourages
its students to approach their studies from a global point of view. These papers reflect
that strong commitment to diverse and inventive perspectives.
As we work to support the innovative research of faculty and the far-reaching ambitions
of our students, our approach to providing library services must embrace a broad view
while supporting the specific needs of our local communities. We must be active partners
in inspiring curiosity about ideas that arise beyond our geographic and intellectual
borders and in supporting discoveries that transcend these boundaries. Bringing OAPS to
our university—and introducing our students’ scholarship to our OAPS partners—is one
of the many ways our libraries work toward these goals at USC.
I would like to thank Dean Howard Gillman and former Executive Vice Dean Michael
Quick of the USC Dornsife College for agreeing to participate in OAPS. It has been a
particular pleasure working with two of their Dornsife College colleagues—Steven
Lamy, vice dean for academic programs, and Richard Fliegel, associate dean for
undergraduate programs—to select this year’s papers. I also would like to express my
sincere appreciation to Steve Ching, university librarian of the City University of Hong
Kong, for inviting USC to join OAPS. We are very proud to participate as OAPS—thanks
to Professor Ching’s vision and the dedication of our OAPS partners—becomes an ever
more prestigious platform for presenting student accomplishments to the world.
Introduction
STEVEN L. LAMY
Vice Dean for Academic Programs
7
The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences is proud to work
with the USC Libraries in presenting the following examples of outstanding papers
written by our undergraduates. The selection represents some fine examples of carefully
considered research and thoughtful analysis, conducted by students from a range of
disciplines in the humanities and social sciences who share a commitment to the value
of academic inquiry in understanding and solving contemporary human problems.
Some of these papers were supported by grants from the USC Dornsife College program
of Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) or the Summer Undergraduate
Research Fund (SURF). Some are recipients of prizes at the annual Writing Conference
organized by the Writing Program, or published by AngeLingo, the Dornsife College online
journal written and edited by undergraduates. Some of these student authors have been
nominated for distinction as Discovery Scholars this year. Their work has been exemplary,
and I congratulate each of them for the further recognition this publication confers.
I would like to thank also the dedicated faculty who worked with these students,
inspiring and guiding them in the research projects presented here; and I would also
like to say a word of gratitude to the many other students and their faculty whose
outstanding research and critical analysis could not be included in this publication, due
to limited space. In my capacity as the vice dean of academic programs, I have been
privileged to read the work of many graduate and undergraduate students whose
extraordinary accomplishments are the true signature of the USC Dornsife College.
I would suggest the reader not begin on page one and read this work through as one
might read a novel, but look through the table of contents, choose a topic of interest on
a particular day, and read one essay at a time. Each of them represents an investment of
time and thought in its creation, and each will reward a little time for contemplation on
the part of the reader.
Let me close by expressing my thanks to the people in the USC Libraries and Associate
Dean Richard Fliegel, a first rate author in his own right and someone who helped make
this opportunity available to our students—and most of all to our students, whose
originality and diligence have made this project so worthwhile.
Overriding Racial Stereotypes:
A Multilevel Neural Network Implementation
of the Iterative Reprocessing Model
PHILLIP J. EHRET
Department of Psychology
Professor Stephen Read
9
Abstract
I present a neural network of the iterative reprocessing (IR) model (Cunningham, Zelazo,
Packer, & Van Bavel, 2007). The IR model argues that evaluation of social stimuli (attitudes,
stereotypes) is the result of the iterative processing of stimuli in a hierarchy of neural
systems: the evaluation of social stimuli develops and changes over processing. This
iterative processing system contrasts with the variety of dual-process or dual-attitudes
models that dominate social psychology. This model has a single, multilevel, and bi-
directional feedback evaluation system that integrates initial perceptual processing and
later developing cortical processing. In line with recent research, the model has separate
positive and negative evaluations. This overall construction allows the network to
process stimuli (e.g. the features and surrounding context of an individual) over repeated
iterations, with each iteration activating higher levels of semantic processing. As a result,
the network’s evaluations of social stimuli evolve over iterations. Separate positive and
negative evaluative systems allow for a more accurate analysis of evaluation change over
time and for the ability of the model to exhibit ambivalence. I discuss the implications of
this model for understanding evaluation in social processes. Further, the success of my
model supports the IR model framework and provides new insights into attitude theory.
INTRODUCTION
Traditional approaches to attitudinal and evaluation development are understood in a
dual-attitude framework that proposes that our attitudes and evaluations are a result
of two distinct neural systems: a rapid, unconscious system and a slower, explicit system
(Greenwald et al., 1995; Greenwald et al., 2002; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000).
However, Cunningham and others have recently challenged these dual-attitude models
arguing that they do not capture “the way in which affective attitudes and reflective
processing interact and contribute to evaluations” (Cunningham & Zelazo, 2007, p. 97;
Cunningham et al., 2007). Consequently, they have proposed the iterative reprocessing (IR)
model. Instead of relying on two separate systems that produce two different evaluations,
the IR model is a single, multilevel processing circuit that continuously modifies evaluations
10
as valenced information is processed at higher levels. The IR model also addresses a long-
standing argument in social psychology as to whether attitudes are stable or constructed.
The model argues that attitudes are stored in relatively stable connection weights, whereas
evaluations of a specific stimulus in context are constructed in response to the inputs.
My computational neural network seeks to validate the IR model in a theoretically and

biologically plausible framework. The network is presented with visual observations for
16 ‘individuals’ consisting of information about features such as skin tone, hair length,
clothing, and traits of their physical environment, processed by the thalamus layer. From
these observations, the network quickly identifies race, either black or white, and the sex
of the individual to initially evaluate the individual based on these two factors. This initial
evaluation of race and sex is part of the first iterations of the stimuli processing and
likely occurs unconsciously in limbic structures such as the amygdala. This is consistent
with research on early perceptual cue processing that has demonstrated that humans
preferentially direct attention to black targets very early in processing (by about 100
ms after stimulus onset) and attention to gender emerges soon thereafter (about 150
ms; Ito & Urland, 2005). As activation continues to spread in subsequent iterations, the
stimuli are reprocessed in higher-order semantic layers representing the orbitofrontal
cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and lateral prefrontal cortex, which recognize higher
level concepts such as physical location (e.g., office or street) and profession. Once
the individual’s profession is determined, stereotypic attributes such as ‘intelligent’ for
a doctor, or ‘violent’ for a gang member are activated. These attributes then activate
associated positive or negative evaluations or attitudes, revising evaluations in the
positive and negative evaluation layers representing the amygdala. The presence of both
the positive and negative evaluation layers allows us to accurately track the evolution
of these two components of evaluation separately, eliminating the limitation of a single
evaluation continuum that cannot capture ambivalence.
This model presents examples of the continuous development of evaluation from the
activation of initial racial and gender stereotypes, based on early analysis of perceptual
11
cues, to the later development of evaluations that integrate occupational and contextual
perceptual cues. Specifically, this model demonstrates how early stereotypical evaluations
based on initial perceptions can be overridden by the later activation of more complex
contextual information such as occupation and profession.
MODEL CONSTRUCTION AND TRAINING

My model was constructed with Emergent 5.1 neural network modeling software (Aisa,
Mingus, & O’Reilly, 2008). It is a nine-layer localist network incorporating separate layers
for stimulus inputs, basic race and sex recognition, race and sex conjunctions, higher-
order semantic layers, and positive and negative evaluation layers.
The “persons” presented to the network are each defined by 17 visual features including
visual appearance (e.g. skin tone, hair length) and contextual features (e.g. type of
clothing, location cues). The race and sex layers identify race and sex respectively and the
race and sex conjunction layer represents each individual’s race and sex conjunction (e.g.
black and male). Higher-order semantic knowledge is represented by the following layers.
The context layer evaluates stimuli and determines the context in which the individual is
observed: street corner, office building, hospital, professional clothing, athletic clothing,
and/or gang clothing. The profession layer establishes one of four professions for the
individual: doctor, gang member, business person, or athlete. The attribute layer assigns
a combination of the eight available attributes to the individual: caring, athletic, popular,
rich, greedy, violent, unintelligent, and/or intelligent. The attribute, profession, and
race and sex conjunction layer are each connected to both the positive and negative
evaluation layers. The two evaluation layers each provide scalar output value from 0.0
to 1.0 represented across 12 nodes, which is recorded at each iteration of the model to
allow for the capture of ambivalence (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1997).
Training is completed in two stages. The first stage trains the model to recognize both
race and sex, and assigns highly racist evaluations (i.e. black males are evaluated highly
negatively with no positive evaluation while white males and females receive highly
12
positive evaluations with no negative evaluations; black females receive slightly less
negative evaluations than black males). In this stage, only black and white males and
females are presented to the model (four persons in total in a 1:1:1:1 training ratio;
because evaluation is represented in scalar value layers, I can directly teach the desired
evaluation for each type of individual), no other stimulus attributes such as clothing are
presented. During this training, the higher-level semantic layers (i.e. context, profession,
and attributes) are lesioned (lesioned layers do not send or receive any information).
After the model successfully learns the stereotypical evaluations of the black and white
males and females, all layers are unlesioned. Additionally, the learning rates for the race,
sex, and conjunction layers are significantly reduced to preserve the ingrained racial
stereotype of the model trained in the first stage. In the second stage of training, the
learned weights from stage one are maintained as the network is randomly presented
with 16 new individuals: a black and white, male and female doctor, gang member,
business person, and athlete.
In contrast to the first stage of training, in the second stage evaluations are based on
common evaluations of the professions regardless of race or sex (e.g. doctor is highly
positive while gang member is highly negative). The network is also presented with two
black and two white males and one white and one black female. These individuals do not
have any other input attributes besides race and sex and present the same evaluations
as their counterparts in the first training stage. These additional individuals serve as
infrequent but powerful stereotype maintainers.
TESTING RESULTS
After the second stage of training is completed, the network is presented with the
appropriate inputs for an individual such as a black male doctor. By recording the positive
and negative evaluation over each network iteration, I tracked the complete time course
of the network’s evaluation of the individual. This monitoring allowed us to see the clear
effects of later iterations and revisions of initial evaluations. Figures 2-7 each show the
positive and negative activations (representing evaluation) on a scale from 0.0 to 1.0
13
over number of cycles (representing iterations) for a black and a white male doctor,
a black and white male gangster, and a black and white female gangster.
Evaluation Evolution Analysis

Males. The black male doctor (Figure 2) demonstrates an early spike of negative
activation that rapidly decreases after the eighth cycle. The ninth cycle evinces a
second spike of positive activation. The model settles on a final, highly positive
activation and displays no negative activation, demonstrating an initially negative
evaluation based on basic cues, which is overridden by later higher-level semantic
processing. The white male doctor (Figure 3) records a strong spike of positive
activation at the ninth cycle that endures until the final, extremely positive evaluation
with no negative activation. The black male gangster (Figure 4) displays an early
and strong spike of negative activation at the fifth cycle that marginally increases
to settle on a final, extremely negative evaluation with no positive activation. Both
the white male doctor and black male gangster record an initial evaluation based on
basic cues, which is reinforced by later semantic processing. The white male gangster
(Figure 5) shows both a medium strength positive and negative activation at the ninth
cycle. After the 12th cycle, positive activation declines rapidly and negative activation
ascends quickly for an extremely negative final evaluation with no positive activation.
As with the black male doctor, the initial evaluation based on basic cues is overridden
by later semantic processing.
Females. The black female gangster (Figure 6) displays a later (relative to the black
male gangster) and strong spike of negative activation at the ninth cycle that marginally
increases to settle on a final, extremely negative evaluation. There is an additional small
bump of positive activation that precedes the negative spike at cycle eight, but quickly
falls below 0.1 by the 11th cycle. The final evaluation is extremely negative with no
positive activation. The white female gangster (Figure 7) shows a medium-strong positive
evaluation that endures substantially longer (six cycles) than the positive evaluation
for the white male gangster (about one cycle). While there is a small bump of negative
14
activation at the ninth cycle, the negative spike does not appear until the 17th cycle.
After the 17th cycle, positive activation declines rapidly and negative activation ascends
quickly for an extremely negative final evaluation with no positive activation. For both
female examples, the initial evaluations based on basic cues are overridden by later
higher-level semantic processing.
DISCUSSION
My model successfully supports the theoretical IR model framework and demonstrates
the model’s advantages over the traditional understanding of evaluation by
demonstrating continuous evaluation modification over time. The traditional
understanding of evaluation is based on dual-process models that propose two distinct
evaluation systems, an implicit and an explicit system. The implicit system is an immediate
and automatic unconscious evaluation of a stimulus. For example, the immediate
feeling of fear when you unexpectedly encounter a snake is attributed to this system.
The explicit system is distinct from the implicit system. It is an effortful and controlled
conscious processing of a stimulus. It would be your mental dialogue that recognizes
that the snake is a harmless garter snake and poses no threat to you. This dual-attitudes
model proposes that each system results in an independent evaluation of the stimulus
(Greenwald et al., 1995; Greenwald et al., 2002; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). For
most individuals, the implicit attitude is ignored or given little consideration in favor of
the explicit attitude (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008).
The results of the IR model provide an alternative understanding of evaluation that

proposes a single evaluation processing circuit that integrates across multiple neural
systems to produce evaluations that evolve over time. Evaluations are constructed from
the input of multiple semantic systems that are likely determined by a large set of factors
such as context, priming, emotion, and/or goals specific to the evaluation situation.
Each individual presented to the network was initially and quickly evaluated based on
stereotypical racial and sexual stereotypes as evidenced in Figures 2-7. Further iterations
that recruited higher-level semantic layers as represented by the context, profession,
15
and attribute layers then influenced the evaluations for the individual presented to the
network. For example, the white male doctor (Figure 3) and black male gang member
(Figure 4) recruited further attributes that were supportive of the network’s stereotype,
so further iterations over time only strengthened the model’s initial evaluations.
However, both the black male doctor (Figure 2) and white male gang member (Figure
5) activate contradictory characteristics to the network’s stereotypes. When these later
iterations activate contradictory characteristics at cycle 12, the evaluations evolve in
a drastic manner. In the case of the black male doctor and the context of a hospital,
recognition of “doctor” as the individual’s profession and activation of attributes such
as intelligent and caring result in an increase in positive activation and a decrease in
negative activation that overrides the network’s initial evaluation for an opposite final
evaluation. The same pattern holds for the white male gang member, just working in
the opposite direction. The network immediately recognizes the white individual and
begins to positively evaluate him. However, later iterations bring about the recognition
that this individual is on a street corner, in gang clothes, and is unintelligent and violent.
The high-order semantic layers representing these characteristics begin to influence the
evaluation resulting in a final, extremely negative evaluation with no remaining positive
activation. Essentially, the model is demonstrating an initial stereotypical evaluation of
the individual. But these stereotypical evaluations are overridden by the activation of
higher-level semantic layers that provide contradictory information influential enough
to completely reverse initial evaluations.
Similar, but more nuanced results were found for females. While the model was trained
with a racist evaluation for black females, this stereotype was not as strongly negative
as black males. Additionally, white females were slightly more positive than white males
in the initial training. Figure 6 shows the effect this slightly less negative black female
stereotype had on evaluation where a small, but significant, positive peak in activation
is observed slightly before the strong negative activation appears. The model also
takes more iterations to determine these evaluations as compared to the black make
gangster reflecting the higher degree of conflicting information the model needed to
16
process before beginning its evaluations. The white female gangster has a much more
pronounced and enduring positive activation than the white male gangster. Again, this
is the result of a more positive stereotype for white women. As with the black female
gangster, the model needs more iterations to resolve the conflicting information it is
receiving to arrive at a final evaluation.
These patterns of evaluation account for commonly observed and experienced

evaluation processes attributed to an implicit and explicit system. However, the IR
model demonstrates that we do not need to postulate that we are experiencing two
independent attitudes, but instead a single evaluation that quickly evolves over time as
additional neural systems are activated. This furthers our understanding of the underlying
mechanisms by shifting our attention away from distinct implicit and explicit systems
and focusing it on the difference between early and later iterative processing. Early
processing results in quick and automatic evaluations while later iterations recruit a
dynamic interaction between several bottom-up and top-down processes that allow
attitudes to be established in accordance with current contexts and goals. This evolution
of evaluations elucidates important implications in our understanding of evaluation
processes and the nature and establishment of attitudes.
This has significant implications for the stability of attitudes and for the issue of whether
attitudes are stored or constructed. The IR model suggests that attitudes are stored
in a given set of weights, that when activated, combine to create an evaluation. My
model demonstrates that stable attitudes are stored in the connection weights for
specific concepts, and it is the combination of these various weights that construct
the evaluation. Thus, in this model the attitude can be viewed as stable, whereas the
specific evaluation of a stimulus in context is constructed. An additional implication is
that the number of attitudes a person can hold is large, if not infinite, as evaluations are
constructed based on the extent of evaluation processing and available cues. Further, my
model allows one to naturally capture situations in which an evaluation of an individual
can change dramatically over time, as I demonstrated with the example of a black male
17
doctor. In this specific case, the model is showing how a stereotype may function, and
more importantly, how it can be overridden by further processing.
CONCLUSION
The neural network presented provides support for the theoretical IR model. Instead of
assuming two independent evaluations arising from two distinct systems (i.e. implicit and
explicit), my model demonstrates that the underlying processes for a single evaluation
system can capture the interaction of initial processing and reflective processing in
the determination of social evaluations. It further explains how an individual engaging
in reflective processing can formulate complex, nuanced, and possibly conflicting
evaluations of a stimulus. These insights into the mechanisms of human evaluation have
significant implications for our understanding of how attitudes are stored, constructed,
and changed, affecting how we approach many social and cognitive phenomena.
OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 13
18
Table 1: Second stage training frequencies.
Presentations per Presentations per

Individual Individual
epoch epoch
White male doctor 15 White female athlete 5
Black male doctor 3 Black female athlete 4
White female doctor 10 White male gang member 3
Black female doctor 2 Black male gang member 8
White male
20 White female gang member 2
businessman
Black male
5 Black female gang member 3
businessman
White female
15 White male 2
businesswoman
Black female
3 Black male 2
businesswoman
White male athlete 8 White female 1
Black male athlete 6 Black female 1
TABLE 1: Second stage training frequencies.

19
Table 2: Trained features.
Profession Input Context Attributes

Doctor Lab coat, tie, dress Professional Caring, popular, rich,
shoes, patient, bed, clothing, hospital intelligent
nurse station,
receptionist
Businessperson Tie, dress shoes, suit Professional Rich, greedy,
jacket, receptionist, clothing, office intelligent
cubicles building
Athlete Sweatpants, street Street corner, Athletic, popular,

signs, cars athletic clothing rich
Gang Member Gang colors, Street corner, gang Violent, unintelligent

sweatpants, tattoos, clothing
street signs, cars
TABLE 2: Trained features.

20
Figure 1: Network structure with nodes and connections.

FIGURE 1: Network structure with nodes and connections.
21
Figure 2: Black male doctor evaluation.

FIGURE 2: Black male doctor evaluation.
22
Figure 3: White male doctor evaluation.

FIGURE 3: White male doctor evaluation.
23
FIGURE 4: Black
Figure 4:male gangster
Black maleevaluation.
gangster evaluation.
24
Figure 5: White male gangster evaluation.

FIGURE 5: White male gangster evaluation.
25
Figure
FIGURE 6: Black6: Black
female female
gangster gangster
evaluation. evaluation.
26
FIGUREFigure 7: White
7: White female female
gangster gangster
evaluation. evaluation.
27
REFERENCES
Aisa, B., Mingus, B., & O’Reilly, R. (2008). The Emergent neural modeling system.
Neural Networks, 21(8), 1146-1152.
Baumeister, R. F. & Bushman, B. J. (2008). Social psychology and human nature.
United States: Thomson Wadsworth.
Cacioppo, J. T., Gardner, W. L., & Berntson, G. G. (1997). Beyond bipolar
conceptualizations and measures: The case of attitudes and evaluative space.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(1), 3-25.
Cunningham, W. A. & Zelazo P. D. (2007). Attitudes and evaluations: A social cognitive
neuroscience perspective. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 97-104.
Cunningham, W. A., Zelazo, P., Packer, D. J., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2007). The iterative
reprocessing model: A multilevel framework for attitudes and evaluation.
Social Cognition, 25(5), 736-760.
Greenwald, A.G. & Banaji, M.R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem,
and stereotypes. Psychology Review, 102, 4-27.
Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L. A., Farnham, S. D., Nosek, B. A., & Mellott, D.
S. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and
self-concept. Psychological Review, 109(1), 3-25.
Ito, T. A., & Urland, G. R. (2005). The influence of processing objectives on the perception
of faces: An ERP study of race and gender perception. Cognitive, Affective &
Behavioral Neuroscience, 5(1), 21-36.
Wilson, T. D., Lindsey, S., & Schooler, T. Y. (2000). A model of dual attitudes. Psychology
Review, 107, 101-126.
Rockets of Babel:
War and Technology in Gravity’s Rainbow
MARC KOHLBRY
Department of Comparative Literature
Associate Professor Michael Du Plessis
29
1. FICTIONS
1.1 Choosing a Lens
The text is a technology.1
Gravity’s Rainbow’s reputation precedes it. Since its publication in 1973, critics
have considered Thomas Pynchon’s epic alongside James Joyce’s Ulysses, some even
heralding the text as “the most profound and accomplished American novel since the
end of World War II” (The New Republic). These comparisons and praise are rooted in
Gravity’s Rainbow’s encyclopedic nature, as Pynchon’s extensive research is evident
from any critical angle. This density is most apparent in Pynchon’s prose and in the
novel’s intertexts. Pynchon’s prose is dizzying—Gravity’s Rainbow is loaded with free
indirect discourse, imaginary words, complex sentence structures, and a surreal treatment
of word order. In addition to the somersaults that Pynchon conducts with his prose, the
novel’s intertexts bear testament to a vast amount of research conducted on Pynchon’s
behalf. The intertexts that Pynchon embeds in Gravity’s Rainbow are astounding in
their scope—Pynchon seems to deal with a limitless number of paradigms: historical,
scientific, metaphysical, philosophical, ad infinitum.
But a technology? In our epoch, technology is defined by speed, as arguably, all

technological progress is a movement towards a greater velocity. However, when one
juxtaposes Pynchon’s text with this ever-quickening rate of technology, Gravity’s Rainbow
provides an alternative to speed. Consider how the text comes to us: Pynchon provides
the reader with an overload of information at an incredible tempo, but the actual act of
reading Gravity’s Rainbow remains exceptionally slow. Perhaps Pynchon is calling on
his readers to mind the speed of what is being read, as if any increase in the barrage of
information we are receiving would plunge the novel in chaos and unreadability.
Where, then, can we begin to make sense of Pynchon’s world? Among the vast amount
of information in Gravity’s Rainbow, it is simple to see that the text is framed by war.
The narrative takes place during the end and aftermath of World War II, yet Pynchon
30
does not confine himself to this period. Written roughly thirty years after the end of
the war, Gravity’s Rainbow is anything but a mere exposition of the historical events
surrounding World War II—it is a genealogy of our present.
Michel Foucault has contended that everything within our present can be understood
as a reflection of power and power relations. Further, he asks, “Shouldn’t one
therefore conceive all problems of power in terms of relations of war?” (Foucault 123).
Consequently, in order to understand power relations, we must analyze them in their
most overt manifestation: war. But what is war in the present? As Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri state on the first page of Multitude, the world is again at war, or rather,
it is still at war. War, however, has changed over time—its present is strikingly different
from its past. During and before World War II, for example, war was limited to conflict
between nation-states, and kept external to societies as a limited state of exception.
Today, war has become “a general phenomenon, global and interminable,” supported by
(weapons/communication) technology and “a regime of biopower, that is a form of rule
aimed not only at controlling the population but producing and reproducing all aspects
of life” (Multitude 3, 13).
As a work of fiction, Gravity’s Rainbow is an unlikely candidate in helping us come to terms

with our epoch’s state of war/power. Further, Pynchon wrote Gravity’s Rainbow nearly
forty years ago while living in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles; however, the text’s temporal
distancing from World War II and from the present works both in the text’s favor and in
our own, for in an epoch where technology and progress are defined by speed, Gravity’s
Rainbow provides us with a means of (slowly) making sense of the world around us.
1.2 Charting a Constellation

The context of Gravity’s Rainbow is relevant, as it deals with a period that “[reorganized]
international relations, [decolonized] the colonies, and [laid] the groundwork for the
emergence of a new economic world system” (Jameson xx). The intertexts in Gravity’s
Rainbow establish a deeper relationship with the history of this new world system. These
31
intertexts also exist alongside a large amount of metafictional elements, a combination

that establishes Gravity’s Rainbow as a work of historiographic metafiction.
Linda Hutcheon has detailed the genre—historiographic metafiction consists of two

key mechanisms: metafiction and intertextuality. While postmodernism has tended
to be “characterized by intense self-reflexivity and overtly parodic intertextuality,”
historiographic metafiction also enjoys “an equally self-conscious dimension of
history” (Hutcheon 3). While this enables postmodern fiction to identify itself as fiction
(metafiction), intertextuality provides a means by which a text can “[open] itself up to
history, to what Edward Said calls a ‘world’” (Hutcheon 4). These intertexts can be literary,
historical, psychoanalytical, sociological, theoretical, philosophical, filmic, etc. Authors
such as Pynchon deliberately exploit intertextuality, but also use metafiction to establish a
“world” in which the text is positioned as a world of discourse (a world that has “direct
links to the world of empirical reality, but is not itself that empirical reality”) (Hutcheon 6).
Gravity’s Rainbow is indeed a work of historiographic metafiction. Pynchon uses

the mechanisms of the genre to first establish a mobile historical framework (an
intertextual “setting” of sorts), which would be impossible to create outside of a
fictional setting. Second, Pynchon uses the tools that Hutcheon has attributed to
the genre in order to create a bridge that not only historicizes his text, but that
also textualizes both history and the present. This textualization of history creates a
genealogy of the contemporary.
The relationship between Gravity’s Rainbow and history is paramount; Pynchon is the
author of two separate texts: the text of Gravity’s Rainbow, and a text of history/the
present. In order to gain access both of these texts simultaneously, one must focus on
the figures in the text as well as the intertextual connections that these figures create
between the two aforementioned texts.2 These figures are not limited to simple or
traditional characters—they also exist as corporations and technologies. The forthcoming
choice of figures is not absolute; rather, each figure is a point in a constellation. The
32
united lines that astrology attributes to constellations do not actually exist in the night
sky—they are interpretations. Consider this constellation of figures in the same way:
IG Farben, Enzian, Tchitcherine, Slothrop, and the Rocket.3
When we concentrate on the density of Gravity’s Rainbow, the relevance of these

figures is apparent, as these figures can be accessed by dividing the text into two
layers. The first layer is the prose of Pynchon’s text: the narrative, description, word
play, etc. The prose found in Gravity’s Rainbow gives way to the novel’s intertexts,
which comprise the second layer of the text. This layer not only complicates Pynchon’s
text, but also, it provides a series of historical connections that allow us to understand
our state of global war.
The first figure, IG Farben, is a gateway to our present. The corporation of IG Farben,
which exists both in Pynchon’s text and in our own world, illustrates a global order that
has been identified by Michal Hardt and Antonio Negri as “Empire.”4
The intertexts in Gravity’s Rainbow are not limited to Empire, and the individual/
human’s positioning in relationship to this global order is presented through
three separate figures: Enzian, Tchitcherine, and Slothrop. These figures could be
considered “characters” in the text, but what exactly is a character? According
to Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle in Introduction to Literature, Criticism
and Theory, “character means both a letter or sign, a mark of writing, and the
‘essential’ qualities of a ‘person’” (Bennett and Royle 63). Further, “from the Greek
word kharatein, to engrave, the word becomes a mark or sign, a person’s title and
hence a distinguishing mark—that which distinguishes one person from another”
(Bennett and Royle 63). Before his/her appearance or actions, a character’s name
distinguishes them from other characters. With the figure of Enzian, who in the text
becomes nothing but a name, we can analyze how names exist in both the text and,
through its intertexts, in Empire (Pynchon 326). Bennett and Royle also describe a
“fundamental dualism of inside (mind, soul or self) and outside (body, face, and other
33
external features)” that are essential to character, and in the figures of Tchitcherine
and Slothrop, the external and internal aspects of this dualism can be explicated.
Each of these figures present similar paradoxes, not only as “characters,” but also in
and through their intertexts. While the figures vary in their contents/intertexts, they can
collectively be united by the figure of the Rocket.
2. WARS
2.1 Hindsights
Before we approach this constellation of figures, we must first define war. War has
changed over time—its present is vastly different from its past. War has traditionally
been distinguished as armed conflict between nation-states. Examples of this definition
are plentiful, the two World Wars of the 20th century among them. During these wars,
“only the sovereign authority—that is, the monarch or the state—could wage war and
only against another sovereign power” (Multitude 6). Politically, war was “expelled from
the internal national social field and reserved only for external conflicts between states”
(Multitude 6). In this, a strict internal/external sociopolitical binary was preserved—war
was the exception, and peace the norm. War was isolated and controlled, and restricted
to external disputes between sovereign entities so that politics internal to society would
remain disconnected from it (war). In this way, “war was a limited state of exception”
(Multitude 6).5
These states of exception, such as World War I and II, were always between concrete
bodies. The idea of the body here is twofold: war was at once waged between sovereign
political bodies (Allies/Axis, US/Japan, etc.), as well as between the corporeal bodies of
soldiers and civilians. Bodies were an integral part of war.
These external states of exception between (sovereign) bodies had to be legitimated, or

rather, the violence that came as a result of war had to be legitimated. More specifically,
“old international law was based on the recognition of national sovereignty and the
34
rights of peoples” (Multitude 28). In the past, the legitimacy for war and violence was
based on a framework related to moral and ethical rallying points.6 Despite its being
external to political and social structures, war had a beginning and an end, and this end
was defined by the fulfillment of moral and strategic goals.
2.2 Present’s War

War has grown out of its old definition, and has proliferated in such a way that it is
no longer a limited state of external exception between bodies. While war used to be
traceable, readable, and understandable, it is now a global phenomenon that is no
longer restricted to nation-states. It has penetrated the guarded space once internal to
society, and instead of being conducted between concrete bodies, war is now conducted
between ghost-like entities—ghost-bodies and ghost-states. There is no “end” to war,
for violence is now legitimated based on results. War is now total, and is supported and
perpetuated by technology (speed) and biopower.
War has proliferated, and now exists on global scale. In its traditional model, war was
external to states and governed by international law (Multitude 3). Today, there are
numerous conflicts worldwide, but these conflicts are not wars in the traditional sense
of the word. Rather, they are civil wars, armed conflicts between “sovereign and/or non-
sovereign combatants within a single sovereign territory” (Multitude 3).
This comes as a result of globalization, which has slowly been turning the entire globe
into a single sovereign territory.7 Since roughly the 1980s, governments and corporations
have been turning towards globalization as a means of increasing their fiscal net worth.
This has been accomplished through a variety of methods (such as the deregulation of the
global market) and ultimately has led to a reestablishment of class divides (Harvey 15).
The deregulation of the market has slowly dissolved the power that the nation-state
once held, ultimately leaving this power in the hands of corporations, or, from a Marxist
perspective, in the hands of those who control the means of production—“the nation-
state is no longer the primary instance of the reproduction of global capital” (Readings 12).
35
What has replaced the conglomerate of nation-states is not, however, a single

megacorporation. What, then, is the central authority that generates a world order?
The mechanisms of globalization are a “source of juridical definition that [tend] to
project a single supranational figure of political power” (Empire 9). Therefore, what
we are witnessing on a legal level is the transition from “traditional international law,
which was defined by contracts and treaties, to a definition and constitution of a new
sovereign, supranational power” (Empire 10). This center, or to follow Hardt and Negri’s
terminology, Empire, has conceived of “a new notion of right, or rather, a new inscription
of authority and a new design of the production of norms and legal instruments of
coercion that guarantee contracts and resolve conflicts” (Empire 9). This new conception
of right must present itself as being at the service of justice and peace.8 In this way,
Empire “is emerging today as the center that supports the globalization of productive
networks and casts its widely inclusive net to try to envelop all power relation within its
world order—and yet at the same time it deploys a powerful police function against [all]
who threaten its order” (Empire 20).
The police action exercised by Empire is a part of global civil war. When war existed
between nation-states, each war was a movement towards the end of all war. Within
Empire, there is no such thing. “Instead of moving forward to peace…we seem to have
been catapulted back in time into the nightmare of a perpetual and indeterminate state
of war, suspending the international rule of law, with no clear distinction between the
maintenance of peace and acts of war,” and consequently, “the state of exception has
become permanent and general” (Multitude 7).
This permanent state of exception, which is perpetuated by global police action, requires
weapons. For production to occur, Empire must turn on its own populations “on the one
hand to exact the funds necessary for [war], the infinite development of their weaponry,
and on the other, to control society” (Pure War 107). The first of these goals can be
accomplished through capitalism. The second can be accomplished through what Paul
Virilio has considered endocolonization. Populations must be pacified via the lures of
36
capitalism in order to prove useful instruments of Empire. Endocolonization therefore

conceptually and practically combines war and police activity, while at the time allowing
for the legitimization of violence against an abstract and unlimited enemy. These enemies
are the enemies of Empire, for “commerce comes after the arrival of war in a place, the
state of siege” (Pure War 21). War is therefore a constant reality; “the situation is no
longer very clear between the civil and the military because of the total involvement of
the economy in war—already beginning in peacetime” (Pure War 25).
2.2.1 Means: Technology & Biopower

There are two central tools that Empire uses in order to sustain itself: technology and
biopower. In 1977 already, Virilio stated that “history progresses at the speed of its
weapons systems” (Speed and Politics 90). This is only half of the story, for “modern
warfare and modern industry [have] developed hand in hand” (Multitude 39).
Therefore, history has developed and progressed alongside modern military industry.
This development/progression has been in the direction of the virtual/cyber/digital;
today’s economic landscape is dominated by the virtual, and indeed, “cyber is the new
continent” (The Information Bomb 27). In this, globalization has succeeded in bringing
about the end of space—physically, there is nowhere left to expand (The Information
Bomb 7). Rather, Empire must internally and virtually dominate its populations
(endocolonization). It is no surprise, then, that military control and organization is
exercised through communications and information technologies, nor that warfare itself
has become digital, with an increasing number of weapons contracts being awarded to
corporations for the production of drones.9 Perhaps in the future, no human bodies will
exist on the battlefield.
With the increasing use of technology to conduct war on the battlefield, how are the
masses regulated? For the first time in history, the weapons of the digital age have
made mass and global destruction possible. Nevertheless, Empire cannot exist without
human beings. Just as “sovereign power lives only by preserving the life of its subject…
global war must not only bring death but also produce and regulate life” (Multitude
37
20). Biopower, “a form of power that regulates social life from its interior, following it,
interpreting it, absorbing it, and rearticulating it,” is thereby an “active mechanism that
constantly creates and reinforces the present global order” (Empire 24, Multitude
21). “What is directly at stake in [biopower] is the production and reproduction of life
itself” (Empire 24). An example of biopower is the notion of security, which requires
“rather actively and constantly shaping the environment through military and/or police
activity” (Multitude 20). Biopower is therefore the means by which war is turned into a
permanent social relation and a universal social condition.
War, this constant global state that is sustained through technology and biopower, is
the central feature in Gravity’s Rainbow. The figures of IG Farben, Enzian, Tchitcherine,
Slothrop and the Rocket illustrate both the transition to and the current state of global war.
3. FIGURES
3.1 Der Verbindungsmann
By charting a constellation of figures within Gravity’s Rainbow, we can unearth the
genealogy of our current state of war. IG Farben is the first figure in this formation.
This recurring and enigmatic figure exists in Pynchon’s text, but the figure also has
unavoidable parallels with history: IG Farben is real. In the text, the figure of IG Farben
is complicated, and oddly, it is partially treated as a traditional character. The corporation
claims the dualism that Bennett and Royle describe as fundamental to character: the
dualism of inside and outside. The metafictional qualities that arise as a result of the
characterization of this corporation stress the figure’s (textual) paradoxes.10 However,
these paradoxes are not merely textual. There exists an intertextual strand that links
Pynchon’s IG Farben to the historical IG Farben, and each IG Farben shares a common
paradox. Further, this strand also converts the textual IG Farben into a metaphor, which
in turn illustrates the existence of Empire.
Before engaging the IG Farben of history, it is first necessary to understand what IG

Farben is and represents in Gravity’s Rainbow. Throughout the text, the protagonist,
38
Slothrop, is haunted by the notion that his past and present are being guided by IG
Farben, a corporation that created the plastic/compound Imipolex G.11 This corporation
and its product seem to have a connection with Slothrop’s rocket-inducing (or induced)
erections, and as the plot moves forward, Slothrop becomes convinced that IG Farben is
the chief enigma behind his entire existence. In this way, the figure of IG Farben indeed
enigmatic, but is it a character?
In 1886, the Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Company established a precedent in giving protection to corporations under the 14th
Amendment. Other similar cases have also given legal personality to corporations. These
cases/acts have collectively given corporations leverage in the global market, but more
importantly, the legal standing of corporations (as persons) allows us to understand the
corporation as an individual. But can the corporation also be a fictional character? In
Gravity’s Rainbow, IG Farben is a character—a “complex but unified whole” (Bennett
& Royle 64). The dualism that is inherent in traditional characters is complicated by
the figure of IG Farben—externally, IG Farben is an aggregate of other individuals and
corporations. While it may seem externally disparate, as the text progresses IG Farben
coheres in a singular/proper noun and a slippery pronoun. These textual instances
present a paradox—does the figure/character of IG Farben exist in the text at all?
3.1.1 The Character of IG Farben

When IG Farben appears in the text, a barrage of other names, acronyms and companies
(both subsidiaries and affiliates) surrounds it. These other names complicate IG Farben,
and even though characters usually serve as markers for singular entities, this addition of
names creates a confusion of signs. How, then, can we approach the figure of IG Farben?
Let us begin by examining what is textually “external” about IG Farben. In the text, there
are elements that give IG Farben recognizable “faces.” Among these faces are individuals
such as Generaldirektor Smaragd. Smaragd is not only a Nazi, but also the director of an
undisclosed branch of IG Farben (Pynchon 166). Although Smaragd is a minor character
39
in the text, his presence is noteworthy, for it is completely dependent on IG Farben—he

is introduced in the text, first by name, then as being “of IG” (Pynchon 166). For the rest
of his time in the text, Smaragd does not speak unless there is a connection between the
dialogue and IG Farben (Pynchon 167). In this way, Smaragd is a personality or mode of
IG Farben rather than an actual character.
Another example of IG Farben’s ability to create and command characters/personas is

Wimpe, who serves in many ways as a mouthpiece for the workings of the corporation.
A more concrete character than Smaragd, Wimpe is not only a head salesman for a
subsidiary of IG Farben, but also, he is a German spy (Pynchon 349). Wimpe embodies
a true “Verbindungsmann,” or a liaison/linkman: his charm and classic looks are
evidence of mental and physical “terraces of strength”; he is the physical manifestation
of IG Farben—stoic, unblemished, and enigmatic (Pynchon 349). We know very little
about Wimpe’s character aside from his revealing descriptions of the inner workings of
IG Farben and its subsidiaries. Consequently, the only knowledge we have about Wimpe
is intimately connected with IG Farben, a relationship that is reminiscent of Smaragd and
the corporation. The figure of IG Farben dominates Wimpe in the same way that it does
Smaragd, and IG Farben is even able to dispatch the character/figure of Wimpe: “[When]
Wimpe was reassigned to the United States (Chemnyco of New York),” the reader’s
relationship with him “[ceases] then, forever” (Pynchon 354).
Other examples of IG Farben’s dominance in the text abound. IG Farben, for example,
also guides the scientist Franz Pökler and the psychologist Laslo Jamf through the text.
Both of these characters/figures would not exist without IG Farben. The corporation is not
only their employer, but it is also their only means of existence. Like Smaragd and Wimpe,
Pökler and Jamf are agents of IG Farben—they are all mere limbs on a central body.
In addition to these characters/figures whose existence is dependent on IG Farben, and

who are in turn part of its persona, there are also products that provide an external
connection to the corporation. These products are inseparable from IG Farben. The first
40
mention of IG Farben, in fact, is linked to its product “Kryptoplasm” (Pynchon 73). Other
important products, such as Imipolex G, enable IG Farben to work its way into the narrative.
Slothrop’s connection with Imipolex G establishes IG Farben as an integral part of the
narrative, and at the same time illustrates IG Farben’s reliance on its own products for its
continued existence in the text. While characters/figures/agents move in and out of the text,
the products stay constant. The people of IG Farben are disposable; its production is not.
If the collection of names, personalities, modes, and faces of IG Farben are held together
by its products, what can be said of IG Farben’s internal structure? Does this figure have
a consciousness as a character would have? Consciousness, the state of being awake/
aware of one’s surroundings, is the characteristic of singular entities. In the same way
that the human body with all of its organs, muscles and bones is “contained” by the thin
membrane of skin, IG Farben is made singular by its production—its products serve as
the only stable feature of the figure. IG Farben is the multiple, but it is paradoxically the
singular as well.
There are two key instances in which IG Farben is seen as a singular entity within the
text. These are not narrative events, but techniques used by Pynchon. Pynchon alters
his usage of the name “IG Farben” throughout the text. When the name IG Farben first
appears in the ad for Kryptoplasm, the name is situated as a proper noun that designates
IG Farben’s identity as a corporation. Further on, as names are increasingly associated
with IG Farben (Smaragd, Wimpe, Pökler, Jamf), the name changes shape, and at times,
the shorthand of simply “IG” is used. During Wimpe’s conversation with Tchitcherine,
IG Farben is referred to as “the IG” (Pynchon 353-356). IG Farben is no longer a simple
corporation, it is the corporation—it absorbs and stands in for other corporations and
subsidiaries (Agfa, OKW, etc.).
The IG eventually has no need for a name, and is finally understood as “them” or “they.”
This plural, yet singular, pronoun effectively swallows the characters associated with the
corporation as well. At first, the pronouns “them” or “they” are blankly ambiguous, but
41
even as the number of other characters and corporations multiply within IG Farben’s
body, the name remains in ambiguity. In this way, IG Farben is seemingly omnipresent—a
globalized specter that haunts the paranoid delusions of figures such as Slothrop.
This is a paradox, because as the amount of affiliations and agents that IG Farben
multiplies, the figure becomes oddly more elusive. The figures associated with IG Farben
are unstable within the text—entire exchanges between IG Farben’s agents and other
figures might or might not have occurred (Pynchon 350, 354). The multiple components
of IG Farben are as shifting as its singularity—the megacorporation that is embodied in
the pronouns “them” or “they” is also in flux, and is never confirmed to actually exist in
the text (Pynchon 533).
Character or corporation, singular or multiple, IG Farben both exists and does not exist
in Gravity’s Rainbow. The metafictional techniques that Pynchon uses to (de)construct
IG Farben draw unavoidable attention to the text’s fictional qualities, for how can IG
exist and not exist at the same time? The figure of IG Farben is elusive in the text—we
are unable to read its “lines of flight,” yet the figure’s metafictional qualities situate it
as textual. Further, if the past really does exits, but “we can only ‘know’ that past today
through its texts,” therein lies the connection between the literary IG Farben and the
IG Farben of reality (Hutcheon 10). The text creates a “world” that “has direct links
to the world of empirical reality” (Hutcheon 6). These links are available through the
historical intertexts that are connected with IG Farben, and additionally, said intertexts
enable both worlds, that of the literary IG Farben as well as the “real” IG Farben, to be
understood as symptoms of the historical decay brought about by globalization after
World War II. It with this figure that we can begin to see the genealogy of the present
offered to us by Pynchon.
3.1.2 The Empire of IG Farben

IG Farben is real. To date, IG Farben is the largest chemical corporation in the world, and
by World War II, it had operations throughout the world. In 1943, IG Farben had 334
42
plants and mines across Nazi Germany and Europe alone (Taussig 217). During World
War II, the corporation provided death camps (such as the Auschwitz Camp IV) with
methanol that was used to burn corpses (Taussig 219). One of IG Farben’s crowning
moments came with the invention of the chemical Zyklon B, the inventors of which
received Nobel Prize. Horrifyingly, during World War II, this feat in science replaced
carbon monoxide as the primary method of killing Jews (Taussig 223).
Despite these weighted facts, by the end of World War II IG Farben’s products were in
nearly every American home, as they were a primary manufacturer of dyes, plastics and
textiles (Taussig 218). Further, the directors/heads of IG Farben directors pardoned by
five U.S. judges who were not only fearful of “the Soviet advance,” but also desperate to
conserve the limitless products that IG Farben had introduced (Taussig 218). After World
War II, if IG Farben had not made a household’s bathroom fixtures, shaving mugs, or
razors, their products could surely be found among stockings, make-up, or even Easter
hats (Taussig 218).
More than its products, what is most interesting about IG Farben is the history of
its name. After World War II, the name IG Farben was dissolved, but the company
remained intact:
Too potent a symbol of the marriage of business and chemistry with the
Third Reich, the name was erased after World War II and Farben underwent
a clumsy change of outward identity, breaking up into its constituent pieces.
Amazingly, the old guard was found largely innocent of running Farben’s
slave-labor camps—let us call them by their real name, extermination
camps—and were soon reinstalled in management positions in the chemical
industry, as happened with Nazi rocket scientists taken to the U.S. to continue
their work there so that the U.S. could continue to defend democracy.
(Taussig 218)
43
Like the character/figure of IG Farben in Pynchon’s text, the real IG Farben also silently
proliferated. After World War II, both in the text and in reality, the corporation vanished
but was still present, ceased to be while continuing to exist. Are “they” following
Slothrop? Did “they” make your toothbrush?
IG Farben is not a simple corporation in history or in the text. In the same way that IG
Farben proliferated into 20th century life, the figure of IG Farben exists throughout the
text of Gravity’s Rainbow. The figure is sustained by its production of Imipolex G, just
as the IG Farben of World War II sustained itself through products such as Zyklon B.
While the historical IG Farben is elusive, and seemingly undetectable now in our epoch,
consider the textual IG Farben. Although it is elusive, it serves as a centralizing figure for
the rest of the text. IG Farben is the result of the processes of globalization, and further,
“a source of juridical definitions that [project] a single supranational figure of political
power” (Empire 9). The textual IG Farben is justified in itself, and as we will see, the
more human character/figures in the text push forward “the process of integration and
by the same measure call for more central authority” (Empire 14).
While the textual IG Farben is difficult to track beyond the points we have considered,
there are further traces of it, of Empire, in the conception of “character” in Gravity’s
Rainbow. In the figures of Enzian, Tchitcherine, and Slothrop, we will see the textual
and intertextual effects of Empire on the name, as well as on the external and internal
features of character/human beings.
3.2 Enzian’s Name

The War, the Empire, will expedite such barriers between our lives. The War
needs to divide this way, and to be subdivided, through its propaganda will
always stress unity, alliance, pulling together. (Pynchon 133)
What becomes of humans during times of war, both in the text and outside of it? Is there
a pattern in the convergence between IG Farben (both the textual and the historical
44
figures), Empire, and actual human beings? Are all human beings mere agents of IG
Farben/Empire? In order to approach these questions, we must reconsider the dualism
that was explored in the previous section, as well as the role that the name plays in this
dualism. What is the function of a name? Indeed, before we have access to the dualism
that tends to be available in traditional characters (and in human beings themselves), we
first have access to the name. Names come before a figure’s development; in most cultures,
names are typically given before a human is even born. Similarly, in texts, names give us
the first glimpse into characters/figures, as they are inscribed with meaning before there
are transformed by the experiences and actions of their bearers.
Throughout Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon plays heavily on the names of his figures.
Many of the names in the text are puns, jokes, and idiosyncratic in nature. In his
companion to Pynchon’s text, Steven Weisenburger traces the sometimes dizzying
depth of these names. In fact, for Weisenburger, it would seem that every name in
Pynchon’s text is an opportunity for exegesis. It is important to analyze names that
are not shaped by IG Farben, for as we have seen, these names/characters/figures
are eventually reduced to mere agents. How are other names/figures connected to
IG Farben, and what sort of intertextual connections can be extended towards an
understanding of Empire? The name of the figure of Enzian is an exceptional starting
point in such an analysis, for if one cannot be an “I” without having a proper name,
then it is advantageous to choose a figure that is nothing but a name. Enzian is a
location in which we can view not only Pynchon’s metafictional treatment of names,
but also, one in which we can begin to understand the intertextual dynamic that exists
between individuals and Empire.
Before turning to the historical intertexts that the name Enzian produces, we must
establish his place in the text. While on assignment in South Africa, the German Lieutenant
Weissmann met and developed a relationship with Enzian, and during this time, “gave
his African boy the name ‘Enzian’, after Rilke’s mountainside gentian” (Pynchon 103).
This literary intertext refers to Rilke’s ninth elegy, and if we consider the poem, Enzian can
45
be understood as a “pure word” that has been “won” by a “wanderer” (Weisenburger

82). Weissmann has brought Enzian, not a “yellow and blue gentian,” but a mere word,
from “the mountain slope” to the valley of “untellable earth” (Weisenburger 82). Just as
the wanderer does not know the word he returns with, Weissmann’s Enzian is empty—
Weissmann has translated Enzian (bringing him from the mountain to the valley), and
effaced his former identity as a Herero in favor of a new, colonized one. Enzian realizes
the violence that has been committed against him, but when he remarks that the name
“Enzian” is strange in relationship to the color of his own skin, Weissmann tells him that
even though he is black, in Germany he “would be yellow and blue” (Pynchon 103).12
Ironically, for the majority of the text, Enzian does find himself in Germany. He is the
leader of the Schwarzkommando, a group of Hereros who roam the post-war Zone.13
Like Enzian, these “Zone-Hereros” are “Europeanized in language and thought, [and]
split off from the old tribal unity” (Pynchon 322). As their leader, Enzian “knows that he
is being used for his name” (Pynchon 326). “Everything has flowed away but the name,”
and it has become a “sound for chanting,” despite the fact that “he has been so unable
to touch, so neutral for so long” (Pynchon 326). The figure leads, but leads and exists
without content—he is only a name, a hollow shell.14
Why is it that Enzian is without content? Throughout the text, Enzian has a
doppelgänger in the figure of Tchitcherine. The reader is informed that Tchitcherine and
Enzian share the same mother, and that Tchitcherine has gone to great lengths to track
down and destroy Enzian. In his obsession with carrying out this task, Tchitcherine
has assembled a dossier on Enzian. This dossier was “reproduced by some eager
apparatchik and stashed in Tchitcherine’s own dossier… and so it transpired, no more
than a month or two later, that somebody equally anonymous had cut Tchitcherine’s
orders” (Pynchon 356). The confusion of the two figures illustrates Enzian’s inability
to stay contained even within his own name—his name is attributed to others like
Tchitcherine, and is worn like a mask by their identities. Tchitcherine also thinks of
Enzian as “another part of him,” which further blurs the two figures. This blurring
46
is metafictional, in that it complicates the traditional textualization of character by

drawing attention to the fictional construct of “character.”
Unable to treat the figure of Enzian as a singular entity, the reader may turn to the actual
name, “Enzian.” The Enzian was a surface to air missile utilized by Germany during World
War II. The weapon was first launched in August of 1944, and over sixty were produced.
All of the rockets models, from the final production model, the E-4, to the test E-1, E-2,
and E-3 models, are all discussed using one name —“Enzian.” The rocket’s evolution is
contained in its name.
The Enzian was unable to take off on its own, and required four assisted take-off units to
deliver thrust (Enzian E-4 Surface To Air Missile). The missile would be launched towards
“the target vicinity under radio control using German equipment Kogge and either line of
sight or radar navigation” (Enzian E-4 Surface To Air Missile). The missile was guided by
radio control from the ground. The Enzian, therefore, is a vehicle, an agent of whoever so
chooses to launch it, much like the Qlippoth of Kabbalistic myth. It does not have a mind
of its own, and requires the direction of others to reach its final destination.
In these ways, the intertextual Enzian sheds light on the textual Enzian. Enzian is defined
by the figures that he leads, for example, Tchitcherine is following Enzian throughout
the text, but is somehow a part of Enzian’s identity. It follows that Enzian is not an
individual, or even a character; rather, he is the embodiment of other ideas and pieces of
the text—but which ones (or whose)? Pynchon describes the Schwarzkommando as a
group of scavengers, who, after the war has ended, travel the Zone and search for scraps
of rockets that they use to construct their own. It is clear that Enzian is himself following
the figure of the Rocket.
The name Enzian has two principal roles in the text. The first is to demonstrate the failure
of naming—Enzian’s name is unable to bring him any singularity. Enzian does not have a
singular identity, but rather, he is translated into a textual social subject.15 “Characters”
47
like Enzian are effaced in favor of a unity that “makes of the population a single,
[controllable] identity” (Multitude xiv).16 The second role that Enzian’s name has is
intertextual—it introduces technology as a trope and key figure, both inside and outside
of the text. If this pure name is a gateway to technology, then what can we make of the
dualism that follows the name?
3.3 Tchitcherine’s Body

All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being
broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the
loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all. (Pynchon 233)
If figure of Enzian opens our discussion up to technology, then the figure of Tchitcherine
brings to light the relationship between technology and the figure/individual. This
connection has an extensive history, and can be charted over the course of the 20th
century. How can we engage this history? The genre of historiographic metafiction has
two key attributes: self-reflexivity and intertextuality. The genre also denies modernism’s
introversion and distancing from the world.17 Its usage of metafiction establishes a
“world” in which the text positions itself as the “world” of discourse (a “world” that
has “direct links to the world of empirical reality, but it is not itself that empirical
reality”) (Hutcheon 6). In a parallel movement, writers who exploit intertextuality
similarly connect the text to the world, a movement that denies the total separation of
this world and the discourse of the text.
Pynchon makes use of parody and irony in tandem with historiographic metafiction to
demand that the reader recognize the textualized traces of the literary and historical
past, but also, to make him/her aware of what has been done to those traces through
parody and irony. In this way, the past is not destroyed, but rather, it both enshrined
and questioned. In a sweeping move, Gravity’s Rainbow not only anticipates this
new world system, but also cartographically locates humanity’s biological degeneration
(devolution) in relationship to the system.
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The nature of this devolution, which has been brought about by what the global
consumer considers “progress,” can be addressed by analyzing the figure of
Tchitcherine. Pynchon frames the figure of Tchitcherine with both metafiction and
intertextuality. The metafiction that surrounds the figure of Tchitcherine questions the
idea of “character” by drawing attention to the irony of Tchitcherine’s textual instability.
This instability is most noticeable in a series of ironic textual ruptures that come from
Pynchon’s use of alternating narrative modes—second-person, third-person limited,
and third-person omniscient narration. Pynchon also utilizes intertextuality, and does
so through parody—Tchitcherine’s physical make-up is a parody of technology’s
development and its parallel connection with capitalism/globalization during the course
of the 20th century.
Pynchon’s use of alternating narrative modes (second-person, third-person limited, third-

person omniscient) creates a textual paradox that highlights the fictional nature of the
figure of Tchitcherine: the combination of second-person and third-person omniscient
narration illuminates what seems to be a concrete understanding of Tchitcherine as a
character, while the use of third-person limited narration destabilizes this understanding.
In this way, the text self-reflexively exposes the illusion of fiction and at the same time
paradoxically denies a text’s ability to contain the complexities of literary characters.
Pynchon’s use of second-person narration brings the reader into the text, and asks him/
her to understand Tchitcherine through a subjective lens (“If you are Tchitcherine…”)
(Pynchon 354). This narrative mode establishes a connection between what Tchitcherine
is experiencing and the reader’s (past) experience outside of the text.
This intertextual bridge between the reader and the text is buttressed by Pynchon’s
use of the third-person omniscient narrative mode in describing Tchitcherine’s horse,
Snake. First, we are told that “Tchitcherine’s horse is a version of himself” (Pynchon
347). This link between Tchitcherine and Snake enables Pynchon to describe one
by describing the other—their identities become interchangeable. Therefore, when
49
Pynchon describes Snake as “methodically homicidal” and “unpredictable,” the

reader comes into intimate contact with Tchitcherine as well (Pynchon 347). The
omniscient narrator also establishes a link between Tchitcherine and Enzian. In
a complex move, Pynchon’s usage of pronouns applies to both Tchitcherine and
Enzian at the same time. In one instance, Pynchon describes Tchitcherine/Enzian
wandering listlessly through the Zone as “History and Geopolitics” move him “surely
into confrontation” with Tchitcherine/Enzian (Pynchon 349). The reader is correct
in predicting confrontations between Tchitcherine/Enzian, Enzian/Tchitcherine,
Tchitcherine/Tchitcherine, and Enzian/Enzian. Pynchon forces the pronouns for these
two characters to slip, a move that instead of destabilizing the figures, provides the
reader with a better understanding of them both. By contrast, this “understanding”
of individuals is actually a complication of multiple figures, and the encompassing
descriptions that follow paradoxically serve to de-individualize these figures.
These descriptions enable the reader to view the “character” of Tchitcherine through
his/her own reality, as well as through the figures of Snake and Enzian.19 However,
the understanding of Tchitcherine that is established through Pynchon’s use of
second-person and third-person omniscient narration is also destabilized by his use
of third-person limited narration. Pynchon uses this narrative mode to label many of
Tchitcherine’s past experiences as “extravagant… rumors” (Pynchon 348). The reader
consequently cannot attribute a past to Tchitcherine. Similarly, it is impossible to
truly claim that Tchitcherine’s voice or body has existed in the text at all (“What did
Tchitcherine have to say? Was Tchitcherine there at all?”) (Pynchon 350). The possibility
of Tchitcherine’s nonexistence in the text nullifies any description attributed to him
by the second-person and third-person omniscient narrative modes. This movement
destroys any concrete understanding of Tchitcherine as a textual “character.”
In this sense, the text is a machine that paradoxically constructs and unmasks the
figure of Tchitcherine. Pynchon provides the reader with a detailed description of this
mechanism through an anecdote about Tchitcherine’s experience listening to two
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Kazakh singers: “The boy and girl go on battling with their voices—and Tchitcherine
understands, abruptly, that soon someone will come out and begin to write down some
of these down in the New Turic Alphabet he helped frame… and this is how they will
be lost” (Pynchon 362). If taken as a metaphor for writing, this anecdote explains
Gravity’s Rainbow’s treatment of the textual construction of “character.” While
“characters” may exist outside of the text (through their intertextual connections with
the text of the “world”), they are unable to hold a specific shape inside of it. Pynchon’s
collection of narrative modes and the metaphorical “New Turic Alphabet” that exists in
Gravity’s Rainbow are two locations of discourse—respectively internal and external
to the text—that are incompatible with one another. The locations represent what Jean-
François Lyotard has termed the différend, which Gayatri Spivak has paraphrased in the
context of post-colonialism as “the inaccessibility of, or untranslatability from, one mode
of discourse in a dispute to another” (Spivak 96). In the figure’s argument for a position
in the text, the différend is clearly present.
The metafictional qualities of Gravity’s Rainbow seem to suggest that the novel is “a closed,
self-sufficient, autonomous object deriving its unity from the formal interrelations of its parts”
(Hutcheon 6). This is not the case, however, as Pynchon has woven historical intertexts into
the novel through a parody of technology and its relationship to the human body.
Tchitcherine’s physical make-up serves as the basis for this parody. He is described as a
“mad scavenger” who is “more metal than anything else” (Pynchon 342). Further, “under
his pompadour is a silver plate,” and a “gold wirework threads in three-dimensional tattoo
among the fine wreckage of cartilage and bone inside his right knee joint, the shape of it
always felt, pain’s old fashioned seal, and his proudest battle decoration” (Pynchon 342).
This “scarred tapestry” is a paradox—Tchitcherine’s body is a pastiche of organic flesh
and inorganic technology. His existence relies wholly on this paradox, for technology has
not only physically fragmented his body, but it is also holds it together.
The description of Tchitcherine allows the reader to visualize his physical features.
Tchitcherine is a cyborg, and while there were no actual cyborgs roaming Europe during
51
World War II, the deliberate exaggeration of Tchitcherine’s body paradox opens the
text up to technology’s historical context during the 20th century. What was/is the
relationship between humans and technology?
From the development of faster, more precise missiles to the creation and abuse of
napalm, technology was employed during the 20th century to serve the efforts of the
war machine (World War II, Vietnam).21 Also during this period, capitalism began to
expand into markets around the globe, a project that would ultimately take on the form
and name of globalization. During this time (and in the present as well), the chief aim of
progress in consumer products was the enhancement of speed. The consumer demanded
a faster product, and capitalism responded with technological advances.
However, global consumers failed (and continue to fail) to recognize the accidents that
have developed alongside technological “progress.” Virilio has documented these accidents
extensively; for example, real-time video has brought about the alteration of the human
understanding of time. Our humanity has been breaking down, in the sense that the
evolutionary progress that has enabled the human being to dominate the earth has also
paradoxically begun to stunt its “growth,” and has arguably even reversed the entire process.
Tchitcherine the Cyborg is not only a parody of the soldier during the 20th century—
he is also a parody of the global consumer. Pynchon’s paradoxical description of
Tchitcherine’s body can be understood as a metaphor for the consumer’s relationship
with technology. If applied to our present, a reading Tchitcherine functions as follows:
1. Technology is a tool of war. Speed is the essential attribute of the dominant

technological weaponry.
2. Technology is also a commodity. Speed is the essential attribute of the dominant

technological commodity.
3. In war, technology tears humans apart and rebuilds them. The result is literally a
multitude of Tchitcherines.

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4. In the metropolis, technology dehumanizes consumers. At the same time,

it establishes an intercourse between what is human and what is technology.

Metaphorically, Tchitcherine has become a civilian, and in turn, a consumer.
5. Capitalism requires war in order to survive. Economically dominant nations must

have the fastest weapons if they are to continue the now current neoliberal project

of Empire—the opening up of and deregulation or markets, and the influx of capital
into the upper class. Therefore, capitalism’s lifeblood is war and speed.22

6. Therefore, as capitalism perpetuates war and speed, it also supports the
dehumanization of the consumer.
7. Although the transition to speedier products seems like natural “progress,” the

global consumer fails to recognize that it is not only being transformed into a

technology itself, but that it is also contributing to the perpetuation of the dominant

economic system that is subverting entire populations as it reproduces capital.
8. The word “human” is tangled up with technology, despite the fact that technology

and humanity are two different discourses. To add technology to the human “body”

is by no means to make it more human. Rather, the opposite is true. As the global

consumer accepts technology and speed as progress, it by extension accepts war
and globalization as progress.23

The paradoxical figure of Tchitcherine functions as a historical intertext to the

technological and political climates of not only the 20th century, but of the 21st century
as well. In the argument for the increasing role of technology in our day-to-day lives, a
différend is and has been present. Through Tchitcherine, Pynchon suggests that despite
our purchased idea of “progress,” the discourse of humanity/technology is incompatible
with the discourse of humanity.
3.4 Slothrop’s Mind

Up to this point, the figures of both Enzian and Tchitcherine, despite their distance
from IG Farben, are in many ways agents. Names in the text and in Empire seem
to vanish, or rather, “all differences are submerged and drowned in the masses”
53
(Multitude xiv). Further, “these masses are able to move in unison only because they
form an indistinct, uniform conglomerate” (Multitude xiv). In an extreme/parodic
case, but nevertheless a revealing one, the body/external features of Tchitcherine
makes him in many ways an agent, as the technology that sustains war also
sustains his life. Further, the intertexts of both of these figures uncover interesting
convergences with IG Farben (textually), and by extension, with Empire. Names are
being swallowed by the masses, and our bodies are becoming more and more reliant
upon technology. But what of our minds?
Before continuing, we must revisit the dualism that we have encountered in the
figures of IG Farben, Enzian, and Tchitcherine. These figures—the name that precedes
“character” and the external side of the binary/dualism—are still textually tied to the
figure of IG Farben. Further, the intertexts of these figures seem to point towards a
united force external to the text—that of Empire. Names and external features to do not
need space in order to be observed; the internal make-up of a human being, however,
cannot be summarized with a simple snapshot. For example, we do not necessarily
need to summarize the narrative course of either Enzian or Tchitcherine in order to
trace their correlations with IG Farben/Empire. Internal composition is an altogether
different story. The inside is the “mind, soul, or self,” but more specially, the biological
and psychological rhythms that are both causes and effects of the mind, soul, and self
(Bennett and Royle 64).
But if the figures we have touched upon thus far have proven fickle, unstable, and
sometimes mere illusions, what figure could possibly be available for an exposition of
this inside? The key protagonist in the text, the “hero,” and the most recurring figure
in Gravity’s Rainbow is Tyrone Slothrop. Slothrop, an American, is portrayed as the
“common man.” Slothrop, a US Army lieutenant, finds himself working for ACHTUNG
at the end of World War II. During this employment with ACHTUNG in London, in
every location that Slothrop sleeps with a woman, a V-2 rocket strikes days, hours, and
sometimes minutes later. This is due to the fact that when Slothrop was a baby, he was
54
sold to a subsidiary of IG Farben, and that the psychologist Laszlo Jamf submitted him to
Pavlovian conditioning. It is this conditioning is what causes Slothrop’s rocket-inducing
erections.24 Even though Slothrop is biologically and psychologically connected to IG
Farben, he spends the length of the text trying to escape both IG Farben and its agents,
while at the same time attempting to discover the history of this connection himself.
If Slothrop is a worthy candidate for our task of seeking out the mind, soul and self of
the human in Pynchon’s text, where should we start? The biology or psychology of an
individual is not a singular event, and therefore, must be observed over a period of time.
Further, as the period of observation increases, so does the observer’s ability to paint
a totalizing picture of the subject’s internal workings. Since Slothrop exists in nearly
every section of the text, we will consider a relatively arbitrary chronology—his textual
beginning, middle and end. This way, we will be able to absorb the life of the figure of
Slothrop—his birth, life, and death.25
This chronology may be arbitrary in form, but its content is not. In the course of the text,
any internal understanding of Slothrop’s self is paired/develops with an understanding of
IG Farben.26 In the beginning of the text, Slothrop, who is entrenched in his day job, has no
real understanding of himself, nor does he have any idea of who or what IG Farben is—he
is blind to the workings of the text that is moving around him. As the narrative progresses,
Slothrop becomes more aware of his connection to IG Farben biologically, psychologically,
and in other ways. In this middle section of the text, Slothrop gains knowledge about his
internal connection to IG Farben through not only his own experiences, but also, through
actual directed research/study. However, as Slothrop’s internal make-up is fatally tied to
IG Farben, this knowledge is just as elusive as the figure of IG Farben—it is a paranoia
of “Them.” Slothrop attempts to evade the looming figure of IG Farben, and creates a
series of aliases in order to avoid becoming an agent, which would mean working for the
corporation. He succeeds, insofar as IG Farben’s other agents do not catch him, however,
the power/control that They exert over him, both biologically and psychologically, lead
to his textual death, and in the end of the text, the figure of Slothrop fragments and
55
disappears without a trace. In the novel’s final episode, Slothrop is described as anything
but an “integral creature,” and we are told that the other characters/figures of the
narrative have given up “trying to hold him together, even as a concept” (Pynchon 755).
Slothrop seems to come apart. The totality of his character/figure is therefore

metafictional, as the undoing/division of a person draws attention to the text as fiction.
Slothrop’s metafictional qualities are furthered because of his complete dependence on
the figure of IG Farben, which again draws attention to the textuality of the construct
of “character.” These metafictional elements of this text give way to a textual biopower.
As we have mentioned, “biopower is a form of power that regulates social life from
its interior, following it, interpreting it, absorbing it, and rearticulating it,” as “what is
directly at stake in [biopower] is the production and reproduction of life itself” (Empire
24). Further, given the already established intertexts of IG Farben, the figure of Slothrop
points towards an intertextual biopower as well.
Start with the beginning. What does Pynchon tell us about Slothrop’s internal features
in the first section of the text (“Beyond The Zero”)? Slothrop is first seen working for
ACHTUNG, which is a “poor relative of Allied intelligence” (Pynchon 20). Slothrop’s job
is the report to missile sites, where he is supposed to collect information or pieces of the
weapons. This occupation is an eternal dead-end, however, as he always shows up too
late, and any attempt at actually doing his job becomes tangled in a series of bureaucratic
processes; any orders that are given to him have “no explanation” (Pynchon 21).
Slothrop does not remain in the dark for long, and is able to uncover an increasing
number of pieces of his own history/connection with IG Farben. Although he has
very little knowledge about IG Farben, Slothrop begins to suspect that there is a
force orchestrating particular events, especially when he arrives at the casino in the
second section of the novel (“Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering”). There, he is
somehow able to rescues a beautiful woman from an evil octopus in what seems like
a scene from a film. After this instance, he asks: “Who’s waiting behind the door, and
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what machinery have They brought with Them?” (Pynchon 209). The same elusive
“they” that IG Farben moves through is oddly identified with the force that Slothrop
knows nothing about, as well as with technology. After his run-in with the octopus,
Slothrop is afforded the opportunity (by whom, we do not know) to study the V-2
rocket. In turn, Slothrop uncovers information about himself, such as evidence of his
connection with IG Farben as a baby. For example, it is suggested that Slothrop was
sold by his father to IG Farben “like a side of beef” and that he has “been under their
observation… since he was born” (Pynchon 291). However, as Slothrop learns more
about Imipolex G and his connection to IG Farben, confusion, acronyms, and paranoia
all increase exponentially, eventually leading to his fragmentation as well as the
fragmentation of the narrative. It would appear that because Slothrop’s knowledge of
the Rocket and himself is channeled through the figure of IG Farben, it is worthless,
useless, and detrimental.
In the third section of the text (“In The Zone”), Slothrop does not simply accept this
paranoia. Rather, he moves forward in spite of his paranoia’s reproduction. Instead of
allowing IG Farben to convert him into a mere agent, like Wimpe for example, Slothrop
slips into a series of disguises that aide him as he flees from IG Farben’s agents—among
others, “ace reporter” Ian Scuffling, Rocketman, Max Schlepzig (a Russian soldier), and
Plechazunga, the pig hero. Interestingly, Slothrop only begins truly running from Them
and Their agents (via his aliases) after he has lost his identity completely.27 Further, it
is only after he has lost his identity that he is able to begin learning about himself, IG
Farben, and the Rocket(s).
This acquisition of knowledge continues throughout the text, as Slothrop picks up bits
and pieces of information in each successive part of the narrative. His quest seems to
echo detective fictions; however, instead of making a golden discovery or finding a key
that unlocks and binds the information he already has together, Pynchon dispatches
the figure of Slothrop. Beginning in episode six of the text’s final section (“The
Counterforce”), the narration itself begins to fragment. This is apparent as Pynchon uses
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a variety of discourses, modes, and forms in order to parody “etymological/philological

writing, scientific writing, travel handbooks, poetic forms, and letters” (Weisenburger
344). The narrative is still fragmented when the reader comes to the final episode of
the text. What has become of Slothrop if the text’s grounding has vanished beneath his
feet?28 Instead of enlightenment, “no one Slothrop has listened to is clear who’s trying
whom for what” (Pynchon 695). Rather, Slothrop is textually and mentally dispersed—
“some believe that fragments of Slothrop have grown into consistent personae of their
own. If so, there’s no telling which of the Zone’s present-day population are offshoots of
his original scattering” (Pynchon 757).
It is possible to read Slothrop’s fragmentation as a simple mental breakdown, but it is

more than this. First, the actual narrative breaks apart, and then Slothrop disappears.
While other figures in the text have metafictional qualities, the end of Slothrop’s textual
life is the text’s most overt example of metafiction, as it not only (again) draws attention
to the textuality of the construct of “character,” but also, to the construct of narrative.
Internally, Slothrop is bound to IG Farben/Imipolex G, and even though he attempts
to comprehend the extent of this relationship, the biopower that IG Farben effectively
exerts over him destroys him. IG Farben is able to regulate Slothrop’s social life from his
own interior—“following it, interpreting it, absorbing it, and rearticulating it” (Empire
24). Slothrop, like Tchitcherine, is also a cyborg, in that he is a pure (organic) mechanism
of IG Farben. Moreover, through its biological control over him, IG Farben psychologically
levels Slothrop and eventually disperses him. In a movement that breaks the fourth wall,
Pynchon tells us that Slothrop’s fragments are among the general population. While
this reestablishes Slothrop as a metaphor for everyman, it also begs the question—if
“Slothrop” was governed by the biopower exerted by IG Farben in the text, how are we
governed by biopower exercised by Empire?
Biopower is intimately connected to our state of global and perpetual war. Alongside
technology, it is what enables Empire to reproduce itself and its populations, and
effectively regulate the masses. Police activity, such as the United States’ involvement in
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Vietnam, Latin America, and Iraq, or the Soviet engagement in Afghanistan, proves war
to be an integral element of biopower, “aimed at the construction and reproduction of a
global social order” (Multitude 39). In addition to these external conflicts, biopower also
exists internally. Transnational corporations, such as the historical IG Farben, “construct
the fundamental connective fabric of the biopolitical world in certain important respects,”
and in the second half of the twentieth century, multinational and transnational
industrial and financial corporations began to structure global territories biopolitically
(Empire 31). In doing so, these corporations have tended to “make nation-states merely
instruments to record the flows of the commodities, monies, and populations that they
set in motion” (Empire 31). This flow streams through a “complex apparatus that selects
investments and directs financial and monetary maneuvers [which in effect] determines
the new geography of the world market, or really the new biopolitical structuring of the
world” (Empire 32).29
This new world is digital, and there, at the “end of geography,” the great industrial and
financial powers must produce “not only commodities but also subjectivities. They [must]
produce agentic subjectivities within the biopolitical context: they [must] produce needs,
social relations, bodies, and minds—which is to say, they [must] produce producers”
(Empire 32). Communication technology is key to this endocolonization:
The development of communications networks has an organic relationship to

the emergence of the new world order—it is, in other worlds, effect and cause,
product and producer. Communication not only expresses but also organizes
the movement of globalization. It organizes the movement but multiplying and
structuring interconnections through networks. (Empire 32)
In Empire, communication technology produces language, and “language, as it

communicates, produces commodities but moreover creates subjectivities, puts them in
relation, and orders them” (Empire 33). Like Slothrop, we are all subjects of biopower,
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and we are all dependent on communication technology. The final figure of our
constellation, the Rocket, is not only an exposition of communication technology, but
also, is a unifier of the figures we have addressed thus far.
4. ROCKETS
The role of the Rocket in Gravity’s Rainbow is twofold. The Rocket, which is
unexpectedly positioned as a character/figure, serves as a textual unifier. Pynchon utilizes
the figure of the Rocket to contain the other figures within the text, yet paradoxically,
this unification effaces the figures and draws attention to the unstable construct of
character and narrative. In this way, the Rocket is not only a metafictional catalyst, but
becomes the text itself. The text, Gravity’s Rainbow, is (like the Rocket) a technology.
But can knowledge be written into or read out of a text? Pynchon’s text demonstrates
to that texts cannot contain or accurately transmit knowledge—they are failed
technologies. Furthermore, when juxtaposed with the actual reading speed that the text
demands of its readers, Pynchon’s own application of knowledge gives way to significant
historical intertexts.
4.1 Unifier
Over the couple of generations, moved by accelerations unknown in the days
before the Empire, They have been growing an identity that few can see as
ever taking final shape. The Rocket will have a final shape, but not its people.
(Pynchon 321)
It seems that there is an unlimited supply of rockets in Gravity’s Rainbow. The text
opens and closes with references to rockets, and actual plot of the text in between is
based around the search for the Rocket. Called “00000,” we are told that the Rocket
was launched by Lieutenant Weissmannn. Weissmann is the face of the Rocket—as
other figures in the text seek out one, they seek out the other. Independently of
Weissmann, the Rocket is also a figure in the text—it does not only have a “rocket
trajectory, but also a life… between the two points, in the five minutes, it lives an entire
60
life” (Pynchon 212). The Rocket, however, does not exist as a “character,” much like the
other figures in the text do. The Rocket does not speak, and its one action in the text—
its launch and landing—is left incomplete, in that Pynchon never informs reader where
the Rocket lands. Instead of analyzing whether or not the Rocket possesses the dualism
we have discussed, we will turn to each figure we have dealt with thus far—IG Farben,
Enzian, Tchitcherine, and Slothrop—and seek out their relationships with the Rocket.
The 00000 rocket is not commissioned by IG Farben in the text—it was the pet project
of Lieutenant Weissmann, and as a result, Weissmann is not a simple of agent of IG
Farben—he and the Rocket are intertwined. On the other hand, the agents of IG Farben,
or the faces of IG Farben, such as Smaragd, Wimpe, Pökler and Jamf all contribute to the
construction of the Rocket. For example, Franz Pökler is a rocket scientist, much of whose
work is used in constructing the 00000. Further, Jamf’s plastic, Imipolex G, is also used
in the 00000. Indeed, the agents of IG Farben are “[extensions] of the Rocket,” for even
though the 00000 has no affiliation to a particular state or political purpose, IG Farben
and its agents are embodied by it (Pynchon 408).
The Rocket also unites the other figures that we have discussed. Enzian, Tchitcherine,
and Slothrop are all following the Rocket, as if “somewhere, among the wastes of the
World,” there lies “the key that will bring [them] back, restore [them] to [their] Earth
and to [their] freedom” (Pynchon 534). For the duration of his time in the narrative,
Enzian and his followers are searching the Zone for pieces of rockets, in hopes of
building a duplicate of the 00000 and launching it from the same location that
Weissmann launched his own—Enzian is a simulacrum of Weissmann. By extension,
Tchitcherine is also following the Rocket, as he is seeking to destroy his double,
Enzian. Less consciously, Slothrop is following the Rocket as he attempts to unearth
knowledge about its connection with his own past. The Rocket is being read by
these figures as a “holy Text,” as if by reaching, understanding, or reproducing it, the
figures in the text will understand themselves; however, when the text ends, nearly
every figure has vanished.30 The only figure that remains when the text ends is the
61
Rocket. In this way, the textual figure of the Rocket never dies. Throughout the text,
the Rocket is a system of communication: it enables figures to exist through it, brings
them definition, and carries them through the narrative; the Rocket is a language and
a narrative, indeed, the narrative.
In Gravity’s Rainbow, the human figures fail to translate the language of the Rocket
into their own. Walter Benjamin tells us that “the basic error of the translator is that
he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing
his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue” (Benjamin 81). When
figures enter the text, the language that Pynchon has created (through his research,
intertexts, etc.) must be negotiated. Indeed, traditional characters are effaced by
the technology of the text. A différend exists between each figure and the text
itself. 31 If Gravity’s Rainbow is an application of (Pynchon’s) knowledge, what
can it really tell us about anything? It is seemingly impossible to skim the surface
of Gravity’s Rainbow for knowledge, as there is simply too much of it to wade
through. In addition to the destabilization of the figures in the text, the impossibility
of knowledge in the text also complicates the construct of narrative. What, if anything,
has actually happened during the course of the novel?
4.2 Unifiers
In the ninth thesis of his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin
describes an angel whose “face is turned towards the past. Where we see the
appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly
piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet” (Benjamin 257). Humanity
has moved too quickly (be it via technology or otherwise), and instead of progressing,
has left “one single catastrophe” behind itself. Benjamin continues to describe
humanity’s inability to transform their present as follows:
... a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and
is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him
62
irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-
heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.
(Benjamin 258)
Progress and linear time are the enemies of true transformation, and instead of
moving humanity forward, these two elements make it impossible to reflect on or
change the present.
Perhaps, this is why Pynchon has offered us an alternate speed with Gravity’s Rainbow.
While the text complicates what knowledge we can claim to derive from it, it is woven
together by the figure of the Rocket. The Rocket is not only a textual device—it is a
mobile metaphor, and its reapplication links the “figures” in the text to the present and
to the text of history.
As we have seen, the Rocket not only creates a language, but also serves as a means
of communication. The Rocket is at the same time an individual. How can this be?
We need look no further than a new Supreme Court case involving the transnational
communications corporation, AT&T. The case echoes Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad Company, which established the precedent protecting corporations
under the 14th Amendment. AT&T has recently argued that it “may assert personal
privacy interests to prevent the government from releasing documents about them”
(The Huffington Post).
Corporations such as AT&T have also begun to create a new language, in which the
global consumer is immersed. For example, the social experience of Facebook and new
technologies such as FaceTime has completely reshaped how individuals communicate
and experience the present.32 Like warfare, communication is becoming digital.
These new technologies, presented by transnational corporations as commodities,
claim to enhance communication via speed and frequency, but in fact, they are not
completely harmless.
63
Consider the convergences between surveillance technology and communication

tech-nologies such as Facebook and FaceTime. Totalizing surveillance systems, as they
operate in real-time, are designed to not only see, but also “foresee in our place”
(The Vision Machine 61). This is the effect of real-time video optics (the technology
of FaceTime), as they are able to broadcast images in supersession of our actual
eyesight. Further, while “faced with this ultimate in automation, the usual categories
of energetic reality are no longer much help. If real time prevails over real space, if
the image prevails over the object present, to say nothing of the being, if the virtual
prevails over the real,” what is more real—the machine’s image or human eyesight?
(The Vision Machine 61).33
Reliance upon real-time video optics has further implications beyond the triumph of the
virtual image over the object—eventually, even temporality is displaced—as “the three
tenses of decisive action, past present and future, [are] surreptitiously replaced by two
tenses, real time and delayed time”—real time being a collapsing of the fragments
of the present and the immediate future (that is, in light of real-time video optics),
and delayed time being a convergence of the past with the real-time present, as “the
‘live’ recording [preserves], like an echo, the real presence of the event” (The Vision
Machine 61). This fragmenting of human temporal perception through the proliferation
of the “real-time” image will ultimately decay time, to the extent that we as human
beings will be unable to reflect upon historical events long enough to disentangle
success from failure, movement from stasis. If we stay aligned with Benjamin’s
understanding of history, such reflections are imperative to the existence of humanity. In
opposition to this, the technological apparatus of real-time video optics negates the use
of the human brain and/in all its reason, and favors both “[a] electronic occipital cortex”
and the “production of sightless vision”—“[a] reproduction of an intense blindness that
[would] become the latest and last form of industrialization: the industrialization of the
non-gaze” (The Vision Machine 61). Perhaps then, long after the human mind has
vanished into time’s hemorrhage, communication technologies will live on—the remains
of human communication will be the technologies that once claimed to hold it together,
64
and the remains of war will be the drones we are building to fortify the capital and
markets required to reproduce these technologies—“there will be no more man, there
will only be weapons” (Pure War 172).
Subsequently, the text of Gravity’s Rainbow functions like a communications

technology—it distorts and makes impossible the conception of the individual,
while at the same time “producing and reproducing all aspects of life” (Multitude
13). Communication technologies are therefore entrenched in the cycle of Empire
and serve as a biopolitical tool of global war. What does it matter if our means of
communication—a discourse that we are knowingly negotiating/translating—is
controlled, or more hauntingly, commoditized? Can we turn to Pynchon’s text to
answer these questions?
As names disappear into the mass of global consumers, as the human body is digitized
and virtually reassembled, and as the biopolitical production of communication
technologies reshapes humanity, any exegesis that could be performed on Pynchon’s
work would be in vain. We have said that Gravity’s Rainbow is a genealogy of the
present, but it is more than that—it is the present. The text succeeds in failing to
give us answers, as even its slowed-down speed is unable to shape knowledge into
anything that the human mind can manipulate. By the last page of Gravity’s Rainbow,
Pynchon has abandoned every figure with the exception of the Rocket—all others have
fragmented or been absorbed along the way.
All that is left is technology.

65
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Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. Print.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken, 2007. Print.
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New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. Print.
Chomsky, Noam. Profit Over People. Seven Stories Press, New York. 1999. Print.
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enzian.html#thumb>.
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<http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/70079>.
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Pantheon,1980. Print.
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2000. Print.
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of
Empire. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
2005. Print.
Hutcheon, Linda. “Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History.”

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Robert Con Davis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. 3-32. Print.
“iPhone 4—One-tap Video Calling with FaceTime on iPhone 4.” Apple. Web. 28 Nov.
2010. <http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/facetime.html>.
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defense-update.com/products/h/hunter.htm>.
Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York, NY: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins. Harvard University Press, Boston. 1996. Print.
66
“Supreme Court Takes On Corporate Privacy Case With AT&T.” The Huffington Post. Web.

28 Nov. 2010. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/supreme-court-takes-
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n-co_n_742567.html>.
Taussig, Michael T. What Color Is the Sacred? Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
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“technology, n.” OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. 4 December
2010. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/198469?redirectedFrom=technology>.
Virilio, Paul, and Sylvère Lotringer. Pure War. Trans. Mark Polizzotti. Los Angeles, CA:
Semiotext(e), 2008. Print.
Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics. Trans. Mark Polizzotti. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e),
2006. Print.
Virilio, Paul. The Information Bomb. Trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2000. Print.
Virilio, Paul. The Vision Machine. Trans. Julie Rose. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana
University Press, 1994. Print.
Weisenburger, Steven. A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion: Sources and Context for
Pynchon’s Novel. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Print.
Williams, Patrick, Laura Chrisman, and Gayatri Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”

Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994. Print.
67
ENDNOTES
1 The definition of technology is threefold. Technology is a branch of knowledge dealing with the
mechanical arts and applied sciences, as well as the application of such knowledge for practical
purposes. Moreover, technology is the product of such application; “technological knowledge or
know-how; a technological process, method or technique.” Interestingly, during the 17th century,
technology related to the systematic treatment of grammar. (OED Online)
2 A figure is the proper or distinctive shape or appearance of a person or thing; an embodied
(human) form; a person considered with regard to visible form or appearance. Less specifically,
it is anything as determined by an outline or external form—it is a persona, an importance, a
distinction, or a ‘mark’. It can also be an imaginary form, a phantasm; especially an artificial
representation of the human form. Due to the problematic nature of “character” in Gravity’s
Rainbow, this collective definition of “figure” will be used. (OED Online)
3 In geometry, a figure is also a definite form constituted by a given line or continuous series of lines
so arranged as to enclose a superficial space—it is a form that exists only because it is part of the
line or lines. (OED Online)
4 Hardt and Negri “contend that the new political order of globalization should be seen in line
with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or
limits.” Further, Empire “is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance
and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s global Empire draws on elements of U.S.
constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers”
(Empire back cover).
5 Hardt and Negri owe the term “state of exception” to the political theorist Carl Schmitt. This
concept was further developed by Giorgio Agamben in his text State Of Exception (University of
Chicago Press, 2005).
6 For an example of this type of legitimization, consider the following excerpt from U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of war on Germany at the outset of World War I:
“Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved
and the freedom of its people, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the
existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled
wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.”
7 “Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing
trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for
corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without
having obligations to the peoples of those nations” (Chomsky 13).
8 Ambiguous words such as “justice” and “peace” are signposts in the new world order of Empire.
David Harvey has considered the word “freedom” in a similar manner. “The idea of freedom…
degenerates into a mere advocacy of free enterprise, which means the fullness of freedom for
those whose income, leisure, and security need no enhancing” (Harvey 37). Further, Harvey claims
that “freedom” is merely a catch phrase for corporations and governments to invoke a false sense
of moral scale to what is otherwise the reopening of a class divide via corporate power
(Harvey 38).
9 An example of such a contract is one that was awarded by the United States Government in
2008. Totaling $97,000,000, the contract was given to Northrop Grumman to “procure, modify,
and deliver 12 Hunter MQ-5B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) aircraft,” among other assorted
products/technologies (MQ-5B Hunter UAV). This particular UAV has been in use by the U.S. Army
68
since 1996, and in addition to being the Army’s first fielded UAV, has seen use across the globe
(defense-update.com). UAVs are unmanned units that have the ability to launch/drop weaponry
while under the control of individuals on the ground. UAVs have been used a great deal in the
United States’ “War on Terror” throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (Carne). The use of
UAVs has also been controversial, as it has been seen to lead to the killing of civilians in all of
these countries (Carne).
10 In Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon self-consciously utilizes the techniques (or technology) of fiction to
draw attention to the construction of character, and in doing so, destroys traditional conceptions
of character. In the text, there are not only human characters, but also corporations, machines, and
plastics that function as “characters.”
11 Even though Imipolex G is a fictional creation, it is able to stand in as a metaphor for any
malleable form of capitalist production.
12 Yellow (blonde) hair and blue eyes are stereotypical attributes of “Aryans.” Along with this racist
connotation, these colors relate to the character/figure of Gottfried, a young German boy (with
blonde hair a blue eyes) who is dominated (sexually, mentally, physically, etc.) by Weissmann. In
this way, the figures of Enzian and Gottfried are unified.
13 The Hereros were and are the indigenous population of the former colony of German South-West
Africa, which is modern day Nambia. During 1904-1907, the majority of the population was wiped
out in what is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. However, like Imipolex G, the
Schwarzkommando are a fictional creation of Pynchon’s—there is no historical evidence that any
Hereros transported themselves to Germany after World War II. The Schwarzkommando therefore
function as a metaphor that folds the colonized back upon themselves.
14 The idea of the hollow shell is a theme throughout Gravity’s Rainbow. According to Weisenburger:
The Kabbalists held that the godhead, initially whole and androgynous, was at Adam’s
fall sundered not only into masculine and feminine aspects but also into a spray of
“sparks” that mingle with material being, penetrating it and redeeming materiality from
an otherwise hollow duration. The “shells” or Qlippoth are these hollow containers; they
may assume demonic attributes, and it was thought that only a messiah could banish
the Qlippoth and restore being to its whole state. Meanwhile, they are emissaries from
the world of the dead who stalk the familiar world. (Weisenburger 119-120)
15 This “translation” can be seen as colonial mechanism, as its violence destroys the language/
discourse that is being translated (Enzian’s identity as a Herero).
16 The actual production of this identity is a function of biopower, and will be further addressed in the
exposition of Slothrop.
17 Hutcheon suggests that the literary period of modernism held “the notion of the work of art as
a closed, self-sufficient, autonomous object deriving its unity from the formal interrelations of its
parts” (Hutcheon 6).
18 Although metonymy is a common practice in fiction, Pynchon pushes it insofar as it becomes
metafictional.
19 It is my suspicion that there are a large number of additional examples of this. For example, the
figure of Slothrop is used as a lens to view Tchitcherine and vice versa (Pynchon 396-397). It seems
as though the text’s figures all serve as lenses for one another.
69
20 The establishment of the New Turic Alphabet can be seen as an empire-building project on the
behalf of the Soviet Union. Like the violent translation of Enzian’s name, the imposition of New
Turic Alphabet would completely efface the oral culture/language of the Kazakhs. In this respect,
the New Turic Alphabet is representative of a homogenization of languages.
21 The Vietnam War is especially relevant given Gravity’s Rainbow’s original publication date of 1973.
22 “On the one hand, the neoliberal state is expected to take a back seat and simply set the stage for
market functions, but on the other it is supposed to be activist in creating a good business climate
and to behave as a competitive entity in global politics” (Harvey 79).
23 If Virilio is correct in his assertions about technology’s effect on the human mind, then
technology’s “progress” effectively blinds the consumer to the consequences of war/globalization.
24 IG Farben’s product, Imipolex G, is described as “the first plastic that is actually erectile” and the
plastic can be stiffened if presented with suitable stimuli, which “have to be electronic” (Pynchon
713). We are told that one type of stimuli is:
…a beam scanning system—or several—analogous to the well-known video electron
stream, modulated with grids and deflection plates located as needed on the Surface
(or even below the outer layer of Imipolex, down at the interface with What lies just
beneath: with What has been inserted or What has actually grown itself a skin of
Imipolex G). (Pynchon 713).
Interestingly, Slothrop’s erection is described as “an instrument installed, wired by Them into his
body as a colonial outpost” (Pynchon 290). Perhaps then, part of Laszlo Jamf’s experimentation on
Baby Tyrone (Slothrop) involved the grafting of Imipolex G into the skin of Slothrop’s reproductive
organs. Would it be possible then that Slothrop’s own Imipolex G is activated by an electronic
stimuli generated by the (V-2) Rocket?
25 Ironically, the text forces us into a biopolitical (albeit textual) relationship with Slothrop.
26 If Slothrop is a “product” of IG Farben, his biology is a product as well.
27 In the second episode of the novel’s second section, the character/figure Katje “makes one
American lieutenant disappear,” stealing his clothing and his identification papers (Pynchon 200).
28 Oddly, it is only at this point that many important characteristics of Imipolex G are revealed to
the reader; however, there is no implication that Slothrop has access to this information (Pynchon
713).
29 An apparatus is “literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine,
intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living
beings” (Agamben 14).
30 This is with the exception of Gottfried and Weissmann. Goffried is inside of the 00000 and
wrapped in an “Imipolex shroud” when it is launched (Pynchon 769). As for Weissmann, we
are told to look for him “among the successful academics, the Presidential advisors, the token
intellectuals who sit on boards of directors. He is almost surely there. Look high, not low”
(Pynchon 764).
31 The différend relates to the “inaccessibility of, or untranslatability from, one mode of discourse in
a dispute to another” (Spivak 96).
70
32 FaceTime, a “simple, fast, and fun” feature of Apple’s iPhone 4, “works right out of the box—no
need to set up a special account or screen name. And using it is as easy as it gets. Let’s say you
want to start a video call with your best friend. Just find her entry in your Contacts and tap the
FaceTime button. Or maybe you’re already talking on a voice call with her, iPhone 4 to iPhone
4, and you want to switch to video. Just tap the FaceTime button on the screen. Either way, an
invitation pops up on her screen asking if she wants to join you. When she accepts, the [real time]
video call begins” (Apple).
33 Today’s “Tchitcherines” are not cyborgs—they are digital and virtual—products of the
communication technologies of Empire.
71
The Political, Social, and Institutional
Causes of the Disparity between Water System
Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina
ZARA LUKENS
School of International Relations
Professor Gerardo Munck
Professor John Odell
73
ABSTRACT
The politics of water governance is a growing topic of international discussion, and there
is tension between those who believe water should be treated as an economic good and
those who believe it should be deemed a human right. This study explores the differences
between the water policies of two states that share a human-rights-based view of water
distribution: Argentina and Uruguay. Whereas Uruguay has an effective water system,
Argentina does not. This paper concludes that a combination of a strong central water
policy framework, a history of failed water privatization schemes, the presence of an
institutionalized means by which civil society can influence policymaking, and (more
tentatively) a strong political institutional framework interact to explain Uruguay’s
greater water system effectiveness.
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the unfaltering support of Professor
Odell, the IR Senior Honors Thesis program advisor, and Professor Munck, my thesis
mentor. Without their guidance, I would not have been able to develop the skills, the
knowledge, and the patience to complete this project. I would also like to thank my
honors seminar classmates, who are probably incredibly sick of reading about water
policy, for their valuable feedback and support. Finally, I am grateful that my friends and
family are still willing to speak to me after months of solitary confinement while working
on this thesis.
74
I. INTRODUCTION
The United Nations estimates that more than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe
drinking water today, including 130 million Latin Americans.1 Latin America’s water
supply is one of the most unequally distributed in the world, which means that the region
has been greatly affected by the recent global reconceptualization of water governance.
Before 1990, water privatization was a little-discussed topic at the international level
and was barely addressed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. At the 2002 Johannesburg
Summit, however, privatization was the main focus. In just one decade, the discussion
surrounding the issue of water distribution underwent a dramatic transformation, and
the rhetoric of water as a human need, rather than a human right, became widespread.
Actors such as the World Water Council, the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development, WaterAid, and the Global Water Partnership have brought business
leaders, who recognize the untapped economic potential of the global water market,
into the debate, creating a market-driven framework for viewing water distribution and
access to water. The Dublin Principles came out of the 1992 International Conference
on Water and Environment Issues in the 21st Century. The fourth principle put in writing
the economic view of water resource management: “Water has an economic value in all
its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.2 As result of this
increasingly prominent approach to water issues, coupled with the IMF and World Bank’s
stance in favor of privatization, there has been an 800% increase in Asian, African, and
Latin American purchasing of water from European-owned companies since the 1990s.3
While nearly all Latin American countries adopted some level of water sector
privatization in the last two decades, many, too, have rejected the economic approach
to water governance, either regionally or throughout the country as a whole.
Individuals, civil society, and some governments have begun to approach water policy
from a human rights-based perspective, with the goal of achieving equal and consistent
supply for all, not just for those who can afford to pay high tariffs. In exploring the
topic of water resource distribution and management, it is necessary to look beyond
quantitative and economic assessments of public vs. private ownership. While this
75
distinction often plays a major role in determining who has access to water and who
does not, it cannot be held solely accountable for water management differences
between countries. A qualitative analysis of the underlying factors that influence a
specific country’s water system is crucial for understanding why a particular system is
more effective than another.
Water system effectiveness encompasses a range of dimensions and takes on different

meanings depending on one’s perspective. For the purpose of this study, the definition
of water system effectiveness will reflect a human-rights-oriented approach with the
overall goals of efficiency and equality of access and distribution. Effectiveness will be
broken down into five main categories: accountability, efficiency, public health, equality,
and sustainability.
This paper explores the reasons that some states have succeeded in providing universal
or nearly universal access to water while others have not. What factors influence the
reality that Uruguay has created an effective water policy based on the ideal of water
as a human right while Argentina has not? This paper claims three primary explanations
for Uruguay’s efficient and universal water system and Argentina’s chronically inefficient
system: Uruguay has a stronger central framework designating water authorities and
dividing responsibilities between institutions, while Argentina lacks a national framework
to guide the provinces in water provision; Uruguay had a privatization experience that
represented a clear decline from previous levels of effectiveness and that became a
national issue, regardless of provincial or regional divides; and Uruguay possesses and
has historically utilized an institutionalized means by which interest groups can influence
policymaking, through direct democracy mechanisms, while Argentina’s constitution
designates fewer such mechanisms and they have been historically underutilized. A final,
more speculative, explanation is that Uruguay has stronger political institutions, which
contribute to higher quality policies and better policy implementation and enforcement.
Though this final factor is important to consider, present gaps in evidence make a strong
causal connection difficult to establish within the scope of this study.
76
II. METHODOLOGY
Method of Difference
This study uses the method of difference to explore the research question and defend
the central thesis. The cases chosen, Uruguay and Argentina, differ significantly in
their water systems and policies but show similarities in many other, significant
areas. This method is powerful because the similarities lend an element of control to
the study by eliminating potential causal factors. By controlling for as many variables
as possible, the researcher can more confidently presume that any differences found
profoundly impact the independent variable. With respect to this study, the political,
economic, and cultural similarities between Argentina and Uruguay limit the number
of potential explanations for the differences in their water systems and provision.
The most relevant similarities include parallel patterns of political transitions from
the mid-20th century to present; a similar experience with neoliberal reforms and
privatization during the 1990s; a presidential form of government and a bicameral
legislature; and comparable access to surface and groundwater resources as well as
constitutional mechanisms preserving their citizens’ right to water. The importance
of these controlled factors will be explained in greater detail in the section on case
study selection.
Primarily qualitative methods will be used to evaluate the evidence and explain
the variables. Though qualitative methods are limited in the level of precision they
can provide and the certainty with which causal claims can be made, a qualitative
study has value in its descriptive power. Additionally, the variables in this study do
not lend themselves to quantitative measurement, as, in many cases, differences are
not measurable at anything greater than a nominal level (for example, differences
power structure and institutional characteristics). Even so, employing the method
of difference improves the precision of qualitative methodology by lending greater
conclusive power to the causal relationships found.
77
Dimensions of Effectiveness
Accountability refers to the degree to which the government and government officials
respond to the needs and desire of their constituencies. This includes following through
with and supporting legislation and policies passed by the electorate and congress,
as well as creating policy with the needs of the public in mind. In terms of water
policy, tasks are often divided between ministries and provinces. Each body must have
specifically designated functions and effectively and reliably carry them out in order to be
considered accountable. If the government does not perform the duties specified in its
water policy framework, or if the public does not know where to turn when management
is unsatisfactory, it cannot be considered accountable, regardless of the written policy.
Efficiency encompasses minimizing waste, collection of taxes and payment,

infrastructure upkeep, and consistency of water distribution and sanitation services.
An efficient system minimizes waste by maintaining leak detection and repair
programs and charging users at a rate that is affordable yet realistic with respect to
supply and conservation efforts. The body or bodies in charge of water management
should charge users based on a rate structure that adequately supplies the costs of
maintenance, repair and operation, and taxes and tariffs should be collected regularly
and evenly throughout the state or province. Water supply should be consistent and
dependable, and all users, both rural and urban, should be connected to water lines
and wastewater disposal.
The public health dimension of water system effectiveness specifies that the water
distributed should be sanitary and free of contamination. Water sanitation should reflect
an effort to control disease and reduce infant mortality rates. The 1991 cholera epidemic
in Latin America illustrates the importance of careful and consistent water treatment.
There were 323,000 cases during the year, and studies in Peru showed high indices of
coliform faecal bacterial in municipal drinking water supplies. Sufficient chlorination of
public water would have significantly curtailed the disease’s spread.4
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Equality is perhaps the most important dimension when considering universal water
provision. Many different types of systems succeed in providing the urban elite with high
quality water coverage, but fail at extending this service into rural and poor areas. The
disparity between two water systems sometimes becomes obvious only upon comparing
the percentage of rural households connected to the main water lines. Latin America is
the most unequal region in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 0.552, making equality
an especially important consideration. 5 In a truly equal system, households in rural and
urban, rich and poor areas are equally connected to water lines and receive the same
quality and consistency of service. Access to sanitation services is also a crucial element
of equality. An evaluation of water supply and sanitation in the year 2000 found that
approximately 103 million people in the region lack access to sanitation services, while
only 77 million lack access to drinking water.6
The final dimension, sustainability, implies a consideration of future water supply and
distribution. Users should be charged at a rate that reflects a realistic picture of the
long-term supply. Wastewater treatment should occur in a manner that is conscientious
of water resource preservation, and the regulation of other sectors, including businesses
and factories, should strive to minimize pollution of water resources. By including
sustainability in the definition of water system effectiveness, evaluation is not limited to
the present situation. A system that functions well with respect to other dimensions of
effectiveness cannot be considered entirely effective if the result of present actions will
produce a decline in these dimensions in the future.
Case Selection
Argentina and Uruguay provide the basis for an effective method of difference case study
because of their many similarities. This section will explore these key consistencies and
their relationship to the research question.
The first point of comparison is a history of democracy in the early part of the 20th
century, followed by an oppressive military dictatorship during the 1970s and into the
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1980s. Since the fall of the military governments in 1983, Argentina and Uruguay have
been characterized by mostly uninterrupted democracy. Though the quality of democracy
wavered at times, reflected, for example, in the inability of presidents from outside the
Peronist party to serve entire terms, a series of democratically elected officials have
governed both countries since 1983. Their parallel transitions to democracy demonstrate
that the policy changes following 1983 resulted from democratic proceedings and
cannot be traced to authoritarian control. This similarity is key because authoritarian
regimes tend to have different approaches to public services and social welfare than do
democratic regimes. For a democratic system to function, the basic needs of all citizens
should (ideally) be met so that everyone can participate equally in political processes;
social equality is, therefore, an essential element of democracy. Meeting the basic needs
of a citizenry includes supplying quality water to all.
Their similar timeframe of political transition means that the countries were both
experiencing upheaval and policy and institutional frame during the mid-1980s. This was
a critical time for instability because it coincided with an increased influence of the IMF
and World Bank in Latin America. These institutions began promoting strong neoliberal
policies after the development of the Washington Consensus in 1989, and public services
were a primary target for liberalization and deregulation schemes. This reality produced
a second similarity between the countries: the water sectors of both were privatized
during the 1990s. The Argentine and Uruguayan populations reacted similarly to the
private sector influence: Latinobarómetro public opinion profiles show that, within Latin
America, only Argentina has a more negative view of privatization than Uruguay.7 This
consistency suggests that factors other than external neoliberal influences must have
influenced the policy divergence that occurred after the 1990s.
A third similarity lies in the forms of government that characterize the countries’ political
processes and institutions. Both Argentina and Uruguay have a presidential form of
government and a bicameral legislature, implying that political processes are carried
out comparably, and that power is theoretically divided between similar branches of
80
government. Despite similar governmental frameworks, their policymaking processes

have been quite different. This reality suggests that other factors may shape policy
outcomes just as much or more than the system of government. However, there is also
an important divergence in the governments of Argentina and Uruguay. Argentina is
a federal system in which a significant amount of political power is transferred to the
provinces. Though the national government retains some level of regulatory control
over the provinces, a large amount of policymaking, water policy included, occurs at the
provincial level. This difference gives rise to one of the primary reasons for Uruguay’s
greater effectiveness: the presence of a clear national water policy framework.
In terms of water resources, both countries have similar access to, and even share, major
surface and groundwater resources. Argentina and Uruguay have access to some of
the most ample water reserves in the world, and neither has faced challenges relating
to extreme water shortages and deprivation. Even so, the countries have experienced
distinct water-related problems, which, due to resource similarity, can be cautiously
attributed to management differences. Though both are considered water-rich, the
difference in their size produces a notable divergence in terms of water distribution
challenges. While Uruguay has a total population of 3.3 million in a territory slightly
smaller than the U.S. state of Washington (176,220 km2),8 Argentina’s population
is 41.3 million in a territory more than fifteen times that size (2,780,400 km2).9 As a
result, Argentina has much greater geographical diversity, and though the majority of
the country has a temperate climate, the southeast is arid. Arid climates create greater
challenges regarding water supply and distribution, and Argentina’s water system must
address this problem that Uruguay does not face. However, the disparity between water
provision in urban and rural areas, even within the same climate, is so great in Argentina
that there are clearly significant non-climate-related causes of the differences in water
provision between the countries.
An additional similarity between Argentina and Uruguay is that both have constitutional
provisions for the protection of citizens’ right to water. Article 41 of the Argentine
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constitution, established in 1994, states that “all inhabitants enjoy the right to a
healthful, balanced environment fit for human development” and that “the authorities
shall provide for the protection of this right, for the rational use of natural resources, for
the preservation of the natural and cultural patrimony and of biological diversity.”10 On
the regional level, Argentina ratified the Additional Protocol to the American Convention
on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which specifies
that “everyone shall have the right to live in a healthy environment and to have access to
basic public services.”11 Uruguay, too, recognizes the right to water at both the national
and international levels. Since 2004, when the water referendum passed, article 47 of
Uruguay’s Constitution has affirmed that “the access to drinkable water and the access
to sewerage constitute fundamental human rights.”12 Like Argentina, Uruguay ratified
the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights. Fifteen countries
in the region have ratified the protocol.
Finally, Argentina and Uruguay have similarly low levels of poverty. In 2006, 21 percent
of Argentina’s and 18.5 percent of Uruguay’s population lived in poverty. The same year,
7.2 percent of Argentines and 3.2 percent of Uruguayans lived in extreme poverty.13 This
comparison suggests that the countries have somewhat equal populations without the
means to purchase water or to pay high water tariffs.
Though controlling for these differences does not provide the freedom to draw definitive
conclusions from evidence regarding other variables, it does limit the number of possible
illustrative factors. Because key similarities have been identified, the differences explored
in this paper provide a more plausible and precise set of explanatory tools.
Four Hypotheses Regarding Water System Effectiveness

This paper seeks to address a central question: Why is Uruguay’s system of water
provision more effective than Argentina’s? Whereas other studies have focused largely
on private vs. public provision, this paper explores more detailed factors that contribute
to overall effectiveness. While the public vs. private debate has some explanatory value,
82
examining this aspect alongside other variables provides a more thorough and precise
analysis. This paper argues that there are four primary explanations for Uruguay’s
greater water system effectiveness and produces four hypotheses regarding effective
water provision.
The first hypothesis is that if a country has specific legislation designating a

centralized water resource management regulatory framework, its water system
will be more effective than that of a country without a strong central water policy
framework. Even in a decentralized system, a central framework is necessary for
coordination between provinces or municipalities, dispute resolution, and policy
enforcement. Strong national policies provide a regulatory mechanism to ensure policy
continuity throughout the country.
The second hypothesis is that a major crisis of water provision results in a change of the
system or method of provision, but only with the caveats that the crisis represented a
clear decline in levels of effectiveness, and that it became a widely recognized problem
at the national level. Without these conditions, crisis will not necessarily coincide with
change. A sharp decline in access to water is necessary to spur a collective public
reaction great enough to produce reform, and the reaction must encompass enough
of the country’s population to necessitate a national legislative response. A prominent
political economy hypothesis is that crisis situations can spur economic change. Different
types of crises lead to different reforms, and there is much room for further studies with
regard to this theory.14 Though scholars most often apply the theory to the effect of
economic crisis on democratic reform or breakdown and liberalization, this hypothesis
can be similarly applied to the case of water sector privatization or nationalization. There
are notable cases of Latin American countries rejecting privatization and ousting private
companies only after the situation deteriorated to such a low level that water provision
became an issue of crisis. A prime example is Cochabamba, Bolivia. In 2000, citizens of
Cochabamba responded to massive price hikes associated with the 1999 privatization
of water. La Coordinadora, the alliance of organizations that led the protest, demanded
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that responsibility for water provision be returned to the public sector. The government
eventually agreed, revoking the private company’s concession contract and reforming the
national water law.15 In countries without an historical reluctance to adopt neoliberal
policies, a water crisis may provide the impetus for reform.
Thirdly, this study hypothesizes that a country with a constitutional guarantee of

direct democracy mechanisms, coupled with a high level of transparency and a lack
of corruption, is likely to have a more effective water system than a country without
the means for direct democracy. Civil society has historically played an important role
in water rights activism (as in the case of Bolivia). If a country has an institutionalized
means for such groups to affect policy at the national level, they are likely to have a
greater impact when representing the needs of the population. Traditional mechanisms
of direct democracy are referendum, initiative, and recall, through which the population
can influence legislation without the action of elected officials. If a country lacks such a
path for direct democracy, civil society may have more difficulty achieving policy victories.
However, the constitutional provision of direct democracy mechanisms is not sufficient for
civil society’s successful participation in policymaking; the mechanisms mean little if the
government is not transparent or is corrupt and fails to recognize the results. For direct
democracy to be regarded a true element of a country’s policymaking process, there must
be an historical precedent for its successful use.
The final, more speculative, hypothesis is that strong political institutions, including
congress, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy, creates an environment conducive to the
development and enforcement of effective water policy legislation. Though previous
studies have found a connection between high scores on these variables and overall
policy quality, the evidence to support the connection with an effective water policy is
less conclusive.16 This hypothesis requires further research, but its connection with other
public policies makes it a promising consideration. Congressional strength is critical
for legislative development, and a strong and independent judiciary is necessary for
guaranteeing the enforcement of policies and contracts, and a weak judiciary contributes
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to non-enforcement of public policies.17 Finally, the professionalism and competency of

a country’s bureaucracy affects its ability to enforce policies, thereby influencing policy
effectiveness.18 Without high scores on policy index measures across the various political
institutions, a country’s policies are likely to be of low quality.
III. LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature on the water policy is growing, but it focuses largely on quantitative
comparisons of water system efficacy before and after privatization. Scholars are
concerned with the question of whether or not privatization improves access to water,
water system efficiency, water affordability, and environmental sustainability.19 Much
of the literature also addresses the assumptions underlying neoliberal reform and the
conditions that have led to the current rhetoric surrounding the water distribution
discussion.20 Other authors focus on the immediate factors resulting in a change of
water system, yet most fail to examine the underlying effects of political culture and
civil society, both modern and historical. They fail to provide an analysis of water
systems in Latin America that draws upon the relevant, fully developed institutional,
social and political cultural context. A major deficiency in the current literature is a lack
of an attempt to provide generalizable findings that would have policy implications
for countries wishing to implement or bolster a human-rights-based water policy.
Additionally, I have not found an example of a comparative case study using the method
of difference to demonstrate such findings. There is no published study comparing
Argentina and Uruguay’s water policies and systems.
“Public Resistance to Privatization in Water and Energy,” by David Hall, Emanuele

Lobina, and Robin de la Motte, is an exception to scholars’ tendency to touch on civil
society and social factors as only a minor part of the discussion.21 In their article, these
authors examine the success of opposition campaigns against private companies. They
begin with an overview of the widespread public disenchantment with privatization
and then delve further into three specific examples of successful opposition campaigns,
in South Africa, Poland, and Paraguay. The authors also scrutinize the types of actors
85
that commonly comprise the opposition, the connection between political parties and
privatization campaigns, and the institutions through which these groups work to
achieve their goals. The authors conclude that civil society plays a major role in the anti-
privatization agenda and can be successful even when confronting powerful international
actors. This article is an excellent source of general information on the implications
of civil society action against privatization, but it is limited in that it provides a broad
global analysis with little focus on specific Latin American examples. As the format of the
research is not case study analysis, this paper is not a vehicle for exploring the impact of
social and political history on the development of these opposition movements. My study
helps to fill this gap.
Another important piece of research on the topic is Michael Goldman’s “How ‘Water
for All’ Policy Became Hegemonic: The Power of the World Bank and Its Transnational
Policy Networks.” Goldman discusses the factors that led to the institutionalization and
implementation of privatization policy. This paper provides the international context
that gave rise to the anti-privatization campaigns. The specific actors and institutions
involved in the recent policy transformation help to explain the differing reactions of
civil society actors in various Latin American countries. Goldman’s article provides an
important piece of the historical context necessary for understanding the response to
water privatization.22
Reclaiming Public Water is an important work concerning water policy because it

focuses on the human-rights-based side of the debate.23 It is comprised of individual
case studies of successful campaigns for public water and the systems that have resulted.
The book begins with a discussion of the need for public water and the failure of
privatization schemes during the last decade of the 20th century. Uruguay’s campaign for
a constitutional water referendum is later discussed as a case study. As one of the few
works concerned specifically with public water campaigns and the need for water reform,
this book stands out amongst the literature on the topic. The focus on the movements
and processes leading up to water reform is similar to the aspect of my study that
86
considers civil society and the direct involvement of civilians in influencing government
policy. However, the nature of this work is to provide a broad overview of the water
reform efforts rather than to analyze any particular case in depth. My study further
elaborates upon Uruguay’s reform process, considering institutional, cultural, and political
factors that did not immediately lead to water reform but that may have paved the way.
“Right to Water and Access to Water: An Assessment,” by P.B. Anand, is highly

relevant to my study because it discusses the relationship between a legal right
to water and water distribution, focusing primarily on the poor.24 Anand explores
the impact of water policy and governance on improving access and discusses the
obstacles to universal water access. Through comparative case studies, my research
seeks to explore the differences between two states, one that has achieved universal
water provision, and one that has not. My study also discusses governance and the
institutional elements of water policy, but it considers other factors as well. Anand’s
study is limited in that it touches on issues like accountability and voice but does not
explore them in depth. The author uses specific cases as data points in his analysis,
but they are more sketches than illustrations of his points. A more extensive study
analyzing these cases in detail across the variables Anand discusses would be useful
for determining what led to the outcomes he observes.
“Against the Privatization of Water: An Indigenous Model for Improving Existing Laws
and Successfully Governing the Commons,” by Paul Trawick, is a unique example of
research that focuses on the impact of indigenous customs and identity politics on the
water policy debate. The author describes an alternative model of water governance,
based on the traditions of indigenous Andean cultures, that still exists in small
communities today. The research focuses on the Peruvian example, though Trawick
stresses its potential application across Latin America and other parts of the world. The
discussion of indigenous laws and customs and the flaws in the present model as applied
to parts of Latin America is relevant to my research, but much of Trawick’s article is highly
technical in nature.25
87
Various country case studies will also provide useful in my research. On such text, “‘El
Agua es de Todos/Water for All’: Water resources and development in Uruguay,” by Javier
Taks, provides a brief analysis of the successful water reform effort in Uruguay, including
the influence of social movements.26 It is limited, however, both in scope (it lacks details
and does not provide much background information) and in the fact that it does not seek
to break down and explain Uruguay’s success or to assess policy implications with regard
to other Latin American countries.
A final category of literature with important implications for my research discusses

policymaking and political institutions in Argentina and Uruguay. These works are case
studies that explore the institutions, legislative framework, and power structure that
shape policy outcomes. This knowledge directly relates to water policy by outlining
the processes through which the current systems came to be and how they are
maintained. “Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes: The
Case of Uruguay,” by Mario Bergara, looks at the social, political, institutional, and
cultural factors that influence policymaking. The discussion of public policies makes it
particularly relevant to my research on water provision, and the author makes direct
reference to processes relating to privatization.27 “Argentina: Political Institutions,
Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes,” by E. Stein and M. Tomassi, provides a
similar framework for Argentina’s political processes.28 Like Bergara’s work, this study
emphasizes public policies, focusing on why they have been historically ineffective. This
literature, while not specifically relating to water policy issues, is critical for the political
and institutional aspect of my research question.
Though there are no studies that use the structure and methodology through which I
will approach my research question, there are numerous works that touch on specific
aspects of my study. My study seeks to synthesize these different angles, producing a
work that discusses the interplay between institutional, political, social, historical and
cultural factors and how this interaction resulted in the current water system. My analysis
will contribute to the present literature a more policy-relevant study. On the ground,
88
policymaking is a complicated process with an infinite number of contributing variables,

and very little can be explained by isolating and examining only one at a time.
IV. REPORT OF FINDINGS ON WATER SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS

Uruguay is a case of greater water system effectiveness than Argentina, performing
better in the areas of accountability, efficiency, public health and equality. Neither country
performs well in the realm of sustainability, and both will therefore be considered poor in
this area.
In terms of accountability, Uruguay is not perfect but outperforms Argentina. There

is some overlap in the functions carried out by the institutions involved in water and
sanitation services in Uruguay, but Argentina represents a much more extreme case. Due
to provincial control and regulation of water services, the ministries involved in water
provision in Argentina vary widely among regions and provinces and lack adequate
cooperation and communication both among and within provinces. Whereas Uruguay’s
water and sanitation institutions are national entities with adequate designation
of roles and responsibilities, Argentina’s are fragmented bodies with poorly divided
responsibilities and functions. Even at the national level, there are multiple agencies that
participate in water provision, including the Undersecretariat of Water Resources, the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food,
the Secretariat of Energy, the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development,
and others.29 Without a clear definition of the responsibilities of each agency involved,
both national and provincial, these organizations have communication and coordination
problems as well as a general of dilution of responsibilities.30 This general dysfunction
leads to problems with policy implementation and enforcement, yet it is difficult to
isolate the agencies responsible for the deficiencies. The result is an accountability crisis,
as problems cannot be traced to specific actors.
In Uruguay, a smaller number of agencies are involved in water provision due to the
national control of water resource management, making the identification of roles and
89
responsibilities throughout the country an easier task. Different bodies (to be enumerated
in section V) carry out policy definition, regulation, and operation, and though resource
allocation and responsibility designation are not without flaw, the World Bank notes
significant improvements since the 2004 reforms.31 However, the World Bank also
describes a need for even greater separation of responsibilities between URSEA, the
regulator, and DINASA, the agency responsible for policy creation.32 The water provider,
OSE (Obras Sanitarias del Estado), adopted an official strategic vision in 2005, designed
to designate and implement programs and projects that will improve accountability
through increasing the transparency of decision-making and actions.33 In summary,
progress is being made in Uruguay’s water sector in terms of accountability and
responsibility designation, but there remains work to be done. Even so, the situation in
Uruguay is much clearer and more transparent than in Argentina, where there has been
little effort to eliminate confusion regarding roles and responsibilities in the water sector.
Water system efficiency is superior in Uruguay but is not without room for improvement.
OSE generates enough revenue to cover the costs of maintenance and operations,
but this is not the case for the sanitation sector. Cross-subsidization is necessary to
balance sanitation sector losses, but overall, water services do not create a deficit.34
Though the efficiency of operations has improved over the last decade, the World Bank
reports that work remains to be done, especially in the realm of unaccounted for water
(UFW), which was still as high as 56 percent in 2006. UFW levels observed in the
region’s most efficient companies fall within the range of 20 to 35 percent.35 UFW is
the difference between the amount of water produced (or consumed) and the amount
of water charged to all customers. This is sometimes referred to as non-revenue water,
because the water companies do not profit from its loss. UFW occurs primarily through
underground leakage, unauthorized use (or the creation of illegal connections to water
lines), unavoidable leakage, and inaccurate water meters.36 More positively, revenue
collection rates in Uruguay, or the percentage of billed water for which the water
providers are compensated, are very high. Average collection rates were 93% in 2003
and are improving.37 Though efficiency varies widely from region to region in Argentina
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and is therefore difficult to measure at a broad level, efficiency is generally poor due
to collection rates as low as 57 percent (in the Catamarca province) and levels of UFW
higher than 50 percent in many provinces. Unlike OSE in Uruguay, the water providers in
many Argentine provinces fail to recover costs of service provision and therefore finance
operations with loans and carry heavy debt loads.38
Though water and sanitation services do not pose a public health threat in Uruguay, water
quality tests reveal problems in Argentina. A 2005 Inter-American Development Bank report
found unsafe levels of arsenic and nitrate contaminants in groundwater resources as well as
unacceptable levels of naturally occurring arsenic and fluoride in some provinces, due partially
to poor infrastructure maintenance.39 In 2004, the water in seven districts of Greater Buenos
Aires was deemed unfit for human consumption due to nitrate levels three times higher than
acceptable,40 and a 2009 study published in the Journal of Environmental and Public
Health found levels of arsenic exceeding World Health Organization guidelines in 97 percent
of samples taken from the Southern Pampa Plains region.41 Water quality monitoring in
Uruguay, however, demonstrates achievement of health and sanitation standards, and the
country is free of cholera and other waterborne diseases.42
In terms of equality of services throughout the country, Uruguay is highly successful while
Argentina lags. In 2000, more than 98% of the Uruguayan population had access to
drinking water services, including 93% of the rural population. In the same year, 79%
of Argentina’s population was provided with water services, but this figure drops to just
30% of people living in rural areas.43 Uruguay’s sanitation system is also more efficient
than Argentina’s, but both countries experience more problems with sanitation than with
drinking water coverage. Approximately 97 percent of Uruguay’s population has access to
adequate sanitation, though this figure drops to 56.5 percent when restricted to those with
household connections (based on figures from 2007.44 In 2000, 84 percent of Argentina’s
population had access to sanitation services, but this includes only 48 percent of the
rural population. The same year, only 55 percent of the urban population had household
connections.45 Despite the large overall percentage of people with access to sanitation,
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the percentage of those receiving adequate service is much lower. According to a 2010
report commissioned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, only 43
percent of the Argentine population has access to adequate sanitation services.46
Sustainability is a challenge that both countries face and will continue to face as demand
grows and resources shrink. In Argentina, contamination from industrial waste affects
many major water resources. Pollution is amplified by the lack of sewage treatment,
making domestic waste the second major contributor to water resource degradation.
Only 10 percent of wastewater is treated in Argentina, representing a major problem
throughout the country. This deficiency is especially detrimental in terms of pollution
and water resource degradation.47 In the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, for example,
untreated sewage is dumped into the Rio de la Plata, less than three kilometers from
the source of much of the region’s drinking water. 48 Though Uruguay treats 77 percent
of its wastewater,49 it experiences problems with the sustainable disposal of the sludge
that results from the potabilization process. The chemical engineering institute at the
University of the Republic, Uruguay’s largest university, has been working to solve
this problem and to develop sustainable solutions for agrowaste treatment.50 Though
measures are being taken to address these problems, current performance in the realm
of sustainability represents a challenge that has implications for future ability to supply
quality access to drinking water in both countries.
V. CASE STUDY: URUGUAY

In contrast to many Latin American countries, Uruguayans have historically maintained
widespread access to quality water resources. Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE), the
central public water company, was created in 1952 and assumed control of drinking water
and the sewage system throughout the country (except in Montevideo, which fell under
the responsibility of the Intendencia Municipal). Beginning in this period, connections to
the public water line reached 97% of the urban population.51 Countries like Bolivia, El
Salvador, and Mexico have experienced chronic water distribution problems, and less than
20% of people have access to adequate sanitation throughout the region as a whole.52 As
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the most economically unequal region in the world, it is not surprising that Latin America
experiences similar inequality with regard to resource distribution. Uruguay’s water
allocation likewise follows the trend of its overall inequality, which was represented by a
Gini Coefficient of .45 in 2006,53 much lower than the regional average of .552.54 The
following case study analysis will demonstrate that Uruguay’s strong central water policy
framework, its failed privatization scheme, its experience with direct democracy, and, less
conclusively, the strength of and balance between its political institutions, all contributed
to the effectiveness of the current water system.
Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Unlike Argentina, Uruguay has a strong central institutional and legal framework
with regard to water policy, providing the basis for an organized and cooperative
water system that supplies services uniformly throughout the country. Whereas water
policy in Argentina is primarily at the discretion of the provinces, water governance
in Uruguay is designated by a series of laws providing for control and oversight by a
number of national regulatory bodies and institutions. The Water Code, in Law 14.859,
was legislated in December of 1978 and updated in May of 1979. It establishes the
executive branch as the authority on water provision, and gives the ministry of the central
government the right to supervise, monitor and regulate activities related to water use.55
The next major change with regard to water provision occurred in 2004, with the passing
of a constitutional amendment against water privatization. The amendment made
significant alterations to water law in Uruguay. First and foremost, it designates water as
a fundamental human right and excludes private companies from participation in water
service provision. It further states that water management should be based on citizen
participation and sustainability.56 The amendment called for a greater coherence within
Uruguay’s water policy, designed to uniformly reflect the ideals of universality, citizen
participation, and sustainability. The new mandates led to the immediate development
of legislation and agencies designed to translate the reforms into action. One such
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development was Decree 305, passed in 2004, which defines the roles of the various
institutions involved in water resources and their regulation.57 This decree represented
an important step towards alleviating the problem of “inconsistent, incoherent, and
unsustainable policies” that had plagued Uruguay’s water sector for decades.58
As established by Decree 305, water management in Uruguay is divided between

three ministries, two national services, two institutes, and a services regulation unit.
The ministries are DINAMA (National Environment Directorate), responsible for water
quality regulation; DINASA (National Water and Sanitation Directorate), responsible for
water policies; and DNH (National Hydrography Board), which oversees issues relating to
water availability.59 DINAMA supervises, evaluates, and designs plans for environmental
protection and natural resource preservation. In terms of issues relating to water, it
carries out water quality monitoring to determine water safety and has the power to
designate bodies of water needing special protection for a variety of reasons, including
ecological relevance, recreation, irrigation, or for their use as a source of drinking water.
Established in 2005, DINASA’s role is to “formulate and propose policies to the executive
branch with respect to the administration and protection of water resources,” including
the “management of drinking water and sewage system services, contemplating their
extension and goals for universalising them, priority criteria, the level of services and
required investment and their financing system, and the efficiency and quality envisioned.”
It will additionally “propose a normative mark in order to avoid the involvement of
and competitive role by multiple state actors, realising the participation of users and of
civil society in all levels of planning, management and control.”60 Though specific roles
and responsibilities have not been fully designated, DINASA’s purpose is to ensure that
policies are uniform throughout the country and fully reflect the principles of public
and universal provision that are central to the recent amendment. The ministry was
charged with developing a clearly defined water law, including a legal and regulatory
framework for the entire water sector, which will address water supply, sanitation, and
resource management.61 DNH is part of DINASA (though it was created in the 1980s),
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and manages 103 monitoring stations throughout the country. It primarily measures the
surface area of the water basins, the average flow, and the availability of surface waters.62
The national services involved in water management are UTE and OSE. UTE, the National
Administration of Power Plants and Electric Transmissions, was created in 1912 as
the state provider of electricity to all citizens of Uruguay. Because hydroelectricity is
important in Uruguay, UTE is highly connected with water services, and is even regulated
by URSEA, the same institute that regulates the water sector.63 OSE, the potable water
services company, was established in 1952 to provide water and sewerage services
throughout the country, with exception of Montevideo. With the exception of the brief
period of privatization in the 1990s and early 2000s, OSE has remained the provider of
water services throughout the country. OSE’s water comes from a variety of resources,
primarily aquifers (28% of potable water), and surface water resources (72%). As of
2006, OSE was operating 98 potabilization plants throughout Uruguay.64 The existence
of a public company that supplies water to users throughout the country is significant
because it makes truly uniform access a real possibility. Regardless of province or region,
public access depends on the functioning of the same company, and regulators have only
to assess and measure the success of one entity. Because data comes primarily from one
source, comparison between areas is simpler than if water were managed regionally or
provincially, as in Argentina.
LATU and INIA are the two national institutes charged with water services. LATU (Technology
Laboratory of Uruguay), is working with OSE to enhance the company’s environmental
management by creating an information system that fosters more accurate monitoring and
response to environmental issues.65 INIA, the National Institute of Agriculture, works with
the water sector on water provision for agricultural use. It advises on managing climate-
related challenges; problems resulting from drought and drought management; and the
response to extreme climate events that threaten the agricultural sector. 66
The service regulation unit of Uruguay’s water system is URSEA, the Regulator of Energy
and Water Services. Before the 1990s, the public utilities had full control over their
95
respective sectors, and it was not until 1997 that the Uruguayan Parliament created
an independent regulator for a service sector (the power sector). In 2002, as part of
a continued effort to separate policymaking, regulation, and operation in the public
services, Parliament created URSEA, giving it regulatory power over both the energy
and the water sectors. URSEA is autonomous and decentralized, reporting directly to
the executive. Its functions include: protecting consumer rights and resolving consumer
complaints; defining quality and providing safety regulations; examining tariff proposals
and presenting them to the president; overseeing OSE’s compliance with norms and
regulations; and promoting competition and transparency by disseminating information
and communicating with the public.67 URSEA has, until recently, focused on the energy
sector, but its regulatory control over water and sanitation is developing.
A final agency involved in water provision and regulation in Uruguay is COASAS, the
Advising Commission on Water and Sanitation, created after the 2004 reforms. Its
purpose is to assist with the incorporation of water sector policies into the various
ministries and institutions involved, as well as inter-institutional cooperation within the
water sector.68 This role is particularly important, as the 2004 water reform resulted in
a new organizational model for the water system and the creation of new rules and
institutions. COASAS and the other recently created agencies and institutions were
designed to address the Uruguayan water sector’s historical weakness in the realm of
policy formulation. The weak institutional structure that persisted since the 1950s was not
addressed earlier because it did not pose a major threat to water provision. Despite its
inefficiencies, 80% of consumers were satisfied with the services provided by OSE.69
The new organization of the water sector has already enhanced operational efficiency by
improving the rationale behind resource allocation, and separating the responsibilities for
policy definition, regulation, and operation. Public services in Uruguay have historically
retained immense political power due to their positions as national monopolies and their
control of more than one third of national GDP.70 The fact that the OSE was also able to
provide consistently high quality service to nearly the entire population contributed to its
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widespread public support. However, the recent reform efforts spurred changes designed
to streamline the sector and strengthen its ability to weather economic crises and periods
of government deficit. The fact that responsibility for water and sanitation services is
designated by a central policy framework makes this process easier and the results more
uniform throughout the country.
History of Failed Privatization Schemes

The poor performance of the private water companies given concessions by the
government in the 1990s catalyzed the 2004 constitutional amendment and water
reforms. Whereas in Argentina complaints regarding private provision remained
localized to the various provinces and private provision did not always represent a
clear decline in services, the companies’ poor performance became a national issue in
Uruguay, with citizens responding to a severe decline in service quality. This crisis of
water provision spurred the development of the CNDAV, the organization responsible
for the passing of the 2004 referendum. The privatization crisis was, therefore, one of
the immediate factors that catalyzed water reform and institutionalized the principle of
universal access in Uruguay.
In the 1990s, Uruguay, like many other Latin American countries, including Argentina,
began to offer concession contracts to private companies for the provision of public
services. Consistent with the theory that crisis spurs economic change, the decision to
overhaul the public water system that had been in place since 1952 followed a period
of economic downturn. Uruguay’s economy, reliant upon a small number of exports and
therefore vulnerable to fluctuations in international prices and trade partner buying, was
ill-prepared for Argentina’s 2001 crisis.71 The resulting shift in regional trade caused
Uruguay’s economy to shrink by 10 percent, and “unemployment soared to a record high
of nearly 20 percent, exports plunged to levels last seen during the 1973-1985 military
dictatorship, wages plummeted and the country’s foreign reserves virtually dried up.”72
Like many Latin American leaders during the last quarter of the 20th century, Uruguay’s
president, Jorge Luis Batlle, was committed to the principles of market liberalization and
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the Washington Consensus, which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
supported and encouraged.
The Uruguayan government awarded the first concession contract in the water sector
in 1998 to the company Aguas de la Costa, a subsidiary of Aguas de Barcelona
and the French company Suez Lyonnaise, in the small Manantiales neighborhood of
the Maldonado province. In 2000, the Spanish company Aguas de Bilbao received
a concession under the name URAGUA for water provision throughout the rest of
the province. The move toward privatization was spurred by a combination of the
government’s perception that neither it nor OSE could afford to meet increasing demand
while maintaining high quality services, and encouragement from the World Bank and
the IMF. The World Bank provided Uruguay with a loan in 1999 to facilitate the entry of
private companies into the water sector, and in 2002, the IMF signed a letter of intent
with the government that specified a timeline for further privatizing the water and
sanitation sector. 73
On June 18, 2002, Batlle’s administration wrote a Letter of Intent to the IMF, in which the
government committed to opening “to private initiative activities previously reserved for
the public sector” and “bringing forward the introduction of new regulatory frameworks
in several areas including for electricity, telecommunications, water and sewage, railroad,
transportation, etc.,” while also “speeding up the granting of concessions to the private
sector.” In terms of water and sanitation, the document proposed “new quality standards
and controls to facilitate private sector investment.”74 The following year, Uruguay
received a $151.52 million structural adjustment loan from the World Bank, with water
privatization as a key condition. The report issued with the loan described the problems
with Uruguay’s water sector, paying special attention to OSE’s failings, and calling it “one
of the most inefficient major water and sewerage companies in the region.”75
At the time of these loans, the government had already signed a concession contract with
URAGUA, a subsidiary of three Spanish water companies, for the Maldonado province. The
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World Bank approved of the company’s performance regarding the 48,000 connections
served, and wanted to facilitate a similar model of private management throughout the
country. Other organizations, however, saw the situation less favorably, noting the 700
percent rate hikes in comparison to the rest of the country. Both Public Services International
(PSI) and Friends of the Earth International reported on the situation in Maldonado province,
citing limited access for those sectors of the population that could not afford the costs,
a failure to meet basic quality standards, and a failure to comply with the contractual
agreements as major failings of the private company.76 Even the Global Water Partnership
(GWP), a pro-privatization organization, concluded that “criticisms over inadequate tariffs,
inefficient service, and more recently problems with the quality of water supplied, make this
a very bad example of privatized concession.”77 The public noticed increasing rates, denial
of services to the poorest families, the drying of reservoirs, decreasing water quality, and the
private company’s failure to fulfill the requirements of its concession contract. 78
In response, the National Commission in Defense of Water and Life (CNDAV) formed
in 2002. Four preexisting organizations came together to create the CNDAV: a citizen
committee from Canelones, a target for further privatization initiatives; the trade union
of OSE, the public water company; a grassroots organization from the territory whose
water provision had been turned over to Aguas de la Costa; and an environmental
NGO linked with Friends of the Earth International. Its base of supporters gradually
expanded to include students and intellectuals as well as more than 50 small
and medium-sized organizations. The CNDAV’s primary goal was to collect the
300,000 signatures needed to put on the ballot a constitutional referendum against
privatization, which it hoped to accomplish by the 2004 election. It succeeded, and
on October 31, 2004, the public approved the referendum with 64.6 percent voting in
favor.79 The text of the referendum asserts that “access to drinkable water and access
to sewerage, constitute fundamental human rights,” and that “the public service of
sewerage and the public service of water [supply] for human consumption, will be
served exclusively and directly by state legal persons.”80
99
In contrast to the case of Argentina, the privatization scheme in Uruguay brought about
obvious declines in water system effectiveness, a condition necessary to spur reform.
The previously functioning system suddenly failed to meet the needs of the population
as a whole, and consumers noticed. The poor, who were once provided water by the
government, were denied service when they could not afford the increasingly high tariffs.
Furthermore, the poor quality of the water itself became a national health risk for all
citizens. Quality control institutions issued warnings advising citizens to avoid drinking
tap water because it no longer met basic health standards.81 Another key factor that
helped make the privatization crisis a catalyst for reform was that citizens throughout
Uruguay became aware of the problem. Awareness was not limited to Maldonado
province, where the primary problems were concentrated. More than 50 organizations
comprised the CNDAV by the time of the 2004 election, and the group successfully
collected the more than 300,000 signatures, representing about 10 percent of the
population, required to put the referendum on the ballot. Maldonado has only about
148,000 residents, less than five percent of the total population, meaning the majority of
the signatures came from outside the province.82
In Uruguay, the failed privatization scheme directly influenced the development of

Uruguay’s current water system and legal framework. The CNDAV formed in response
to privatization, and the actions of the CNDAV institutionalized the basic principles of
universal access and ensured the long-term establishment of a human-rights-based
water policy framework. The changes described in the preceding section that have led
to improvements in water policy, including the reorganization of the sector and the
development of new agencies charged with carrying out policy reforms, directly resulted
from the CNDAV’s response to public dissatisfaction with private control of water and
sanitation services; however, these changes would not have taken place without the
influence of Uruguay’s political institutions, and the institutional mechanisms that
allowed the CNDAV to make the impact it did.
100
The Presence or Absence of an Institutionalized Means for Civil Society to

Influence Society
Whereas direct democracy is rarely a feature of Argentine policymaking, Uruguay uses
direct democracy mechanisms more than any other country in Latin America, providing
an institutionalized means for civil society to influence policy.83 These mechanisms
provided the means through which the CNDAV achieved water reform success in 2004.
Without the constitutional provision of referendum, water reform would not necessarily
have appeared on the 2004 ballot.
Direct democracy mechanisms provide citizens with the opportunity to influence

policy and the policymaking process directly, rather than through elections and
elected officials. These mechanisms can be top-down, initiated by political agents,
or bottom-up, initiated by the citizens themselves. The former include binding and
non-binding plebiscites, and the latter include binding and non-binding initiatives,
referenda, and petitions.84 The use of direct democracy can be used as an indicator
of a state’s respect for democratic principles, as these mechanisms wrest control from
the government and allow the public to voice its opinion in a manner (theoretically)
not dominated by electoral politics. However, a counterargument voiced by some
political scholars is that economic players or powerful social groups could potentially
manipulate direct democracy for their benefit, producing results not indicative of
the public interest and thereby posing a threat to representative democracy.85
In Uruguay, however, historical referenda and plebiscites passed have generally
reflected the results of public opinion polls. The 2004 water referendum against
privatization, for example, occurred in the context of a constituency with the second-
most-negative view of privatization in Latin America, and the lowest endorsement
of the free-market economy.86 The one instance in which a military government
attempted to use a constitutional referendum to extend its power and limit the
roles of the General Assembly and political parties resulted in public rejection of the
measure in 1980.87
101
The first sign of direct democracy in Uruguay occurred in 1917 as a result of reforms
initiated by President Batlle. Influenced by European political thought, Batlle pushed for
the use of plebiscite to guard against state corruption. He writes, “I remembered that
by our Constitution of 1830, we were constantly exposed to the bad luck of having a
president of dubious intentions and with the sum of the really extraordinary faculties
that our Constitution grants to him. That this person was free to take everything, to
devastate the institutions and to sink the country in the most dark of the dictatorships.88
The changes initiated by Battle were incorporated into various constitutional reforms
between 1917 and 1967, but the Constitution of 1967 spelled out the direct democracy
mechanisms that apply in Uruguayan politics today. It categorized mechanisms by
referendum, initiative, or revocation of laws and specified that 10 percent of the
electorate must support a constitutional reform while 25 percent of the electorate must
sign in order to pass a referendum.
Uruguay is the most frequent user of direct democracy mechanisms in Latin America, and
one of the most prominent in the world.89 As of 2003, there were thirty-four instances
in Uruguay’s history of a vote initiated through top-down, bottom-up, or constitutionally
required plebiscites, referenda, or initiatives.90 This stands in stark contrast to the vast
majority of Latin American countries, which either lack direct democracy mechanisms,
have yet to utilize them, or have employed only top-down mechanisms. Of the sixteen
Latin American countries with constitutional provision for direct democracy mechanisms,
only eleven have applied them. Argentina legally recognizes the existence of some direct
democracy mechanisms, but their use has been very limited compared to the case of
Uruguay. Both countries legally recognize top-down plebiscites, but this procedure is not
in use in Argentina. However, Argentina and not Uruguay has top-down non-binding
plebiscites, though this method has been used only once since 1978. In terms of bottom-
up procedures, Argentina has binding and non-binding initiatives, though neither has
been put to use. Uruguay has binding initiatives, which have been used five times since
1978. It lacks non-binding initiatives, but has the use of referenda, a process utilized 6
times between 1978 and 2002.91
102
The direct democracy mechanisms recognized in Uruguay are national and sub-national
referenda, the popular initiative, and the constitutional referendum (plebiscito). The
process of referendum is used to repeal or abrogate laws at or below the national level,
and must be initiated within one year of the law’s passing. It can similarly be used against
a decree passed by a sub-national assembly. However, this mechanism is not valid against
initiatives restricted to the executive or against tax laws. Popular initiative is the right of
the people to put forward new constitutional, legal, or municipal regulations or to oppose
a decree passed by the Junta Departamental. The constitutional referendum is the last
stage of constitutional reform, following the popular initiative, in which the electorate
votes to approve or reject a constitutional reform. The reform must pass with greater than
fifty percent approval and there must be a voter turnout of at least thirty-five percent of
those eligible to represent a valid change to the Constitution.92 To initiate the process of
referendum, twenty-five percent of the electorate must sign a petition, but only ten percent
must support a popular initiative in order to call for a constitutional referendum (the CNDAV
used the latter).93 The executive branch, the legislative branch, or the electorate may initiate
referenda and plebiscitos.
Uruguay is the only country in Latin America in which citizens have used a popular
initiative to begin the process of constitutional reform, a precedent that undoubtedly
paved the way for the 2004 water referendum. However, civil society has not always
played a major role in direct democracy mechanisms, which in the past were primarily
used by political parties as a tool to promote a specific agenda. For example the 1992
referendum to overturn a law privatizing the state telephone company was dominated
by a coalition of left-wing parties working with the labor unions representing
telephone workers. The 2003 referendum to repeal the same law received similar
support from political parties.94 The water referendum is an example of one of only
a few instances in which civil society actors drove the reform process. In Uruguay,
political institutions make it possible for civil society to shape policy outcomes, and
the results show greater success than in other Latin American countries. Even so, party
agendas can dominate the mechanisms of direct democracy, and the 2004 referendum
103
is nevertheless a unique achievement. The success of the CNDAV and the reform effort
cannot be attributed solely to the opportunity for direct civil society involvement in
the political process, but it certainly played an important role in the achievement of
constitutional reform.
Strength of Political Institutions

Uruguay has stronger political institutions than Argentina, which contributes to a
more effective legislative framework with regards to water policy and greater policy
enforcement. According to a World Bank conference report on developing economics,
“legislatures that have sound policymaking capabilities, judiciaries that are independent,
and bureaucracies that are strong” facilitate good policymaking.95 The relationship
between these elements and overall policy quality and the fact that Uruguay scores far
better on these measures than does Argentina suggests a promising connection with
water policy. However, evidence directly linking institutional strength and water policy
quality is limited, and further research is necessary to firmly establish this connection.
As a result, the political institutional factor is more speculative than the previous three
explanations, but it is important to consider.
The policy index reflects a country’s scores on key components of quality public
policies, including stability, adaptability, coordination and coherence, quality of
implementation and enforcement, public regard and efficiency.96 Uruguay outscores
Argentina in terms of policy index measures by a wide margin: 2.34 to 1.85 out of
a possible four points.97 These policy features apply broadly to a country’s public
policies, but are also relevant to water policy specifically. Uruguay’s water policy
demonstrates stability, or predicted stability due to OSE’s almost fifty years of
nearly universal coverage before the privatization scheme; adaptability, reflected
in the legislative and institutional changes that followed the 2004 referendum; an
acceptable level of coordination and coherence, which has been improving recently
with a greater effort to define and divide the responsibilities of the various water
policy agencies and institutions; a high quality of implementation and enforcement,
104
evidenced by the consistently high levels of service coverage throughout the country;
high public regard the key feature of a system that prioritizes universal access; and
reasonable levels of efficiency (see section IV for a full evaluation of water system
effectiveness in Uruguay).
The strength of Uruguay’s political institutions may contribute to Uruguay’s higher

quality water policy. Uruguay consistently outscores Argentina on individual measures of
political institutional strength, in terms of the congressional index, judicial independence,
and the quality of the bureaucracy. Evaluations of a country’s national congress have
particularly significant implications for policy quality, as the legislature is the sphere of
policy negotiation and institutionalization. In Uruguay, the national congress plays an
important role in water policy implementation and formulation. It carries out political
decisions, for example, the adoption of the 2004 water referendum, and establishes
committees to address new laws and regulations, as well as those needing to be
modernized.98 The new institutions created in the wake of the water reform are clear
examples of Uruguay’s congressional responsiveness and capability. Within less than
two years, Congress passed Decree 305, to facilitate improved institutional regulation of
water resources, and created DINASA, the ministry currently in the process of formulating
a national water law that reflects the values of the constitutional referendum. The
immediate implementation at the legislative level of the constitutional changes
demonstrates the coordination and coherence of Uruguay’s political institutions, and
their ability to respond efficiently and effectively to public demand. Uruguay’s congress
aids in the production of quality public policies across the board, not exclusively in the
water sector. On measures of congressional capability, Uruguay scores 2.5 out of 3, the
second highest in Latin America. The strength of its committees is ranked high, and the
effectiveness of law-making bodies is third highest in the region and significantly higher
than Argentina’s.99 Ernesto Stein and Mariano Tomassi found a statistically significant
positive correlation between a country’s congressional capability index and its policy
index, even after controlling for per capita income and other institutional variables (i.e.
judicial independence, incentives of the president, etc.).100
105
Uruguay also scores high on measures of judicial independence, which is critical for the
stability and enforcement of public policies. In terms of the water sector, the Ministry
of the Environment guarantees that issues involving natural resources have expedited
access to due process.101 The courts uphold water and environmental legislation. The role
of the Supreme Court is to ensure that the Executive does not exercise unilateral power
without consulting congress, and that neither congress nor the executive violates the
constitution. Stein and Tomassi also find a strong positive correlation between judicial
independence and policy quality.102 The judiciary in Uruguay is highly respected and has
a history of professionalism and independence from other political actors. This is partially
attributable to the fact that Supreme Court appointments require a vote of two-thirds
of the Senate, which guards against manipulation by competing political parties. On
measures of judicial independence, Uruguay scores 4.8 out of a possible 7, the highest in
the region and three points higher than Argentina.104
The quality of a country’s bureaucracy is another important institutional predictor of the

quality of public policies. Despite the lingering effects of Uruguay’s clientelistic political
past, bureaucratic professionalism is much higher within public enterprises than within
central government agencies. State enterprises, OSE included, have traditionally enjoyed
high levels of autonomy. OSE’s consumer satisfaction rating of 80 percent, in addition to
the achievement of universal access throughout the country, confirms that the bureaucracy
implements policy that reflects the needs of the public.105 The bureaucracy’s role is to
participate in the process of implementing policies with the public in mind, resisting
political opportunism and other interests. While Uruguay scores higher than Argentina on
the Weberian scale, a measure of bureaucratic professionalism, its score is still quite low,
even within the region. Uruguay scores 4.5 on the “Weberianness Scale,” higher than
Argentina’s score of 3.8, but lower than Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico.106
Bureaucratic weakness in Uruguay developed largely because Uruguay’s political parties
emerged before the presence of a strong state, and the bureaucracy was created in the
context of political patronage and clientelism.107 Even so, the unique situation within public
enterprises protects the water sector from suffering the full effects of a weak bureaucracy.
106
The World Bank recently evaluated Uruguay’s water system and policy structure and
found that there have been improvements since the 2004 reforms. The referendum
changed the nature of water provision in Uruguay, and the government responded with
legislation consistent with these changes. Less than a year after the reform passed,
Congress had approved the creation of multiple new water policy institutions with
clear regulatory and policy responsibilities. These institutions have been created and are
making progress in the realm of water policy, reflecting a legislative responsiveness and
enforcement capacity in Uruguay than Argentina lacks. The role of the judiciary in this
process is a potential realm of future research, as is a full evaluation of the water sector’s
bureaucratic capabilities.
VI. CASE STUDY: ARGENTINA

Like Uruguay, Argentina is rich with water resources. More than 85 percent of the
country’s resources, however, are concentrated in the La Plata River basin, and 76
percent of Argentina’s territory has an arid and semi-arid climate. Though the majority
of economic activity and most of the population is centered in the provinces located
within the La Plata River basin, the 10 percent of the populace living in rural areas
faces a water distribution problem. Water consumption within the country is highly
unequal, with people in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area consuming an average
of 383 liters per person per day in 2005 while those in some provinces consume less
than the annual minimum water stress value of 1000 m3 per person. Consumption
varies widely even within the Metropolitan Area.108 While overall coverage in Buenos
Aires is estimated at 99.8 percent, some districts, like Merlo, have less than 40 percent
water coverage and only 20 percent sewerage coverage.109 The size and varying
geography and population density of the country, coupled with a decentralized and
heterogeneous water sector, create a pattern of unequal and disorganized water and
sanitation service provision in Argentina. The sector is wrought with inefficiencies
and ineffective regulatory mechanisms, which impede progress in terms of service
expansion and policy advancement.
107
During Argentina’s colonial period, water and sanitation services (WSS) fell under
private control. In 1912, the government nationalized the service, creating the state-
owned company OSN (Obras Sanitarias de la Nación). OSN remained the national
provider of WSS until the 1980s, when the military government under Videla transferred
responsibility to provincial governments, except in Buenos Aires, which continued to
be served by OSN. Provincial institutions and government-run companies were largely
responsible for service provision, although some cases saw further decentralization to
municipalities or users’ cooperatives.110 This gave the provinces and local governments
the freedom to choose their own models of service provision, and is the basis for the
decentralized system that remains in place today.
Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Whereas Uruguay has a strong centralized water policy framework, Argentina does not.
As a result, the different ministries and institutions in charge of water resources overlap,
lack distinct responsibilities, and have little interagency cooperation. Water management
in Uruguay occurs primarily at the national level, but provincial authorities are heavily
involved in water resources and services in Argentina. Political, fiscal, and policy
decentralization are key features of the government, and this characteristic is powerfully
illustrated by the fact that sub-national spending comprises 49 percent of total
government spending in Argentina.111 The primary theory behind decentralization as a
positive influence in a democratic society is that local governments are more accountable
to the needs and demands of their citizens. While there are numerous examples of
success on these grounds, decentralization does not automatically equate to effective
policymaking, but rather depends upon the institutional design of policy.112 Even
decentralized systems require a central framework to guarantee coordination, legislative
systematization, and the mechanisms of conflict resolution.113
Analyses of Argentina’s institutional framework surrounding water management share the

common finding that fragmentation and a lack of coordination and cooperation between
agencies plagues the sector and causes, according to a World Bank report, “an inevitable
108
overlapping of missions and functions involving more than two agencies answerable
to different Ministries or Secretariats, with consequent uncertainty in the processing of
concrete issues.”114 A large part of the lack of coordination in the water sector can be
explained by the absence of a national water law. The various provinces have chosen
different models for water resource management, involving a diverse range of institutions.
This framework is described in Article 121 of the Constitution, which states that “provinces
hold all power not delegated to the Federal Government by this Constitution.”115
Legislators and the executive have submitted various proposals for a national law since
the adoption of Article 41 of the Constitution in 1994, but were never met with sufficient
support for their implementation. Article 41, adopted in 1994, provides for the national
government to set regulations regarding minimum requirements on issues relating to
resource management; however, this article has not been put to use, and water policy
continues to be legislated independently by each province with little regulation by
national and federal level laws. The current national legislative water framework is
comprised of rules and laws in the Civil, Commerce, Mining and Penal Codes as well as
federal laws that directly and indirectly relate to water governance, but there is no clear
piece of national legislation. 117
The provinces set their own criteria for resource allocation, conditions of use, water
concessions, dispute resolution, and water rates.118 As is true of the national water policy
structure, provincial legislation is not systematized, and myriad agencies and authorities
operate within an uncertain and ill-defined legal framework. The institutions involved in
water management lack clear responsibilities, resulting in frequent overlap in function on
one hand, and gaps and a lack of initiative in particular areas on the other. The sector is
wrought with inefficiency, yet resources are simultaneously underutilized in some areas
due to a lack of communication among agencies. Disputes among regulatory bodies over
jurisdiction are common, but the legal system is not conducive to a well-regulated and
cooperative provincial water sector.119 The absence of clear national jurisdiction over the
provinces exacerbates the organizational incapacity. COFEMA, the Federal Council on the
109
Environment, designates the power of the national authority to convene provinces. However,
not all provinces adhere to the Federal Environmental Pact and commit themselves to
COFEMA’s regulation, and others do not participate actively due to a lack of incentive.120
Though decentralization does not preclude the possibility of an efficient public sector,
Argentina’s institutional framework lacks the critical element of central regulation. Without
a clearly defined national water law, provincial coordination is impossible, with the result
that uniform water provision throughout the country cannot occur. The overlap between
provincial authorities involved in water management hinders efficiency at the provincial and
local levels, preventing effective assessment and measurement within, let alone between,
provinces. While evaluation by agencies including the World Bank have pointed out
weakness within Uruguay’s water sector, these problems are more difficult to pinpoint and
address in Argentina because of the lack of a legal framework defining the actors and their
roles within the sector. Argentina has an obvious need for water management reform, but
legislative and institutional reform must precede any specific policy considerations.
History of Failed Privatization Schemes

Water sector privatization in Argentina produced similar economic and coverage
problems as it did in Uruguay, but pre-existing sector inefficiencies and decentralized
provision prevented the results from becoming a national issue, as occurred in Uruguay.
While the citizens of Maldonado province experienced an obvious decline in services and
access to water, a major problem with private control in Argentina was a lack of service
expansion, rather than a marked deterioration in service quality. Densely populated areas
generally maintained high levels of water coverage, but rural regions did not experience
the promised increase in connections and expansion of infrastructure.121 Consumers
balked at the problems they faced as a result of the private concessions, and in some
cases protested, but the variation in coverage among regions and provinces meant
that complaints were often recognized locally, rather than nationally. As a result, the
failed privatization schemes did not produce the same widespread call for action that
influenced the Uruguayan campaign for water reform. Rather than a national response
110
developing against privatization, individual provinces gradually renegotiated or sole their

contracts with private companies. 122
Carlos Menem, president of Argentina from 1989 to 1999, is widely seen as one of the
primary neoliberal reformers in Latin America. After assuming office in the context of an
economic crisis, Menem implemented the Convertibility Plan, pegging the peso to the U.S.
dollar in an effort to curb hyperinflation and stimulate growth and foreign investment.
These measures coincided with widespread privatization of public utilities, including the
water sector. The government granted concessions contracts to private companies for
periods of up to 30 years. The contracts included service provision and infrastructure
maintenance, and most provinces opted for privatization. Water privatization was driven
by Argentina’s lack of public resources and investment, the poor performance of the
water sector, and less-than-ideal levels of access to water and sanitation. Corrientes was
the first province to undergo privatization in 1991, and the Greater Buenos Aires area
followed in 1992. By 1999, twenty-two private water companies served 70 percent of the
population.123 Privatization coincided with the development of government regulatory
agencies, giving the state a continued regulatory function in water services.
Private companies, subsidiaries of European multinationals (and dominated by Suez

Lyonnaise), entered with little awareness of the variation in geography and population
density throughout Argentina. Most of the companies used the same general contract
models regardless of the population, infrastructure, and resources of the area in which
they operated. They made promises to expand infrastructure in low socioeconomic areas,
where cost of connections and incidence of non-payment is high. The result was that
the private companies’ profits grew due to rate increases, but most failed to meet the
terms of their contracts. Though wages suffered due to the ban on price indexing under
the Convertibility Plan and the privatization of public enterprises left many Argentines
jobless, Menem allowed private firms to index prices to the U.S. consumer price index
(CPI). While Argentina’s CPI dropped 1.1 percent between 1995 and 2001, the U.S. CPI
increased by 18.4 percent.125
111
In addition to these gains, private companies negotiated rate increases while

simultaneously reducing their contractual obligations, creating a situation in which
consumer fees skyrocketed but saw no gains in service quality. Aguas Argentinas, for
example, failed to fulfill its commitment to building a sewage treatment plant in Buenos
Aires, with the result that 95 percent of sewage was dumped, and continues to be
dumped, into the Rio de la Plata. Even so, household water rates increased 88.2 percent
between 1993 and 2002, though Argentina’s CPI rose on 7.3 percent in the same
period.126 Aguas Argentinas S.A., the Suez subsidiary that provided water in the Buenos
Aires Metropolitan Area, reaped a profit rate of 19 percent of its net worth between the
beginning of the contract in 1993 and 2001.127
Despite hope that privatization would expand coverage and quality and reduce prices,
these problems remained, especially in low-income and rural communities. The 2001
financial crisis created further problems between the companies and government when
the peso was devalued by 70 percent. Contract prices had been indexed to the U.S. dollar
to guard against currency devaluation, but the scope of the crisis made it impossible for
consumers to pay.128 After attempted negotiations regarding the reduction of tariffs,
shareholders terminated many concession contracts over the following years. Complaints,
for example regarding Aguas Argentinas’ (a subsidiary of Suez Lyonnaise) contract in
the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, included a failure to provide adequate levels of
investment and to meet water quality targets.129 In 2006, President Nestor Kirchner
cancelled Suez’s contract in Buenos Aires, creating in its place Aguas y Sanamiento
Argentinos (Argentina Water and Sanitation), a state company owned 90 percent by the
state and 10 percent by workers. The governments of other provinces, including Santa
Fe and Córdoba, cancelled their contracts with Suez during the same year due to public
backlash against rate increases and failure to fulfill contractual obligations. 130 Between
1998 and 2009, the Argentine government terminated (or sold, in the case of Córdoba)
contracts with private water companies in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba,
Mendoza, Santa Fe, and Tucumán. 131
112
The Argentine government made significant errors in the privatization process that
effectively doomed the scheme to failure. One such mistake was the absence of a
clearly defined regulatory framework and independent regulatory agencies. Without
these essential institutions, the private companies were free to engage in rent-seeking
activities and invest little capital in infrastructure expansion and other contractual
commitments. With the majority of water sector power vested in the hands of private
corporations, profit gains did not translate to improved service.132 The financial crisis of
2001 catalyzed a series of events that eventually led to state intervention in the water
sector. The private company in Buenos Aires, affected by the currency devaluation and
burdened by loans taken out in U.S. dollars, cancelled plans to expand infrastructure.
Most of the contracts established under Menem have been terminated, and others have
been renegotiated, sold, or both.133 Though the poor performance of private companies
in Argentina did lead to government intervention in many cases, it did not produce the
same large-scale reforms that took place in Uruguay. Argentina’s decentralized water
system caused results to vary from province to province, and a unified call for sweeping
reform did not materialize.
The Presence or Absence of an Institutionalized Means for Civil Society to

Influence Policy
As is the case with many Latin American countries, Argentina’s government has
some direct democracy provisions, but they have been historically underutilized. Civil
society is limited in its ability to participate in policymaking, and has, historically, had
less of an incentive to be a voice for the public, as the government is unresponsive.
The absence of a clear path for civil society to participate in the policymaking process
helps explain why Uruguay’s privatization crisis produced a social movement while
Argentina’s did not.
Argentina is one of the fourteen Latin American countries that recognizes the top-
down plebiscite (plebiscite initiated by a government agency), and it is one of the
eight in which this mechanism has never been put to use. It similarly recognizes the
113
top-down non-binding plebiscite, which was utilized once between 1978 and 2002.
In terms of bottom-up mechanisms of direct democracy, Argentina recognizes only
the binding initiative, but, like all but one Latin American country, this mechanism has
never been employed. In comparison to Uruguay, a frequent user of direct democracy,
Argentina effectively lacks an institutionally strong means for the citizenry to directly
influence policy.134
A lack of government accountability and responsiveness to the needs of its citizens

is a chronic problem in Argentina. Multiple crises, including the human rights abuses
by the military junta and the 2001 financial crisis, brought the severity of the deficit
to the forefront of the national consciousness, and some steps have been taken
to correct this aspect of institutional weakness in the Argentine government. The
dominance of populism in 20th century politics and democratization movements led
to the development of an “authorization,” rather than an “accountability” model of
representation.135 For decades, the populace voted for an individual (for example
Juan Perón) or a party (the Peronist Party) with the understanding that its direct
influence over political decision-making began and ended on election day. This model
of democracy provided the opportunity for corrupt officials to ignore the needs of
its citizens, and sometimes even engage in illegal actions without repercussion. The
human rights movement that emerged in Argentina following the end of the military
dictatorship in 1983 brought about an increase in public awareness of the state’s
abuse of not only human rights, but also of civil rights and the rule of law. Throughout
the 1990s, a series of protests and media exposés of corrupt government officials
furthered the push for government accountability, eventually leading to a renewed
respect for constitutional mechanisms and guarantees.136 The result has been a
profound change in Argentine political culture. Voters are increasingly disinclined
to support candidates solely on the basis of party affiliation, and they are more
demanding than ever of strong institutions that check and balance political control
and accountability.137
114
Though these changes are taking place in Argentina, they are recent and have yet to
produce significant institutional change. Civil society, however, which lacked a diverse
presence in Argentina during the majority of the 20th century, is evolving and playing a
more active role in politics. NGOs, advocacy organizations, and social movements have all
contributed to the public voice for accountability through various initiatives. Additionally,
journalism has evolved in the past two decades, taking on an increasingly critical position
towards the government and working to expose wrongdoing and inform the public.138
The increased participation of individuals and independent organizations in politics
has spurred a respect for democratic principles that were ignored for much of the 20th
century, even during periods of democracy.
While Uruguay has a clearly defined and historically developed institutional structure
through which civil society can interact with and influence policy, Argentina is
still consolidating its democracy. The recent wave of civil society mobilization
has demonstrated a primary concern for enforcing the country’s basic legal and
constitutional framework, which provides for a strong representative democracy with
few participatory elements. The revival of social movements and organizations is a
step in the right direction for Argentina that may eventually lead to the adoption of
a stronger participatory framework. The emergence of a civil society that monitors
government action and legality will lead to the strengthening of institutions that promote
accountability and transparency.
Strength of Political Institutions

In contrast to the case of Uruguay, Argentina has weak political institutions, including
congress, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. The result is an ineffective and often archaic
legislative framework with regard to water policy, which fails both to produce quality
policies and to carry out the policies implemented by previous legislative efforts. As with
the case of Uruguay, this factor is still somewhat speculative with regard to the connection
with water policy, as clear evidence is sparse and requires further research.
115
Argentina’s score on an index of overall policies is 1.85, in contrast to Uruguay’s

score of 2.34 out of four.139 As described in the Uruguay case study, quality policies
reflect stability, adaptability, coordination and coherence, quality implementation and
enforcement, public regard and efficiency. Argentina’s water policies are lacking in many
of these areas. They have been relatively unstable in recent years, as the last two decades
have witnessed constant renegotiation, selling, and termination of private contracts,
affecting policy with every change. Argentine water policy demonstrates a persistent
inability to adapt, evidenced by the reality that most water institutions must respond to
the irrigation sector because it was granted authority by the National Irrigation Law in
1909. While circumstances have changed, authorities in charge of social and economic
water use continue to report first to agencies in charge of irrigation.140 This structure
has not led to problems obtaining sufficient water for social use, but it has resulted in
overlap, communication problems, and disputes within the water sector. Anachronistic
and outdated policies due to a lack of policy adaptability contribute to Argentina’s
water sector inefficiency. A lack of coordination and coherence is another problem
plaguing the water sector. As was explored in the section on the Presence of a Strong
Central Water Policy Framework, coordination problems result in noncooperation
between provinces, with frequent conflict as a consequence. Furthermore, policies tend
to be poorly implemented and enforced. A clear example is the failure to implement
Article 41 of the Constitution (added in 1994), which provides for the establishment
of a national regulatory framework on environmental issues, including water resource
management.141 Finally, Argentina’s water policy is somewhat lacking in public regard
and efficiency. Certain sectors of the population are excluded from access to adequate
water, sanitation, or both, and efficiency is poor (see section IV).
Argentina scores lower than Uruguay on most individual measures of political

institutional strength, including congressional capability, judicial independence, and
the quality of the bureaucracy. Argentina’s congressional index score is 1.37 out of
3, one of the lowest in Latin America.142 These low marks are partially due to the
fact the provinces have so much power, providing little incentive to develop a strong
116
national congress, and partially because executive powers in Argentina are quite high,
which transfers policymaking power away from legislature.143 Congress participates
minimally in the policymaking process when compared with other countries that have a
presidential form of government. As a result, Congress displays low reactivity and does
little to facilitate policy development. The fact that Article 41 has yet to result in policy
advancement after sixteen years is a clear example of the country’s lack of legislative
capacity. Under this article, Congress is empowered to develop legislation regulating
the provinces, without the need for provincial ratification.144 Exercising this power
would address the problem of Argentina’s weak legislative water policy framework,
which hinders the provinces in their effective management of water resources. Provincial
legislation is not systematized, a main cause of poor division of institutional responsibility
and the overall lack of coordination within the water sector.
Congress cannot accept full blame for legislative failure, however, because the
Argentine Constitution grants the executive wide influence over policy. National
policies are often produced through executive order rather than congressional
legislation, and the executive has the power to regulate laws passed by congress,
meaning even congressional legislation is subject to change with the whims of
the administration in office. The UNDP ranks executive powers in Argentina as
medium-high, in contrast to the medium-low executive powers in Uruguay.145 One
would expect to see the executive fill the void created by congressional weakness,
but executive powers have not been exercised toward the development of a more
systematized water policy framework.
Judicial independence is another political institutional arena in which Argentina struggles,

compounding the problem of legislative weakness by preventing policy enforcement.
Argentina’s score on a measure of judicial independence is 1.80 out of 7, one of the
lowest in the region, in contrast to Uruguay’s score of 4.80, the highest in the region. The
tenure of Supreme Court justices in Argentina is one of the lowest in the world, with the
result that the Court generally represents the political will of the administration in power.
117
The judicial system in Argentina, therefore, is not a strong enforcer of constitutional and
legislative agreements, including those relating to public policies.146
As in Uruguay, the Argentine bureaucracy is generally weak and unprofessional; in

Argentina, however, the bureaucracies of state-run enterprises are not exceptions.
This bureaucratic ineptitude greatly reduces the state’s ability to delegate the
technical implementation of public policies. Policies in Argentina are generally either
volatile or very rigid, unchanging even when circumstances change. Rigidity and low
adaptability are key features of Argentina’s water policy, evidenced by the continued
existence of anachronistic laws, like the National Irrigation Law of 1909, that force
authorities to abide by regulations and report to other agencies in ways that are no
longer reasonable or necessary. Policies are also poorly coordinated, poorly enforced,
and of low quality, leading to chronic problems in the water sector. Bureaucratic
inefficiency is partially to blame for the lack of coordination between water authorities
and between provinces, resulting in frequent interprovincial conflicts. Argentina’s
bureaucracy scores a 3.8 on the Weberianness scale, very poor in comparison to other
developing countries.147
VII. CONCLUSIONS
Summary of Findings
The results show that Uruguay’s position with regard to each of the four explanatory
factors represents the situation hypothesized to equate with effective water provision.
Uruguay has a strong central water policy framework, ensuring effective coordination
and cooperation between the different ministries and institutions involved in water
resource management; Uruguay experienced a failed privatization scheme that gained
national attention and spurred widespread mobilization; Uruguay is the country in the
region with the greatest historical use of direct democracy mechanisms, which provide
the means for civil society to directly impact policy; and Uruguay’s political institutions
are strong compared to most countries in the region.
118
Argentina’s situation in terms of the four explanatory factors does not represent the
same ideal environment for a highly effective water system. Argentina’s water system is
controlled in a decentralized manner by the provincial authorities. Whereas Uruguay’s water
system is managed by a set of national ministries and agencies with an increasing degree
of responsibility division and definition, the absence of a national water law gives each
province in Argentina the power to define and appoint its own water authorities. The bodies
involved in water provision reflect a large degree of overlap in terms of responsibilities and
functions, which produces chronic inefficiency. This reality likely played a role in preventing
the failed privatization schemes from producing a major public outcry, as public service
provision is historically variable, whether under public or private control. Though Argentina
experienced widespread failure of private companies in various provinces, the influence of
other factors prevented the unified reaction and mobilization seen in Uruguay. Argentina
lacks an institutionalized means for civil society to influence policy. It does not have the
experience with direct democracy seen in Uruguay, and civil society organizations are
still primarily invested in fighting for the respect of basic democratic principles. Finally,
in contrast to Uruguay, Argentina’s political institutions are weak. Congress has limited
legislative power, the executive does little to fill the void created by an unresponsive
Congress, the judiciary is not independent enough to enforce policies, and the bureaucracy
is unprofessional, which limits its ability to effectively implement policy.
Interpretation of Results
The four factors explored in this paper are all highly relevant to water system
effectiveness, but they must be considered in concert rather than independently. Any
major policy is the product of many variables interacting, and the same is true of water
policy. The fact that Argentina experienced failed privatization but did not develop a more
effective water system, as well as the fact that Uruguay scores well but is not perfect on
any of the factors, illustrates this point.
The failure of private water companies can be viewed as a catalyst for water system
reform, but it alone will not lead to increased effectiveness. In the case of Uruguay,
119
the crisis in Maldonado province spurred action on the part of civil society, but the
constitutional reform might not have occurred, and certainly would not have occurred
as rapidly, without the mechanisms of direct democracy. Similarly, Uruguay’s treatment
of water provision as a national, rather than provincial, service contributed to the
national reaction because the issue had to be addressed by the national government. The
problem in one province, therefore, entered into the national conscious and catalyzed a
widespread reform effort. Uruguay’s strong political institutions indirectly interacted with
these other factors by making effective reform a real possibility.
In the case of Argentina, failed privatization schemes did not produce the same results
as occurred in Uruguay due to the influence of the other three factors. The issue did not
become a unified, national-level crisis due partially to the fact that the scenario varied
dramatically between provinces, and concerned citizens tended to target their efforts
at the provincial governments, who control water provision. An additional obstacle to
reform was the absence of a strong civil society influence over policy in Argentina. Even
if people had mobilized at the national level, they would not have had the direct path
to constitutional reform that the CNDAV utilized in Uruguay. Furthermore, the weakness
of Argentine political institutions impedes the creation of new legislation as well as its
enforcement and implementation.
Limitations and Future Study

Though these factors work together to create the conditions for an effective water
system, they are by no means the only influences on water policy, or even the most
relevant in all cases. However, a country, like Uruguay, that receives a positive
evaluation on all four factors likely provides an environment conducive to achieving a
system that meets the water and sanitation needs of its population. Two of the factors,
the stability of social policies and public services and the presence of mechanisms
by which civil society can influence policy, are directly related to the components of
a functioning democracy. A developed, democratic state meets more than the basic,
procedural requirements of democracy and takes steps to fulfill the social rights of its
120
populace. It would be interesting for further studies to break down the various elements
of democracy and compare countries’ scores on these variables to the type and
effectiveness of their water systems.
Further studies could likewise focus on the element of crisis and its relation to water
system reform. Many Latin American countries, including Uruguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador,
experienced privatization crises that spurred reform efforts. It is necessary to investigate
other regions of the world, as well as a large grouping of countries with universal
water coverage, to determine if crises are generally necessary for water system reform,
effectiveness, or both.
The fact that Argentina, a federal system with a very high degree of policy
decentralization to provinces, suffers from uncoordinated policy calls into question the
effectiveness of decentralized control of water provision. Decentralization can achieve
remarkably positive results in the context of a well organized institutional and policy
framework. Latin America, however, is a developing region, and many countries continue
to struggle in this area. It is necessary to further examine the relevance of this factor in a
broader context of developing and developed nations.
Finally, as stated before, the connection between political institutional strength and
an effective water policy requires further study. It is necessary to establish direct links,
especially between the judicial system and policy enforcement and implementation.
Records of court rulings in Argentina and Uruguay should be examined for their
connection to water policy strength or weakness. Similarly, the interaction between the
bureaucracy and policy enforcement needs further examination.
VIII. POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The results of this study do not provide a set of guidelines for those striving to influence
water policy at either the domestic or international levels. Rather, they demonstrate
some of the conditions that are conducive to implementing effective policy. Overall, it
121
is clear that a continued focus on democratization is necessary for achieving universal

water coverage throughout the world. Democracy should be assessed not only in terms
of procedural elements, like electoral procedures, but also with regard to substantive
components. Regular, free and fair elections are necessary but not sufficient to establish
a democracy that meets the needs of the people. Social policies, particularly those
necessary for the promotion of basic social and civil rights, are essential. Uruguay is one
of the longest-enduring democracies in Latin America, and it is not coincidental that it
also has one of the most universal water systems in the region.
While the drive to call water a human right rather than an economic good is crucial
for deterring detrimental policies that allow private companies to take advantage
of this dwindling resource, providing assistance to countries working to consolidate
democracy is equally important. A developed democracy encompasses strong institutions,
mechanisms for civil society and the populace to influence policy, and a transparent and
accountable government that is responsive to the needs of its electorate. Whether or
not water is defined at the international level as a human right or a human need, strong
democracies will strive to fulfill basic needs, one of which is universal access to water.
122
ENDNOTES
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4 Jouravlev, Andrei, “Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Services on the Threshold of the XXI
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7 Bergara, 5.
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16 Bourguignon, Francois, and Pleskovic, Boris, Annual World Bank Conference on Development
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123
20 Goldman, Michael. “How ‘Water for All!’ Policy Became Hegemonic: The Power of the World Bank
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30 Op. cit., p. 4.
31 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the
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124
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125

56 Balanyá, Belén, Brennan, Brid, Hoedeman, Olivier, Kishimoto, Satoko and Terhorst, Philipp,
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69 Op. cit., p. 15.
70 Bergara, p. 32.
71 “Fighting for Alternatives: Cases of Successful Trade Union Resistance to the Policies of the IMF
and the World Bank,” ICFTU, April 2006, <http://www.icftu.org/www/PDF/IFI.pdf>, p. 15.
72 Op. cit., p. 16.
73 Taks, Javier, “ ‘El Agua es de Todos/ Water for All’: Water Resources and Development in Uruguay,”
Development, 2008.
126
74 “Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic Policies, and Technical Memorandum of

Understanding,” Montevideo, June 18, 2002, Section VII, Box 2, < http://www.imf.org/external/np/
loi/2002/ury/02/index.htm>.
75
“Fighting for Alternatives: Cases of Successful Trade Union Resistance to the Policies of the IMF
and the World Bank” p. 16.
76 Op. cit., p. 16.
77 Hall, David and Lobina, Emauele, “Water Privatization in Latin America, 2002,” presented at PSI
America’s Water Conference, San José, Costa Rica, July 2002, (PSIRU, University of Greenwich).
78 Taks, p. 19.
79 Balanyá, Belén, Brennan, Brid, Hoedeman, Olivier, Kishimoto, Satoko and Terhorst, Philipp, p. 173.
80 Hall and Lobina, p. 7.
81 Boys, David, “Winning the Water Fight,” Public Services International, 2006, <http://www.worldpsi.
org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=3049&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/
ContentDisplay.cfm>.
82 Laymeyer, Jan, “Uruguay: Historical Demographical Data of the Administrative Divisionin”
Populstat, 2003, <http://www.populstat.info/Americas/uruguayp.htm>.
84 Op. cit., p. 98.
85 Altman, David, “Popular Initiatives in Uruguay: Confidence Votes on Government or Political

Loyalties?” (Draft Version), Research Center on Direct Democracy, 2006, <http://www.dd-la.ch/
download/Case04_Uruguay.pdf>, p. 1.
86 Bergara, p. 5.
87 Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook, (International Institute for Democracy and
Electoral Assistance, 2008), <http://www.idea.int/publications/direct_democracy/upload/DDH_
inlay_low.pdf>, p. 167.
88 Altman, p. 4.
89 Op. cit., p. 1.
90 Op. cit., p. 8.
92 Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook, p. 168.
93 Altman, p. 10.
94 Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook, p. 171.
127
95 Bourguignon and Pleskovic, p. 193.

97 Op. cit., p. 220.
98 Serrentino, Carlos Ma., Yelpo, Laura, “Uruguay y La Gestión de sus Recursos Hidricos,”
Pan-American Health Organization, <http://www.cepis.org.pe/bvsarg/e/fulltext/infuru/infuru.pdf>,
p. 31.
100 Op. cit., p. 210.
101 Serrentino and Yelpo, p. 30.

103 Bergara, p. 37.
106 Bergara, p. 33.

107 Op. cit., p. 34.
108 Pochat, Víctor, “Argentina: Country Case Study on Domestic Policy Frameworks for Adaptation in
the Water Sector.” Argentine Institute for Water Resources, March 2006, <http://www.oecd.org/
dataoecd/58/38/36318770.pdf>, p. 1.
109 Pochat, op. cit., p. 1.
110 “Infrastructure in Latin America: Recent Evolution and Key Challenges,” p. 58.
111 Montero, Alfred P., and Samuels, David J., Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), p. 6.
112 Montero and Samuels, p. 30.
113 Dinar, Ariel, and Saleth, R. Maria, The Institutional Economics of Water: A Cross-Country Analysis
of Institutions and Performance (MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 2004), p. 180.
128
114 “Argentina Water Resources Management Policy Issues and Notes

Thematic Annexes Volume III,” World Bank, 25 Feb. 2000, <http://
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWRD/9266241112685065402/20434096/
ArgentinaWRMPolicyIssuesNotesThematicAnnexesEnglish.pdf>, p. 20.
115 Op. cit., p. 7.
116 Op. cit., p. 35.
117 Pochat, p. 7.
118 “Water Infrastructure Development Program for the Norte Grande Provinces,” Inter-American
Development Bank <http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=915972>, p. 3.
119 “Water Infrastructure Development Program for the Norte Grande Provinces,” p. 37.
120 Op. cit., p. 36.
121 Rodríguez-Boetsch, Leopoldo, “Public Service Privatisation and Crisis in Argentina,” Development
in Practice, June 2005, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029963>, p. 103.
122 Corral, Violeta, Hall, David, and Lobina, Emanuele, “Replacing Failed Private Water Companies.”
Public Services International. January 2010, p. 5.
123 Juuti, Petri, Katko, Taipo, and Vuorinen, Heikki, Environmental History of Water (London: IWA
Publishing, 2007), p. 440.
124 Alamsi, Florencia, Ana Hardoy, and Jorgelina Hardoy, “Improving Water and Sanitation Provision in
Buenos Aires,” IIED-América Latina. June 2010. p. 8
125 Rodríguez-Boetsch, p. 109.
127 “Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil,” Public Citizen, March 2003,
<http://www.publiccitizen.org/documents/privatizationfiascos.pdf>, p. 2.
128 Budds, Jessica, McGranahan, Gordon, “Are the Debates on Water Privatization Missing the Point?
Experiences from Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” Environment and Urbanization, 2003, p. 108.
129 Hall, David, Lobina, Emanuele, “Water Privatization and Restructuring in Latin America, 2007”
(PSIRU, University of Greenwich, 2007), p. 14.
130 Valente, Marcela, “Another War over Water,” IPS, June 7, 2006, <http://ipsnews.net/news.
asp?idnews=33526>.
131 Corral, Violeta, Hall, David, and Lobina, Emanuele, “Replacing Failed Private Water Companies,”
Public Services International. January 2010, p. 6 .
133 Corral, Hall, and Lobina, p. 5.
129
135 Levitsky and Murillo, p. 231.

136 Levitsky and Murillo, p. 234.
137 Op. cit., p. 233.
138 Op. cit., p. 237.

140 “Argentina Water Resources Management Policy Issues and Notes Thematic Annexes Volume III,”
p. 22.
141 “Argentina Water Resources Management Policy Issues and Notes Thematic Annexes Volume III.”
p. 35.
143 Spiller, Pablo. T. and Tomassi, Mariano, “Argentina,” forthcoming in Political Institutions,
Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes (Stanford University Press) <http://www.udesa.edu.
ar/files/institucional/eventos/ipes/argentina.pdf>, p. 11.
144 Op. cit., p. 40.
146 Op. cit., p. 23.
147 Bergara, p. 33.

Teens, Toddlers, and Totoro
VICTOR LUO
Department of English
Associate Professor James Brecher
131
In both its historical and contemporary manifestations, fantasy as a narrative element

has operated predominantly within the domain of childhood. Whether we discuss Alice
in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, or Harry Potter, fantasy stories typically
feature child protagonists in order to target a child audience. Fantasy narratives can vary
considerably: they can create entirely alternate worlds like the aforementioned stories or
they can take place in the real world with various fantasy inflections, as when teenagers
run around solving mysteries in Scooby-Doo or five-year-olds explore jungles in Dora
the Explorer. The subtle unreality of this latter kind of fantasy renders the question of
whether the featured children are realistic irrelevant because the narratives are familiar
and benign. American cartoons featuring children do not and cannot involve gratuitous
violence, horrific deaths, destructive apocalypses or any direct mention of sex. Japanese
anime programs like Blood+, Death Note, and Akira, on the other hand, have
prominently featured mature content in concert with child characters by contextualizing
these representations within a fantasy environment. However, in traveling to the States,
these anime have often been denigrated by parents who argue that the grotesqueness of
the representations present a distorted view of childhood.
A dismissive attitude towards fantasy’s depiction of children neglects to analyze

how the genre acts as both a contextual space for children and as an arena within
which the image of the child is continually negotiated. In the United States, Japanese
anime tends to fall prey to this dismissive attitude mainly because American attitudes
view animation as being “just for kids” while Japanese culture views animation as
a medium that can appeal to all ages. American audiences did not really notice that
early anime imports such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy were Japanese (Patten
2004, p. 44), but did when anime distinguished itself from American cartoons with
complex narratives like the epic space saga Space Battleship Yamato and the
psychological tragedy Akira. Narratives in which children acted out bloody, apocalyptic
violence stunned American audiences—mature thematics were and continue to be
incompatible with mainstream American animation. These kinds of complex narratives
in anime fantasy free our conceptions of childhood from a normalized framework,
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inviting audiences to imagine children in unfamiliar contextual spaces and roles that
defy their traditional image in the American mass media.
Juxtaposed amidst acts like murder or world saving, childhood in anime often tackles
more challenging concepts, and therefore tends to attract a more diverse audience.
While typical American cartoons are tailored specifically for elementary or middle
school children, audiences for anime are often divided according to genre, ranging from
shonen and shojo for children and teenagers to seinen and josei for adults. While
American media often construct childhood by drawing on universalized sentiments
about innocence, happiness, and other familiar notions, the way anime fantasy presents
wholly unfamiliar depictions of childhood provokes profound hypothetical questions that
reflect real world desires and the never-ending negotiation of the definition of childhood.
Anime fantasy not only invites alternative conceptions of childhood, but also creates
a space departing from reality and adults that allow depicted children to organically
develop themselves with self-sufficient agency and creativity. Both soft fantasies like My
Neighbor Totoro and psychological science fiction like The Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzumiya create these kinds of spaces by positing the children as characters who have
powerful effects in their fantasy worlds. An analysis of how children act with agency
outside their normal conceptual framework in these anime illuminates how these
contexts of unrepressed empowerment explore childhood at moments of self-definition,
praising the contemporary moment of youth agency rather than returning to familiar, but
restrictive sentimentalizations. The defamiliarized contexts of childhood in anime fantasy
are a contemporary backlash against the traditional ways in which Western cultures have
sentimentalized and commodified children, reversing traditionally passive archetypes by
placing children in empowered, often adult-like roles. Historically, culture has perpetuated
“childhood [as] a condition defined by powerlessness and dependence on the adult
community’s directives and guidance” (Kline 1998, p. 95). From Victorian times on,
when the rapidly changing social structures and the ideas of Blake and Dickens pushed
forth the image of the child as an innocent figure requiring protection, institutions of
public policy and educational systems began subjecting those same children to careful
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regulation. The market, having lost the use of child labor, quickly adapted as “advertising
repeatedly articulated the need for parents to become aware of the unique needs
[and] vulnerabilities of their child” (Kline 1998, p. 103) and began selling products like
soap and toys tailored directly towards families with children. In this historical shift,
the means by which to raise children were commodified, reduced to consumer habits
and materialistic measures in gauging normal child development. Popular culture
scholar Jack Zipes, lamenting this way that children are presented in the media, argues,
“Everything we do to, with, and for our children is influenced by hegemonic interests
of ruling corporate elites. In simple terms, we calculate what is best for our children by
regarding them as investments and turning them into commodities” (Zipes 2001, p.
xi). Thus, as Zipes begins to point out, the market directly profits from this image and
economy of caring for children: by perpetuating the notion of childhood as synonymous
with vulnerability, it creates a hegemonic structure of values that profits from and yet
ultimately restricts a child’s social mobility.
However, the contemporary child defies traditional sentimentalized definitions because

of a cultural shift marked by individualism and self-definition, where children recognize
“how [adults] are indoctrinating them and caring for them… feel and sense what value
[they] place on their lives [that affect] their development of values and difference”
(Zipes 2001, p. 22). Children today have the space and power to respond critically to
their environments and social construction. Recent work done by contemporary cultural
studies scholars have found that children today “are active participants in that process
of defining their identities” (Jenkins 1998, p. 4) and “create their own meanings
from the stories and symbols of consumer culture” (Seiter 1995, p. 10)—especially
with the emergence of consumer-grade, digital tools for production and distribution.
Youth culture thrives online as children spend hours a day on MySpace, Facebook and
YouTube exchanging messages and media. These new cultural spaces grant children
more power in defining themselves and affecting their environments. Major industries,
realizing youth influence over $180 billion in discretionary spending (Lagario 2007), have
acknowledged these shifts and are increasingly marketing and creating cultures targeting
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youth. While the hegemony of regulation through education and public policy still exists,
the top-down hierarchal relationship where what children can think about is filtered
through a protective, market-influenced adult lens is not as powerful as it once was. The
contemporary child is not a passive figure waiting to be told what to do and think; he
is quick to notice when external forces try to sell him commodified culture and quick to
respond with his own self-formed perspectives and responses.
This contemporary moment of youth agency and resistance coexists with the rising
popularity of Japanese anime as part of an anti-conformity global culture, as nations like
Japan resist the hegemony of American culture and children resist the hegemony of adult
regulation. Politically, the U.S. grows more unpopular on the world stage while culturally,
“Hollywood is stuck making movies that, while technologically impressive, project
‘counterfeit worlds’ that spectacularize fantasies out of sync with the lived emotions of
people in the twenty-first century” (Allison 2006, p. 17). Anime comes to the U.S. as a
means of challenging its traditional dominance. Japanese culture scholar Anne Allison
argues, “Japan’s role in the current J-craze among American youth is mythic: a place
whose meaning fluctuates between the phantasmal and real, the foreign and familiar,
the strange and everyday” (Allison 2006, p. 16-17). To Allison, fantasy is at the core of
anime’s appeal, creating a nonthreatening space where international politics and culture
can be negotiated in departures from unpleasant realities. Anime fantasy is specifically
a place that offers comfort to the child as it brings forth the imagination of a “profusion
of polymorphous attachments: [fantasies] of nomadic humans finding new kinds of
transhuman attachments… that [have] sustained and nourished [children] through
what are often tough and lonely times” (Allison 2006, p. 20). Fantasy, as a departure
from realities that patronize children, presents the child ideas and musings of many
possibilities of empowerment. What fantasy offers to children is not real empowerment,
but the hope of empowerment, encouraging revisionist perspectives on unpleasant
realities and praising their innate capacity to bring about the change they desire in
difficult times.
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Anime fantasy is distinct from the fantasies of American cartoons in the way it is
more likely to combine childhood and mature experiences. However, that is not to say
that children are fundamentally different in anime than they are in different media;
rather, these combinations give contexts with which children can be imagined beyond
traditional notions. American cartoons commonly contextualize children in isolated
environments like the schoolyard and the family home, where conflicts end and repeat
benignly because of the prevalent episodic form. Most anime digress from the circular
episodic form, developing more complex child characters as they navigate through
drawn-out narratives that often take those children beyond the classroom or the home.
My Neighbor Totoro and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya exemplify anime’s
use of fantasy as a creation of spaces of comforting empowerment where children’s
development seem more complex and more similar to the contemporary child, the former
for younger children and the latter for adolescents. My Neighbor Totoro’s fantasy
elements contextualize younger children with emphases of their capabilities over their
deficiencies, illustrating and praising their agency to navigate through conflict. My
Neighbor Totoro tells the story of two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, as they move into a
rural village, cope with their mother’s hospitalization and befriend furry creatures called
totoros, keepers of the forest. Fantasy abounds in the narrative when the sisters bond
with the totoro by flying through the air, growing a tree overnight and riding a living,
cat-shaped bus. The film reflects Miyazaki’s style favoring idealist visions of a softer, less
industrialized world, where children stand in for morals arguing for simpler lifestyles. My
Neighbor Totoro’s success in tying these morals with childhood is that its fantasy is not
escapist; rather the fantasy is paired with reality in a relationship of ambivalence that
does not criticize it, instead acting as Susan Napier calls an “enchanting enhancement”
(Napier 2005, p.132) of the world. The bordering of fantasy and reality in My Neighbor
Totoro idealizes the innocence of childhood as a form of agency rather than inability
by highlighting the child protagonists in moments of self-definition and self-sufficiency
rather than helplessness.
136
The world of My Neighbor Totoro is a fantasy framed by a logical schema, exemplifying

anime fantasy’s common trend in drawing upon recognizable logic and familiar narratives
emphasizing the child’s ability to perceive, understand and act with sound logic. On many
levels, My Neighbor Totoro is a childhood fantasy similar to Alice in Wonderland
where a child protagonist finds herself ensconced in a strange land with strange creatures.
However, Totoro is distinct from Alice in that the logic behind Totoro’s fantasy is wholly
reasonable while Alice’s is not (Napier 2005). Alice explores Wonderland with considerable
struggle because the world is absurdist, with nonsensical laws and the tyrannical Queen
of Hearts. Alice is helpless in the logic-less Wonderland because the skills she possesses as
an ordinary girl are virtually useless. On the contrary, the sisters in Totoro are empowered
by their own virtues in navigating the fantasy world because its logic is tied to the logic
of reality. As the girls’ father explains, the idea of the totoro is rooted in rural folklore
that mythologizes nature. Though it is a lofty, dream-like creature, the connection to
folklore is a metaphorical conceit that connects the totoros to a reality that defends an
environmentalist viewpoint on nature. This fantasy does not detract from the girls’ sense of
reality, but rather enhances their worldviews and abilities to live everyday life. At one point,
the girls, believing in the healing power of fresh vegetables, rely on the totoros’ help to
take a fresh ear of corn to their ill mother, which the film suggests speeds her recovery. The
logic of the fantasy world in Totoro is not centered around an adult perspective, but rather
on the larger scope of nature and spiritual belief. This anime fantasy draws upon familiar
logic and depicts children as understanding and deftly using that logic.
With strong sense of logic, children’s reasoning and imagination is praised in the
film as strength, with the fantasy world as a domain for their creative self-sufficiency.
Satsuki and Mei are considerably independent girls, as they cook, clean and tend to
the house as their mother is ill and their father works out of town, demonstrating their
strength to cope with loneliness and to act with maturity in the face of troubling family
circumstances. However, this strength is realistically at odds with their limitations as
children, as Satsuki worries about having to take on a motherly role with her younger
sister and Mei cries as she considers the death of her mother as a serious possibility.
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It is through the girls’ abilities to access the story’s fantasy, that the totoros act as
helper figures—teachers which help to actualize the girls’ innate self-sufficiency. Susan
Napier argues that in My Neighbor Totoro, “The character’s ability to connect with the
[fantastic] Other, be it the unconscious or the supernatural, is clearly coded as a sign of
inner strength and mental health” (Napier 2005, p. 127). When Mei first encounters the
giant totoro, it roars so loudly in her face that she has to grip onto its fur to hold on.
Mei’s demonstrates strength in childlike playfulness and bravery by roaring straight back
at the totoro. Childhood traits like curiosity, innocence, bravery and kindness are coded
as strength because the fantasy world’s structure allows the child protagonists to explore
and use it as they wish. When a desperate Satsuki cannot find Mei anywhere she looks,
she turns to the totoro to help her, who grins in the face of the situation as it summons
the catbus to bring Satsuki to Mei. As Satsuki has exhausted all her options, her access
to the fantasy world becomes her resourcefulness in dealing with conflict. Because
the fantasy world in My Neighbor Totoro is structured in a way that the children can
approach and utilize it, it praises the ordinary child by coding its typical traits as strength.
A strong ambivalence between fantasy and reality is maintained throughout the film
as it is never articulated whether the girl’s adventures are real or a product of their
imagination. This ambivalence creates a fluid departure from reality that becomes
a means of being in conversation with reality, with children as the medium of that
discourse. Napier calls My Neighbor Totoro “a classic fantasy of compensation…
one that is more or less controlled by the girls themselves, since the fantasy stems from
their own imaginations” (Napier 2005, p. 130). Compensation occurs through the
girls’ ability to navigate between real and fantasy, taking part in a continual exchange
between the real and that fantastic to deal with troubling family life and play with the
totoros. Ambivalence in this exchange does what Zipes calls “genuine storytelling,”
which he argues “is not only subversive but magical in that it transforms the ordinary
into the extraordinary and makes us appreciate and take notice of little things in life
that we would normally overlook” (Zipes 2001, pp. 134-135). Zipes’ argument puts
in perspective storytelling’s power to call attention to certain issues, which is what the
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fantasy in the anime does. The film’s fantasy emphasizes how children have different
perspectives from adults that allow them their unique observations that they process
through their own liminal spaces of imagination. The ownership of unique perspectives is
coded as a valuable trait that enables the protagonists to care for themselves. Fantasy’s
departure from reality, while maintaining an ambivalent relationship with it, creates
the discussion encouraging the fluidity in which childhood can be defined and praises
children’s unique abilities to make meaning.
What My Neighbor Totoro does for younger children, The Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzumiya does for adolescents by using fantasy to spur a meta-narrative about
adolescence that emphasizes the period as a profound time for navigating identities and
realizing power. Haruhi Suzumiya holds many things in common with contemporary
popular anime: teenagers in school, slapstick humor, playful and dramatic conflicts,
budding romances and fantastical adventures. Haruhi Suzumiya is a fantasy of
fantasies, with magical characters descending upon the plot with multiple mythologies.
The series revolves around Haruhi Suzumiya’s adamantly declared disinterest in ordinary
people and her accompanying wish to meet more interesting beings like aliens, time
travelers, and espers. She creates the SOS Brigade, a club dedicated to finding such
supernatural beings, and forcibly enlists three random students who ironically happen
to be the alien, time traveler and esper she wished for. These extraordinary beings
follow Haruhi in order to monitor her god-like powers to change reality on a whim,
though she is never aware of this ability or of the three being’s true identities. The series
follows the ways in which the SOS Brigade’s adventures often beget reality-changing
effects, with everyone at the beck and call of Haruhi lest she destroy the universe out of
dissatisfaction. The anime contextualizes the fantasy in terms of the adolescent instead
of vice-versa, placing the teen in the role of a mega agent in which the fate of the
world rests in their hands. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a meta-narrative
fully conscious of its own spectacle, creating a self-critical environment that adolescent
characters navigate through to define themselves, with the suspensions of reality acting
as an encouragement to interpret adolescence in diversified ways.
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The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya’s meta-fictive fantasy casts perspectives on

adolescence that are at times familiar and at others mockingly critical, exaggerating
traditional psychology to the point where the adolescent protagonists are highly self-
aware and are able to critically engage with their own identities. Concepts like the
invincibility fable, which refers to adolescents’ tendency to believe they cannot be
victims to dangerous behavior, and the personal fable, which refers to the ways in which
adolescents often egocentrically believe they are inexplicably special or heroic, are heavily
parodied throughout the series. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya exaggerates
these concepts through fantasy, where situations place teenagers in God-like positions
in a way that raises the dramatic need for the adolescent characters to be self- conscious
and self-critical. Haruhi epitomizes stereotypical invincibility and ego-centralism, doing
whatever she pleases like abusing Mikuru to the point of sexual harassment and
blackmailing a club for a free computer, all the while possessing the magical power
to get away with it. However, Haruhi’s consistently silly egocentric attitude serves as
a profound contrast to her existential vulnerability, exemplifying a three-dimensional
complexity beyond the superficial archetype of the self-absorbed adolescent. After a
disappointing adventure, Haruhi reveals to Kyon a life-changing moment where she felt
her life was utterly insignificant, reminiscing about calculating the vast number of people
at a sold-out baseball game and realizing that the stadium capacity is a tiny fraction of
the Japanese population, which is also a tiny fraction of the world’s population. With
this realization, Haruhi grows melancholic, thinking about the mundane nature of her
existence as a mere drop in a large ocean—and yet, in the face of such thoughts, she
becomes convinced that there are a small number of people who are indeed “special.”
Pursuing the extraordinary becomes an obsession for Haruhi in order to escape the lonely
normalcy of everyday life. While Haruhi’s actions are clearly in the realm of fantasy, her
motives have real emotional depth. The idea of adolescent ego-centralism portrayed
in the anime is defamiliarized through exaggeration, emphasizing not its exasperating
typicality but its careful and unique thought and emotional processes. Haruhi is not
just the self-absorbed girl given god-like powers who uses them to abuse others;
her emotional investment is guided by a desire to be someone special, a desire that
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resonates across a universal scale. “Every fantasy is based on desires, and so is Japanese
anime fantasy. Desires are conceived here as multiple, since every historical text speaks
of not just one but multiple, often conflicting, desires” (Mizuno, p. 105). The multiple
desires of the adolescent drive the fun of the fantasy in Haruhi Suzumiya, creating an
environment that adds a realistic three-dimensional quality to adolescence by depicting
egocentricism as a byproduct of human vulnerabilities.
As a representation of the three-dimensional depth of adolescent identity, diverse fantasy

mythologies in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya act as allegorical representations
of the adolescent’s negotiation of individual identities and behavior. Various explanations
arise regarding the source of Haruhi’s power—she is alternately describe as a source
of unprecedented auto-evolution, an anomaly in the time-space continuum, and an
unknowing deity with the power to freely create and destroy the universe. This web
lays out the multiple fantasies in Haruhi Suzumiya with no concrete sense of “truth”
as Yuki tells Kyon that “no matter what truths [she] tell[s] [him], [he] will be unable to
confirm them” (Haruhi, ep. 24). No two characters agree in a universal conception of
reality; instead, what the fantasy of the anime gives is a balanced negotiation of magical
beliefs and personal identities. Kyon, as the protagonist defined by his ordinariness,
wavers between beliefs, choosing just to do the best he can to keep the SOS Brigade
out of trouble and Haruhi’s powers in check. The complexity behind the characters’
beliefs mirrors the complexity of adolescent development, reflecting the way they try out
different identities. The seemingly pointless adventures the SOS Brigade undertakes are
negotiations of these beliefs, where each adolescent character’s identity is self-formed in
a way emphasizing their power to choose what they believe. Having a plethora of beliefs
to choose from, the fantasy remains ambiguous about the correctness of any thought,
allowing the adolescents to organically navigate the possibilities as they might in real life.
The protagonists are self-critical within a constant negotiation between reality and
fantasy in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which spurs a discourse between the
individual experience of adolescence and the universal experience of being as a human
141
being. The proportions to which the fantasy departs from reality, yet remains ultimately
tied to reality, creating a kind of logical distance that presents the multiplicity of desires
in a universal scope. “A spatial distance can connect people by separating them; they
share the distance that separates. Such spatial continuity affirms the fact that they live in
one large world, instead of separate ones” (Kuge 2007, p. 253). Kuge’s arguments begin
to point to the ideological background of fantasy anime in which characters of differing
beliefs begin to realize the vast world of diversity and possibility. While every member
(except Haruhi) has differing beliefs about the structure of the world around them, these
supernatural characters are comfortable with the absence of absolute assurance, as can
be seen in their desire that the ambivalent situation of submitting to Haruhi’s whims
to keep her powers in check remain unchanged. This logical distance that prevents any
confirmation on the validity of beliefs enhances the sense that the adolescent experience
is a journey to find one’s self. “Distance evokes a desire for physical closeness, and this
in turn inspires movement, but… the distance [must be sustained] rather than [shrunk]
because sustaining the movement toward closeness is crucial for… relationships to
be vast and generous” (Kuge 2007, p. 256). The lack of a point closing the ideological
distance emphasizes the pursuit, rather than the attainment, of identity. During the
school’s cultural festival, Haruhi flawlessly performs two songs she learned within an
hour to assist a band with injured members. When the band expresses their heartfelt
gratitude, Haruhi, not used to being thanked, is taken aback. Watching the band get
closer to their dream leads Haruhi to, for the first time in any of her endeavors, wonder
how she could have performed better and ponder her life’s direction. This questioning
of purpose illustrates the fallibility of Haruhi’s power where, despite having confidence
and unconscious ability to change reality, she is still unsure of what she wants to do or
be. Haruhi’s constant pursuit to “have fun with extraordinary beings” is the continual
driver of the anime’s action because of this sustained ideological difference that denies
confirmation of the correct beliefs. Haruhi has ideas for adventures, but she is never sure
of exactly what they are or what their purpose is, and is usually disappointed with how
she never finds supernatural beings (despite them surrounding her). Thus, the fantasy
offers no answers about adolescence, but connects it to a universal search for identity,
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navigating the complexities of reality in a way that sympathizes with adolescence as a

profoundly connected experience rather than an isolated or trivial one.
Both My Neighbor Totoro and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya use fantasy
to create contextual spaces of empowerment where children are portrayed with
complexity and profound capability and adolescents are portrayed as self-critical and
invested in a universalized sense of identity formation. These two texts are indicative
of a larger trend in anime, which treats children as powerful agents in the formation of
their own identities, and the larger world. My arguments here have not been aimed at
declaring that children in anime are somehow more “realistic” than those depictions in
American media; rather, the analysis of fantasy’s mechanics is aimed at showing how
these contexts defamiliarize the traditional child in order to expose the capabilities
of the contemporary child. Thus, the world of My Neighbor Totoro allows its child
protagonists to freely navigate logically structured realms, praising their reasoning and
imaginative ability and uses an ambivalence of fantasy-reality borders to emphasize the
value of their unique perspectives that see things adults do not. Likewise, the world of
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya exaggerates typical aspects of adolescence to
call attention to the adolescent protagonist’s self-critical engagement with their own
identities, applauding how they negotiate beliefs in ways that relates adolescence to a
universalized journey of self-discovery. These contexts of self-sufficient agency created by
fantasy function as tools for thinking about the child as products of their own making,
perpetuating narratives that are always multiple and diverse. As he hopes “genuine
storytelling” will do, Zipes argues that, “If our young are to have any chance to ground
their lives in any kind of tradition, then they must learn hopeful skepticism, how to play
creatively with the forces dictating how to shape their lives, and how to use storytelling
to reshape those conditions that foster sham and hypocrisy” (Zipes 2001, p. 145). Anime
fantasy structures contextual parameters in which children can negotiate meanings in
order to be skeptical, to be creative, and to shape their own identities, disseminating a
message encouraging a revisionist kind of thinking and expanding the valid possibilities
with which to interpret childhood.
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REFERENCES
Allison, Anne. “The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism.”
Mechademia Vol. 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. Ed. Frenchy
Lunning. St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press 2006. 11-21. Print.
Jenkins, Henry. “Introduction: Childhood Innocence and Other Modern Myths.” The
Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: New York University.
1998. 1-37. Print.
Kline, Stephen. “The Making of Children’s Culture.” The Children’s Culture Reader.
Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: New York University, 1998. 95-109. Print.
Kuge, Shu. “In the World That Is Infinitely Inclusive: Four Theses on Voices of
a Distant Star and The Wings of Honnesamise.” Mechademia Vol 2:
Networks of Desire. Ed. Frenchy Lunning. St. Paul: University of Minnesota
Press, 2007. 251-256. Print
Lagorio, Christine. “Resources: Marketing to Kids.” CBS News. 17 May 2007.
Accessed 11 November 2009. <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/14/fyi/
main2798401.shtml>
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Dir. Tatsuya Ishihara. Kyoto Animation, 2006.
Animated Series.
Mizuno, Hiromi. “When Pacifist Japan Fights: Historicizing Desires in Anime.”
Mechademia Vol 2: Networks of Desire. Ed. Frenchy Lunning. St. Paul:
University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 104-123. Print
My Neighbor Totoro. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli and Disney, 2006.
Animated Film.
Napier, Susan. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing
Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2005. Print.
Patten, Fred. Watching Anime, Reading Manga. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press,
2004. Print.
Seiter, Ellen. Sold Separately: Parents and Children in Consumer Culture. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995. Print.
Zipes, Jack. Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature
from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.
Effectiveness in Peacekeeping:
A Case Study Analysis Comparing the
United Nations and the European Union
ANDREW MATSON
School of International Relations
Professor John Odell
Assistant Professor Mai’a Cross
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
A growing area of study in the realm of international relations academia today is the
rise of international organizations, and ideas about how they will affect the traditional
state-based analysis of IR scholars are as diverse as the United Nations itself. In regard to
this new area of analysis, however, there seems to be a glaring deficiency: a comparison
of regional and global international actors’ peacekeeping operations has yet to be
conducted. This paper is meant to remedy that situation by looking specifically at the
United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) and comparing the two to see which
is more effective at implementing peacekeeping operations.
The original hypothesis of this paper was that regional organizations would be more
effective in their implementation efforts for three reasons: first, their peacekeeping
missions would have more legitimacy in the areas where they are launched than
global organizations’ missions; second, their geographic limitations would help them
to move troops into crisis areas more easily than global actors could; and, third, their
member states’ geographic and political similarities would make finding an internal
political consensus easier than in a body such as the UN Security Council. In the end,
however, the data in this paper led to the conclusion that, though there are differences
between the two organizational types, it is not these differences that lead to effective or
ineffective missions. Rather, there are three factors, which will be discussed in the “Thesis
Statement” portion of this chapter, in every peacekeeping operation that account for
determining mission effectiveness.
This research question is not meant to be isolated to this paper alone, as the findings
of this research are intended to help answer larger questions about whether regional
or global international institutions are better equipped to handle future international
security issues. A more detailed analysis of these broad implications will come at the end
of this paper, but it is important to keep in mind as one reads this paper that there are
implications for actors outside of just the UN and the EU that become apparent in the
comparison of those two organizations.
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In order to conduct this paper’s analysis, it was first necessary to select two cases that
would best exemplify “effectiveness.” After looking at numerous cases, I have selected
the UN mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP) from 1964-1974 and the EU’s Operation Concordia
in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) from 2003 for comparison.
Analysis of effectiveness does not rely merely on the cases, however, but also on
the definition of the word “effectiveness.” The word “effective” is admittedly vague,
especially when it comes to issues as nuanced as the outcomes of a peacekeeping
operation. However, previous literature on the subject has guided me to select the
definition that effectiveness encompasses the promotion of peace in the target area
during the mission as well as the creation of an environment in that area that will foster
a lasting peace after the peacekeeping force has left. If a peacekeeping operation can
accomplish both of those requirements, it will be judged an “effective” mission; if the
operation fails to accomplish both, however, it will be deemed “ineffective.”
Thesis Statement
After conducting the research for this paper, I found that the EU mission in FYROM was
effective while the UN mission in Cyprus was ineffective. However, the analysis also shows
that it was not the type of organization launching the mission that was the determining
factor in that mission’s effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Because of this, at least in the
two cases studied in this paper, the research supports the idea that regional and global
actors do not have inherent advantages or disadvantages when it comes to launching
peacekeeping missions that help a regional organization’s mission to be effective or a
global organization’s mission to be ineffective. Instead, the research shows there are three
primary factors that are most important for determining effectiveness: first, the levels of
animosity between the warring groups involved in the cases; second, the initial conditions
that the peacekeeping forces faced in the different missions; and, third, the diplomatic
and external political factors that were involved in the peacekeeping efforts.1
The “level of animosity” between the warring groups is difficult to quantify, so it is

necessary to look at it qualitatively. To determine whether there was a relatively high or
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low level of animosity, one must look at the history of conflict between the groups and
the level of violence that the groups were engaging in when the peacekeepers entered
the fight. In the two cases within this paper, the warring groups were ethno-national
groups, with Greeks and Turks fighting bitterly in Cyprus and Albanians and Slavs fighting
in a much more subdued way in FYROM.
The “initial conditions” faced by peacekeeping forces are defined as not just the violence
that was present in the nation when the force arrived, but the economic and social
conditions, as well. Problems with infrastructure, resource availability, and the level of
violence are all issues that could be considered a part of the “initial conditions” faced by
the peacekeeping forces.
Finally, the diplomatic and external political factors that affect the missions are just as
influential as either of the other two factors. Though some people may think exclusively
about the fighting on the ground when peacekeeping forces are mentioned, political battles
are also being waged that can positively or adversely affect the forces. Diplomatic failures,
for example, can devastate a peacekeeping operation, as happened in Cyprus, and newly-
signed treaties can increase the efficiency with which an organization can put together
forces to actually launch peacekeeping missions, as happened in the case of the EU.
Relation to Current Events

The growth of regional organizations such as the EU poses interesting questions for IR
scholars, the biggest of which being how much power these organizations will possess in
the international system. ASEAN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the African Union,
and the EU are all examples of actors that are being watched very closely by scholars, but
there seems to be a lack of research regarding these organizations in comparison to global
actors such as the UN, especially when it comes to security issues. The rise of civil conflicts in
the 21st century may demand that regional actors take a greater role in resolving conflicts,
but are they better suited to meet those challenges than global international organizations?
That is just one of the questions that this paper looks to answer.
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Beyond the meta-political questions regarding power in the international system,

this paper also looks to deal with questions that will have human consequences. As
mentioned above, civil conflicts have been growing while interstate conflicts have been
declining in the 21st century, and these civil conflicts can be especially devastating for
the citizens of those countries embroiled in these battles. So far, however, older security
regimes have seemed inept at stopping these civil conflicts, leading to the hope that
new actors may be able to keep the peace more effectively than past organizations, thus
preventing further death and injury as a result of these conflicts. Will regional actors be
able to live up to this hope? Are global actors still capable of dealing with these modern
problems? There are many questions in the field of IR, both political and humanitarian,
that need to be answered and this paper will try to provide new information to scholars
in order to help them devise those necessary answers.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

There have been numerous books and articles written about both the UN and the EU
that explain and critique their security policies; however, none of these books or articles
has compared the two organizations directly when it comes to how they implement
those security policies. This paper will look to these previous works and draw information
from them, as many of these papers contain facts and arguments that will be helpful
in the comparison of the EU and the UN; this does not mean that these works are
perfect, however, and this literature review will show how these pieces of literature are
inadequate for answering the questions that are being researched for this paper.
Although not every paper and book that analyzes EU and UN missions has been read
in researching for this paper, from the works that were read, it is possible to make
claims about the existing literature. The first observation is that authors are generally
more negative in their reviews of the UN than in their reviews of the EU. Granted,
the UN has a much longer history of peacekeeping missions—and a longer history
of failures, as well—but it was surprising that authors such as Terrence O’Neill 2
would take such a negative stance against the UN. There are positive voices, such
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as Lise Morjé Howard,3 but it seems that there are far more critical voices than
constructive ones when it comes to the UN. The EU, while it has its detractors,4 has
generally received more praise, but again, that may be because it has not had as many
unsuccessful missions as the UN due to the fact that it has only launched a handful of
military missions in total.
The second general observation is that authors do not seem to want to compare the
EU or the UN to other institutions. The works researched for this paper have either
exclusively studied the UN or exclusively studied the EU, but there has not been a
work that directly compares the two of them. There are works that compare regional
organizations as a whole 5 and works that look at how the EU and the UN can
cooperate,6,7 but it has not been possible to find anything that directly compares the two
organizations’ implementation policies. It is surprising that no academic has researched
this subject yet, as it is a subject rich with comparisons that could produce significant
new information for the field of international relations.
To decide which factors should be analyzed to judge the effectiveness of peacekeeping

operations, numerous pieces of literature were consulted and the book that did the
best job of providing a framework for evaluating peacekeeping missions was Doyle
and Sambanis’ Making War and Building Peace.8 The authors of the book go into
painstaking detail to create a quantitative method of analyzing the success or failure
of UN peacekeeping efforts. To qualify as a success, which the authors define as the
creation of “sustainable peace,” there are three factors that must be measured: “the
degree of hostility of the factions,” “the extent of local capacities remaining after the
war,” and “the amount of international assistance.”9
Doyle and Sambanis’ book, though informative, does not answer the questions that
are being raised by this thesis. The authors look at the quantitative factors that go into
an effective peacekeeping mission, but there is nothing in the book that looks at more
qualitative factors, such as the political process that leads to a peace agreement. Because
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the politics and diplomatic factors are some of the most important parts of judging an
effective peacekeeping mission in this paper, it is clear that their book did not address
the same questions that this paper is looking to answer.
Another book that was intriguing was Katharina Coleman’s International Organisations
and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of International Legitimacy.10 This was one
of the only books that researched the roles played by both global and regional actors in
peace-promoting missions and made a direct comparison between them; however, the
author does not compare the missions launched by the two types of organizations in
terms of any of the three factors used for comparison in this paper. Rather, Coleman looks
at states that wished to launch the peace-enforcement missions and how they used the
international organizations to legitimize their military actions. Coleman’s book represents
a radically different type of research than is present in this paper, but it deserved to be
in this literature review to show the type of works that make up the academic literature
that compares global and regional actors. International Organisations, in fact, presents
two of the major differences between the academic work that is presently available and
the type of research that this paper sets out to accomplish: first, the book focuses on the
actions of individual states rather than the actions of the international organizations, and
second, it analyzes peace-enforcement missions rather than peacekeeping missions.
First, by concentrating on the desires and actions of individual states, Coleman

relegates international organizations to the role of figurehead. It is unwise, however,
not to consider the power held by international organizations and to analyze how
they use that power. Undoubtedly, states play an important role in these organizations
because without states, an international organization could not exist; however, as the
world becomes more globalized, the institutions that pull states together to work as
a collective unit are becoming more powerful, and analysis and comparisons of those
institutions are necessary.
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Second, Coleman focuses on peace-enforcement missions, which are defined as “forcible

military interventions by one or more states into a third country with the express
objective of maintaining or restoring… peace and security by ending a violent conflict
within that country,”11 rather than concentrating on peacekeeping operations. This
means that Coleman looks at situations that are completely different than the cases
analyzed in this study. The two cases compared in this paper are both peacekeeping
missions rather than peace-enforcement missions, which distinguishes this paper it in yet
another way from Coleman’s book.
The book that was referenced most heavily for research into the UN’s missions was Lise
Howard’s UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. Howard’s goal in writing this book was
to tell about the “numerous, unwritten stories of success” that have come from UN
peacekeeping missions, as opposed to the constant stream of failures that many people
hear about.12 Specifically, Howard concentrates on the peacekeeping missions that the
UN has conducted in areas that are experiencing civil wars because she believes that
they represent some of the largest problems that the international system currently
faces. This thesis came about because of research into the area of the increasing rate of
civil conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries, so it shares many of the same viewpoints
as Howard’s book, though it analyzes the peacekeeping process in a different way than
Howard does.
Howard’s book, like Doyle and Sambanis’, is not adequate for answering the questions
that this paper poses about the UN or other international organizations because,
though she does a thorough job in investigating the cases in the book, she puts
too much emphasis on the operational aspects of the missions rather than focusing
on historical points or politics. This paper looks to give a holistic view of judging
peacekeeping operations, by looking at the peace agreements that were upheld and
the failed diplomatic efforts involved, as well as by looking at the history of the conflict
to understand the roots of the violence. Though Howard definitely touches upon both
of these factors in her book, they are not taken into consideration when she is making
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judgments on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a mission, thus making her book

inadequate for answering the questions raised in this paper.
For the EU, the book selection has been somewhat limited because of the timeframes
involved. While the UN has been conducting peacekeeping operations for decades, the
first military peacekeeping mission that the EU launched was in 2003. Fortunately, the
EU is extremely concerned with self-evaluation and thus asks for reports about their
operations from think tanks and from within the organization itself. Reports such as
the “First 10 Years”13 study by the Institute for Security Studies have been invaluable
as they provide an objective look at the missions that the EU has launched, including
analysis about the missions’ strengths and weaknesses. Books such as Evaluating the
EU’s Crisis Missions in the Balkans14 were also consulted because they spoke about
Operation Concordia, which is operation analyzed for the EU case study in this paper.
In Evaluating the EU’s Crisis Missions, the editors put together a series of essays
about the EU’s security missions in the Balkans, some of the first security missions that
the EU launched under the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). The chapter
that is most interesting for this paper, however, is Chapter 5, which goes in-depth into
Operation Concordia and the EU missions in the western Balkans.15 The author, Eva
Gross, had an analysis of the case that was very even, pointing out the mission’s flaws
as well as its successes. That does not mean, however, that it is a more appropriate
source of information for my research than primary documents. Although Gross looks
at problems and prescribes solutions for them, she does not look at the same issues
that are being examined for this paper. She, like Howard, concentrates primarily on the
operational aspects of the mission rather than looking at the political and diplomatic
efforts surrounding the mission or the history of the conflict, and when she makes a
judgment about the effectiveness of the mission, she simply states that “Concordia had
a positive impact on local conditions… and raised the EU’s profile as a security actor.”16
This paper, on the other hand, looks to make judgments about the conditions that make
a mission effective, not just looking at the overall effectiveness of the mission itself.
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In order to compare the EU and the UN fairly, it is necessary to apply the same standards
for both organizations, and the studies researched so far each use their own independent
measurements, making their analyses incompatible. In this paper, data found in different
books, papers, and primary documents will be synthesized and analyzed in order to
establish a fair standard on which to grade UN and EU missions.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND CASE SELECTION

This paper will use a comparative case-study model that utilizes qualitative analysis
to evaluate two case studies, the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus and the EU
peacekeeping mission in FYROM. This method is the best to use for this paper because
time constraints prevent the use of a “large n” analysis and also because the nature
of the research and analysis being done makes a single-case analysis impossible. A
comparative case-study will work well in this paper because it will help to highlight
differences between the cases and therefore provide the clear distinctions necessary to
evaluate the conditions that lead to effective peacekeeping operations.
Though some may have reservations about the results generated from qualitative case-
study analysis, in order to analyze the situations that are being discussed in this paper, this
method is not only appropriate, but necessary. In comparing two case studies, this paper
will have the “analytical leverage that comes from comparison”17 to add to the fact that
“qualitative studies are equal or superior for generating valid theory”18 in comparison to
other research methods. Beyond the fact that comparative case studies are a valid way to
generate new ideas, in order to do the analysis that is necessary for this paper, comparing
two case studies was the best choice available and will result in valuable conclusions.
Presented in this paper is a qualitative analysis of the two case studies. Though there
are quantitative aspects to the research, such as comparing population sizes and
troop deployment levels, the vast majority of the research done for this paper would
be impossible to describe in quantitative terms. To evaluate how and why some
peacekeeping operations are effective while others are not, one must understand the
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underlying structures from which these operations are launched, the operational details
of these missions, and the politics and diplomatic efforts that go into peace accords,
none of which can be presented quantitatively. In fact, limiting this paper to quantitative
analysis would prevent any ability to “see [a case] as a whole… [or] analyze it in its
wholeness,”19 which would have defeated the point of conducting a case study analysis.
Primarily, the data analyzed in this paper will revolve around operational reports, EU and
UN resolutions, debates within each organization about the missions, and evaluative
reports about the aftereffects of each mission on the region in which it was launched.
Taken together, these primary documents, along with support from secondary sources,
will allow for thorough analysis to be conducted.
Case Study Selection

At first glance, the Cyprus and FYROM cases may not seem comparable, especially
given the time difference between the two, with UNFICYP in Cyprus beginning in 1964
and Operation Concordia in FYROM beginning in 2003. However, the two case studies
contain many similarities, which make them appropriate for comparison in this paper.
First, the fact that both cases involve civil conflicts as opposed to interstate conflicts
helps to increase the comparability of the two; this point requires some qualification,
however, as UNFICYP eventually devolved into an interstate conflict, with Turkey invading
Cyprus. Turkey’s invasion, in this paper, marks the failure of UNFICYP, but the bulk of the
analysis will be focused on the peacekeeping operation that was launched in Cyprus
between 1964 and 1974 that dealt strictly with civil strife.
Next, both conflicts involved ethno-national conflicts with irredentist undertones. In

Cyprus, the battle was between the Greeks and the Turks, and in FYROM, it was between
the Albanians and the Slavs. This point is important because the methods used by
peacekeeping forces can change radically depending on the type of conflict they are
moderating, so comparing cases with the same root cause of the violence is important.
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Third, both cases took place in similar geographic locations and involved very small
countries. Both countries are European, adding another level of similarity to the
peacekeeping mission, and while FYROM is three times larger, they are both very small
countries, with FYROM being 9779 square miles and Cyprus being 3571 square miles.
Both countries also share similarly small population sizes, one of the most important
considerations for an organization when launching a peacekeeping force. The estimated
population of Cyprus between 1960 and 1970 was 573,566 and 633,000,20 and the
2002 census for FYROM showed a population of 2,022,547.21
Another similarity is that both missions are representative of early operations launched
by each organization. Operation Concordia was the first military peacekeeping
operation launched by the EU and UNFICYP was the UN’s sixth such mission. Though
there are problems with comparing earlier rather than later cases for organizations,
which I will address in an upcoming section, in this case it is a useful comparison
because it shows the similarities and differences between how the two organizations
approached early missions.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the fact that both cases represent examples
of peacekeeping missions, not peace-making or peace-enforcement missions. These
two types of missions are extremely different and comparing one to the other in a
comparative case study analysis would completely throw off the final analysis. The
organizations that look to launch both of these missions must take much different
precautions and plan differently for the two types of operations. The fact that these two
cases are both peacekeeping operations helps tremendously in the comparison, making it
an extremely important point of similarity.
Alternative Explanations and Objections

Despite these cases’ similarities, however, there are differences as well. No matter how
hard one might try, it is impossible to find two perfectly aligned cases because “the
historical record never provides a set of actual cases that are perfectly matched on all…
156
relevant variables.”22 In these two cases, however, the biggest differences between
them end up having a negligible effect on the analysis and comparison of both.
The first objection that arises is the fact that UNFICYP took place during the height of the
Cold War where Concordia happened in a post-Cold War world. This would, in many cases,
be a completely legitimate argument because so much of world politics has changed
thanks to the end of the Cold War. However, in this case, the Cold War did not have an
effect on the peacekeeping operation and therefore had no influence on the case. The
United States’ tensions with the Soviet Union in the Security Council did not interrupt the
UN from passing the mandate for UNFICYP unanimously. Furthermore, even if the USSR
had objected and vetoed the peacekeeping operation, that same situation could still arise
today, with China, Russia or any member of the Security Council. It is undeniable that
the Cold War affected politics, but just because the Cold War is now over does not mean
that anything has changed dramatically in terms of the way the Security Council votes or
operates. The final point about the Cold War is the fact that the EU had not established
the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), the policy on which EU peacekeeping
missions are based, until decades after the fall of the USSR; because their military program
has never been involved in a Cold War situation, it is completely legitimate to compare one
of its operations to an operation that was in no way affected by the Cold War.
The second major objection is that the time difference between the cases is too large
to reconcile in order to attempt to generalize the findings of the research to apply to
the EU and the UN today. This objection relies heavily on the notion of “institutional
learning” and the assumption that the EU and the UN learned from the mistakes of
their pasts. However, if one takes this argument to its logical conclusion, then one would
see that there will never be two case studies that are comparable for analysis, because
no organization remains static; they are always changing, learning and adapting to
new environments. An organization may radically change its tactics within a year after
an operation, for example—does this mean that a case study analysis of its previous
actions is no longer appropriate? The answer to that question is a resounding “no.”
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This objection also ignores the fact that there are some universal problems that these
international organizations must overcome in order to launch effective peacekeeping
missions. Creating a clear chain of command, responding to political issues, and
managing resources properly are just a few of the myriad problems that can arise before,
during and after a peacekeeping operation has been launched, and learning lessons from
the past cannot completely prepare an organizations to respond to these problems. For
these reasons, the time gap represents a negligible difference in terms of how it affects
the overall outcomes of the case studies.
Finally, a third objection arises in the critique that this paper concentrates too heavily
on the international organizations and does not pay enough attention to the individual
states and national interests involved. Statesmen such as Tony Blair, for example, have
said that a state should only engage in humanitarian intervention if there is a national
interest involved. Though it is impossible to say that individual states do not have
roles in peacekeeping operations, this paper will show that, while there is still work
to be done, the international organizations are relatively effective at launching and
sustaining peacekeeping operations. I will not leave out all analysis of individual state
actors, as they are occasionally very important, such as the UK’s role in the Cyprus
case; however, a strictly state-centric examination of the issue of peacekeeping is
inadequate for the purposes of this paper, and also inadequate given the current state
of world affairs.
CHAPTER 4: THE CYPRUS PROBLEM

Cyprus remains one of the most intractable problems of the international system today. The
issues in that country involve nationalism, ethnic pride, and elements of irredentism on each
side, both Greek and Turk, thus making any peacekeeping operation there a tough task.
However, in 1964, the UN decided to launch a mission on the island with a mandate to
“prevent a recurrence of fighting and… to contribute to the maintenance and restoration
of law and order and a return to normal conditions”; these goals, though not outside what
is normally assigned to a peacekeeping force, proved difficult to achieve and, ultimately,
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the UN force failed. The reasons for this failure primarily lie in the initial conditions on the
ground, in the level of animosity between the two competing ethno-nationalist groups and
their governments, and in the diplomatic, rather than military, failures in the case. No part
of the failure of UNFICYP stemmed from the fact that it was launched by the UN, a global
international organization, as opposed to a regional organization.
Part One: Level of Animosity

The level of animosity between warring groups is essential to understand for any
peacekeeping mission. Animosity can take many forms, whether it is constant physical
violence or an unwillingness to engage in diplomatic relations or sometimes both.
Understanding how much animosity exists between two warring groups is vital for any
organization looking to launch an effective mission because it can tell them whether it
will be necessary to have a strong military presence in an area or whether it will need
to engage in extensive diplomatic efforts to come to a peace agreement. Unfortunately,
in the case of Cyprus, both of those were needed, as the level of animosity between the
Greeks and the Turks on the island encompassed both violence against one another and
the inability to share power.
History of the Conflict. Political control of the island of Cyprus has changed hands
numerous times in the history of the island, and the contentious politics on the island
date back to wars between ancient Greece and Persia; there is even a mention of the
inhabitant of Cyprus in Homer’s The Iliad. The most important information to glean
from the island’s history, however, lies in the fact that both Greece and Turkey have had
control of the island at some point in its history, fueling historical claims to legitimacy
of government. The Greeks, for example, ruled the island from 330 AD-1191 AD; then,
after a period of shifting control between the English, French and Venetians during the
Crusades, the Ottoman Empire controlled the island from 1571 until 1878, when Great
Britain regained occupational control due to a defense treaty it signed with Turkey.
Britain took complete and official control of Cyprus in 1914 after the Ottoman Empire
aligned itself with Germany in the First World War.
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Quest for Decolonization. During the wave of decolonization that occurred during the
1950s, the Cypriots decided that they no longer wanted to be subject to British rule, but
the question of who was to take control from Britain is the question that eventually leads
to the seemingly intractable situation that Cyprus finds itself in today. Greece originally
appealed to the UN to take control of the island, with the Greek Council of Ministers
stating that the “overwhelming majority of the people of Cyprus… regard [Greece]
as their mother-country,”25 and that the people of Cyprus have the right to self-
determination. However, Britain refused to negotiate on the policy of control of Cyprus,
largely because they did not want to give up control of the island.
Turkey, though it did not originally appeal to take control of the island, found the
specter of Greek control of Cyprus to be frightening. Fearing the “domino effect” of
the spread of Communism, the Turks felt that if Greece were to take over Cyprus and
then fall into the hands of the Communists, the geographical proximity of the island
to the Turkish mainland would give Communism a way into Turkey. Greek and Turkish
representatives met in the UK in the summer of 1955 to try to search for diplomatic
resolutions to their problems, but the talks, foreshadowing the future of Greek and
Turkish diplomatic relations, ended fruitlessly.
Further exacerbating this situation were the irredentist ideals that both ethnic groups
held, enosis for the Greeks and taksim for the Turks. Beginning in 1878, the Greek
idea of enosis began to take hold of some of the Greek Cypriot population. The idea of
enosis is that Cyprus should be politically joined with Greece and under Greek rule. This
political ideal faded until the end of World War I, when a resurgence of Greek patriotism
swept the island. However, to fully understand the roots of enosis, it is necessary to
look at the years of Ottoman occupation of Cyprus, when Greek Orthodox Christians
were discriminated against and persecuted. This persecution came to a head on July
9, 1821 when almost 500 Greek Cypriots, as well as the Archbishop of the Greek
Orthodox Church in Cyprus, were killed during an uprising against the Muslim Ottoman
government; the man behind the massacre was the Ottoman Governor of the island,
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Küçük Mehmed. This day helped to spark the flame of Greek nationalism on the island,
and it is still a day of mourning recognized every year on the island.
Taksim, the belief of Turkish Cypriots that the island should be partitioned between the
Greeks and Turks, was the Turkish response to enosis, tracing back to 1957 when Fazil
Küçük, the leader of the Turkish Cypriots, used the term in Ankara, saying that the Turks
would retain the northern half of the island. However, Küçük’s nationalist rhetoric had
begun even before that time, stating in a newspaper article in 1954 that:
if Great Britain is going to consider this enosis question at all or is going to

quit the island she has a legal as well as a moral duty to call Turkey and hand
Cyprus back to Turkey, and ask the Turkish government to deal with the enosis
problem which the tolerant and ill-advised British administration has fostered
in the island. From a legal as well as moral point of view, Turkey, as the
initial owner of the island just before the British occupation, has a first
option to Cyprus . . . It must be clear to all concerned that Turkey cannot
tolerate seeing one of her former islands, lying as it does only forty
miles from her shores, handed over to a weak neighbour thousands of
miles away, which is politically as well as financially on the verge of bank-
ruptcy.28 (emphasis added)
Though taksim was only asking for partition, rather than representing an entire
irredentist movement, its presence as an ideal in the populace of the Turkish Cypriots
drove the wedge further between the Greeks and the Turks.
Eruption of Violence. The modern reign of violence on the island began, surprisingly,
not between the Turks and Greeks but rather between the Greeks and the British. The
Greek resistance group, EOKA—Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or the National
Organization of the Struggle for the Freedom of Cyprus—was led by General Georgios
Grivas, a man who will play a large role in the escalation of violence throughout the
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island. EOKA, possibly taking lessons from the Israeli terrorist campaign against the
British in the 1940s, launched a guerilla terrorist campaign of its own against the British,
beginning in April 1955.29 On April 1, Grivas—under the pseudonym “Dighenis”—
signed a document that essentially declared war on the British, calling on Greek Cypriots
to remember their heritage and fight:
all Hellenism is looking to us, and following us anxiously, but with national
pride… we showed the world that international diplomacy is UNJUST and in
many ways COWARDLY… if our rulers [the British] refuse to give us back our
freedom, we shall claim it with our own HANDS and with our own BLOOD… we
have the heart, and we have RIGHT on our side and that is why we WILL WIN.30
Despite Grivas’ call against international diplomacy, in that same document, Grivas later
says that “it is shameful that, in the twentieth century, people should have to shed blood
for freedom, that divine gift for which we too fought at your [the international diplomatic
community’s] side… against Nazism.”31 On the day that document was released,
four explosions took place on the island, all of which targeted British officials but
ended up killing many more Greek Cypriots. After that, EOKA began using tactics such
as assassination to fight the British. “These right-wing Greek Cypriot militants had…
declared that anyone associating with the British authorities would be guilty of treason,”
recalls Harry Anastasiou, a man who, when he was only a child, witnessed one of these
EOKA assassinations at his father’s cinema.32 EOKA eventually moved from British
targets to Turkish Cypriots, thus escalating the violence from being directed towards “the
outsider” to the level of civil war.
The Turks did not abstain from violence, however, as Turkish Cypriots formed ethno-
national groups of their own, such as Volkan,33 Turkish for “volcano,” and later the Türk
Mukavemet Teskilatı (TMT), Turkish for the “Turkish Resistance Organization.” After riots
broke out in major cities throughout Turkey that harmed Greeks and their property,34 in
Cyprus, the TMT staged attacks of its own. The TMT was particularly vicious, threatening
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“any Turks who came forward to cooperate with the British in plans for a change of
regime [to Greek rule]” with “exterminat[ion] and property [destruction].” The TMT
also played a large role in driving up Turkish nationalism on the island, distributing
pamphlets on May 7, 1958, that urged Turkish youth to the nationalistic cause under the
proclamation of “Partition or Death!”36
Leadership and Nationalism. The “level of animosity” between the Greeks and the
Turks on Cyprus was one of the three major factors that led to the failure of the UNFICYP
mission because the level of animosity in Cyprus was so high that, unlike the case to be
seen in FYROM, it was simply not a situation that could be defused. The leaders of the
groups, General Grivas and Archbishop Makarios III for the Greeks and Rauf Denktaş
(Denktash) for the Turks, were charismatic and, unfortunately, used their popularity to
encourage violence rather than peace.
General Grivas obsessed over the creation of EOKA, the Greek terrorist organization, and
went so far as to write a book outlining his strategies for guerilla warfare,37 including
detailed outlines of the organization’s leadership structures, its goals, and the tactics that
were acceptable to use both against the British and the Greeks. This level of dedication
to warfare had a large impact on the Greek civilians of Cyprus; though most desired
nothing but peace, the dangerous information and nationalist rhetoric38 contained
within Grivas military tactics manual drove ethno-nationalist passions within the Greek
population to new heights, making the job of the UN peacekeepers, both on the ground
and in New York, extremely difficult.
Archbishop Makarios III proved to be just as much of a thorn as General Grivas, and
as a result he was banished from the island for a period of time by the British, only
to return with more support than ever. Makarios would serve as the first President
of the Republic of Cyprus, but his political ascent was filled with controversy. He has
been accused of helping to found EOKA, a claim that Makarios denies, though he was
undoubtedly acquainted with General Grivas at the time of EOKA’s founding. Makarios
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was also one of the primary advocates for enosis; in fact, his devotion to enosis
was so strong that he took an oath in 1954 stating that he would “serve only for the
achievement of Enosis and… campaign [for it] until it was attained.”39 Makarios,
besides being an influential political figure, was also the head of the Greek Orthodox
Church in Cyprus, the primary religion of the Greek Cypriots. This role helped him to
spread the message of enosis to the Greek Cypriots in an even more convincing way,
using the power of the church to back his claims. Because of the level of respect that
many Greek Cypriots held for Makarios, his cries for enosis were taken to heart, and
when added with Grivas’ militant nationalism, the combination created a potent force
for Greek nationalism that made finding a middle ground between the Greeks and
Turks extremely difficult.
On the other side of the island, Rauf Denktash was a major leader for the Turkish
Cypriots. Denktash was a founding member of the TMT and was a strong proponent of
taksim. Denktash would become the first President of the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus after the Turkish Cypriots declared independence, but before that, he was the
President of the Turkish Communal Chamber of Cyprus, and his power in that position
gave him more influence, according to some accounts,40 than the Turkish Vice President
of Cyprus, Fazil Küçük. Denktash had a deep distrust of the Greeks, which showed in his
writings, such as in a letter to the Security Council in which he claims that
Greek Cypriot insistence on recognition of the integrity and sovereignty of

Cyprus… is a trick for finding the untenable excuse to argue that the Treaty
of Guarantee is non-effective with the intention of getting a free license
to continue the massacre of the Turks… any wording of your resolution
which can in any way and by any stretch of the imagination be interpreted as a
side-stepping or abrogation of the Treaty… will be used by the Greek Cypriots
and they will thus be encouraged to attack the Turkish Community… under the
authority of the Security Council.41 (emphasis added)
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Denktash and the TMT would be some of the primary antagonists of the Greeks from the
Turkish side, though they eventually accomplished what they set out to do, which was to
accomplish taksim, by partitioning Cyprus in 1983 when Turkey officially recognized the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Non-Cypriot Forces. The animosity on the island did not just manifest itself through
domestic ethno-national groups, however, as Turkish and Greek forces were both present
on the island from the beginning of UNFICYP. In late 1964, both Turkey and Greece had
national forces on Cyprus, and even though the national forces were on the island under
the supervision of UNFICYP, they would eventually play the largest roles in disturbing the
peace that the UN force was trying to create. In fact, the national forces on the island
were there as part of the treaty signed by Cyprus, Turkey and Greece, agreeing that
“Greece and Turkey shall participate in the Tripartite Headquarters so established with
the military contingents laid down in Additional Protocol No. 1 annexed to the present
Treaty. The said contingents shall provide for the training of the army of the Republic
of Cyprus.”42 Though the military contingents, which consisted of 950 Greek non-
commissioned officers and 650 Turkish non-commissioned officers,43 were present for
the purpose of training the Cypriots, in reality many of the forces were there to protect
their ethnic groups on the island.
The presence of the Greek and Turkish national troops put a further strain on the ethno-
nationalist tensions that were already building thanks to the rhetoric of the leaders that
was mentioned earlier. In fact, it was because of these outside military forces that the
peacekeeping mission eventually broke down. In July 1974, the Greek military staged a
coup d’état against Makarios’ government, taking control of the island; in response,
the Turkish military invaded the island, thus creating the partitioned Cyprus that still
exists today.
Analysis of Animosity. It is clear that the level of animosity on Cyprus was extremely
high by the time that the UNFICYP forces arrived in 1964. The ethno-national terrorist
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organizations of EOKA and TMT were responsible for the deaths of dozens of Cypriots
and British nationals on the island and the chances for a peaceful resolution to the
conflict were seen as almost nil. When the forces arrived on the island, they were
faced with not only these competing groups, but also leaders such as Makarios, Grivas,
and Denktash who had the support of their respective citizens and who were using
that support to drum up ethno-nationalist hatred between the Greeks and the Turks,
leading not only to the violence on the island during the UNFICYP presence, but also to
the multiple political failures that were meant to try to create peace. Denktash called
increased Greek control of the island “a change of colonial masters for the worse,”44
for example, and the Greek leaders saw Turks as a minority who should not have a say
over what country controls the island; the Greek leaders were “determined to have this
principle [self-determination] applied only to the Greek Cypriots, ignoring altogether the
existence… of the Turkish Cypriot Community which comprised one-fifth of the total
population of the island.”45
Because of the number of problems that were faced by the UN force as a result of this
high level of animosity—not only the actual violence on the ground but also the toxic
political environment that made peace talks nearly impossible—the task of creating
both a temporary and a permanent peace on the island became exponentially more
difficult. As will be discussed later, when a peacekeeping force encounters a supportive
government and populace, it is much easier to accomplish the mandated tasks; in
FYROM, for example, the government invited the peacekeeping force into the country and
the majority of the population supported it during its stay, making it easy to accomplish
goals. Cyprus, however, was facing multiple problems caused by the high level of
animosity between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, including a divided island government
that neither the Turks nor the Greeks were satisfied with, high levels of ethno-nationalist
tensions driven by respected leaders on both sides of the ethnic divide, and violence
driven by terrorists, guerilla organizations and Greek and Turkish national forces. This
made the task of UNFICYP to bring peace to Cyprus impossible to achieve, and it still
remains so to this day. Because of these factors, it can be determined that the high level
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of animosity on the island was one of the primary reasons why the UNFICYP mission
proved to be ineffective. Additionally, there is nothing that the UN could have done to
diminish this level of animosity, showing the limits of its power even as a global actor.
Part Two: Initial Conditions

The previous discussion, about the level of animosity between the two ethno-national
groups, leads this paper now to the actual deployment of the UN force and the initial
conditions faced by UNFICYP forces on Cyprus. “Initial conditions” in this paper refer
not just to the initial levels of violence faced by a peacekeeping force, but also to the
logistical and domestic political issues that must be overcome. Analyzing these initial
conditions is essential to understanding the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a force
because initial conditions can, in some cases, be so hard to overcome that a force either
does not have a chance to succeed after it has been inserted into a conflict area, or those
initial conditions can cause an organization to not launch a mission at all. In the case
of Cyprus, the initial conditions that the UNFICYP force had to face included a divided
government that barely had control of the island, ethno-national terrorist groups, and
logistical problems that disrupted the force’s ability to act.
The Cypriot Government. In 1960, after years of failed peace agreements, the island
of Cyprus officially declared itself an independent republic with a stable government.
The level of independence and the relative stability of the government, however, were
questionable at best.
The Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus was established in the Zürich and London
Agreements that were signed on February 19, 1959 and implemented on August 16,
1960. In those agreements, the heads of state of the UK, Greece, and Turkey came
together to determine the future of Cyprus, and what they came up with was a divided-
government style of Constitution that would give a disproportionate amount of power to
the Turkish Cypriots, in terms of their relative size as a minority on the island, frustrating
the Greeks and almost ensuring that governmental paralysis would ensue. Despite
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making up only 20% of the population of Cyprus, the Turks would control a large
portion of the executive branch in the new Cypriot republic, holding the position of vice
president—a Greek Cypriot would hold the presidency—and three of the ten executive
ministerial positions.46 Furthermore, the president and vice president, either “separately
or conjointly [had] the right of final veto on any law or decision,”47 meaning that at any
point, either the Greek president or Turkish vice president could veto a law.
This division of government led to multiple political and legal disagreements and a
general ineffectiveness of government that eventually necessitated radical revisions to
the Constitution. Makarios, who had been elected as the first president of the Republic
of Cyprus in 1959, famously proposed 13 amendments to the Constitution on November
30, 1963, including removing the right of the president and vice president to veto and
requiring simple majority voting in the legislature on some issues, rather than separate
voting for Turks and Greeks.48 These proposed amendments were rejected by the
Turkish vice president, Fazıl Küçük, thus continuing the general ineptitude of the Cypriot
government. The divided nature of the Cypriot government did nothing to help the
situation of a divided population, and may in fact have damaged efforts at reconciliation;
this is shown by the fact that between December 21, 1963 and August 10, 1964, the
most intense phase of violence of the Cyprus conflict struck the island.49
Implementing UNFICYP. After the UN established the United Nations Peacekeeping

Force in Cyprus, a process that will be detailed in the next section, it took an
unprecedented amount of time to actually field the force, as over three weeks passed
between the authorization of the force and its actual deployment. In contrast, the two
other peacekeeping operations that the UN had undertaken before UNFICYP, UNEF in
Egypt and ONUC in the Congo, took eight days and one day, respectively, to deploy their
forces.50 This delay was caused by problems gathering the finances necessary for the
operation as well as by problems stemming from troop-contributing nations needing
guarantees that other nations would actually be contributing forces.51
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When the forces were finally deployed, UNFICYP was composed of ten soldiers from
Austria, 1,087 Canadian troops, 1,000 troops from Finland, 636 Irish soldiers, 889
Swedes, and 2,719 soldiers from the UK, for a total of 6,341 troops,52 well below the
goal of 7,000 troops.53 The force, as internationally diverse as it was, had to deal with a
number of issues outside of the scope of the mission at hand, namely tensions between
the Irish and British forces and countries trying to differentiate themselves from the
British, who were not well-liked by the local populations.
The Greek Cypriots were unhappy with having British troops on the island because
the UK refused to recognize Turkish Cypriots as “rebels,” and the Greek Cypriots still
held animosity towards the British for the years of colonization.54 The Turkish Cypriots
were also unhappy with the British because they believed that President Makarios was
planning a “genocide” of the Turks and they felt that the British were doing nothing
to stop him.55 This distrust of the British by the citizens of Cyprus caused the Cypriot
Minister of the Interior, Polycarpos Georgadjis, to say that “the British can no longer form
a constructive element in the role of the international peace-keeping Force in Cyprus,”56
apparently echoing some of the thoughts of other nations in UNFICYP.
Other nations’ forces in UNFICYP did their best to keep their distance from the British
troops, either because of long-standing rivalries, such as the Irish, or because of the
disdain that the local civilians held for the British troops. In The Times of London,
a correspondent stated that “the Irish arrived… greatly troubled at the thought of
supporting the British in some sinister plot to impose partition on yet another newly
independent island,” that the Canadians “displayed hundreds of maple-leaf emblems”
in order to differentiate themselves and their equipment from the British, and that the
troops from Finland “brought out their own bicycles and cycled 50 miles to Nicosia
rather than use the British lorries.”57 The British soldiers were also uneasy being in
Cyprus due to the heightened risk of attack that British forces faced as opposed to
other nations’ forces, and by August 14, 1964 their troop commitment had dropped
from 2,719 to only 1,034.58
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Violence on the Ground. As was mentioned previously, the worst of the violence on
the island occurred between 1963 and 1964, before the UNFICYP forces landed on the
island. However, that does not mean that the violence ended once they arrived; instead,
there was simply a lull. UN Secretary General U Thant’s report on the military conditions
in Cyprus between December 1964 and March 1965 describes this lull in the violence by
saying that:
enclaves [exist]… ringed by fortified positions manned by Turkish Cypriot

fighters who enforce their exclusive control by force of arms against any
attempted encroachment by the Government; facing them are similar
government positions. UNFICYP is present or interposed in most places where
this state of affairs prevails. Even though there is no shooting, the situation is
essentially one of hostile military confrontation.59
Despite this state of affairs in 1965, however, as UNFICYP continued to stay on the
island, they began to encounter more combatants on both the Greek and Turkish sides,
inevitably leading to violence. According to U Thant, there were, thanks to a Cypriot
government conscription extension,60 14,000 soldiers in the Cyprus National Guard, loyal
to the Cypriot government, with an unknown number of militiamen in rural areas.61 On
the Turkish side, there were an estimated 12,000 members of TMT ready to fight, though
the report itself says that this estimate may be conservative, and U Thant also states that
“every able-bodied Turkish Cypriot is a potential fighter.”62
The violence that eventually came to pass, though not extreme, was enough to put UNFICYP
soldiers in danger. One battle was described by Lieutenant Colonel Neville Robinson:
Some five battalions of Greek nationals and Greek Cypriot National Guard were
observed moving… towards the mountains… the Turkish fighters manned
their defenses on the ridge… with about 50 fighters and a Bren [light machine
gun]… the Turks opened fire, hitting one of the Greek [vehicles], the Greeks…
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returned fire… McKeown [the UN Lieutenant in charge of the forces during the
battle] ran down the Greek line while [Corporal] Bakker ran along the Turkish
positions. The Greeks promptly jammed a gun-barrel into McKeown’s stomach
and threatened to shoot him. Bakker was similarly treated on the hill-side.63
The small-arms fire that persisted throughout the 1960s was dangerous, but never truly
threatened the peacekeeping force. The truly dangerous aspect of the mission in Cyprus was
when forces from Greece- and Turkey-proper began joining in the fights, which is important
to take into account because that was not a problem that the force faced in the initial portion
of the mission. This means that violence on the ground did not add much of a hardship to the
UN force in terms of “initial conditions,” but that it still had an impact on UNFICYP.
Logistical Problems. Being only the third peacekeeping mission that the UN launched,
UNFICYP was doomed to encounter at least some logistical problems. The fact that
the island had a “lack of support services… [without] oil, a sizeable pool of highly
educated, intelligent people or a substantial, established elite” and that the government
was “minimal considering the responsibilities that hostilities create above and beyond
the normal day-to-day management of civilian life,”64 made normally simple tasks for
UNFICYP forces unusually difficult.
Along with the conditions of the island, the logistics of the force also posed a few
problems. The original goal of 7,000 troops was never met for a number of reasons,
and the fact that the force was continually understaffed made it so that some of the
outposts were not as heavily fortified as they were supposed to be. The factors that led
to this understaffing included “the reluctance of some states to heed the Secretary-
General’s pleas [for more troops]” as well as the fact that “Makarios exerted pressure to
keep the force below 7,000.”65 Makarios pressed for a force of around 4,000 to 5,000,
apparently, in order to make sure that “his own security forces will… be strong enough
to keep everyone in order.”66 The primary reason that the force never reached its goal,
however, was that the UK never reached its maximum troop levels; though they could
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have given up to 3,500, their forces were always in the 2,000s or fewer. 67 As described
before, this may not have been a bad thing because of the difficulty that British troops
had cooperating with troops from other nations and the local populations, but at the
same time the extra forces would undoubtedly have helped.
Analysis of Initial Conditions. The initial conditions faced by the UNFICYP soldiers
put them immediately at a disadvantage: there was a broken and bitterly divided
government, pre-existing biases against UK forces, armed enclaves of ethno-nationalists,
and logistical problems that had to be overcome. None of these factors individually
led to the overall ineffectiveness of UNFICYP, but when taken together, these initial
conditions contributed to the mission’s failure. The government that was divided between
the Greeks and Turks may have been the most apparent problem that the UNFICYP
forces would have to overcome, but it was hardly the only problem. Initial problems
with logistics made guarding different areas with enough troops difficult, as the troop
numbers were not at their recommended levels, and the animosity that the British troops
faced made the force’s largest contingent uneasy. With so many problems that had to
be overcome initially, it was difficult for the forces to gain traction on the island, and
even though eventually they did get a handle on the situation, the inability to broker a
successful peace agreement ultimately led to the failure of the mission.
Part Three: External Politics and Diplomacy

Domestic politics are not the only political factor that played a role in the Cyprus case.
Other nations’ domestic politics regarding Cyprus, in this paper called the “external
politics” of the situation, as well as the diplomatic efforts that were undertaken both
in the UN and through other multilateral channels all made major impacts, often for
the worse, on Cyprus. In any peacekeeping mission, there must be positive intervention
through external politics and diplomatic methods for that mission to be successful.
The lack of a popular peace agreement or excessive meddling in the conflict area by
outside governments can both lead to the failure of a peacekeeping mission because an
effective mission must create not only a temporary peace, but a permanent one. External
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politics that negatively impact the politics of a conflict area can cause domestic political
problems, something obvious in the Cyprus case, and a lack of a peace agreement means
that a permanent peace is impossible. That is why external politics and diplomacy are
essential to analyze when making judgments about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness
of any peacekeeping mission.
The effects of political actions outside of the Republic of Cyprus and breakdowns of
international diplomatic efforts had a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of the
UNFICYP force. A peacekeeping force cannot be ultimately successful—achieving a
permanent rather than temporary peace—without the help of political and diplomatic
efforts, and in the case of Cyprus, politics and diplomacy were dysfunctional in most cases, if
not completely absent, thus leaving the force with nearly no chance for success. Ultimately,
these political and diplomatic failures were a primary factor in the overall ineffectiveness of
UNFICYP. What was not a factor in the ineffectiveness of UNFICYP, especially in regards to
politics and diplomacy, was the UN’s identity as a global international organization, which
did nothing to harm the diplomatic efforts involved with the Cyprus issue.
Greek Politics. Though much has been made of the idea of enosis up to this point,
the political orientation of Greece itself, as opposed to Greek Cypriots, has been left
unexplored. In the 1950s, Greece took an extremely pro-enosis stance, bringing the
case for unification all the way to the UN General Assembly,68 where before World
War II, Greece had been ambivalent at best when it came to enosis, spawning the
saying “Cypriots are Greeks, but Greeks are not Cypriots.”69 Though there was strong
support for enosis in Greece and in Greek politics, with even the Hellenic King—the
Greek monarch—saying “I wish our Cypriot brothers a speedy union with the mother
county,”70 the Greek government eventually supported the London-Zürich Agreements,
which made Cyprus an independent republic.
This did not mean that Greece completely abandoned Cyprus, however. Popular support
within Greece for enosis and in favor of supporting the Greek Cypriots led Greek Prime
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Minister Papandreou to come to an agreement with President Makarios on four points:

that the Cyprus issue was to be handled by the UN rather than NATO; that enosis was
the ultimate aim of all Greek policies towards the island; that Greece make no decisions
that might incite the Turkish military to invade the island; and finally, perhaps most
importantly, that Greece would aid Cyprus in the case of a Turkish attack.71 10,000
Greek troops were sent to Cyprus to show how serious the Greeks were about honoring
the last part of the agreement.
In 1967, a military junta overthrew the Greek government in Athens in a coup d’état
and took power, bringing with it a nationalist, pro-enosis stance. Then, in 1973, a second
coup brought a junta that was even more dedicated to promoting Greek nationalism in
Cyprus for the cause of enosis, helping to bring General Grivas back to the island to help
start EOKA B, a reincarnation of the terrorist organization that had attacked the British
and Turks on Cyprus in the late 50s and early 60s.72 EOKA B, along with the Greek
national troops on the island, who were mentioned in Part Two of this chapter, were able
to overthrow Makarios on July 15, 1974, ultimately leading to the Turkish invasion of
Cyprus on July 20, 1974 that doomed UNFICYP to failure.
Turkish Politics. In the early days of the Cyprus problem, Turkey seemed to have
no vested interest in the island; in fact, it was not until 1955 when Turkey agreed
to be a part of the London tripartite conference that it officially accepted a role
in the issue. When Turkey arrived at the conference, however, its foreign minister
began using anti-enosis rhetoric, sparking some of the anti-Greek riots in Istanbul
that further damaged Greek/Turkish relations.73 Turkish involvement in Cyprus only
grew after that, with the Turkish government supplying the TMT in order to counter
the Athens-supported EOKA and the rise of taksim-supporting rhetoric. However,
because of Turkey’s membership in NATO, any aggression towards Cyprus or the
Cypriot government could have been countered by the USSR. The threat of USSR
intervention caused Turkey to become more conciliatory in its rhetoric, but only for
a short time.74
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Accounts of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus vary by speaker. Some Turkish sympathizers
call the invasion an “intervention,” with Necati Münir Ertekün, a Turkish Cypriot legal
advisor during the Intercommunal Talks on Cyprus, saying that:
Turkey, who had exhibited remarkable restraint and patience… during the
preceding eleven years, had no alternative but to intervene following the coup
of 15 July 1974… The Turkish intervention which took place on 20 July
1974 was carried out in accordance with the rights and obligations of
Turkey under the Treaty of Guarantee. The Turkish Peace Force was sent
to the Island, not as an invasion or occupation force, but to safeguard
the independence of the Republic of Cyprus… [and] to save the Turkish
Cypriot Community which was in grave and imminent danger of
being annihilated by the Greek and Greek Cypriot armed elements.75
(emphasis added)
This stance, however, seems to be undermined by the UN Security Council, which

adopted a resolution the very day of the invasion that stated:
The Security Council… deeply deploring the outbreak of violence and continuing
bloodshed, gravely concerned about the situation which led to a serious threat
to international peace and security… equally concerned about the necessity to
restore the constitutional structure of the Republic of Cyprus… 1: Calls upon
all States to respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of
Cyprus… 3: Demands an immediate end to foreign military intervention in
the Republic of Cyprus… 4: Requests the withdrawal without delay from the
Republic of Cyprus of foreign military personnel present otherwise than under
the authority of international agreements.76
Despite the rhetoric, however, what is undeniable is that Turkey sent its national troops into
Cyprus on July 20, 1974 and established the partition of Northern Cyprus, the land that
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would eventually become known, unofficially, as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus.
This military invasion by Turkey into Cyprus, along with the already-existing tension
that had formed because of the coup against Makarios, made the peacekeepers’ jobs
almost impossible to fulfill. At the point when Turkey invaded and fulfilled the promise of
taksim, the job of creating a lasting peace fell apart. Though UNFICYP would continue
to reach for its goal even to this day, 1974 proved to be a turning point from which
UNFICYP could not recover.
UN Politics. The politics of the UN are surprisingly uncomplicated in this matter. Where
there was great animosity between Greece and Turkey, there seemed to be a lack of will
to join in the fight by any side of the Cold War, save the UK, which was initially heavily
invested in Cyprus but weaned itself from the conflict as the years passed. The biggest
political interest that the UN had in Cyprus was its ability to establish and implement a
peacekeeping force, which it had done only twice before UNFICYP. Because neither side of
the Cold War had much interest in Cyprus, the Security Council was able to take measured,
rather than political, stances regarding the issue of peacekeeping; in fact, the UN was
referred to by at least one author as “the only competent institution to deal with the Cyprus
dispute”77 because of its relatively disinterested stance, as opposed to NATO, Turkey, Greece,
or the Republic of Cyprus itself, all of whom had some self-interest at stake in the conflict.
On March 4, 1964, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 186,

recommending “the creation, with the consent of the Government of Cyprus, of a [UN]
Peace-Keeping Force in Cyprus,” and calling for the force to work “in the interest of
preserving international peace and security, [and] to use its best efforts to prevent a
recurrence of fighting and… to contribute to the… restoration of law and order and a
return to normal conditions.”78
Though it would take a few weeks to put together, this resolution was carried out within
the same month. This separation of partisan Cold War politics in favor of supporting an
international peacekeeping force to try to stop a civil conflict is one of the most positive
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parts of this entire case, showing that even in one of the most bitter ideological battles
of the modern era, it was still possible to derive a unanimous decision in an organization
where both sides of that battle have veto power.
Diplomacy. Diplomatic efforts undertaken in order to secure a political peace agreement,

unfortunately, did not meet the same level of success as the political efforts within the
UN Security Council. Though the London-Zürich Agreements, which set the framework
for an independent Cyprus, were agreed upon by Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, further
talks to maintain the peace and create a more effective Republic of Cyprus were met
with hostility and inaction. The first of these attempts at diplomacy was discussed briefly
before: Makarios’ “13 Points.” The thirteen changes to the Cypriot constitution that were
raised by President Makarios in 1963 were not tremendously radical or partisan, but the
response that met the proposal certainly was. Not only did the Turkish government and
Turkish Cypriots oppose it, but some Greeks opposed the points, as well, as strengthening
the Republic of Cyprus would make enosis more difficult to achieve. The proposal as it was
given was not well prepared politically, and it therefore suffered in terms of its diplomatic
appeal.79 The poor timing and preparation of this proposal revitalized both sides of the
bitter Cypriot divide and made the chances for future diplomatic successes bleak.
The second effort at a diplomatic solution was the UN mediator, Galo Plaza, who attempted
to come to a mediated agreement between Cyprus, Turkey and Greece in 1965. The mediator,
although ultimately concluding that “every endeavour must continue to be made to bring
about a peaceful solution… of the Cyprus problem,”80 admits that in the situation that
Cyprus was in at the time, having a divided government and a bitter ethno-national divide,
“there is no apparent willingness—and indeed in practical terms little ability—on the part
of the leaders of either community to offer any substantial concession to an agreed political
settlement.”81 Both sides utilized stall-tactics in order to avoid a mediated settlement, as
both sides set preconditions for talks at impossible levels: the Greek Cypriots would only
discuss plans with the Turks if it was in the context of a unified state, and the Turks would
only talk to the Greeks if it was in the context of re-establishing the 1960 Constitution.
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Analysis of External Politics and Diplomacy. The fact that there was not an
acceptable political solution to the conflict between the Turks and the Greeks, added to
the fact that there was a nearly complete breakdown in diplomacy between those two
countries, made implementing a peacekeeping mission in Cyprus essentially impossible.
Without the backing of a strong political solution that can gain the support of both sides
of a conflict, solving that conflict with a peacekeeping force simply will not be able to
happen. As will be shown in the case of FYROM, a political solution can have the effect
of lowering the level of animosity between the two groups and make it much easier to
insert troops and allow them to accomplish their objectives. In the case of Cyprus, the
lack of a political solution embittered the two sides even further, thus preventing them
from making peace with one another, and led to the breakdown of diplomacy that
enabled an invasion of the island by both Greece and Turkey, leading to a tense partition
that UNFICYP could not alleviate.
The failure to establish meaningful diplomatic relations and produce a political

solution like in Cyprus was a major factor in UNFICYP’s ultimate failure as a
peacekeeping operation. The high level of animosity and violence can be traced at
least partially, if not in some cases fully, to this factor, meaning that a breakdown in
this area can lead to devastating effects for the effectiveness of any peacekeeping
mission. Signing the Ohrid Agreement, as will be shown in the next chapter, was a
huge step to alleviating tensions between the Albanians and the Slavs in FYROM; had
such an agreement been found in Cyprus, the conflict between the Turks and Greeks
might have been alleviated, allowing UNFICYP to be more effective. This was not the
case, however, and in the end, UNFICYP ended up as an almost completely ineffective
mission for the UN.
Part Four: The UN as a Global Actor

The UN’s global-actor status did not affect its ability to implement a peacekeeping
mission in Cyprus. There certainly was no advantage given to the UN, as the mission
ended up failing, but at the same time, there was no distinct disadvantage that came
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with being a global actor that caused UNFICYP to fail. As a global actor, there are certain
factors that could have potentially posed disadvantages, just as being a regional actor
could potentially have aided the EU in FYROM, but after analyzing the data, it turns out
that no disadvantage existed for the UN; rather, the conditions in Cyprus simply provided
too many challenges that the UN could not overcome.
First of all, there was no political disadvantage for the UN in terms of its internal
discussions that eventually led to the launching of UNFICYP. Unlike in FYROM, as will be
discussed in the next chapter, there was no veto in the Security Council that prevented
the UNFICYP force from continuing its mission or obtaining necessary equipment.
Though the potential for that disadvantage exists, it is the same disadvantage that the
EU possesses, as they face the same problem of needing unanimity. This shows that there
was not an internal dynamic that somehow disadvantaged the UN enough that it caused
the mission to fail.
Second, a global actor should, theoretically, have access to more than enough resources
to complete a mission. In UNFICYP, however, the UN was not able to field a force as
large as its projected necessary size. This failure was not a consequence of the UN
being a global actor, as other organizations—both national and international—have
faced this exact same problem. Clearly, then, neither a regional nor global international
organization has an advantage when it comes to procuring necessary equipment and
troop levels, as both have problems in that area.
Finally, the UN did not face any problems when it came to the local population objecting
to a peacekeeping organization being in their territory. One possible objection to
global organizations taking charge of peacekeeping missions is that residents of the
receiving country might object to having a vast international force in their country
where they would be friendlier to an organization whose forces are made up of people
from countries proximal to the receiving country. However, what ended up happening
in Cyprus was that the citizens did not have a problem with the force being under
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the banner of the United Nations; rather, the citizens had a problem with the British
forces alone, as they were seen as a colonizing force rather than troops dedicated to
peacekeeping. Any international organization could face this exact same problem, and
the way to sidestep it is not to change control of the force from a regional to a global
actor or vice versa, but it is rather to study the factors measured in this study and find
out if the citizens will object to having troops from any one nation in their country.
CHAPTER 5: FYROM, THE EU’S FIRST MISSION

The dissolution of Yugoslavia brought about ethnic strife and conflict, the most famous
of which being the 1991-1995 Balkan Wars. However, when studying those conflicts,
Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina dominate the discussion, while little
attention is paid to the smaller Balkan nations, especially the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia (FYROM). FYROM, however, played a major role in an oft-overlooked
military mission launched by the European Union (EU) called Operation Concordia, the
first military peacekeeping mission launched by that organization. In comparison to
UNFICYP, Concordia was extremely successful, and in this chapter, the three factors that
contributed to UNFICYP’s failure—level of animosity, external politics and diplomacy,
and initial conditions—will be examined in the context of how they contributed to
Concordia’s success. Further analysis of the data will also show how the EU being a
regional international organization posed no advantages that led to the effectiveness of
Operation Concordia.
Part One: Level of Animosity

The level of animosity in FYROM when Operation Concordia was launched was relatively
low, especially when compared to the levels in Cyprus. This low level of animosity
manifested itself in the Macedonian population’s acceptance of the EU force and the
fact that it was FYROM’s government that invited the EU to the country in the first place.
Because the animosity was low, the EU forces did not have to worry about raging battles
and were instead able to concentrate on their assigned tasks, thus allowing for an
effective mission. The fact that the low level of animosity helped the mission had nothing
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to do with the EU being a regional actor, however, as any international organization

facing similarly low levels of animosity would have been found those levels helpful.
History of FYROM. Though the history of FYROM begins in 1991 when it declared itself
independent from Yugoslavia, the history of society in the area of Macedonia traces back
to ancient times. In the 7th century BC, Macedonia was inhabited by a Greek tribe called
the Macedons, the tribe that would eventually produce Alexander the Great. However,
the Greek area called “Macedonia” and the nation that would eventually be called the
Republic of Macedonia share a very small amount of land, bringing about a naming
conflict that has forced the UN to adopt the name FYROM.
FYROM currently has a population with an ethnic majority comprised of Macedonian

Slavs, though their history in the region is relatively short when compared with the
Albanians and Greek Macedonians. Coming to the Macedonian region primarily from
Bulgaria, the Slavs entered the scene in the 5th century AD, as opposed to the Albanians
and Greeks, who had inhabited the land for a far longer amount of time.82 Historically
speaking, therefore, the Albanians have a historical conflict with the Slavs, which helps
to explain the Albanian separatist ideals that drove the 2001 insurgency that eventually
leads to the implementation of Operation Concordia.
In FYROM around the time of the insurgency, the ethnic breakdown of the country was
about 64.2% Macedonian Slav and 25.2% Albanian,83 making the Albanian presence in
FYROM greater than the Turkish presence in Cyprus. Despite being larger, however, the
level of violence and overall sense of animosity between the Slavs and Albanians was far
lower than between the Greeks and Turks.
UN Intervention. Before the outbreak of violence between the Albanians and FYROM’s
national forces, there was a UN force put in place in FYROM to monitor the country’s
move to independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia. In February 1992, the Former
Yugoslavia UN Protection Force (FY-UNPROFOR) was launched by the UN Security
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Council84 in order to help bring stability to the Balkan region. Though the force was
much more heavily concentrated in the countries of Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, there was still a UN force that was attached to FYROM. Though the rest
of the region quickly became an ethnically-driven war zone, FYROM remained relatively
peaceful, and the UN Protection Force was able to change into a UN Preventive
Deployment Force (UNPREDEP).
UNPREDEP was only a slight shift from UNPROFOR, and in fact the resolution creating
UNPREDEP gives it the same mandate as UNPROFOR had.85 One thing that the Security
Council recommended in its resolution to convert UNPROFOR to UNPREDEP was that
the force continues to work with a regional security institution, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).86 This marks the beginning of the shift of
responsibility for FYROM from the UN to regional actors such as NATO and the EU.
As early as 1995, despite the apparent calm in FYROM, the UN was noticing a problem
growing between the Albanians and the Slavs, with the Secretary General noting
incidents such as:
[Albanian leaders’] demands for improvements in their political, economic,

social, cultural and educational status, including recognition of Albanian as the
Republic’s second official language… [and] a confrontation between some
ethnic Albanians and the Government over action by the former to establish an
Albanian-language university in Tetovo.87
The Secretary General also noted that, during the confrontation over the university,
“police… intervened on several occasions to halt the project, culminating in an
incident on 17 February in which… one ethnic Albanian was shot dead, and a number
of policemen [were] injured.”88 Along with this ethnic tension, the Secretary General
was also worried about border disputes that could arise between FYROM and Serbia
and Montenegro, then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Though the
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UNPROFOR had established a military border between the two nations, neither side
recognized its legitimacy, prompting the Secretary General to say that “the potential for
confrontation still exists in the absence of a mutually recognized international border and
it remains of primary importance that… work [begins] to resolve this long-outstanding
issue.”89 Despite these warnings and evidence of rising tensions, when the resolution
came in 1999 to extend UNPREDEP for another six months, China vetoed the resolution,
making the final vote thirteen for, one against, and one abstention. Officially, China
claimed that:
the situation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had apparently

stabilized in the past few years and its relations with neighbouring countries
had improved. Peace and stability in that country had also not been adversely
affected by regional developments… [therefore] there was no need to further
extend the mandate of the Mission.90
However, there is a possible alternative explanation for China’s action, described by Canada’s
representative to the Security Council as “seemingly compelled by bilateral concerns unrelated
to UNPREDEP.” The bilateral concern that is being referenced is FYROM’s diplomatic
recognition of Taiwan as an independent state from China, which occurred on January 27,
1999;92 China’s veto of UNPREDEP occurred only one month after this, with other countries
arguing vehemently against the veto. Regardless of the reason for the veto, however, the fact
remains that UNPREDEP ended in 1999, leaving FYROM as a vulnerable state.
Outbreak of Violence. After UNPREDEP left FYROM in 1999, there was a security gap
in the country that ethnic Albanians, many coming from the border-region near Kosovo,
took advantage of to start violent uprisings. Beginning in late 2000, groups of Albanian
militants began to take over towns in northern FYROM, pushing a belief in Albanian self-
governance and partition. The danger behind these sentiments was summarized by Carl
Bildt, the UN special envoy to the Balkans, when he said that “what is at stake here is not
only Macedonia… [but] really everything that we have been trying to do in the Balkans:
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democracy, people living together, inter-ethnic cooperation,”93 showing how seriously the
international community was taking the threats encountered by tiny FYROM.
In early 2001, the Albanian militants began targeting government forces, abandoning
their previous strategy of relatively peaceful village takeovers. After the slaying of a
police officer by the Albanian force called the National Liberation Army (NLA), the battle
between the Macedonians and Albanians began. FYROM tried to treat the situation
with just police action at first, but the Albanians had little respect and trust for FYROM’s
police force, which had “the reputation of [favoring]… Macedonian Slavs [over]… the
Albanians.”94 After the insurgency gained strength and fighting escalated, FYROM’s
police and security personnel began to attack the “liberated zones” that had come
under the control of the NLA or other Albanian groups. By the time that the fighting had
ended, over 200 people had been killed, including 60 members of FYROM’s security
forces. In addition, about 100,000 people were internally displaced within FYROM, with
allegations from human rights organizations that the FYROM police were responsible for
targeting people because of their ethnicity.95
Analysis of Animosity. The level of animosity between the Slavs and the Albanians was
not nearly as high as it was in the case of Cyprus. Though there were leaders drumming up
support for ethno-nationalist policies, especially on the side of the Albanians, the NLA and
FYROM’s security forces were not nearly as hate-fueled as EOKA and the TMT. The violence
eventually subsided with the signing of the Ohrid agreement, which will be discussed in
the next section, because of a willingness from both sides to work together to get a peace
agreement done. Had the level of animosity between the Slavs and Albanians been high
enough, a peace agreement may have been impossible, as was the case in Cyprus.
Furthermore, the fact that it was FYROM’s security forces doing most of the fighting
against the NLA and other Albanian groups made it much easier to control the
fighting, where in Cyprus the fighting between ethno-national groups unrelated to the
government caused numerous bouts of violence and worked to increase the amount of
antipathy between the Greeks and Turks.
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Because of these factors, the level of animosity between the Slavs and Albanians has
been found to be low. The high level of animosity found in the Cyprus case made it
difficult to implement a peacekeeping force, and in this case, as will be seen shortly, the
low level of animosity and the willingness of the two sides to cooperate made the EU’s
implementation smooth and relatively easy. Though the transition from the UN to NATO
was marked by the worst violence of the entire conflict, the transfer from NATO to the EU
was notable for its absence of violence. The reasons for the smooth transition and easy
implementation surely have to do with the fact that the UN mission ended unexpectedly
and prematurely, but the low level of animosity that prevailed during the EU’s takeover
also had a major role to play in the explanation.
Part Two: External Politics and Diplomacy

As mentioned above, the violence in FYROM dropped dramatically after 2001 when the
Ohrid agreement was signed. This diplomatic success story poses a sharp contrast to the
drawn-out and ultimately fruitless diplomatic efforts that were undertaken in the Cyprus
case. Ohrid was not the only political success story in FYROM, however, as the Berlin Plus
agreement also had a major role to play in the effectiveness of the EU’s implementation
of Operation Concordia. Berlin Plus allowed the EU and NATO to share equipment and
intelligence, helping the EU immensely, as they were unprepared to take on a major
military operation like Concordia independently.
The Ohrid Framework Agreement. The Ohrid Framework Agreement, signed on August
13, 2001, was a turning point towards peace in the Albanian uprising in FYROM. The
agreement mandated sacrifices and promises from both sides, including the “complete
voluntary disarmament of the ethnic Albanian armed groups and their complete
voluntary disbandment,”96 as well as a guarantee from the Slavic government that
“state funding will be provided for university level education in languages spoken by at
least 20 percent of the population of Macedonia.”97 There are numerous other portions
of the Ohrid agreement, all of which deal in some way or another with guaranteeing
Albanian rights or Macedonian security. In this way, the drafters of Ohrid made sure
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that the issues that the insurgents cared about were addressed, therefore making the
likelihood of disarmament greater. Though there were some doubts that an agreement
could be reached due to violence during the drafting negotiations,98 those concerns were
fleeting and Ohrid ended up accomplishing its purpose—bringing peace to FYROM.
To set up Ohrid, the major political parties on both sides of the ethnic divide came
together under the supervision of the EU and the US to negotiate. The parties involved
included two Slavic Macedonian political parties, including the party of the prime
minister of FYROM—the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation–Democratic
Party of National Unity—as well as two Albanian political parties, including the
Democratic Party of the Albanians.99 Both sides have been somewhat critical of the
tone of the negotiations, with Ljubco Georgievski, FYROM’s Prime Minister at the time,
saying that the EU and US acted “brutally” and in a “cowboy style”100 and some
within the Albanian community believing that the Agreement “[did] not resolve the
Albanian issue in Macedonia,” it should also be noted that there were other Slavic
and Albanian groups that strongly supported Ohrid. Getting on the road to Ohrid
was difficult and did not come without its costs; despite the two cease-fires that were
negotiated by the EU’s representative, Javier Solana, 35 people still lost their lives while
the deal was being negotiated.101
NATO in FYROM. Once Ohrid had been put in place, an enforcement mechanism was
needed to ensure that the Albanian militants turned over their weapons as specified in
the Agreement. NATO took this challenge by launching Operation Essential Harvest on
August 22, 2001, sending 3500 troops with logistical support to the nation. This was not
a completely peaceful mission, however, as there were still bands of militant Albanians
in FYROM not willing to give up their weapons; at least one NATO soldier was killed
while serving Operation Essential Harvest, during a “vicious attack… on the vehicle he
was driving” in an act of violence that the Secretary General of NATO called “absurd
considering that NATO troops are in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to
assist the people and the government of that country in achieving a peaceful and lasting
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solution to the current crisis.103 Essential Harvest, overall, was extremely successful
and eventually was replaced by Operation Amber Fox, which was meant to be more of
a peacekeeping and protection mission than Essential Harvest, which was a mission
dedicated to the task of disarming the Albanians.
Operation Amber Fox was also extremely successful, running from September 27, 2001 until
December 15, 2002, clearing the path for the next NATO mission, Operation Allied Harmony,
the final NATO mission in FYROM before Concordia would take over. Operation Allied
Harmony had a much more limited mandate than either Amber Fox or Essential Harvest;
the NATO force was in FYROM only to “provide support for the international monitors [and]
assist the [FYROM] government in taking ownership of security throughout the country.”104
Allied Harmony was a success and NATO was already preparing to hand control of the
FYROM mission to the EU, but before Concordia could be launched, the EU needed to
acquire proper military equipment, and for that, they looked to NATO to help them out.
Berlin Plus. The “Berlin Plus” agreement came out of necessity for the EU and
convenience for NATO. The European Council, which is the collection of the heads of
state and government of all EU member states, began making plans for an EU mission
in FYROM as early as March 2002.105 After being blocked earlier by a dispute between
Greece and Turkey over the EU’s use of NATO assets in this proposed mission,106 the
EU and NATO decided that an equipment-sharing deal would need to be reached. The
framework for this agreement had been laid in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until the early
2000s, after the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) had been established,
that talks really got underway.107 Though there were problems with Turkey and Greece
that delayed the negotiations,108 there was also a question of capability, and it was
not until the ESDP was revealed that NATO started working directly with the EU on a
possible equipment-sharing deal. In December 2002, the two sides finally came to an
agreement that was acceptable to all members of both the EU and NATO and on March
17, 2003, the Berlin Plus Agreement was signed. This agreement provides three vitally
important keys to Concordia’s success: a “NATO-EU Security Agreement”; “Assured
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Access to NATO planning capabilities for EU-led Crisis Management Operations (CMO)”;
and “[Available]… NATO assets and capabilities for EU-led CMO.”109 In FYROM, the EU
took advantage primarily of the wealth of military knowledge that was present in NATO
by relying on NATO, via the Berlin Plus Agreement, to take care of most of the mission
designs and logistical support.110 NATO was a vital part of the EU’s success in FYROM
because of their knowledge of the area, based on years of experience thanks to Essential
Harvest, Amber Fox and Allied Harmony, and it is only because of Berlin Plus that the EU
was able to tap into this knowledge.
By assuring the EU that they would have the full backing of NATO in their military
excursion into FYROM, it gave the EU confidence to launch its first military peacekeeping
mission, though they arguably did not need the help according to some authors.111
Berlin Plus was not perfect, however, as the EU encountered several problems when
it came to intelligence sharing. Before launching the mission, there was no official
intelligence-sharing plan in place between the EU and NATO, which caused problems
that could potentially have been devastating. For example, “while NATO was eventually
given full access to Concordia mission reports, the EU in turn never gained access to
NATO reports on Kosovo,” despite the fact that “villages close to the Kosovo border were
involved in trafficking of arms and potentially vulnerable to general unrest.”112 Despite
these problems, however, Berlin Plus was an overall positive for the EU and allowed
the ESDP to expand into military operations, thus expanding its power and, potentially,
influence in the region. For FYROM, it meant a stable peacekeeping force that was
able to do its job well, thus helping the country to rebuild itself without the fear of a
separatist movement tearing it apart.
Analysis of External Politics and Diplomacy. The external politics involving the Berlin
Plus agreement between the EU and NATO and the diplomatic efforts that resulted in
the Ohrid Agreement helped the EU force to be highly effective throughout Operation
Concordia. The fact that there was a peace agreement already signed before the EU
came into FYROM was a blessing, especially when compared to the chaos that marked
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the diplomatic negotiations in Cyprus. As was shown through Cyprus, a hostile situation
where diplomacy is failing and political solutions are not being accepted is a situation
that can ruin a peacekeeping effort. Fortunately for the EU, the Ohrid Agreement meant
that many of the major Albanian militants were disarmed before the time that the EU
force arrived in FYROM; to use a counterfactual, had EOKA and the TMT been disarmed
by the time that the UN forces arrived, it is not hard to imagine that the peacekeeping
effort would have had a much higher chance of success. Add to that the fact that a peace
agreement helped to solve some of the ethnic tensions in FYROM, by recognizing the
rights of the ethnic Albanians while still allowing the Slavs to hold power, and it shows
how important diplomacy can be in a conflict situation.
In terms of the external politics, the partnership between NATO and the EU turned
out to be invaluable. Gaining the support of NATO meant that the EU had both the
military capability and the political legitimacy to launch their first military mission.
Using FYROM as a launching point, the EU’s use of military forces in peacekeeping
operations has grown in recent years, with the Union even operating missions in Africa.
Had the external politics of NATO-EU relations broken down and made the Berlin Plus
agreement impossible to pass, the EU might still be unable to launch military missions
in peacekeeping roles. Discarding the possibilities of what might have been, however, it
is clear that the Berlin Plus agreement helped the EU by providing equipment and, more
importantly, leadership and logistical help that was badly needed in the EU’s first attempt
at a military mission. Thanks in large part to Berlin Plus, an agreement that could have
been made between any two types of international organizations, the mission was a
success and the operation was implemented extremely effectively.
Part Three: Initial Conditions

As discussed above, the external politics, diplomatic efforts, and level of animosity found
in FYROM all helped to make Operation Concordia an effective mission, especially when
compared to UNFICYP. There is still one more factor to discuss in terms of the success
of the FYROM mission, and that is the initial conditions that the EU troops faced when
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they arrived in the country. As was mentioned before, the largest groups of Albanians
had been disarmed, a peace agreement had been signed, and the EU was coming into
the country on the coattails of the NATO force, which had done a terrific job of keeping
the peace. There were still some initial conditions that the EU forces had to overcome,
specifically the poor economy of FYROM and the small amount of violence that remained
in some Albanian areas, but these problems were so minimal that they ultimately did not
prevent Operation Concordia from being an effective mission; furthermore, there were
other initial conditions that helped the EU forces, such as the fact that FYROM had a
population that was ready for peace as well as the fact that FYROM was geographically
and strategically easier to insert troops into.
Operation Concordia’s Mandate. Before going more into more depth on the domestic
issues that were affecting FYROM during the time that Operation Concordia was in
effect, it will be essential to go over exactly what Concordia’s mandate was, thus making
it easier to judge how domestic issues could have affected the operation, even though it
turned out that they had no effect.
Concordia was established in the EU’s Joint Council Action 2003/92/CFSP, which
stated that:
The Union’s contribution is based upon a broad approach with activities to

address the whole range of rule of law aspects, including institution building
programmes and police activities which should be mutually supportive and
reinforcing. The activities of the Union… will contribute to the overall peace
implementation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.113
Though this is a rather broad mandate, it is clear that the military force was not meant
to interfere in a major way in the economy, but rather to help stabilize the government
and, in general, keep the peace throughout the country. This will be important to
remember, as FYROM’s economy was one of the more worrying aspects about the
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country when the force was originally inserted. As it turns out, though, FYROM’s
economic problems, though severe, did not interfere with the EU’s ability to effectively
implement Operation Concordia.
FYROM’s Economy. FYROM’s economy in 2003 was, and continues to be today, very poor.
Despite having favorable conditions when it broke off from Yugoslavia, when the entire
country of Yugoslavia collapsed, it devastated the FYROM economy. Losing the support
that it had been receiving from Yugoslavia, combined with a 1994 blockade against the
country imposed by Greece, created a desperate economic system in FYROM throughout
the 1990s. In 1993, for example, FYROM’s GDP took a tremendous fall as their economy
shrank by 7.5%.115 Since then, the economy has been erratic, increasing by 4.5% in 2000
and then shrinking by 4.5% the very next year; inflation in 1993 hit almost 350%; and the
unemployment rate has been floating in the 30% range since 1994.116
Perhaps unsurprisingly, “unemployment is disproportionately high among the ethnic Albanian

community,”117 and about 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, with “net
monthly wages [averaging] about $170 in 1998 and 1999.”118 Despite these trying economic
times, however, there did not seem to be any form of violent action due to economic hardship.
In fact, voting patterns in the early 2000s show that FYROM’s electorate was much more
concerned with creating national unity and fighting corruption within the government than
fighting economic hardships, as “political instability and inter-ethnic issues… dominated
much of the government’s agenda in the immediate post-Ohrid years.”119
Having a population that was not acting out because of the poor economy helped
Concordia to be effective because rather than concentrating on potentially violent actions
based on economic problems, the force was able to concentrate on the violence caused
by ethnic problems. Also, even though the mandate called for the Concordia force to
help with institution building, the fact that the force was not bogged down with missions
designed to help the FYROM economy also freed forces up to do patrols and other
missions directly tied to security.
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Residual Violence. As mentioned before, the NATO missions and the Ohrid agreement
left very little violence in FYROM for the Concordia force to deal with. The NLA, which
had been the largest group supporting the violence in 2001, had given up their arms
after Ohrid and many former NLA members went on to start pro-Albanian political
parties such as the Democratic Union for Integration. When the EU force took over for
the NATO forces, it maintained NATO’s effectiveness, as “[Albanian] extremists… largely
avoided tangling with it [the EU force].”120 The relative lack of violence helped the EU to
gain legitimacy in the country, but despite this, there were still some groups that resisted
peace and maintained a militant stance on Albanian independence.
The pro-Albanian group that gave the EU the most trouble was the Albanian National
Army (ANA, also called AKSh). The ANA was started by a former NLA commander,
Avdil Jakupi, and fought as a part of a radical irredentist movement, hoping “for
the creation of a greater Albania through the union of ethnic-Albanian inhabited
territories—Kosovo, northern and western Macedonia, the Presevo valley of southern
Serbia and parts of eastern Montenegro—with the mother country, Albania.”121 Even
though the ANA did not cause as much violence as the NLA during the worst parts of
the 2001 crisis, they still caused some trouble for the EU and FYROM’s police forces,
with speculation that their actions might have been intended to draw an overwhelming
response from military and police forces in order to turn Albanians against the FYROM
government once again.122 The ANA had far less power than the NLA, both in terms of
membership and force of arms, but even with such a small group—some estimates put
their size at 50-70 members123—they were still able to cause problems for the EU and
especially the FYROM police force, who were drawn into a confrontation with the ANA
on September 7 in the towns of Brest and Malina Mala, gunfights that resulted in the
deaths of multiple ANA members.124
There were multiple other incidents that the EU had to deal with, as well, but the
largest systemic threat that they faced was certainly the ANA. Though during the
EU’s time in FYROM there were multiple bombings kidnappings of Slavic targets
192
and attacks on Albanians, as well, including one that killed a six-year-old girl,125
overall, the EU’s presence in FYROM was successful in deterring violence and useful
for training the FYROM security personnel. The mission was efficient at dealing
with residual violence left over from the NATO force, helping it to be qualified as an
effectively implemented mission.
Positive Initial Conditions. The initial conditions that the EU force encountered were,
for the most part, extremely helpful. Though there were certainly negative conditions,
which have just been described, there were also numerous positive conditions that
helped Concordia to be effective, such as FYROM having a population that was
ready for peace and a political geography that was conducive to helping to launch
a peacekeeping mission. This idea draws from the discussions of both the level of
animosity as well as the political solutions that had been put in place that were
discussed earlier, and also from data that show the public’s opinion about the issue
of Ohrid and greater national unity.
The primary piece of data that shows that the public wanted peace during the time that
the EU was there was that the FYROM public voted in a coalition government that was
formed, in part, by a political party started by former members of the NLA. Ali Ahmeti,
one of the primary leaders of the NLA, started the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI)
party after the signing of the Ohrid Agreement; the DUI stood against radical irredentist
ideas within the Albanian population and supported strongly pro-Ohrid policies. On
the Slavic side, the political battle was between the right-wing Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Party-Democratic Party for National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) and the Social-
Democrats (SDSM). In the 2002 parliamentary elections, the FYROM electorate chose
to give power to a coalition government consisting of both DUI and SDSM elements,126
sending a clear statement that the path forward for FYROM should be determined by
Slavs and Albanians working together rather than through one dominating the other.
The fact that the nation had survived breaking away from Yugoslavia in relative peace,
unlike the other separations that led to the Balkan wars, and the fact that it established
193
a working democracy shows that, at its core, FYROM is a country looking for consensus
and peace, and that is exactly what the elections of 2002 proved.
Aside from the population’s desire for peace, another factor that positively influenced
the mission’s effectiveness was FYROM’s geography. Unlike Cyprus, an island, FYROM is
a landlocked country relatively close to the main hub of operations for the EU, Brussels;
this made inserting the troops relatively easy and cost efficient. The physical geography is
not the only factor that made FYROM an ideal place to launch a peacekeeping mission,
however, as the fact that EU forces were already in the area thanks to the NATO forces
that preceded Operation Concordia meant that large numbers of troops did not have to
be transported across large areas of land. Moving from a force of about 700 in Operation
Allied Harmony to a force of 357 troops, most of who were drawn from the same
nations that participated in Allied Harmony,127 meant that troop movements were not
a big problem for Operation Concordia. When this peaceful population and easy troop
movement is added to the fact that the infrastructure of FYROM was far more advanced
in terms of both civilian and military infrastructure than the infrastructure of Cyprus
during UNFICYP, it provides for an almost ideal situation on the ground for troops to be
inserted into, helping to make Concordia an extremely effective mission.
Analysis of Initial Conditions. The initial conditions in FYROM helped to make

Operation Concordia an effective mission. The negative initial conditions, unlike those
found by the UNFICYP troops, were not so bad as to affect the ability of the troops to do
their jobs. Though the ANA and other Albanian militant groups kept fighting, the violence
was not nearly as intense as the fighting in Cyprus, which did not just involve the ethno-
national groups on the island, but also troops from Greece and Turkey proper, as well.
In this case, the EU’s mandate was broad enough to allow them the freedom to handle
these threats efficiently while also training the FYROM security forces to take over once
Concordia was over; in UNFICYP, on the other hand, one could argue that the mandate
was too broad with little political support helping it.
194
Also, the fact that FYROM’s economy, though poor, did not affect the actions of the
civilians helped the EU force to do its job. Had the EU force been forced to deal with
rioting citizens due to poor economic conditions, they might not have had enough of a
force to then deal with the irredentist Albanians who were stirring up violence, as well.
Of course, it is impossible to prove a counterfactual, but it is not unreasonable to think
that a force of fewer than 400 would not have been able to handle civilian uprisings on
two fronts in completely different parts of the country.
Finally, the fact that there were a number of positive initial conditions, such as the citizens’
desire for peace through democratic means and the political geography of FYROM itself,
made implementing Concordia easy, therefore making the mission itself extremely effective.
Part Four: The EU as a Regional Actor

In FYROM, even more than in Cyprus, it was easy to see why the EU’s regional-actor
status was not a factor in determining how effective it would be. The UN, a global actor,
NATO, a regional actor with transcontinental membership, and the EU, a purely regional
actor, all had missions in FYROM in a time frame of less than 10 years, and all of those
missions were successful. The UN’s mission in FYROM was working and would have
continued into the future if not for a single vote in the Security Council, cast by China for
potentially-political reasons; NATO’s missions in FYROM were similarly successful, helping
to put down the 2001 uprising that shook the country; and the EU’s Operation Concordia
was effective at keeping the peace in FYROM when that peace was threatened by new
and more extreme groups than NATO faced.
The EU’s identity as a regional actor helped it in one way, which was its ability to transfer
troops to FYROM quickly and easily because of FYROM’s proximity to the EU. The UN,
however, which is headquartered in New York City, had no problem inserting troops
and effectively launching a peacekeeping mission, so clearly geographical proximity
did not give the EU an advantage over a global actor. And other than geography, there
are not many more advantages that the EU had over the UN: there was no additional
195
legitimacy granted to the EU because of its regional-actor status and there was no
political advantage gained, either. One could point to the fact that China was able to
single-handedly veto the UN’s decision to continue its force in FYROM as an example of
a political disadvantage that the UN had, but when this claim is examined more closely,
it begins to fall apart because of the fact that the EU potentially could have had only
one country veto its decision. The way that the EU is structured requires a vote without
dissent on ESDP issues,128 just like the UN requires an absence of dissent from any
permanent member of the Security Council before an action is taken.
When all of that data is analyzed, it becomes clear that the EU’s regional-actor status did
not advantage it in any way during Operation Concordia, just as the UN’s global-actor
status did not help it in Cyprus. What did help the EU in FYROM over the UN in Cyprus,
though, were favorable conditions in each of the three measured factors: a relatively
low level of animosity between the Albanians and the Slavs when compared to the Turks
and Greeks; initial conditions that favored rather than impaired mission implementation;
and popular political solutions already in place before the peacekeeping mission, with
strong diplomatic ties between all parties, two things that were conspicuously absent
in Cyprus. All of these factors help to support the thesis of this paper, that regional and
global international organizations are not essentially different when it comes to how well
they will implement peacekeeping missions. If international organizations study the three
factors analyzed in this paper to determine how to implement a peacekeeping mission,
they will find that those factors help to predict the chances of a mission’s success or
failure much better than relying on superficial determining factors such as what type of
organization is launching the mission.
CHAPTER 6: FYROM, CONCLUSIONS

Part One: Summary
The research presented in this paper supports the finding that it is not the type of
international organization, whether it is regional or global, that is the determining factor
in the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a peacekeeping mission, but rather it is factors
196
inherent to the mission itself that are critical. In the two case studies presented, on the UN
mission in Cyprus and the EU mission in FYROM, the research showed that three factors—
the level or animosity between the warring groups, the initial conditions on the ground,
and the external political factors and diplomatic efforts surrounding the mission—were
crucial in both cases in terms of determining the effectiveness of the missions.
With UNFICYP, there was a high level of animosity, initial conditions were unfavorable for
the UN and the political situation regarding Cyprus in Turkey and Greece was toxic, thus
shutting down all potential diplomatic efforts. The conflict in Cyprus had increased in
intensity throughout the 1950s and 60s, leading to the UN’s insertion of a peacekeeping
force in 1964, which was successful in on-the-ground performance but unsuccessful in
the political arena. Though there was a high level of animosity and unfavorable initial
conditions, the ground forces were able to do their job with relatively little trouble, with
the exception of the British troops, who the Cypriots saw as a colonial force due to the
island’s decades as a member of the British Empire. The external politics and diplomatic
efforts were failures, however, and in 1974, in response to the Greek-led coup on
Cyprus, Turkey invaded the northern part of the island, thus sealing UNFICYP’s history as
a failed and ineffective mission.
The EU’s mission in FYROM was completely different, as they faced a relatively low
level of animosity, very favorable initial conditions, and successful diplomatic efforts
that had resulted in a popular peace agreement. Taking over in a country that had
just seen missions by both the UN and NATO, the EU’s forces were welcomed by the
FYROM government and faced very little violence from the Albanians, whose resistance
movement had shrunk from being a large-scale social movement down to a cause being
fought for by only the most extreme groups. The EU was also helped in large part by the
Berlin Plus agreement with NATO, which allowed for resource-sharing, and by the Ohrid
agreement, the popular peace accord that brought the fighting between the Albanians
and Slavs to a close. Operation Concordia only lasted a few months, but overall, it
accomplished its goals and was an extremely effective mission.
197
The original hypothesis of this paper was that the regional organization would have
an advantage in terms of launching effective missions because of factors such as
increased legitimacy in the areas where peacekeeping missions were launched and easier
implementation methods stemming from not having to send troops very far in order
to insert them into conflict areas. However, the results of the research showed that, at
least in the two cases studied here, the type of organization launching the mission did
not have an impact on its outcome. Despite the differences between the two types of
organizations, when launching peacekeeping missions, the research shows that they are
essentially the same. What matters in terms of launching an effective mission is analyzing
the three factors researched in this paper before the mission is launched in order to take
a holistic view of the situation and decide what kind of force will be needed to succeed
in the mission, or if the mission is even worth starting at all. If an organization does that,
its chance of launching an effective mission increases.
Part Two: Generalizing the Thesis

Whenever a research project is limited to only two subjects, there are legitimate concerns
about whether or not the findings are generalizable. A brief look at some other cases,
however, supports the theory that this thesis is generalizable, though of course more
research will need to be done to show anything conclusively. In order to measure the
generalizability of the two cases, it is helpful to take a brief look at some other cases to see
if the findings hold: in analyzing the cases of ONUSAL in El Salvador and Operation Artemis
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the thesis is shown to hold true.
The UN mission ONUSAL in El Salvador, lasting from July 1991 until April 1995, has
been called one of “the most unambiguously successful”129 missions launched by
the UN. When the UN entered the country, the level of animosity was at a medium
intensity; though there were still attacks being launched by the communist rebels,
called the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), against the El Salvadorian
government, both parties were open to peace negotiations, denoting a waning of
hostilities. The initial conditions for the UN troops, on the other hand, were unfavorable
198
because of a number of factors, such as the that much of the El Salvadorian economy
had been negatively affected by tumbling coffee prices throughout the 1980s and that
the country’s infrastructure was still in shambles from a major 1986 earthquake.130
One of the bright spots for the UN, however, was the fact that both the El Salvadorian
government and the FMLN invited the UN into the country to foster a peace
agreement, meaning that diplomacy was still possible between the two groups. What
that also meant, however, was that there had not been a peace agreement signed
when the UN peacekeeping force was inserted into El Salvador, a situation that the UN
was not used to handling. This was not a problem for long, though, as the signing of
the Chapultepec Accord in January 1992 officially sealed the peace between the FMLN
and the government. UN forces stayed in the country in order to monitor the situation
until it finally stabilized in 1995.
After analyzing the three factors here, it was clear that the El Salvador case was
murkier in its results than either the FYROM or Cyprus cases were: El Salvador was
a mission positioned with a seemingly equal chance of success and failure. With
proper planning and management based on an analysis of the three factors, though,
the UN was able to implement their peacekeeping mission effectively. The most
important factor in this case seemed to be the willingness on both sides of the conflict
to enter into good-faith diplomatic efforts to bring about a peace agreement, and
then to stick to that agreement after it was signed. Had the UN not recognized that
the political and diplomatic area of the case was favorable and only looked at the
level of animosity and/or the initial conditions, they might not have launched the
case. The UN’s careful analysis of all three factors, however, helped them to launch
an extremely effective mission that brought about the end of a civil conflict. The
success of ONUSAL, therefore, shows that an organization’s dedication to a mission
resulting from its careful analysis of the three factors studied in this paper can lead
to the launching of a highly effective mission, and that this analysis could be put into
practice by all types of organizations in order to become more effective in their future
peacekeeping missions.
199
EU’s Operation Artemis also shows that the thesis is generalizable, but in a different
way. Artemis shows that the labels of “regional” and “global” actors are losing their
distinctions in the area of international security, especially within peacekeeping missions,
as this mission represents the EU’s first independent military operation outside of Europe.
Operation Artemis occurred between June and September 2003 and consisted of an EU
force taking over for the UN mission MONUC in the Democratic Republic of Congo after
a number of soldiers from Uganda pulled out of MONUC. The UN asked for aid as they
reconstituted the MONUC force, and the EU stepped in to protect vital areas such as an
airport and a refugee camp in the town called Bunia.131 The EU forces were successful in
their mission and protected their assigned areas until MONUC had regained a force level
sufficient to complete the mission.
Being labeled a “regional actor” implies that the organization in question takes on
missions that fall within its sphere of influence, and the EU’s natural sphere of influence
is limited to Europe. However, by moving outside of Europe and launching a successful
mission, the EU has shown that there is a shrinking distinction between regional
and global actors in the realm of peacekeeping missions. Though there are certainly
differences between regional and global actors, as regional actors like the EU begin
launching missions outside of their traditional spheres of influence, the question arises
asking where the line of demarcation is between the role of a regional and global actor
in the field of international security.
Part Three: Impacts on International Relations

The research conducted for this paper has major implications for the study of
international relations, specifically when it comes to the study of the similarities and
differences between regional and global international institutions. International relations
scholars have been researching this difference for years, especially in regards to the
organizations’ respective abilities to carry out their security policies, and this thesis
attempts to illuminate some facets of this debate.
200
First, the finding in this project that regional and global organizations have nearly
identical ways of planning and implementing peacekeeping missions is potentially a large
step for this area of study. If this finding is true, it would force a shift in the substance of
the academic debate about these different organization types, away from how they are
different to how they can each improve their peacekeeping abilities. Though similarities
between the EU and the UN may not be too surprising given the fact that the EU
worked closely with the UN on military missions in the past, thus ensuring some form
of operational similarities, a shift in the debate could be meaningful, as it would force
scholars to search for ways to improve peacekeeping missions rather than concentrate on
the differences between regional and global actors.
Another way that this research impacts the study of international relations is by forcing
a rethinking of traditional ideas of sovereignty. Opinions on the topic of sovereignty
range from thinking that it should be nearly absolute to ideas about the abolition of
sovereignty completely. By analyzing peacekeeping missions, this paper inherently
discusses the idea of limited sovereignty, as peacekeeping missions could not exist
without limited sovereignty. However, this paper also touches on a new area of
discussion, which is the debate around the question of how sovereignty is defined in a
regionalized world. Though, ultimately, this paper endorses the idea that regional and
global actors implement peacekeeping missions in very similar ways, it is impossible
to deny that there are substantive differences between the two types of organizations.
Where the UN has some form of jurisdiction in just about every country in the world, an
organization like the EU only has the slightest connection to places like Africa and the
Middle East, both places where the EU is now launching military and civilian operations.
Should a regional actor be intervening in states that are not only non-members of
that organization, but also not part of their natural region of influence? Though some
might claim that EU member states’ histories of colonization in both areas gives them a
legitimate claim to act there, this paper does not venture to provide an answer to that
question. Hopefully, the raising of this question will spur further research and debate.
201
More studies on the topic of similarities and differences of regional and global actors
need to be conducted, of course, as it is unclear whether or not the thesis holds up to
scrutiny in cases other than the ones presented in this paper. However, if further research
supports the thesis that regional and global international organizations have more
similarities in implementing peacekeeping missions than they do differences and that the
three factors researched here are the primary determining factors in the effectiveness or
ineffectiveness of a peacekeeping mission, then this thesis could have a major influence
on future academic studies of crisis management.
Part Four: Policy Recommendations

The research conducted for this paper is not toothless in the policy world, as analyzing
the findings can support policy recommendations to make peacekeeping missions more
effective in the future. The primary policy conclusion that can be drawn from this research
is that, when debating the launch of a peacekeeping force, different organizations need
to, first, decide whether the mission is worth launching and, second, determine what kind
of a force will be needed. That is not the only recommendation that can be drawn from
the research, however, as there are also implications involving the cooperation between
regional and global actors.
Peacekeeping versus Peace-Enforcement. If an organization finds that a crisis situation

is severe enough to warrant the launching of a military mission, then that organization
must dedicate itself to the mission completely and make sure that it is launching an
appropriate mission for the situation. Applying the term “appropriate mission” can be
difficult, however, as there are different types of missions that an organization can launch,
such as a peace-enforcement mission rather than peacekeeping.
As discussed in chapter two, peace-enforcement is the “forcible military interven[tion]

by one or more states into a third country with the express objective of maintaining
or restoring… peace and security by ending a violent conflict within that country,”132
clearly differentiated from peacekeeping, which is “designed to preserve the peace…
202
where fighting has been halted, and to assist in implementing agreements achieved
by the peacemakers.”133 When analyzing the three factors from this thesis, keeping
the differences between these types of missions in mind will be important for decision-
makers, because determining whether to launch a peacekeeping or peace-enforcement
mission could be the difference between launching a successful and a failed mission. For
example, if a peacekeeping mission is launched in an area where a peace-enforcement
mission is needed, then the peacekeeping force may be overwhelmed and doomed to a
failed mission, if not a larger tragedy; on the other hand, if a peace-enforcement mission
is launched in an area where only peacekeeping is required, the overwhelming show of
force could destabilize the peace process and lead to a more drawn-out conflict than was
necessary. If the type of organization that launches the mission is irrelevant, as this study
supports, then the discussion would come down to which organization is best prepared
to launch the appropriate type of mission. This limits the debate, thus making it easier for
leaders to make decisions and increasing the likelihood of an effective mission.
International Organizations’ Cooperation. As the data in this paper show, the EU

would not have been nearly as successful as it was without political arrangements with
organizations like NATO, which leads to the policy recommendation that regional actors
should continue to look for partnerships with larger regional or even global actors to
increase the influence and effectiveness of both organizations. The more broad that
these connections are, the more powerful the international community’s peacekeeping
structures will be. For the EU, the example of this partnership is Berlin Plus, the political
arrangement that allowed it to be successful in Concordia and to continue launching
peacekeeping missions since 2003. Berlin Plus boosted the EU’s capabilities at times
when it could not launch its own missions effectively, and though the EU is proud of
its independent military capabilities, Berlin Plus enabled the EU to begin launching
peacekeeping operations. NATO benefitted from this agreement, as well, because it
was able to share the burden of peacekeeping with other, reliable partners, thus leaving
it free to concentrate on certain missions rather than being spread too thinly. Global
organizations, were they to begin entering into similar agreements with regional actors,
203
would find the same benefits, given the condition that those regional actors are prepared
to take on the responsibility of peacekeeping missions, which not all of them are.
Regardless, the fact remains that Berlin Plus shows how successful a political arrangement
between regional actors can be, and as the EU grows and begins working with the UN
on more cases, such as in the case of Operation Artemis, it will show that a peacekeeping
agreement between a regional and a global organization can have similar benefits.
Part Five: Human Consequences

Ultimately, international relations theorists do their work to help improve the lives of
people around the globe, whether that is to better understand world economics to help
prevent poverty, to better understand international law so that human rights might
be extended to everyone on Earth, or to better understand wars so that they might
be stopped from happening in the future. This paper was written with the intention of
helping to accomplish that goal by presenting a new way to view peacekeeping missions
and the circumstances that surround them. Though some may validly view the findings
in this paper to support a policy of non-intervention in cases where conditions are not
ideal, such as in the case of Cyprus, an equally valid reading of the data could support a
rethinking of the ways in which peacekeeping missions are launched and a reemphasis
of the importance of political and diplomatic factors in peacekeeping missions.
There are certainly examples of missions where peacekeeping and peace-enforcement

missions have failed, sometimes tragically as in the cases of Rwanda and Somalia, but
to let faith in the ability of peacekeeping missions to accomplish their goals diminish
would also be tragic. This study, along with the research that will hopefully follow, can
help the organizations that launch peacekeeping missions to become more tuned to the
needs of these missions, thereby helping to make these missions run more effectively;
if this happens, the new, increasingly effective missions have the potential to save
countless lives.
204
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209
ENDNOTES
1 Two of these factors, the “level of animosity” and “initial conditions,” were adapted from variables
used by Doyle and Sambanis in Making War & Building Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006).
2 O’Neill, Terence, “UN Peacekeeping: Expectations and Reality,” in Irish Studies in International
Affairs 13 (2002): 201-214.
3 Howard, Lise Morjé, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars (Washington D.C.: Cambridge University Press,
2007).
4 Hill, Christopher, “The Capabilities-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe’s International Role,”
in Journal of Common Market Studies 31.3 (Sept. 1993): 305-328.
5 Tavares, Rodrigo, Regional Security: The Capacity of International Organizations (London:
Routledge, 2010).
6 Creed, Fiona, “The EU at the UN: Two-Part Harmony?” in Radharc 3 (2002): 149-157.
7 Hoffmeister, Frank, The United Nations and the European Union: An Even Stronger Partnership
(The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2006).
8 Doyle, Michael W. and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War & Building Peace (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2006).
9 Ibid., p. 4.
10 Coleman, Katharina P., International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of
International Legitimacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
11 Ibid., p. 4.
12 Howard, Lise, p. xi.

13 Grevi, Giovanni, Damien Helly, and Daniel Keohane, “European Security and Defense Policy: The First
10 Years,” in European Union Institute for Security Studies (2009).
14 Emerson, Michael and Eva Gross. Evaluating the EU’s Crisis Missions in the Balkans(Brussels: Centre
for European Policy Studies, 2007).
15 Gross, Eva, “Civilian Military Missions in the Western Balkans,” in Evaluating the EU’s Crisis Missions
in the Balkans, ed. Michael Emerson and Eva Gross (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies,
2007).
16 Ibid., p. 135.
17 Odell, John S., “Case Study Methods in International Political Economy,” in International Studies
Perspectives 2(2001): 161-176.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
210
20 Patrick, Richard A., Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict: 1963-1971 (Waterloo: University of
Waterloo Department of Geography, 1976), p. 8.
21 “Basic Facts,” in Republic of Macedonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 September 2010. <http://
www.mfa.gov.mk/default1.aspx?ItemID=288>.
22 Odell, John S., “Case Study Methods in International Political Economy,” in International Studies
Perspectives 2(2001): 161-176.
23 Reynolds, Paul, “Blair’s ‘International Community’ Doctrine,” BBC News, 6 March 2004 <http://news.
bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3539125.stm>.
24 U.N. Security Council, “The Cyprus Question: Resolution of 4 March 1964” (S/5575), 4 March 1964.
25 Xydis, Stephen G. Cyprus (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967), p. 567.
26 Ertekün, Necati Münir, In Search of a Negotiated Cyprus Settlement (Nicosia: ULUS Matbaacilik Ltd.,
1981), p. 1.
27 Kyle, Keith. Cyprus (London : Minority Rights Group, 1984).
28 Küçük, Fazil, “The Motherland,” in Halkin Sesi, 17 August 1594.
29 Stegenga, James A., The United Nations Force in Cyprus (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1968), p. 19.
30 Grivas, Georgios, The Memoirs of General Grivas, ed. Charles Foley (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
1964), p. 208.
31 Ibid.
32 Anastasiou, Harry, The Broken Olive Branch: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and the Quest for Peace
in Cyprus, vol. 1 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008), p. 3.
33 Bartlett, Margaret W., Cyprus, the United Nations, and the Quest for Unity (Cambridgeshire:
Melrose Books, 2007), p. 14.
34 Royal Institute of International Affairs, Cyprus: The Background (Oxford University Press, Jan. 1959),
p. 19.
35 Crashaw, Nancy, The Cyprus Revolt: An Account of the Struggle for Union with Greece (London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1978), p. 274.
37 Grivas, Georgios, General Grivas on Guerilla Warfare. Trans. A. A. Pallis (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1962).
38 Ibid. Guerilla Warfare had information about how to construct home-made bombs (pp. 101-103)
and contained information regarding “special anti-Turkish groups” (p. 97) and information on the
most effective way to fight the Turks (pp. 97-99).
211
39 Mirbagheri, Farid, Cyprus and International Peacemaking (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 13.
1968), p. 56.
41 UN Document S/5561, 25 February 1964.
42 “Cyprus Treaty of Alliance,” Nicosia: 16 August 1960. Article 4.
43 Ibid., Additional Protocol no. 1(I).
44 Kyle, Keith, “Cyprus,” in Minority Rights Group, report no. 30, 1984, p. 9.
45 Ertekün, Necati Münir, In Search of a Negotiated Cyprus Settlement (Lefkosa: ULUS Matbaacihk
Ltd., 1981), p. 2.
46 The Zürich and London Agreements, adopted 19 February 1959, Article (a) section 5.
47 Ibid., Article (a) section 8.
48 Makarios III, “Suggested Measures for Facilitating the Smooth Functioning of the State and for the
Removal of Certain Causes of Inter-communal Friction.”
49 Patrick, Richard A. Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict: 1963-1971 (Waterloo: University of
Waterloo Department of Geography, 1976), p. 46.
1968), p. 72.
51 Ibid., pp. 72-78.
52 UN Document S/5679. 2 May 1964. p. 1.

53 Ibid., p. 2.
54 Stegenga, p. 84.
55 Ibid., p. 84.
56 Ibid., p. 85. Via Cyprus Mail (newspaper), 28 May 1964. p. 1.
57 Ibid., p. 85. Via The Times (London), 5 February 1966.
58 UN Document S/5910. 21 August 1964. Annex A.

59 UN Document S/6228. 11 March 1965. p. 15, paragraph 50.
60 UN Document S/6102. 12 December 1964. p. paragraph 132.
61 UN Document S/6228. 11 March 1965. pp. 11-12, paragraphs 30-32.
62 Ibid., pp. 13-14, paragraph 43.
212
63 Allan, James H., Peacekeeping: Outspoken Observations by a Field Officer (Westport: Praeger,
1996), pp. 24-25.
64 Bartlett, Margaret W., Cyprus, the United Nations, and the Quest for Unity (Cambridgeshire:
Melrose Books, 2007), pp. 40-41.
1968), p. 83.
66 Ibid., p. 83.
67 Ibid., p. 82.
68 Ibid., p. 19.
69 Tremayne, Penelope, Below the Tide (London: Hutchinson, 1958), p. 10.

70 Mirbagheri, Farid, Cyprus and International Peacemaking (New York: Routledge, 1998) p. 28.
71 Ibid., p. 28.
73 Mirbagheri, p. 29.
74 Ibid., p. 31.
75 Ertekün, Necati Münir, In Search of a Negotiated Cyprus Settlement (Nicosia: ULUS Matbaacihk Ltd.,
1981) pp. 30-31.
76 UN Security Council Resolution 353, adopted unanimously, 20 July 1974.
77 Mirbagheri, p. 37.
78 UN Security Council Resolution 186, adopted unanimously, 4 March 1964.
79 Kyrris, Costas P., History of Cyprus (Nicosia: Nicocles Publishing House, 1985), p. 314.
80 United Nations Commentary on the Bi-Communal Problems: Report of the UN Mediator Galo Plaza to
the Secretary-General, 1965. paragraph 173.
81 Ibid., paragraph 118.
82 Templar, Marcus Alexander, “Appendix: A History of FYROM (or Balkan) Slavs Compared to the History
of Greek Macedonians and Albanians,” in Claiming Macedonia, ed. George C. Papavizas (Jefferson,
NC: McFarland & Co., 2006), p. 243.
83 2002 FYROM Census, via: CIA. CIA World Fact Book 2010 (New York: Skyhorse, 2009), p. 416.
84 UN Security Council Resolution 743, 21 February 1992.
213
85 UN Security Council Resolution 983, 31 March 1995.

86 Ibid.
87 UN Document S/1995/222. pp. 13, paragraph 42.

88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., pp. 14, paragraph 44.
90 UN Document SC/6648, “Security Council Fails to Extend Mandate of United Nations Preventive
Deployment Force in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” 25 February 1999, pp. 9-10.
91 Ibid., pp. 10.
92 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan), Press Room: Statements. <http://www.mofa.
gov.tw/webapp/ct.asp?xItem=2284&ctNode=1902&mp=6>.
93 Johansen, Karina, “West should step up Macedonia support,” in Institute for War and Peace
Reporting, Balkan Crisis Report No. 228, Part 1, 21 March 2001.
94 Peake, Gordon, “Power Sharing in a Police Car: The Intractable Difficulty of Police Reform in Kosovo
and Macedonia,” in From Power Sharing to Democracy: Post-Conflict Institutions in Ethnically
Divided Societies, ed. Sid Noel (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), p. 131.
95 Ibid., p. 132.
96 Ohrid Framework Agreement, Article 2, Section 1.

97 Ibid., Article 6, Section 2.
98 Brunnbauer, Ulf, “The Implementation of the Ohrid Agreement: Ethnic Macedonian Resentments,” in
Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Issue 1 (2002): 1-24, pp. 2-4.
99 Ibid., p. 2.
100 Skaric, Svetomir, “Ohrid Agreement and Minority Communities in Macedonia,” in Prospects of
Multiculturality in Western Balkan States, ed. Bašic, Goran and Vojislav Stanovcic, (Ethnicity Research
Center, 2004), p. 95.
101 Ibid., p. 95.
102 Gallagher, Tom, The Balkans in the New Millennium: In the Shadow of War and Peace (London:
Routledge, 2005), pp.106-108.
103 “Statement by the Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson, Deploring the Death of a British
Soldier,” NATO Press Release (2001) 118, 27 August 2001 <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2001/p01-
118e.htm>.
104 “NATO to Continue Supporting the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” NATO Press Release
(2002) 131, 29 November 2002 <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-131e.htm>.
214
105 Gross, Eva, “Civilian and Military Missions in the Western Balkans,” in Evaluating the EU’s Crisis
Missions in the Balkans, ed. Michael Emerson and Eva Gross (Brussels: Centre for European Policy
Studies, 2007), p. 133.
106 Ibid., p. 133.
107 Missiroli, Antonio, “EU–NATO Cooperation in Crisis Management: No Turkish Delight for ESDP,” in
Security Dialogue 33.1 (2002): 9-26. p. 14
108 Cameron, Fraser, An Introduction to European Foreign Policy, (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 87.
109 “Berlin Plus Agreement,” European Parliament. 10 November 2010, <http://www.europarl.europa.
eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/berlinplus_/berlinplus_en.pdf>.
110 Gross, Eva, “Operation Concordia (fYROM),” in European Security and Defense Policy: The First 10
Years (1999-2009), ed. Giovanni Grevi, Damien Helly and Daniel Keohane (Paris: The European Union
Institute for Security Studies, 2009), p. 176.
111 Howorth, Jolyon, Security and Defence Policy in the European Union (Houndmills: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007), p. 232.
112 Gross, Eva, “Operation Concordia (fYROM),” pp. 177-178.
113 “Council Joint Action 2003/92/CFSP of 27 January 2003 on the European Union military operation in
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” 2003 O.J. (L34/26), paragraph 2.
114 Kekic, Laza, “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM),” in Balkan Reconstruction, ed.
Daniel Daianu and Thanos Veremis (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p. 189.
115 “Basic Economic Data,” National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, updated 4 November 2010,
<http://www.nbrm.gov.mk/default-EN.asp?ItemID=89A26FA4B8AA8F4CA6CF243F984FF307>.
116 Ibid.
117 Kekic, Laza, p. 195

118 Ibid.
119 Kim, Julie, “Macedonia (FYROM): Post-Conflict Situation and U.S. Policy,” in CRS Report for
Congress, 17 June 2005. p. 7.
120 “Macedonia: No Room for Complacency,” in International Crisis Group, Europe Report No. 149, 23
October 2003. p. 8.
121 Partos, Gabriel, “Q & A: Macedonia violence,” BBC News, 8 September 2003, <http://news.bbc.
co.uk/2/hi/europe/3091300.stm>.
122 Ibid.
123 Grillot, Suzette R., Wolf-Christian Paes, Hans Risser, and Shelly O. Stoneman, “A Fragile Peace: Guns
and Security in Post-conflict Macedonia,” in United Nations Development Programme, June 2004,
p. 25.
215
124 Wood, Nicholas, “Macedonian Forces Clash with Militants,” BBC News, 7 September 2003, <news.
bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/3088520.stm>.
125 International Crisis Group, pp. 32-35.
126 Grillot, Suzette R., Wolf-Christian Paes, Hans Risser, and Shelly O. Stoneman, pp. 7-10.
127 Missiroli, Antonio, “Euros for ESDP: Financing EU Operations,” European Union Institute for Security
Studies. Occasional Paper No. 45, June 2003, pp. 13-14.
128 Cameron, Fraser, p. 36.

129 Howard, Lise Morjé, p. 88.
130 Ibid., 92.
131 UN Security Council Resolution 1484, 30 May 2003.

132 Coleman, Katharina P., International Organisations and Peace Enforcement: The Politics of
International Legitimacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 4.
133 “United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines,” in United Nations Department
of Peacekeeping Operations (2008), p. 16.
Dead Letters, Dead Authors, Live Readers
SARAH THERMOND
Department of Comparative Literature
Associate Professor Michael Du Plessis
217
In her essay “The Book as One of Its Own Characters,” Hélène Cixous declares, “There is
always a letter in the Book, the Book writes a letter… The Book is written in the place
of the letter that one will ever write” (Cixous 420). The writer of both the letter and the
book are separated from the recipient of their text by several possible barriers: language,
location, or time. Cixous is especially concerned with what the written word means in
relation to presence and absence. A letter—or a book—is a medium that speaks an
individual’s words and thoughts in spite of the author’s absence and possible ceasing-to-
be through death. Words of the past are brought back to life through the act of reading.
The idea of the past reopening through writing closely relates to Giorgio Agamben’s
work on the relationship between text and potentiality. As he explains, “The science of
letters marks the transition from the inexpressible to the expressible… from potentiality
to actuality” (Agamben 247). Writing can be a tool of actualizing, whether that means
reenacting something from the past or creating something that had only ever been
a possibility before; it is, in a way, a kind of necromancy. For theorist Roland Barthes,
however, reading is the act with the greater power of recreation. For him, the separation
Cixous identifies—and that is explored in stories like Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the
Scrivener” and E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman”—estranges the author so much from
his work that literature itself becomes the author’s death, and the reader’s birth.
Cixous claims that letters render us “divided, disordered, displaced in place, passed by
in the very moment” (Cixous 420). Already, the tension between presence and absence
is clear. How is it possible to be at the same time in one’s proper place and to be
displaced from it? This aspect of the letter reminds us of the “formula” that Bartleby
frequently invokes throughout Melville’s story: “I prefer not to” (Melville 10). This
mantra of Bartleby’s—used to avoid being assigned any distasteful tasks by the story’s
narrator—is comparable to the equivocal formula “no more than,” which Agamben calls
“the technical term with which the Skeptics denoted their most characteristic experience:
epokhe, suspension” (Agamben 256). Bartleby creates a suspension between pure
acceptance and rejection of his employer’s requests: by not giving a definitive answer,
Bartleby creates for himself a possibility other than yes or no. In the same way, letters
218
create a new space between past and present. Cixous elaborates, “At the moment I
write I have passed. I am past, you are future thus past, neither the one nor the other
is ever present at the same instant. Deconstruction of the illusion of communion”
(Cixous 421). Even as Cixous claims to show the deconstruction of communication by
exposing the dichotomy between past and present inherent in letter-writing, a new,
shared space is created. Even though she identifies the reader as being of the “future,”
Cixous addresses the reader in the present tense: “you are future.” Clichéd expressions
about inventions being “the future” of a field aside, the future is precisely that which
is not yet in existence, and cannot be described in terms other than “will be.” A
new time-space—being the future while in the present—is created and suspended
between those already in existence.
In spite of this new time-space that exists in the reading of the letter, the facts of
separation between the writer and the reader—the sender and recipient—remain, and
prompt Cixous to declare, “[Letters] are always virtually posthumous. Between departure
and arrival how much time, how many years, and even death” (Cixous 420). While
the letter itself occupies a new time-space, the time that passed between the acts of
writing and reading remains. This is an especially relevant point to the story of Bartleby,
who—the narrator tells us—is rumored to have worked in the “Dead Letter Office at
Washington” (Melville 34). For the narrator, this seems to explain Bartleby’s eccentric
personality, which the narrator describes as an aspect of “pallid hopelessness” (Melville
34). The only letters Bartleby would have encountered at this job would be ones with
the ultimate barrier between sender and recipient: death. Melville’s narrator imagines
the impact of being immersed in such letters, “Sometimes from out of the folded paper
the pale clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for molders in the grave… pardon
for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping… On errands of
life, these letters speed to death” (Melville 34). The narrator believes that Bartleby’s
psychological condition could be due entirely to the trauma of realizing this separation,
this death of possibility, the impossibility of actualization.
219
As Agamben points out in his essay “Bartleby, or On Contingency,” however, this

diagnosis does not explain entirely why Bartleby’s psychosis manifests itself in the
suspended act of “I would prefer not to.” For Agamben, the explanation of how these
dead letters affected Bartleby is rooted in the concepts of suspension and potentiality
themselves. Agamben sees the figure of Bartleby as a sort of prophet of potentiality, but
in an untraditional way. He describes potentiality in terms of Aristotle’s image of the
blank writing tablet, and then claims that there is an opposite to this image of “pure
potentiality” (Agamben 245). He explains, “The ‘potential not to’ is the cardinal secret
of the Aristotelian doctrine of potentiality, which transforms every potentiality in itself
into an impotentiality” (Agamben 245). Bartleby’s formula, which opens the possibility of
not doing anything the narrator asks, is then a manifestation of the potential not to, the
dark side of Aristotle’s blank slate. Bartleby does not represent the division between past
and present, but instead the possibility of something not to happen, impotentiality itself.
Agamben relates this to Bartleby’s employment at the Dead Letters Office:
Undelivered letters are the ciphers of joyous events that could have been, but
never took place. What took place, instead, was the opposite possibility. On
the writing tablet of the celestial scribe, the letter, the act of writing marks
the passage from potentiality to actuality… but for precisely this reason,
every letter marks the nonoccurrence of something: every letter is always in
this sense a ‘dead letter.. This is the intolerable truth that Bartleby learned.
(Agamben 269)
Every time an event—or even a word—is actualized, its potential to occur in another
way and its potential not to occur at all are eliminated. Bartleby, as the patron saint of
impotentiality recognizes that actualization is the death of the potential not to, of the
preference not to. For Agamben, this means that any letter—a medium that by its nature
actualizes and creates its meaning and space for communication—would be equally
detrimental to the scribe’s psyche.
220
Roland Barthes’ examination of the role of the author seems to support Agamben’s
conclusion that there is a death inherent in all writing, indeed in the system of writing
itself. In his essay “The Death of the Author,” Barthes asserts that “writing is the
destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” (Barthes 142). He takes the notion
of writing as destruction a step further than Cixous; Cixous claims that writing serves
as a medium through which the dead voice can be manifested in new form. Barthes
instead claims that the author and his voice die automatically in the creation of text.
He elaborates that in “the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs,
the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins” (Barthes
142). As Cixous points out, the linguistic symbols that make up letters have a life in and
of themselves and are not dependent on their author’s living body and voice to convey
meaning. The symbol, then, is something separate from the voice. For Barthes, this means
that when a symbol is used, the voice is necessarily set aside and unused. If the author’s
own voice is not the one speaking, what control do they retain over their work?
Barthes’ conclusion is that without the author’s own voice being invoked, the author’s
total control over a text is broken. Just as linguistic symbols have a meaning apart from
the author’s person, the literary work itself takes on a life. Barthes explains his view
of the author’s relationship to text in terms of history. According to him, ethnographic
studies indicate that most storytellers of past cultures were credited as mediators, not
creators; this can be seen in figures such as the shaman, or even the divinely-inspired
epic poets of Ancient Greece (Barthes, 142). Barthes sees our focus on the author as
a modern side-effect of the Reformation and Western culture’s—particularly Anglo
culture’s—increased valuation of the individual.
The work of art—formerly an entity beyond human grasping—is centered on this figure,
as evidenced by Barthes’ observation, “The explanation of a work is always sought in
the man or woman who produced it” (Barthes 143). The story of Bartleby is one of many
that falls into this trap of intentional fallacy, of striving for an interpretation of a literary
work rooted in Melville himself. One of the popular interpretations of the short story is
that Bartleby the scribe is a figure for the modern American writer, stripped of his creative
221
powers and reduced to a listless life of copying others. Gilles Deleuze is quick to refute
this theory and opens his essay on the story, “‘Bartleby’ is neither a metaphor for the
writer nor the symbol of anything whatsoever” (Deleuze 68). Here, the fact that the story
and main character share a name is especially useful. Bartleby the character cannot be
seen as a pure stand-in for Melville and his real-life concerns, and by extension, Melville’s
short story should not automatically be interpreted as a reflection of such concerns. While
the interpretation of Bartleby as a metaphor for writing is a valid one, it should not be
the only one accepted merely because it incorporates authorial relevance: Bartleby—like
“Bartleby”—is his own man.
It is surprising that Bartleby is so universally singled out as the character that could
serve as Melville’s mouthpiece, given that the short story makes use of another device
that frequently leads to intentional fallacies: the I-voice. After all, at some point in life,
most people are asked to write something in their own words, and when they put pen to
paper and write the word “I,” they mean themselves. Barthes believes that the modern
emphasis on the author as creator has led readers to apply the I-voice liberally, and
assume that the I-voice ruling the literary work is same as in the kinds of works that
Barthes describes:
The author still reigns in histories of literature, biographies of writers, interviews,

magazines, as in the very consciousness of men of letters anxious to write their
person and their work through diaries and memoirs. The image of literature to be
found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author. (Barthes 143)
As enumerated above, the author’s voice is imagined to exist equally in their works and
in their actual I-voice artifacts such as personal records and journals. The symbol, as
the grave of the voice, prevents the clear difference between voices that we recognize
in speech. It is much easier to tell apart the voices of two speakers in real life than two
speakers in text, because—while there is still a possibility of variation of “voice” in
writing—the human voice is capable of greater nuance of tone and identifying features
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than ink on a page. As Barthes points out, “Language knows a ‘subject,’ not a ‘person’”
(Barthes 145), and that subject could be anyone as far as language is concerned.
This complication of the I-voice in Melville’s story might actually serve as the greatest
proof that Bartleby is not a mere stand-in for Melville; after all, all of the conclusions
that Agamben and other critics use to analyze the figure of Bartleby are based on
observations made by the nameless narrator of Melville’s story. We cannot take for
granted that the I-voice speaking of Bartleby reflects the author’s intention in crafting
Bartleby because—as we have explored—the I-voice is another such character of
Melville’s conscious invention.
Sometimes, the author deliberately plays off of the reader’s inherent relation to and
trust in the I-voice. In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman,” for example, the reader is
misled several times as to who the story is being told by. The short story opens with
a letter labeled, “Nathanael to Lothar” (Hoffmann 85), and we are promptly thrown
into the story following Nathanael’s I-voice. We are then told a deeply personal tale
of Nathanael’s childhood and how a lawyer named Coppelius came to be associated
with the nightmarish figure of the Sandman, a tale that relies heavily on Nathanael’s
own childish confusion and literalizing of his parents’ words for its coherency. While
Nathanael’s claim that Coppelius has returned to torment him disguised as a barometer-
seller might seem a mere hypothesis to the reader at this point, the logic of the claim
in Nathanael’s mind is clear to us, and we are willing to entertain further evidence that
Coppelius is, indeed, such a terrifying figure.
Our first confusion arises when the next letter is shown, from Clara to Nathanael.
Clara writes, “Intending to send off your last letter to my brother Lothar, you addressed
it to me instead of to him. I opened the letter joyfully and realized your mistake”
(Hoffmann 93). The shift to Clara’s voice is already somewhat jolting, especially when
she begins denouncing Nathanael’s conclusions and calling into question the reader’s
only information (Hoffmann 93-95). More striking, however, is the fact that the letter
miscarried and was read by the wrong person. Cixous claims that all books are letters—
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or substitutes for letters that will never be written and read—and therefore all readers
are interlopers of someone else’s mail; this is even more true when the book itself is in
epistolary form. In this instance, however, Clara also becomes guilty of this voyeurism.
Nathanael-as-author has already proven himself an untrustworthy source, for even
though the heading that opens the story claims Nathanael is writing to Lothar, the
letter never makes it to its intended party. Even if Nathanael-the-author performed
the act of writing a letter to Lothar, the separation built into the medium of the letter
opens up a space for mistakes, and for a letter written with the intention of being read
by Lothar to in fact go to someone discussed in the letter. The first distance created in
Hoffmann’s narrative is that of error: the I-voice’s mistake gives us doubts and forces us
to reevaluate Nathanael as a source of information.
The second confusion is an even greater shift in voice. The story continues to with
another attempt by Nathanael to contact Lothar. Again, communication fails, for Clara
never receives a direct answer to her insistent letter. After these three letters, a new
voice announces, “No invention could be stranger or more extraordinary than the events
which befell my poor friend, the young student Nathanael, and which I have undertaken
to recount to you, dear reader” (Hoffmann 97). Suddenly, the letter of the text seems
explicit: this friend of Nathanael’s is writing to us, the reader. Because the voice classifies
itself as someone within the story, we are less likely to fall into the trap of assuming the
I-voice is Hoffmann himself. Instead, we look inside the story for answers, and perhaps
theorize that the voice belongs to Lothar, and that this text is in some way a response to
Nathanael’s last letter to him. Nathanael’s communication is again foiled when the voice
announces itself to be a friend of Lothar’s, rather than Lothar himself (Hoffmann 98).
Furthermore, the new narrative voice claims to have collected the three letters included
in the text and organized them because he was unable to choose how to begin the story
and thus “decided not to begin at all” (Hoffmann 98). Cixous’ view of the book as a letter
is even further complicated: what we are left with as readers is Hoffmann giving voice to
a nameless narrator giving voice to a story as well as supplementing the story by giving
voice to others through letters. These narrative layers ensure that no voices ever speak to
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each other; no piece of writing in the story ever gets a direct response, and we as readers
are—by the nature of writing as a sender-recipient barrier—likewise rendered mute.
This patchwork of voices is revealing of writing as a system in two ways that Cixous
and Agamben would be fascinated with. First, as we find out at the end of the story,
the layers of narrative voice allow Nathanael to temporarily come back from the death
he meets at the story’s conclusion, when he jumps from a tower (Hoffmann 118). He
is brought back to life metaphorically through the telling of his tale, of course, but the
device of opening the story with his letters without revealing that another I-voice is
mediating between the letters and reader gives him the illusion of life; for a time, we
believe that Nathanael is our living, guiding voice. When we hear him spoken of by
the official narrator in past tense, Nathanael becomes like Bartleby: suspended in time
and possibility.
The variety of voices is also interesting in its own right. According to Barthes, all texts
are such mixes, not the pure voice of an Author-God figure (Barthes 147). He goes
further to claim, “A text is made of multiple writings… but there is one place where
this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the
author” (Barthes 148). Instead of digging through the layers of narrative voice and
examining how the author deployed his structure to create meaning, the search for
meaning should be left to the reader, who is—after all—the only place where all of
these voices register with equal force. The author can never entirely escape his own
voice; when he creates a new voice through writing, his own becomes buried in the
language of symbols. The reader, instead, as he relates to literature, is “simply that
someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text
is constituted” (Barthes 148). The reader doesn’t have their own voice in relation to
a work, and is therefore the perfect recipient of all of the dead voices, of all of the
dead letters.
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Barthes ends his essay by urging us to work towards a new focus of literary theory. “The
Author,” he writes, “is always conceived of as the past of his own book” (Barthes 145),
a sentiment that seems to echo Cixous’ claim that she is past the moment she begins
writing. Literary criticism in the present, then, should focus not on the already-past
sender, but on the present-recipient. He concludes, “We know that to give writing its
future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost
of the death of the Author” (Barthes 148). Like Bartleby and Nathanael, interpretation
is an act always performed in suspension, and always inconclusive; it should not be
forcibly anchored to only one meaning by the weight of the dead voice.
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REFERENCES
Agamben, Giorgio. “Bartleby, or On Contingency.” Potentialities: Collected Essays

in Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1999. 243-271.
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Image, Music, Text. Ed. and trans. Stephen
Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 142-148.
Cixous, Hélène. “The Book as One of Its Own Characters.” Trans. Catherine Porter. New
Literary History 3.33 (Summer 2002): 403-34.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Bartleby; or, The Formula.” Essays Critical and Clinical. Trans. Daniel
W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
68-90.
Hoffmann, E.T.A. “The Sandman.” The Golden Pot and Other Tales. Trans. Ritchie
Robertson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 85-118.
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby the Scrivener,” Melville’s Short Novels. Ed. Dan McCall.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. 3-34.
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Reimagining the Figueroa Corridor, 1960-2005:
Growth Politics, Policy, and Displacement
DANIEL WU
Department of Sociology
Associate Professor Leland Saito
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INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY: A TOUR OF THE FIGUEROA CORRIDOR

The first time I heard “gentrification,” I was shocked at the emotional turmoil it caused in
a local public hearing. Working-class residents organized and testified against the threat
of being displaced from their homes and businesses. Developers and planners framed the
issue in terms of trendy restaurants and a revitalized city.
There wasn’t a better example of gentrification than less than fifteen blocks north
of campus, in the heart of the Figueroa Corridor. Just south of downtown L.A., the
Convention Center, the Staples Center, and the newly constructed, $2.5 billion L.A. Live
project glow colorfully at night with people, expensive restaurants and bars, congestion,
and, of course, L.A. Lakers fans. Supported by over half a billion dollars of city subsidies
and aid, the entire complex was predicted to create jobs, stimulate tourism and
businesses, and transform L.A.’s downtown into a vibrant entertainment metropolis, a
west coast Times Square, with glitz, glamour, and profits.
Chicago School urban ecology would explain this development through free markets,
which create urban organizations that benefit all. In contrast, this paper takes an urban
historical and political economic view of the three developments, uncovering a growth
coalition transforming in a 40-year period, amidst shifting demographics, neoliberal
political-economic shifts, and inter-urban competition.
A historical theme is the displacement of local community residents (often working

class people of color) to make space for an exclusive reimagination of the city. This
displacement occurs by both the demolition of the existing housing to build new
developments and indirect displacement as the attractiveness of the neighborhood
draws more expensive housing and stores in. By utilizing over 40 years of newspaper
(The Los Angeles Times and The Sentinel) and city archives from the Community
Redevelopment Agency and the Los Angeles Public Library, this research historically
periodizes urban transformation in the Figueroa Corridor, while integrating an in-depth
theoretical review of urban political economy.
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Additionally, this research analyzes a unique data set (Ethington et al. 2000) that tracks
census characteristics in select tracts in Los Angeles from 1960-2000. The benefit of
this dataset is that it makes census categories and tracts consistent across time, using a
proportional mapping tool. By spatially creating two areas of consideration (Area 1 and
Area 2), the analysis compares and contrasts demographic and land characteristics across
time. The two areas have been constructed through proximity to the three developments.
Area 1 includes the Convention Center, Staples Center, and L.A. Live, as well as several
tracts in a one-tract radius, excluding those past the 110 freeway. Those tracts were taken
out due to the historical significance of segregation created by these freeways and in order
to create similar demographic areas in 1960. Area 2 includes tracts two tracts away from
the 3 developments, which serve as a proxy to what the development areas have looked like
without the benefit of investment. Using this spatial contrast technique, the analysis utilizes
descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations (to analyze relationships between variables),
and logistic regressions (to find the statistical significance of the tract characteristics and
the amount of variance explained through the variables selected). The analysis concludes
that there has historically been not only a spatial bias in investment, but also a bias toward
prominently white non-Hispanic (WNH), educated, and white-collar workers in the selected
areas, while excluding Hispanic and black non-Hispanics and blue-collar workers.
To analyze the changes, the data has been broken up into three main historical periods.
1960 to 1980 medians track the first couple of decades before major neoliberalization
of the economy and this period also tracks, very roughly, the Convention Center and
its expansion. 1980 to 2000 medians look at the period after major neoliberalization
and encompasses the two more recent developments: the Staples Center and L.A. Live.
Finally, 1960 to 2000 medians track the entire four-decade period in order to gain a
broader general understanding of the major trends in the two areas.
There are a few important limitations of the data, however. First, since this study takes a
longitudinal look, the variable categories have changed across time. It is for this reason
“Other Non-Hispanic” has not been included. Ethington and colleagues say that though
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the category often includes Asian, it may get mixed up with “Hispanic” throughout time.
Specific data for Asian Pacific Islanders do not exist in this dataset. In terms of race, I
also compile black non-Hispanic and Hispanic together for the purposes of comparison
around race in the analysis in 1960-1980 and 1980-2000. However, I separate the two
in the 1960-2000 bivariate correlation discussion to reveal important differences across
class in the area. Additionally, some of the class data is incomplete. There is no consistent
data that tracks non-high school educated residents or the unemployed. These limitations
are addressed in earnest throughout the discussion.
No previous longitudinal case study has been conducted on the Figueroa Corridor,
specifically examining these three developments with a mixed methods analysis. This
research has implications for urban development, commenting on widespread efforts
to transform downtowns into tourist entertainment districts, amidst larger political
economic shifts and policies, and ultimately urges for a more inclusive urban agenda for
all urban citizens.
Map of Area 1 and Area 2, with respective census tracts. Building 1 is the Convention Center; Building 2 is the Staples
Center, and Building 3 is L.A. Live.
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A THEORETICAL REPRISE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, THE TOURIST CITY, AND

GENTRIFICATION
The political economic framework illustrates the way the Convention Center, the Staples
Center, and L.A. Live have come to fruition through the agency of place-based actors.
Political economists saw the way places and actors had life and agency. Actors did
not simply seek to maximize their individual efficiencies and did not simply consist
of exploitative corporate capitalists. Space was not only a material, but also a social
process. Entrepreneurs, developers, business owners, residents, and other diverse actors
often organized to create their ideas of how and where production and consumption
should occur (Logan and Molotch 1989). But the theory is also one of conflict. Various
social groups push against the organizations of the growth coalition, related to human
desires for identity, community, and physical survival (1989). Thus, political economy’s
emphasis on social and political processes as a way to interpret the physical and spatial
organization of the city provided an expansive view away from market determinism.
Indeed, the agency of local residents, through researching, organizing, coalition building,
and lobbying, is directly demonstrated by the successes of the Community Benefits
Movement all across the country.
The political economic framework is distinct from urban ecology made pervasive by the
Chicago School and Marxist approaches to the city. Chicago School’s urban ecology
emphasized a “biotic” urban form, naturally determined by the equilibrium of a free
market, bias-free supply and demand, technological advance, and its price system. The
urban ecology framework assumed that inequalities between places were simply the
result of differentiation and that the natural urban organization that formed ultimately
created the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals as a result of individual
efficiencies (Park 1921; Peterson 1981). Marxist approaches also saw technical and
economic processes, with the logic of capitalism, tied to economic restructuring. Tied to
investment patterns, some places win and others lose, resulting in uneven patterns of
development and inequality. Michael Peter Smith points out the theoretical similarities
between structural Marxism and urban ecology: both rely too much on structure and
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technical and economic processes—the material forces of production. Both theories do

not acknowledge how these processes are instead embedded and constructed through
specific histories and institutions (Smith 1988).
Political economy, in contrast, pointed to the way both of these theories overlooked
political and social structures, such as political coalitions, and policies that facilitated
dominance of certain actors and places over others. Utilizing the social constructionist
perspective in sociology, political economists argued that markets themselves are the
result of cultures; markets are bound up with human interests in wealth, power, and
affection. Markets work through such interests and the institutions that are derived from
and sustain them. These human forces organize how markets will work, what prices will
be, as well as the behavioral response to prices (Logan and Molotch 1989).
Indeed, price and places themselves were socially constructed, through differences
in wealth, power, and identity. Markets were not value-neutral, but instead wrapped
up in dramatic expression of values and priorities. Through this framework one could
understand the physical and social shape of cities.
Urban Growth Machine Thesis

Building from this political economic perspective, Molotch advances his growth machine
thesis, which sought to describe the city and tie urban outcomes with local structures
and agents. Building on previous studies, the growth machine thesis incorporated
questions of power, social class hierarchy, as well as the actions of urban elites to
describe land use patterns and the distribution of resources within and between localities
(Jonas and Wilson 1999, p. 5). Central to his thesis is the way that “coalitions of land-
based elites, tied to the economic possibilities of place, drive urban politics in their quest
to expand the local economy and accumulate wealth” (Jonas and Wilson 1999). The
main agenda for these urban elites is to secure the preconditions of growth. Strategies
include discursive ones that promote urban boosterism and influence citizens to buy into
a “value free” growth ideology that growth benefits all. Additionally, growth machine
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coalitions persuade local governments to enact policies to attract capital to favor growth
in the context of intense inter-urban competition (Molotch 1976).
But by promoting growth at all costs, local growth coalitions generate conflict between
the use of land and its exchange (Logan and Molotch 1987). Use values are related to
the psychological, social, and community benefits—quality of life issues—created by
land use as a lived place. Indeed, use value is often sacrificed by the growth coalition,
sometimes with neighborhood protest, in favor of the land’s exchange value in
growth possibilities. Legally, the term “highest and best use” of land is employed for
developmental purposes. For better or for worse, neighborhood residents have also
pushed back through suburban incorporation, restrictive zoning, and growth control to
promote use values, while growth coalition elites lobby for more resources for urban
redevelopment and growth. The state intervenes, but, in the context of given class, racial,
and gender hierarchies, often give rise to inequalities within region and between cities,
implicitly favoring some over others (Jonas and Wilson 1999, p. 6). The consequence of
these dynamics is inequality both between and within cities, affecting life chances, such
as employment and education opportunities, and quality of life, such as access to urban
services and amenities (Molotch 1976).
The New Urban Politics

Recognizing the limitations of simply focusing on the local scale, Logan and Molotch
describe broader organizations of power and wealth in which cities are a part (Logan
and Molotch 1987, p. 248), in effect, linking up. This up-linkage resonates with the
New Urban Politics in which urban political economies must be analyzed in the context
of larger economic restructuring and redevelopment that has become part of the late
modern/postmodern condition (Jonas and Wilson 1999, p. 11). The central organizing
logic the New Urban Politics analyzes is neoliberalism.
In a global market economy, neoliberalism is expressed by hyper-mobile capital and the
withdrawal of the state to regulate and provide social services. This withdrawal often
entails the devolution of responsibility to subnational scales, including cities, for-profit,
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and non-profit non-state actors. The immediate impact of neoliberalism, Logan and
Molotch point out, is zero-sum inter-urban competition. Tied to localities, cities can
only competitively attract hyper-mobile capital by creating favorable business climates,
through policies that increase financial incentives and reduce workers’ compensation,
taxes, and environmental regulations (Cox 1999; Logan and Molotch 1989). In this
competition to compete for capital, a global race to the bottom is created (Cox 1999;
Logan and Molotch 1989). The long-term redistributional impact is the “unhinging of the
locus of wealth production from the locus of wealth distribution, creat[ing] the possibility
of completely new systems of uneven development” (Logan and Molotch 1989). Gini
coefficients have risen dramatically with the expansion of neoliberal economic policies,
pointing to the dramatic polarization of wealth both within and between cities and
regions (Harvey 2007).
Gentrification as Middle Range Theory

Gentrification is an example of middle range theory because it connects these larger
global processes described in the New Urban Politics to local processes, people, and
places. Gentrification, in other words, happens on a local scale, but interacts with actors
and processes on multiple scales, such as the global and the regional. Gentrification
specifically deals with change, particularly around neighborhood and class change, by
individuals with higher socio-economic status, with an associated change in the character
of urban development with increased capital investment (Clark 2005).
Serving as a focal point for a crucial “down-link,” studies of gentrification can start from
the bottom up. Such studies can investigate “the construction of identities in particular
localities” (Butler 2005) and “the politics of representation” that is contested and
created around urban developments (Smith 2001). Indeed, local social relations and
institutions can mediate the way gentrification manifests in a community (Butler 2005).
Furthermore, these local identities and politics can not only be connected to larger global
processes, such as neoliberalism and post-Fordism, but also be explored “trans-locally”
to other localities between regions and nations, skipping over traditional jurisdictional
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boundaries. The implication is a richer study of gentrification that can push forward Lee,
Slater, and Wyly’s call for a social justice agenda for gentrification research, following a
mixed-methods approach in focusing on ‘the displaced’, which this paper aims to do.
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF L.A.’S URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY

Suburbanization and White Privilege: Late 1940s-Present
One of the key drivers of this inequitable landscape of opportunity has been an exclusive
and material version of our American dream of suburban sprawl. The post-World War
II public policies that promoted housing and transit opportunities hinged on suburban
sprawl. Marked by large lots and single-family housing, sprawl is a form of development
biased toward the outer edges of the city and makes the automobile the most convenient
mode of travel. In the decades following World War II, the Federal Housing Administration
(FHA) and Veteran’s Administration (VA) refused to underwrite mortgages to urban
developments and encouraged growth in the urban periphery on “a scale virtually
unknown in U.S. history” (Hanchett 2000), with subsidies totaling $53 billion annually by
1984—five times more than all direct federal expenditures for housing. A massive growth
in suburbanization ensued, with more low-density, single-family homes ordered about a
normative vision of the ideal American society centered on privacy and ownership. These
housing policies also interacted with transit policies. With the passage of the Highway Act
of 1956, $27 billion for 42,500 miles of expressways were allocated on the premise of
linking central cities with sprawling suburbs via automobile transit and removing slums
that threatened the “public health, safety, morals, and welfare of the nation” (Mohl 2000).
Investments in these new expressways subsidized further suburban development, and
facilitated dramatic demographic out-migration (especially “white flight”) from the city.
Though it may be hard to hear, the history of housing and transit policy is also a
history of discrimination. Access to these opportunities was limited on the basis of
race, gender, and class. For example, the FHA Underwriting Manual denied mortgage
loans to female-headed households for many years. The FHA also prevented integration
of both lower-income residents and minorities through redlining practices, and even
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encouraged developers to write restrictive covenants into all deeds, legally blocking the
sale and purchase of homes to specific groups (Hanchett 2000). As late as the 1960s,
one suburb—Levittown, Long Island—did not have a single resident of color in a town
of 82,000, more than a decade after the Supreme Court ruled restrictive covenants
unconstitutional. Transit policies also institutionalized inequalities. In the early 1960s,
highway construction dislocated an average of 32,400 families each year—most of
whom were low-income and of color.
With suburban housing policies, freeways facilitated urban disinvestment and the flight of
middle- and high-income white residents from the city. With these demographic transitions,
central city tax bases fell and social service burdens increased as low-income populations
became increasingly segregated in the city. Economic restructuring, de-industrialization,
and unprecedented corporate mobility shed many accessible well-paying manufacturing
job opportunities. A dramatic race to the bottom ensued (Pastor, Benner, Matsuoka 2009;
Pulido 2000; Rusk 1995). Stark urban competition for capital between fragmented localities
forced continual concessions to businesses and intensified central city decline. All of these
transitions further reinforced a cycle of segregation, poverty, and spatial inequality.
With institutionalized exclusion in a time of such unprecedented growth, it should then

come as no surprise that lower-income working-class communities are highly concentrated
in certain geographic spaces across a region and, further, that they are often of color. For
example, L.A. in 1990 had a nearly a 38% Latino, 10% African American, and a 41% white
population. Pastor’s analysis finds that the poor, however, were overrepresented by Latinos
(57% of the poor) and blacks (15% of the poor), while whites were underrepresented
(18% of the poor). Segregation is also stark. In 2000, 73% of blacks in L.A. would have to
move in order to achieve integration with whites (Haaga and Farley 2005).
The spatiality of racism, intensified through suburban housing and transportation patterns
Post-World War II, informs a broader and historical perspective of racism. Often described
as Whiteness and White Privilege, it “refers to the hegemonic structures, practices, and
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ideologies that reproduce whites’ privileged status” (Pulido 2000). Whiteness is often
the invisible category against which difference is drawn, often in ways in which whites
benefit from maintaining a stake in the existing social order (Lipsitz, 1998; Delgado
1995; Quadagno 1994; Edsall and Edsall 1991). As Pulido demonstrates, this view of
racism goes far deeper than individual acts of racism. In the case of suburbanization and
existing patterns of unequal development, whites were subsidized to live in cheap and
clean homes; this was a privilege denied to people of color. Unfortunately, as scholars
have systematically documented, the benefits of suburbanization came at the expense
of those who lived in the city. Though many racist laws have been repealed post-1960s,
and people of color have begun moving into the suburbs, as scholars such as Haaga and
Farley document, high levels of racial segregation remain. Neoconservative policies of the
Reagan and Bush administrations rolled back affirmative action policies and desegregation
efforts in education and communities, and institutions that created barriers to opportunity
remained. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, for example, found that minority applicants
had a 60% greater chance of being denied home loans than white applicants with the
same credit-worthiness (Campen 1991). Unequal patterns of opportunity are informed
by generations of sociospatial inequality, which Oliver and Shapiro (1995) term the
sedimentation of inequality.
Some scholars and writers argue that race-neutral policies—not recognizing race—are
crucial to promoting equality. But as history and this analysis demonstrates, doing just
that ignores fundamental patterns and institutions that have driven inequality and “have
actually increased the possessive investment in whiteness among European Americans
over the past half century” (Lipsitz 1995). Indeed, ignoring race will debilitate any
movement to alleviating it.
Urban Renewal: Late 1940s-1970s

In an effort to revitalize economically suffering urban neighborhoods, urban renewal
policies, such as the Housing Act of 1949, included slum clearance, massive demolition,
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and rehabilitation (Von Hoffman 2000). Often utilizing a city’s infamous eminent domain,
which allowed the state to seize property for public purposes, and based on top-down
utilitarian calculations, urban renewal projects continue to spark widespread controversy
and debate to this day (Teaford 2000).
Importantly, urban renewal also interplayed with race and class. As mentioned
already, renewal projects, which included major highway construction, destroyed a
disproportionate number of housing units occupied by blacks, nearly 20%, as opposed
to 10% of housing units occupied by whites (Lipsitz 1995). Urban renewal also
redefined white. The policies not only destroyed many ethnically specific European-
American neighborhoods but also demolished more housing than the policies actually
created (90% of housing was never replaced). With a declining number of affordable
housing units, increasing numbers of European-American ethnics moved out, which
helped turn these Americans into “whites” buttressed by racial segregation laws and
shared access to communities and life opportunities excluded to communities of color
(Lipsitz 1995).
Renewal projects also played an important role in restructuring the urban economy, tied to
the economic recession in the late 1970s and 1980s. With 80% of the land cleared going
to commercial, industrial, and municipal projects (while only 20% going to replacement
housing), renewal projects, along with broader economic and political policies and trends
such as the Washington Consensus, shifted the U.S. urban economy away from factor
production, spurred deindustrialization, and toward producer services (Lipsitz 1995).
In order to attract affluent commuters and make the city more appealing for wealthier
residents, luxury housing units and cultural centers took priority over affordable housing
for workers, while tax write-offs for these development projects intensified urban fiscal
crises, and regressively increased taxes for existing businesses and residents. The impacts
of economic restructuring further segmented labor markets. While the impact of the 1964
Civil Rights Act reduced employment discrimination, workers of color were the first to go in
the economic recession (with 60-70% laid off minorities in 1974).
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The Emergence of the Global Tourist and Entertainment City: 1980s-Present

Building upon urban renewal projects and struggling with economic restructuring and
recession in the late 1970s, a new generation of entrepreneurial mayors took the lead
in the 1980s by forging alliances between public and private interests and harnessing
the forces of the market and technology to revitalize the city. Their strategy was to
revitalize downtowns and restructure urban economies toward a “new economy” based
on industries such as global and regional tourism, entertainment, and culture (Judd
and Simpson 2003; Lash and Urry 1994; Scott 2000; Healy 2002). The power players
that led these renewed industries began to exert increasing influence on local urban
regimes, thus influencing local policy-making and institutions (Krebs 2002). Timothy
Krebs, for example, has documented the campaign contributions of those associated
with the “new economy,” such as finance, real estate development, entertainment and
tourism, and media, into the 2001 municipal election, accounting for 68% of itemized
contributions, compared to only 17% for “old economy” sectors, such as low-end
services, manufacturing, and retail (Krebs 2002).
This newest cultural and economic strategy cannot be ignored and is tied to the
restructuring in the late 1970s and the 1980s. The resources allocated nationally to this
new economy totaled more than $2 billion annually in the early 1990s on both sports
facilities and convention centers (Eisinger 2000). Judd explains that the “race to build
facilities shows no sign of slowing down; convention centers keep expanding, stadiums
become larger and more expensive, and the variety and complexity of entertainment
facilities keeps proliferating” (Judd 2003). The scale of the very real physical investments
into the city has approached that of urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 1960s
(Judd 1999).
The Convention Center, the Staples Center, and L.A. Live are thus situated in this
historical context of urban economic restructuring. Beginning with the 1960s, we
can trace these developments—and the policy discourses that justified them—and
illuminate the shifting strategies growth coalitions pursued and how these ideas gained
241
strength, in light of the changing make-up of the city council, intensifying neoliberal
policy agendas, and inter-urban competition. A consistent theme is the politics of
resistance, representation, and displacement of both “use value” agendas and local
community residents (often working class people of color) to make space for a specific
vision of a revitalized (and commodified) downtown as an entertainment, cultural,
finance, and technology capital.
ENTER THE WHITE ELEPHANT: THE CONVENTION CENTER AND EXPANSION,

1960-1992
As Soja (1983) describes, Los Angeles began as a monopoly capitalist city, with a select
few growth leaders shaping social and spatial relations into a trading center in the
18th century, then a critical railroad juncture post-Civil War, and a dominant regional
city by 1940. It sustained rapid population growth, became the U.S.’ second largest city,
and became the third largest city for manufacturing. It gained tremendous subsidies
nearing $30 billion in defense and aerospace, especially during World War II, and grew
with discriminatory suburban housing and highway construction, gaining a diversified
economy. From the very beginning, Los Angeles “never experienced the intensive
geographical centralization of production that characterized the nineteenth century
Industrial Capitalist City” (Soja 1983). Los Angeles developed fragmented jurisdictions
early on, and experienced tremendous discriminatory suburban sprawl, creating a
highly racially and economically segregated urban demographic. This historical, spatial
context fueled spatial theories about Los Angeles’ heavily decentralized, almost dystopic,
postmodern, multi-center urban structure, from San Fernando Valley, Downtown, to
South Los Angeles (Dear 1998).
In 1965, growth coalition leaders Mayor Yorty and business leader John Petree, who
chaired a special committee in the Chamber of Commerce on the Convention Center
and was also the president of the Los Angeles Auditorium Center Lease Co., planned
to build a convention center in Elysian Park (Reich 1967). Talks about creating a
convention center had been around since the 1950s (The Los Angeles Times 1950).
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Greater Los Angeles Plans, Inc., for example, was a non-profit association of civic
leaders that sought to build traditional downtown amenities, like a civic auditorium,
trade fair, sports center, and music center in Los Angeles. Voters did not reach a 2/3
majority to approve bond financing for most of these plans, like the civic auditorium,
and so discussions stalled. In the throes of urban disinvestment in 1962, Councilman
Callicot failed to win support for a bed tax to generate financing for a new convention
center (The Los Angeles Times 1962, July 2).
Growth Discourse
Proponents utilized “value-neutral” and place-boosting economic discourse as a
unifying narrative for the growth coalition, of which The Los Angeles Times was a
part, to promote both the original convention center and its expansion. From its birth,
city elites supported the Convention Center with “value-neutral” economic discourse
(Logan and Molotch 1987). These economic benefits were assumed to equally reach all
residents of Los Angeles. The convention was seen as an economic development “silver
bullet” to attract consumption, and thus increased tax revenue in the city. Expanding
the Convention Center, for example, would address the Convention Center’s financial
woes, improve the city’s image, create thousands of jobs, and bring in millions of
dollars in taxes to revitalize the city (The Los Angeles Times May 8, 1988).
Additionally, newspapers like The Los Angeles Times were quick to point out L.A.’s
weakening position against neighboring cities like Anaheim, Pasadena, and San Diego,
most of whom were building convention centers. These comparisons continued with
convention center expansions across the nation. Commentators were quick to urge
similar expansion in L.A. in order to sufficiently attract the convention center market.
A devastating race-to-the-bottom was at play, with intense inter-city competition,
even amongst cities within the same region, like Anaheim and San Diego, to attract
convention dollars. The newspapers, however, did not mention the role public policies
played in shaping rapid suburbanization, jurisdictional fragmentation, and urban
disinvestment from the city.
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The creation of a large and “real” convention center was also symbolically linked to the
creation of a vital metropolis. Growth leaders have made arguments by pointing out the
disparity between Los Angeles’ importance and the existence of symbolically and functionally
important structures like a convention center. In the 1950s, Harold Lloyd, Imperial Potentate
of the Shrine, supported the Convention Center proposal, telling LeRoy Edwards, the
chairman for the committee for the new Los Angeles memorial auditorium, “It’s good to
know that Los Angeles is finally to achieve a convention headquarters, comparable in size,
attractiveness, and importance to your great city” (The Los Angeles Times June 22, 1950).
Even in the 1950s, major civic leaders made reference to New York’s symbolically important
structures to push Los Angeles citizens to invest in growth. Trippet, a past president of the
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and then-current president of Greater Los Angeles
Plans Inc., pointed out that the proposed Convention Center “will become as great a tourist
attraction as Rockefeller Center” (The Los Angeles Times November 11, 1952).
Resistance
Importantly, the growth coalition faced several challenges. Yorty and Petree especially
favored the Elysian Park site, after considering sites on Bunker Hill and Figueroa-Pico. In
1965, this decision sparked the Committee to Save Elysian Park and its intense activism
and legal challenge to prevent the development of 77 acres of park land, calling the
Convention Center “an act of vandalism” for using public land for private uses (The
Los Angeles Times 1965). To the Committee, this act of vandalism was, as Lipchitz
(1989) points out, a central economic strategy of urban America, in which “the role
of government in capital accumulation manifested itself in federal aid, but as well in
local pro-growth coalitions seeking to use public funds as a stimulus for economic
expansion.” The Convention Center and its expansion was heavily tied to Keynesian
economic policies that emphasized heavy state borrowing and financing to stimulate
demand, increase economic activity, and reduce unemployment. Importantly, this
structural economic framework, tied to Soja’s (1983) periodization of the state-managed
capitalist urbanization, strengthened growth coalition efforts to intensify land uses
through big-ticket developments like the Convention Center.
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This conflict highlights the archetypal conflict between use value, which refers to non-
monetary value such as neighborhood identity and recreational use, and exchange value,
which refers to direct monetary, market value (Logan and Molotch 1989). Grace Simons,
the chairman of the Committee to Save Elysian Park, critiqued the developmental
“priorities” of the growth coalition. When Simons asked for more irrigation to water
dying plants in the park, the Parks Commission would continually respond that it had a
lack of funds. At the same time, she noticed a plethora of proposals to build polo, tennis,
and golf clubs that sought to draw on public subsidy. She
doubt[ed] if anybody who lives on the eastside or in the ghetto areas has a polo
pony. Such expenditures are not geared to supply recreation for people who are
poor. We are not opposed to polo, tennis, golf, or the administration building either,
but if you don’t have the money for everything then you must choose those things
that are essential… It seems the Parks Department is oriented toward the middle
class white population, just as the school system seems to be… All the advantage
seems to be on the part of the promoter who wants to take over. (Lilliston 1969)
She thus charged the proposed construction of the Convention Center on Elysian
Park was symbolic of larger inequalities. Interestingly, her critique was not just one
against the destruction of Elysian Park. Simons pointed out how the Growth Coalition’s
priorities reflected class and racial biases in the very spatial investment, construction,
and imagination of the city. The class and racial biases that informed the developmental
priorities of the growth coalition, in effect, displaced use value agendas in the city that
could serve working class people of color.
Additionally, frustrated by years of delay and confident in its state-granted bond

financing, the city’s own Coliseum Commission moved to build an underground
convention center near Exposition Park’s Sports Arena (Hebert 1965). Interestingly,
the Sports Arena in Exposition Park, which also served as a convention space, faced
dwindling trade show returns: from 31.5% of total profits in 1961 to 10.3% in 1965.
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Smith, a commission member, also pointed out a study of “17 cities revealed none of
their convention centers were solvent. All require a subsidy” (Hebert 1965). Petree and
Yorty brushed aside these financial issues, believing a larger convention center in Elysian
Park with free land that would be handed over from the park would solve these woes
and uplift Los Angeles toward greater material and symbolic status.
Both of these issues, however, caused deadlock amongst city council members, some of
who actually had previously supported the Exposition Park project (Hebert 1965). Led
by councilman Gilbert Lindsay and the Los Angeles Auditorium Center Lease Co., a new
proposal was drafted to build a $23 million convention center on Figueroa-Pico, which was
accepted only a month later by City Council. This new site ostensibly satisfied the demands of
the Coliseum Commission: that the new arena gains final approval and can be built without
cost to the taxpayers (The Los Angeles Times 1965). The Convention Center finally opened
in 1971, but with estimated total costs of $90 million gained through leasebacks and bond
financing, with immediate payback within 5 years (Herbert October 17, 1971).
Labor activism contested the value-neutral policies of the growth coalition, particularly
along lines of race and space. In 1971, local activists, led by Al Bailey, founder of the
Community Council for Justice in Construction campaign, fought for and won an
inclusive hiring plan that would train and hire local minorities in the construction industry,
specifically to gain jobs building the Convention Center (The Los Angeles Sentinel
July 9, 1970). The campaign challenge not only challenged the value-neutral growth
discourse that the development would benefit all citizens equally, but it also recognized
the connection between race and place, “urging an equitable number of black workers…
in a predominantly black community” (Robertson 1969). The campaign used the term
“Black Monday” to connect their demonstration with coordinated Black Monday efforts
across different cities also protesting discrimination in the construction industry. Led by Al
Bailey, the group initiated persistent picketing tactics, one even in the opening ceremony
of the West Adams Community Hospital (Robertson 1969), committed unorthodox protest
tactics—Al Bailey once laid down in front of a driveway and was eventually arrested
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(The Los Angeles Sentinel 1970)—won the support of city councilpersons such as Billy
Mills, who also chaired the Special Committee on Equal Opportunities, connected to civil
rights leaders such as Reverend Abernathy and union leaders like the AFL-CIO Los Angeles
Building Construction Trades Council. Through these actions, the campaign was able to
complicate growth discourse and win their demands. The campaign advocated for local
hiring agreements that could promote opportunities for the disinvested community existing
around the Convention Center. Rather than fighting against the development head on, these
activists sought to ensure that some of the economic benefits of the Convention Center
would be redistributed to local minority groups. This is a strategy that would be mirrored
over two decades later with the Community Benefits Agreement.
Displacement and Critique of Growth Discourse

One of the contradictions of the Convention Center’s “value-neutral” discourse
has been the displacement of untold numbers of families and businesses (number
unspecified). Growth coalitions represented local neighborhoods as “slums,” “blighted”
or “depressed” areas ( The Los Angeles Times 1967). This negative depiction of
neighborhoods in consideration of development was a common and effective strategy,
used in a variety of urban redevelopment projects such as Dodger Stadium in Chavez
Ravine, and Boston’s West End (Gans 1962). The growth coalition, led heavily by city
leaders such as Yorty and Petree, removed the unwanted in the name of economic
development and the removal of these slums that were hurting the economic and
social “body” of the city. As Beauregard (1993) has shown, discourse is important in
representing urban decline and its political implications.
This discourse intersects with race as well. The use of the world “blight, “slum” and its
related spatial signifier “inner city” indirectly draw on race. As illustrated by Jackson’s
(1987), Wilson’s (1987), and Pulido’s (2000) connection between racial discrimination
and urban disinvestment, public policies created racialized spaces—the way spaces
are organized, especially through growth politics, is a key component in the social
production of urban space (Levebre 1996; Soja 1980; Purcell 2000). And through these
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spaces, these policies created racial hierarchies that by law afforded whites opportunities
while they denied people of color those same opportunities. Through this process—and
L.A. is no exception—the largely black and Latino population was left behind in the
“inner-city” and were the overwhelming targets of potential dislocation. Representing a
local community as a “slum” is an important discursive strategy of the growth coalition.
Indeed, as Gans (1962) analyzes in the redevelopment of the West End, “dirty” slums
offended the “purity” of the middle class. Representation is directly related to power,
and those with greater access to power could categorize the local community as a slum
to legitimate its removal (Pardo 1998).
Injured: Fragmentation and Finances

City Planning Director Calvin Hamilton’s saw the Convention Center as a piece of an
expansive vision of a renewed downtown. Planners and city officials of the downtown-
centered growth machine envisioned a world-class trade center, surrounded by a lake
and park, with an urban design similar to Manhattan (Herbert July 9, 1973). In 1972,
the city submitted a request for development proposals for the planned trade center.
Unfortunately, much of this vision never materialized. Months after its request for
proposal to develop a trade center, the city council did not receive a single application,
blaming an oversupply of downtown office space and high vacancy rates. L.A.’s growth
machine, despite its ability to construct a multimillion convention center, still suffered
from the throes of sprawl and urban disinvestment. Additionally, city council members on
the planning commission, mostly from the San Fernando Valley, complained and halted
this developmental vision as unfair to the valley, unrealistic, and un-implementable
(Herbert July 9, 1973). Indeed, one valley council member complained that he could not
get a “single bus,” while the downtown was spending millions to revitalize the area
(Herbert July 9, 1973). The geographic fragmentation of L.A.’s growth machine may be
traced from the very beginning (Purcell 2003).
In 1975, four years after it opened, The Los Angeles Times publicly questioned
the financial wisdom of building the Convention Center. In January, The Los Angeles
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Times headlined “L.A. Convention Center shows everything but a profit,” blaming
poor public management and costing taxpayers $3 million a year (Harvey January
27, 1975). Later, a story compared L.A.’s convention center to Anaheim’s, which was
praised for its operations, during a period when many other convention centers across
the country failed to perform (Boetiner October 19, 1975). Similar stories years later
also blamed the lack of hotel development beside the Convention Center (The Los
Angeles Times July 26, 1981). This would not be the last time The Los Angeles
Times would expose the faults of the growth machine by using economic discourse
to shame the Convention Center’s public managers. Though The Los Angeles
Times would expose its faults and urge correction, often with comparison to L.A.’s
neighbors, it did not challenge the original developmental strategy to build the
Convention Center.
Convention Center Expansion: 1985-1992

In light of financial concerns, a coalition of hotel operators, restaurateurs, and other
business firms as well as an official blue ribbon committee, chaired by the vice president
of Bank of America, pushed for expansion (The Los Angeles Times November 13,
1985). As Purcell illustrates, the Bradley regime that was in power during this time
built an archetypal growth machine with the regional, especially downtown, business
elite to support growth. His electoral coalition consisted of an alliance between African
Americans and liberal Jewish groups. Significantly Bradley was able to gather funds from
the federal government, which gave him considerable autonomy to pursue investment
in the downtown and in social services, despite the decentralized structure of L.A. city
government (Purcell 2000).
In 1988, Mayor Bradley helped pass bond financing and only Councilman Joel Wachs
dissented, who pointed out the Convention Center expansion was “one where the
handwriting was on the wall” (The Los Angeles Times November 13, 1985). Wachs
uses a biblical reference to illustrate the way the growth coalition was able to fully
support this expansion and how, in many ways, the decision was already made by
249
the city’s elite to finance a multi-million-dollar development project. Additionally,

the growth coalition’s decision to finance the Convention Center’s expansion simply
expands the already-existing developmental strategy of the Convention Center and
capturing trade shows.
Expansion completion in 1989 generated enormous civic pride. Bradley commented,

“When you see this tremendous facility in the heart of downtown L.A. you will stick
your chest out with pride” (Chavez October 18, 1989). The expansion promised to
generate $500 million in profits annually by 1994 and bring 3000 additional jobs
(1989). Bradley’s quote signifies an important way that place is related to identity.
While the Bradley’s growth coalition sought to increase its profits and attract capital,
the very material, social, and economic production of space is also tied to issues of
pride and identity for the city’s elite. Many saw the Convention Center as an important
developmental strategy that could elevate the city to world city status.
A Los Angeles Times story illuminated the questionable practices of city council
members’ granting of contracts (The Los Angeles Times May 8, 1988). Prominently
featured in the headlines was Councilman Gilbert Lindsay’s boisterous expression:
All things being equal, and I’ve had a hundred million dollars of the city’s money, the
state’s money, everybody’s money to dispose of. All things being equal, without juggling
or anything else, I’m going to take care of my friends first. Write it in the headlines
(Merino 1988).
Indeed, the story traced bond contracts for other major public projects, such as the $310
million bond for the Convention Center expansion and $275 million for South Central’s
LANCER trash-to-energy facility. Gilbert, who also represented the district in which the
Convention Center was located and who also chairs the city’s public works committee,
received the most political donations from bond lawyers and investment bankers (Merino
1988). The Los Angeles Times, though a part of the growth machine, began to shine a
light on the workings of the growth machine.
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Displacement
In the several hundred articles examined, profoundly absent was a consistent
discussion on the displacement of local community residents, who were mostly
working-class residents of color. With the help of the Community Redevelopment
Agency (CRA) and eminent domain, the Convention Center gained 35 acres, and
displaced 1500 mostly Latino residents and 68 businesses (Harris December 6, 1988).
City officials, like City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie, noted the importance of
the Convention Center and luxury housing to overcome the perception that “south
downtown is a dangerous, gritty, and desolate place” (Harris December 6, 1988). The
representation of the local neighborhood as a “dirty” and “dangerous” place again
racializes, criminalizes, and devalues the neighborhood without direct reference to
race. Discourse such as this, and the narrative that it creates, as Atkinson notes, makes
no note of larger socioeconomic patterns in place and thereby attributes blame to
the neighborhood itself (Atkinson 2000). Indeed, the physical displacement of local
residents of color, whether by replacement via new construction or exclusion via
investment value multiplier effects, is a reoccurring theme of urban redevelopment.
Nearby, the Pep Boys headquarters expansion, under the Pico Union Renewal plan
to create construction jobs, ended up displacing over 35 families in 1979. Business
interests allied with local public officials pushed the project despite resistance against
the displacement (Weinstein July 26, 1979).
But it’s not only physical displacement. In December 1988, Harris, for example, pointed
out the inequitable distribution of financial resources in South Park. He noted that
three times more public money (about $24.1 million) helped finance expensive homes
and condos, than those for low-income residents. This is not an isolated case. As Grace,
the chairwoman of Committee to Save Elysian Park, described nearly 19 years ago,
developmental priorities reflect class and racial biases of the growth coalition. These
biases reflect a larger investment, construction, and imagination of an appropriate city,
displacing use value agendas that could improve the productive capacity of working
class people of color.
251
Despite the lack of organized community activism against the displacement,

advocacy groups, like the Legal Aid Foundation, however, did pressure the CRA to
build 600 units to house displaced people outside South Park. The Convention Center
expansion exacerbated existing affordable housing shortages in the area, Harris
notes, by destroying existing affordable housing to make way for the expansion
(Harris 1988, Dec 6).
Demographic Data 1960-1980: Racial Bias

Demographic data utilized from Ethington et al. illustrates a bias toward white non-
Hispanics (WNH), which feeds an argument that investment is not only spatially but
also racially biased. As seen in the table below that documents the median population
of Whites and Hispanics and black non-Hispanics (BNH) from 1960 to 1980, Area 1,
which contains the Convention Center and its expansion, has been on average more
White: about 63% of the population, compared to 46% of the population in Area 2.
In contrast, Area 1 has been on average less Hispanic/BNH: about 32% compared to
39% in Area 2. Both of these areas do not have a significant other non-Hispanic (ONH)
population, which includes Asian Pacific Islanders (APIs) and Native Americans, nor
are the differences very great (less than 2%). Of a total population of approximately
75,000 residents, utilizing a logistic regression, both of these differences are highly
statistically significant (p<0.01). It is no mistake that the spatial investment of the
Convention Center and its expansion has been focused in specific sections of Area 1
within the boundaries of the downtown. Racial segregation patterns caused by freeway
investments have been widely documented and, as seen here, have also spatially carved
out certain racially dominated neighborhoods (early versions of both the 110 and the 10
Freeway have existed since the 1930s).
252
1960-1980 AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE

MEDIAN POPULATION
Total Population 2144 2723 -579

WNH 63.63% 46.25% 17.38%
Hispanic/BNH 32.84% 39.39% -6.55%
ONH 4.87% 6.34% -1.46%
Race comparisons between Area 1 and Area 2 between 1960-1980, on average.
Building 1 (Convention Center), Building 2 (Staples Center), Building 3 (L.A. Live).
This bias is also demonstrated in the WNH percent of the total population from 1960-
1980. When the Convention Center was being debated and constructed in 1960, the
WNH population reached 80% of the population against 13% of Hispanic/BNH in
Area 1. The WNH percentage in Area 2 was about 13% less, while the Hispanic/BNH
was nearly the same. As blight and slums associated with communities of color grew in
size and proportion in the 1970s and 1980s, the expansion of the Convention Center
appeared imperative for policymakers concerned about attracting investment into the
city and purifying the city.
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Despite these efforts to fuel investment into the area and displace non-whites, WNHs
have left the area to pursue other opportunities and escape the moral impurities
associated with the inner city (Fogelson 2003). Facilitated by the forces of national urban
disinvestment and subsidies toward exclusively white suburbanization, both Area 1 and
Area 2 have seen dramatic decreases in the WNH population. Area 1 has seen nearly a
55% decrease in WNHs, while Hispanics/BNHs have risen nearly 31% overall.
WNHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1960 80.48% 68.55% 11.93%

1970 63.63% 43.05% 20.58%
1980 35.06% 14.42% 20.64%
HISPANICS/BNHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1960 13.74% 14.75% -1.01%

1970 29.16% 35.38% -6.55%
1980 44.59% 74.75% -19.24%

Comparison over time, 1960-1980, of WNHs and Hispanics/BNHs between Area 1 and Area 2.
ONHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1960 4.87% 6.72% -1.85%

1970 3.53% 6.50% -2.97%
1980 7.30% 6.34% 0.97%

Comparison over time, 1960-1980, of ONHs between Area 1 and Area 2.
Between 1960 and 1980, the potential class bias, on average, was not as extreme as
race. Area 1 and Area 2 only differed by a few percentage points and so a decade-
by-decade breakdown was not emphasized. As seen below, high school and college
educated individuals differed by about 4% to 1% respectively. There were also fewer
blue collar workers in Area 1 (22%) versus Area 2 (25%). An important limitation of this
data is the inability of the data set to account for non-high school or college-educated
individuals, which the Hispanic and BNH communities may fall into.
254

MEDIANS
HIgh School 22.12% 18.30% 3.82%

College 5.43% 3.95% 1.48%
Blue Collar 22.30% 24.86% -2.56%
White Collar 15.30% 14.91% 0.39%
Income $22,489.64 $19,286.67 $3,202.96

Median socioeconomic variables between 1960-1980, on average, between Area 1 and Area 2.
From 1960 to 1980, the local growth coalition was successful, however, in raising
property values. A proxy for these property values is the median housing land value in
the area. Not only was more housing built on average in Area 1, the average percent
increase in property values was 2008% from 1960 to 1980, a difference of more than
1950% compared to Area 2. Additionally, differences in income were seen early on, with
about a $3,200 difference between Area 1 and Area 2.

MEDIANS
Percent Change- 1,550.75% 1,339.37% 211.31%

Total Housing Units
Percent Change - 2,008.56% 57.96% 1,950.59%
Household Land
Value
Income $22,489.64 $19,286.67 $3,202.96

Median household land values between 1960-1980, on average, between Area 1 and Area 2.
These data show that the spatial bias in real estate investment through the construction
of the Convention Center and its expansion actually serves to benefit more WNHs
than Hispanics/BNHs on average. These developments were pushed to revitalize
neighborhoods, while displacing and protecting against unwanted populations, in the
context of urban renewal. Despite these intentions, local efforts could not prevent
broader patterns of investment in suburbs, which facilitated urban disinvestment and
white flight. In many senses, federal urban policy was spatially uncoordinated. Billions
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invested in the suburbs and in urban redevelopment was a contradictory policy that
further fragmented metropolitan regions. In any case, the winners of these developments
were the white middle and upper class, which gained access to suburbs and gentrifying
neighborhoods, and property owners, often growth coalition leaders, who saw their
property values rise nearly 2000% from 1960-1980.
Injured: Finances and Governance

Despite the initial hurrah of the expansion center, in less than 3 years, the Convention
Center was again spotlighted with financial and management woes. By 1992, the
Convention Center needed an additional $27 million to cover inflation-related costs
(Soble April 12, 1990) and, by 1997, the Convention Center required $20 million
annually to sustain it (Wilgoren July 18, 1997). In 2003, the city auditor found that
the Convention Center miscounted up to $6 million annually (The Los Angeles
Times September 27, 2001), and in January 2005, independent studies found that the
convention industry itself faced permanent decline, with a dwindling number of trade
shows nationally. Indeed, L.A.’s trade shows dwindled from 35 annual conventions to
only 16 by 2003 (Vrana January 17, 2005).
As Purcell notes, several structural factors began to cripple the Bradley growth regime
by 1985. The “tax revolt” of Proposition 13 in 1978, which reduced the increase in
local property taxes by a third, debilitated city finances. Proposition 13, importantly, was
championed by slow growth homeowners’ associations in the San Fernando Valley (Davis
1990, Lo 1990). Despite intense opposition from business and government groups,
Proposition 13 won by a large margin in the elections. In 1982, urban areas all across
the country lost support from the federal government. Reagan announced his plans
for New Federalism, less government, and business enterprise zones to revitalize cities
across the nation by encouraging private market forces (Skelton November 30, 1982)
and public-private partnerships. The Bradley regime lost much of its revenue, and clout,
to pursue its redevelopment and social programs. By 1987, the pro-growth coalition
began to falter in the face of opposition against a powerful coalition of homeowners’
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associations and federal representatives headed by Congressmen Waxman, Berman,

and Levine (Davis 1990). In many ways, these policies indirectly questioned the growth
coalition’s development strategy, which required significant state intervention and funds
to push for big-ticket projects, and value-neutral discourse that growth was good for all.
By 1993, pro-business millionaire Republican Mayor Richard Riordan gained power,

espousing textbook value-neutral growth ideology: that growth is unabashedly
good for all. Without federal funds, however, Riordan was strapped in by traditional
structural mayor-council member tensions because of the emerging importance
of ethnic constituencies and the way power was decentralized in the structure of
L.A. city government (Purcell 2000). The fragmentation of the traditional “ward-
structure” of L.A. city government intensified as slow growth council members gained
power. A notable victory is environmental activist Ruth Galanter’s election over
Council President and pro-growth champion Pat Russell in 1987. With intensifying
immigration patterns in the city, minority council members, such as Gloria Molina and
Michael Woo, began to gain power on the city council. Because growth had often
affected minority groups in negative ways, like displacement, these new politicians
had a complicated relationship with growth, which thus further weakened the
strength of the growth coalition (Purcell 2000).
TOWARDS A GLOBAL, TOURIST CITY: THE STAPLES CENTER AND L.A. LIVE, 1996-2005
Neoliberalism
Beginning in the early 1980s, advances in communications and transportation
technologies intensified the links between nations in a more global economy. A set
of policies, often referred to as the Washington Consensus and neoliberalism, gained
hegemonic status after the stagflation of the 1970s, conservative investment in
neoliberal think tanks and idea promotion, and the decline of Keynesian macroeconomic
policies (Harvey 2005). Beginning with Reagan, policies such as devolution, financial
liberalization, privatization of state utilities, deregulation, and cuts in social spending
characterized political economy and the state’s approach to the market (Harvey 2005).
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Additionally, with these political economic shifts, urban economies began to restructure
in the face of deindustrialization and reorganize themselves toward a “new economy”
based on service, finance, technology, culture, and tourism (Bluestone & Harrison 1982;
Castells 1989; Harvey 1989; Sassen 1991; Sassen 1994).
Los Angeles specifically “emerged as a control and managerial center for

international capital, the ‘New York of the Pacific Rim,’ a global capitalist city of
major proportions” (Soja 1983). Deeply affecting the “entire rationalization and
restructuring process of Los Angeles [and] affecting virtually all sectors of the regional
economy” (Soja 1983) has been the expansion of undocumented immigrant labor
and unemployed, low-skill labor that grew out of deindustrialization. This cheap
and controlled labor pool, with “a still tractable land market filled with speculative
bargains (not the least of which was the underdeveloped downtown) provid[ed]
a particularly attractive and manipulative context for the transformation of the
quintessential State Capitalist City into an internationalized focus for global capital,
an emerging Global Capitalist City” (Soja 1983).
Urban restructuring brought with it a dramatic spatial and economic transformation of

the downtown and the Wilshire Corridor, becoming “a major focus for transnational
capital headquarters, financial, accounting, and insurance firms and a full range of
supportive business, entertainment, hotel, and restaurant services” (Soja 1983). Despite
the intensifying strength of the downtown as a global growth pole, Los Angeles’
decentralized urban structure facilitated the growth of edge cities and “New Towns” that
served new suburban shopping and leisure complexes supported by conglomerations of
technologically advanced industry and services (Soja 1983). Repeatedly mentioned in
the growth discourse, the inter-urban competition with these cities intensified efforts to
reimagine and restructure Los Angeles’ spatial economy to maximize exchange value.
These structural contexts drastically shaped the growth coalition, growth discourse, and
forms of resistance, as illustrated by the Staples Center and L.A. Live.
258
The New Growth Coalition

This shift in development strategy in entertainment and service-based industries also
represents a shift in the growth coalition. Major actors represent a inter-scalar coalition
building between not only local elites, such as Ed Roski Jr., who has made a fortune
on local real estate development, and Rupert Murdoch and Philip Anschutz, both of
whom own multi-billion national and global scale entertainment and communications
“empires.” Anschutz and Murdoch, in 2009, tied at 37th on the list of wealthiest
Americans with a net worth of $6 billion each (Forbes 2009). Anschutz, for example,
not only owns railroad and petroleum businesses, but has diversified with the advent
of media communications technology, to own major soccer and sports teams, film and
media, such as Regal Entertainment Group, newspapers in several major metropolitan
areas, and an investment company. Interestingly, as a right-wing Christian activist,
Anschutz believes he has a higher calling to counter “corrosive popular culture,” funding
the Discovery Institute that promotes intelligent design and criticizes evolution (Clark
2006), and owning the Examiner, which has a “general pro-big business, conservative
ideology” (Shafer 2005). Individuals like Anschutz and Murdoch are in contrast to typical
land-based elites that are mostly tied to the growth of one particular city. As global
capital flows expanded, and with the dot-com collapse of the early 1990s, the largest
firms thrived and began to agglomerate productive assets to achieve greater economies
of scale, gain competitive advantages, and utilize technological advances (Logan and
Molotch 1987; Sassen 1991).
There are several implications of this change in the growth coalition’s organization.
As extra-local firms increasingly make business decisions, the tie to a particular city
diminishes, and, thus, the social ties that bind economic elites to form strong growth
coalitions also weaken (Purcell 2000). These large, extra-local firms also have fewer
multiplier effects because, for example, employment is increasingly outsourced and
materials are increasingly purchased in other places. With fewer economic benefits to
a particular place, economic benefits trickle down less and the growth consensus that
growth benefits all is more difficult to justify (Purcell 2000; Hardin 1995; Hunter 1953).
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Additionally, as Purcell notes, as capital becomes more mobile with more places to
invest, cities are increasingly forced to offer additional incentives, such as subsidies, labor
and environmental deregulation, to maintain a positive business climate (Purcell 2000).
Despite the force of these incentives to bring in investment into a city, in Los Angeles the
politics around these incentives was complicated by the slow growth movement and the
new minority leadership in Los Angeles.
General Growth Discourse

Writers linked the L.A. Sports Arena, later called the Staples Center, to the Convention
Center from the moment the arena was proposed. Much like the arguments used for the
Convention Center, the Staples Center, Edward Roski Jr., owner of Majestic Realty and
the Kings hockey team co-owner claimed in 1996, would remove “a blighted downtown
bringing in lower tax revenues, [which] mean fewer resources for development of
communities throughout the region” (Flanigan 1996). Additionally, the Staples Center
would bring jobs, help fill the Convention Center, and become a catalyst for development
in light of urban and suburban competition for businesses and conventions (Merl 1996).
Representatives of the new and more global growth coalition, such as Roski and Philip
Anschutz, recognized the financial burden of the Convention Center pursued by the
past growth coalition. By addressing the need to “fill the Convention Center,” Roski
legitimizes the new developmental discourse as a break from the past, yet utilized
standard value-neutral economic arguments to support the development.
With the construction of L.A. Live, the larger tourist entertainment complex drew
on broader discourse that tied the project with a larger global imagination linked to
hyper-consumption and cities as places of play. Many hailed the project as the “Times
Square West” that could bring in tourists from the region and the nation to bolster the
economy. The use of discourse such as Times Square West is significant because Times
Square is associated with bright lights, tall buildings, consumption, and the prototypical
world city. Indeed, the discursive comparison to New York City is a historic one, one
also used to legitimize the Convention Center by comparing it to the Rockefeller Center.
260
This comparison thus seeks to utilize the cultural imagination of New York City to also
symbolize L.A.’s status as a world city. In contrast to the Convention Center, L.A. Live
is linked directly with global trends of the market and its influence on packaging and
marketing cities across the world, which have restructured urban economies toward a
“new economy” based on industries such as global and regional tourism, entertainment,
and culture (Judd and Simpson 2003; Lash and Urry 1994; Scott 2000a; Healy 2002).
As the actual shops located in the complex and its architecture signifies, the diverse
cultural history of the largely African-American and Latino community displaced by and
surrounding the development projects is excluded and, thus, also symbolically displaced
from the reimagination and capital accumulation of the city.
Anti-Growth Resistance
But these attempts fell flat to Councilman Joel Wachs and Nate Holden, both of whom saw
the new development representing business-as-usual growth politics. Neither could forget
the fact that the Convention Center was still reeling from deficits of $19 million in 1996
(Merl 1996). Although Roski and Anschutz could waive the fact that the Great Western
Forum in Inglewood was offering a sweet deal to keep the Lakers and the Kings (Flanigan
1996), Wachs stood adamant. He gained dramatic press attention against the Staples
Center proposal, proclaiming the defense of the everyday taxpayer’s money. He opened
up hotlines against the arena, flagged a private poll that found a lack of support for the
downtown arena (55% against, and 32% for), advocated for another, more comprehensive
poll to gauge public opinion, and even proposed a ballot measure that would require
voter approval of publicly subsidized sports stadiums (Shuster 1997, October). Despite his
opposition, the developers continued to negotiate for the Staples Center because of the
tremendous sums of money that could be gained through signage rights with over 1 million
passersby daily (Flanigan 1996).
Significantly, his opposition helped push developers to accept decreased subsidies

and stronger protections for taxpayers and the city’s budget (Merl December 4, 1996).
Proposals in these negotiations included a fee levied on tickets to shoulder the cost
261
of construction, a cap on city costs at $63 million if the developers failed to complete
construction, and a clawback option on the property if arena the owners failed to
operate as promised. Ultimately, the conceptual plan for the arena passed 11-1 in
September 1996, with Holden the lone dissenter. The irony could not be lost on Wachs,
however, in the entire development. Wachs pushed for these developments because he
recognized the mobility of capital and the way capital, in this instance, could influence
the location of sports teams, profits, and development within a region. In this case,
Inglewood’s Great Western Forum lost two of its major teams to the $300 million Staples
Center in downtown Los Angeles.
On a typically pro-growth city council, Wachs and Holden gained courage through
the history of slow-growth movements across the region (Purcell 2000). Responding
to growth in general, anti-growth coalitions such as the Federation of Hillside and
Canyon Associations and the Coalition Against the Pipeline filed a lawsuit in L.A.’s
Superior Court against the city in 1998, claiming the city had inadequate water,
sewage, and transportation infrastructure to accommodate city’s projected growth.
As a result the city was forced to rework its general plan to address transportation
issues (2000). Commentators suggested the lawsuit could affect new developments
such as L.A. Live. The city, in response, simply adopted a finding that the benefits of
growth could outweigh environmental problems if the city cannot afford improvements
to accommodate future growth (McGreevy September 11, 2001). Proposition 13 in
1978, Proposition U in 1986, which down-zoned by half most commercial land in the
city (Connell 1986), and various growth control initiatives that capped development in
Pasadena and Monterey Park in the early 1990s demonstrated the increasing strength
of the anti- and slow-growth movements in Los Angeles (Pincetl 1992; Fong 1994;
Horton 1989; Purcell 2000). Pincetl as well as Warner and Molotch, however, ultimately
argue that growth resistance is fragmented and parochial and does not fundamentally
challenge growth interests (Pincetl 1994; Warner & Molotch 1995).
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By October, the final deal passed, and by March 21 1998, the deal’s final financial
agreements, such as a personal guarantee that loans will be repaid, were approved (The
Los Angeles Times March 1998) In total, the Staples Center would cost $350 million
and be the most expensive arena ever built, nearly $100 million more expensive than the
original estimate (Elliot 1998). Additionally, the city agreed to give $70.5 million to help
fund the project, and though promises were made to pay back the city, the development
and its profits would be privately owned (Merl January 1997).
Displacement and Growth Discourse

The Staples Center displaced 200 families, 250 residents, and 35 businesses, mostly
of Latino descent, with the new construction. Emblematic of the third wave of
gentrification, the Staples Center was pushed by larger developers who survived
the 1990s recession (such as Ed Roski Jr. and Anschutz), was further integrated
into global economic and cultural processes, such as global finance, and was
shaped by federal devolution strategies that intensified the city’s dependence
on local tax revenue, public-private partnerships, and the competition for capital
(Wyly and Hammel 2001). Importantly, this historical periodization is not so exact.
As mentioned previously, the Convention Center was still heavily state-led in a
period of time in the late 1970s and 1980s Wyly and Hammel describe as second-
wave gentrification. The Staples Center has begun to take on several of these
characteristics, such as the creation of spectacle and public-private partnerships
(through deals the CRA gave to private business owners) missing from the
Convention Center (Wyly and Hammel 2001).
With the globalization of capital and urban development, gentrification served as a

global urban strategy. Indeed through global real estate markets and capital, such
as that possessed by Anschutz and Rupert Murdoch, gentrification has become “a
central motive force of urban economic expansion, a pivotal sector in the new urban
economies” (Smith 2002). What connects the rise of productive manufacturing
centers and the emergence of gentrification as a global urban strategy through
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global capital is “the shift from an urban scale defined according to the conditions
of social reproduction to one in which the investment of productive capital holds
definitive precedence” (Smith 2002).
In contrast to the CRA’s negligence of displaced residents in the Convention Center

expansion, the CRA agreed to set aside a $4.5 million replacement housing plan that
would create 500 units. Additionally, some community needs were considered too. The
CRA passed an ordinance to ensure workers receive a “living wage” and developers
repay the city’s $70.5-million investment in the project (The Los Angeles Times June
20, 1997). Despite this money, many residents expressed fear of moving into more
expensive housing and, when the rental subsidies would run out, that their quality of
life would suffer (Rivera October 9, 1999). Additionally, assistance to undocumented
residents was even lower due to rental assistance calculations based on work receipts
(Rivera October 9, 1999).
Additionally, this act may signify the growth coalition’s adaptation to more minority leaders
and community resistance in the city. As Purcell notes, growth’s history of displacement
and exclusion of people of color has complicated the growth coalition’s relationship with
minority leaders, who represent an increasingly diverse and enfranchised demographic.
Much like the way the growth coalition in Atlanta had to consider the interests of African
Americans in its urban regime (Stone 1989) and the way preservation strategies helped
unify pro-growth coalitions in New York City (Reichl 1997), the growth coalition in Los
Angeles had to consider local community interests, who were often people of color, to push
through growth. Additional challengers like Wachs, who represented slow growth interests
in the San Fernando Valley, pushed the already fragmented L.A. growth coalition to
consider ways to expand its influence. Growth coalitions and developers utilize community
benefits, such as this housing plan and the landmark Community Benefits Agreement with
L.A. Live, as a discursive resource to help legitimate the development for receiving public
subsidies in the eyes of the public.
264
Whether or not these concessions to community groups actually make meaningful

change remains invisible. The shops and architecture within both the Staples Center
and L.A. Live illustrate the exclusion and displacement of the local cultural urban
history of the largely Latino, African American, and Asian American population from
the reimagination of the city. This is exclusion is not new, as Saito (1998) illustrates
in a Los Angeles suburban development. As seen in the global tourist entertainment
development, global actors and capital (in this case global and local coalitions between
Murdoch and Roski, for example) shape the shops and design, homogenizing and
commodifying culture and development (Zukin 1995; Hannigan 1998; Scott 2000;
Ivy 1988; Nicoll 1989; Yoshimoto 1989), though it may be “indigenized” somewhat
depending on the specific cultural context (Appadurai 1990). Until local residents
also have a part in shaping the design, retail, space, and even the process of capital
accumulation of the development, most are relegated into a segmented, service-oriented
labor force largely invisible from view. This must be taken into account when the
discourse of community benefits is utilized by growth coalitions to legitimate the very
reimagination of the city itself.
L.A. Live
In 2001, heavy hitters Philip Anschutz, Rupert Murdoch, and Ed Roski Jr. began to float
the idea of a $2.5 billion new retail-dining-residential-entertainment center (later called
L.A. Live), adjacent to the Staples Center. The complex would feature two hotels that
would require large city subsidies to be realized, a policy, which would have political
costs after the Staples Center.
The influence of downtown business interests is also seen in the L.A. Live
development. Carol Schatz, of the Central City Association that represents the
downtown’s business interests, “expressed misgivings” about the design because
the project originally cut itself off from the Figueroa Corridor and the rest of the
downtown (Newton May 4, 2000). Although the project was in large part funded
by extra-local actors, such as Murdoch and Anschutz, downtown elites mediated
265
the project’s design, particularly in the way L.A. Live could contribute to the overall
vitality of the downtown.
Despite the changing organization of the growth coalition, elites still used traditional
lobbying and contribution efforts to influence public policy. In 2002 alone, for example,
lobbyists spent a total of $3.5 million, representing clients such as cell phone providers
who sought to build cell phone towers, Washington Mutual Bank and Ahmanson Land
Company, which sought to develop tract developments in L.A. county, and Anschutz
Entertainment Group (AEG), which sought to develop the Staples Center and L.A. Live,
spending nearly $51,000 (Mehta 2002). Developer election contributions also played a
role. In 2005, the employees of Related Company, which was selected to lead a $1.2
billion project to redevelop Grand Avenue, donated $9,000 to then-mayoral candidate
Hahn and $1,000 to Villaraigosa (Rabin and McGreevy 2005). Similarly, Richard Meruelo,
who owns property throughout downtown near Staples Center and the Transamerica
Center tower, spent $82,711 to support Villaraigosa’s campaign and urged Republicans
to vote for Villaraigosa (Rabin September 20, 2006).
Contributions up-link as well, fitting into Logan and Molotch’s observations to develop
coalitions and support above the scale at which development is sought (Logan and
Molotch 1987). AEG and state lawmakers, such as then-Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas
successfully lobbied to pass a bill that allows affordable housing money from Proposition
1C to subsidize downtown infrastructure development, like that for the Staples Center
and L.A. Live (McGreevy and Hymon 2008). As a result, L.A. Live was able to obtain $30
million in state subsidies to fund streetscape revitalizations (McGreevy June 14, 2008).
Maria Cabildo, president of the East Los Angeles Community Corporation criticized
the accumulation of capital to the already heavily funded project, “disappoint[ed] that
underserved areas don’t seem to be able to compete, while really well-financed entities
are able to get these public subsidies. These dollars should go where the need is, and
that area doesn’t seem to have the same need” (McGreevy June 14, 2008).
266
The growth coalition has influenced these developments through statewide donations.
Reporters point out firms affiliated with Philip Anschutz have donated $927,000
to political causes since 2005, including $100,000 to Rebuilding California, which
campaigned for infrastructure bond measures, $50,000 to the campaign for a ballot
measure that would extend term limits, and $8,000 to Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas,
who presented the bill to the Senate floor (McGreevy and Hymon 2008).
Community Resistance: Building on Past Struggle

In the city approval process, Ted Tanner, senior vice president of the Staples Center and
Area Land Company, expressed an interest in gaining community support to prevent
delays (Romney May 31, 2001). Community support was important politically in light of
the mayoral race, the politics of the contenders, and the past experience with the Staples
Center, through which Tim Leiweke, President and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment
Group (AEG), felt “humbled” (Romney May 31, 2001). Saito also adds that the dramatic
rise in immigrant recruitment in unionizing service occupations, the rise of immigrant,
labor unions, and community organizational coalitions, and the policy legacy of local
hiring, union jobs, and living wages helped shaped the L.A. Live Community Benefits
Agreement in 2001 (Saito 2007). Though Leiweke canceled the first meeting with the
Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice (FCCEJ), a coalition of 28 organizations
advocating for community quality of life, over “100 hours of labor-style negotiations”
produced an agreement for affordable housing, job training, living wages, parking
benefits, and other community-serving benefits (Romney June 2, 2001). The Los
Angeles Times touted the benefits package as a model of urban partnerships in the
nation (The Los Angeles Times 2001).
Additionally, in contrast to previous models of resistance in the area, FCCEJ united with
major labor groups (such as the AFL-CIO) in order to gain further leverage against AEG
(Saito 2007). Through a labor and community coalition, the coalition was able to garner
more comprehensive benefits for both community (such as an affordable housing trust)
and labor (living wages). FCCEJ’s campaign, with the decline of astutely pro-growth council
267
members and the historical damage slow growth forces have cost developers since the
late 1980s, provide an important political backdrop on the leverage of new developments.
These factors forced Leiweke, for example, to see that negotiating with community groups
like FCCEJ has become the “cost of doing business,” especially in high-growth areas like
Los Angeles (The Los Angeles Times 2001).
To communicate community resistance, FCCEJ challenged traditional growth discourse

in a variety of ways, which reflected historical patterns of engaging the growth machine.
The first, as seen in the Justice in the Construction Industry Campaign, Grace Simons of
the Save Elysian Park Committee, and the Legal Aid Foundation, is that growth is not
value-neutral. In fact, growth can destroy use-values, such as valuable park space and
residents’ communities, and disproportionately harm and exclude people of color who live
in dense urban areas. Utilizing these historical strands of discourse, FCCEJ forcefully argued
for local hiring and training agreements that could provide economic opportunity in the
new developments for local community residents. Despite these efforts, in reality, some,
especially undocumented immigrants, are continually excluded from these opportunities.
The second is the challenge to the use of public subsidies to help generate profit for
private investments. This was another discursive challenge historically used by community
groups to criticize the growth coalition’s developments. Grace Simons, for example, cried
vandalism when the city sought to hand over already-scarce public parkland for the
quasi-commercial use of the Convention Center. Similarly, Gilda Haas, then-executive
director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, a coalition member of FCCEJ, asked,
“Why should billionaires get public money?” (Ramos August 21, 2000). This tactic
challenges one of the fundamental links between the private and public leaders of the
growth coalition. Public leaders have historically provided subsidies and other incentives
to draw private investors and capital to develop in their city, in light of inter-urban
competition and the maintenance of a proper business climate. This competition has only
intensified with neoliberal policies in an era of increasing global integration, in which
capital flows are nearly instantaneous, while places are locked in physical spaces.
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Last is the discursive representation of a locality in terms of its use value, rather than solely its
exchange value. FCCEJ and the Figueroa Corridor Partnership (FCP), a business improvement
district, illustrate this contrast. The FCP chairman Darryl Holter yearns for Figueroa Corridor to
“be an inviting place that will bring more people to downtown” (Ramos August 21, 2000).
In contrast, Gilda Haas emphasizes the fact that “People live here too. We want safe streets
too… [the construction of new schools] is something that will make the corridor a better
place to live” (Ramos August 21, 2000). The two statements emphasize different aspects
of the corridor. Holter wants to reimagine and redevelop a new place that will bring people
from other areas, excluding the value of current residents and highlighting the economic
profitability and, thus, the exchange value of the reimagination and restructuring of the
Figueroa Corridor. Importantly, this discourse is superficially value- and race-neutral. Holter’s
imagination of the area is full of working class African Americans and Latinos who do not
productively figure into his reimagination of the area. Those he seeks to bring are wealthier
“whitened” residents who can consume and tour the entertainment and also bring profits.
In contrast, Haas emphasizes the residents and families that currently live in the community
and efforts to improve their quality of life through development. In this way, current efforts,
such as Staples Center and L.A. Live, can be channeled to benefit local community residents
and, inevitably, include local working class communities of color.
On September 6, the city council approved the 27-acre L.A. Live development, approving
up to $270 million in tax breaks and city support (Zahniser July 20, 2008). The city,
however, delayed voting on whether it would provide hundreds of millions of dollars
to help subsidize the 45-story hotel (Daunt September 6, 2001). Commentators soon
pointed out the development’s potential to revive the struggling Convention Center,
which suffers from a dearth of hotels in walking distance. Indeed, by 2003, the city paid
a general subsidy of $15 million a year to cover Convention Center expansion debt, with
an annual debt payment of about $41.5 million (McGreevy May 20, 2002). In 2005,
the city voted 14-0 to subsidize the L.A. Live Hotel with $177 million in aid (McGreevy
February 12, 2005). Again, reference to the Convention Center was made. The subsidy
would indirectly revive convention trade.
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Demographic Data 1980-2000: Racial and Class Bias

The demographic trends from 1980 to 2000 show a picture of race and class stratification.
From 1980 to 2000, there were 18% more WNHs on average in Area 1 than Area 2, while
23% less Hispanics/BNHs in Area 1 than Area 2. While the differences in WNHs between
Area 1 and Area 2 have not increased substantially since 1960-1980 averages (from 1960
to1980, the difference in the median number of WNHs in Area 1 and 2 was about 17%,
compared to 18% from 1980 to 2000), there is a larger exclusionary effect of Hispanics/
BNHs. The difference in 1980 to 2000 grew to 23.5% between Area 1 and Area 2
compared to a 6.5% difference in the previous period. The stratification based on race has
grown dramatically, perhaps especially due to increased Latino immigration patterns into
the city and the exclusionary effect of more expensive real estate in Area 1.
What complicates this picture of stratification, however, is the dramatic growth of the
other non-Hispanic (ONH) category. Though the data does not precisely show it, the
dramatic growth in ONHs may be related to a growth in Asian Pacific Islanders in the
area, especially professional APIs who immigrated and moved to the downtown area
after the 1965 Immigration Act.
Building 1 (Convention Center and expansion), 2 (Staples Center), 3 (L.A. Live).

270
AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
White Non-Hispanic 23.14% 4.92% 18.22%

Hispanic/BNH 61.71% 85.18% -23.47%
ONH 12.43% 5.68% 6.75%
Race comparisons between Area 1 and Area 2 between 1980-2000, on average.
Examining the differences across time shows an intensification of trends seen between
1960 and 1980. Specifically, the trend of white flight from the area has continued, with
WNHs stabilizing around 22% in Area 1. Hispanics/BNHs have tended to increase up
until the 1990s, when they began to fall back to levels seen between the 1970s and
the 1980s. Critically, the ONH population in 2000 jumped to 38% of the population,
becoming the fastest growing demographic in the area, up to a 30% difference between
Area 1 and Area 2.
WNHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 35.06% 14.42% 20.64%

1990 26.36% 4.65% 21.71%
2000 21.61% 4.35% 17.26%
HISPANIC/BNHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 57.63% 76.87% -19.24%

1990 62.28% 87.59% -25.31%
2000 47.70% 87.04% -39.35%

Changes in WNHs and Hispanic/BNHs across time between Area 1 and Area 2.
ONHs AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 7.30% 6.34% 0.97%

1990 12.43% 5.21% 7.22%
2000 37.89% 7.19% 30.70%
Changes in ONHs across time between Area 1 and Area 2.

271
If ONHs are increasing the most rapidly, is it exclusion simply favoring ONHs, most likely
API’s? The answer is more complicated; we must also look at socioeconomic variables.
Indeed, a bivariate correlation of certain variables between 1980-2000 show a highly
significant relationship between ONHs, increases in land value, decreases in blue collar
workers, slight increases in white collar workers, college-, and high-school-educated
populations. Indeed, the rise of ONHs, especially in 2000, is directly related to the
economic restructuring of the downtown and the influx of professional and educated
APIs into the U.S. Indeed, as the downtown becomes increasingly stratified based on
race and class, the picture of racial segregation becomes more complex.
INCOME LAND BLUE WHITE COLLEGE HIGH TOTAL

VALUE COLLAR COLLAR SCHOOL HOUSING
ONH 0.107* 0.262* -0.345* 0.164* 0.143* 0.263* 0.248*
ONH relationship with selected socioeconomic variables [P<.01 significance denoted by *]
The decrease in Hispanics/BNHs in Area 1, and overall the exclusionary effect, coincide with
the effects of the Staples Center and policies like adaptive reuse in 1999. This policy, pushed
by one of the biggest downtown boosters, the Central City Association, streamlined the
conversion of older commercial and industrial structures into housing. In 1990, the value
of property rose to nearly $500,000 per home, exceeding Area 2’s median values by over
$300,000. Unfortunately, the inflation in property values did not last. Property values dropped
to $166,000 in 2000, actually making property cheaper by $50,000 compared to Area 2.
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE

LAND VALUES
1980 $159,050.50 $130,434.31 $28,616.19

1990 $504,168.71 $191,927.92 $312,240.79
2000 $166,824.00 $213,948.00 $-47,124.00
Changes in median household land values between Area 1 and Area 2 from 1980 to 2000.
272
If property values decreased overall, why is there still an exclusionary effect against
Hispanics/BNHs? There are several potential explanations for the prevalence of this
exclusionary effect. The first explanation is the early 2000 recession caused by a boom
in the 1990s with low inflation and low unemployment. The second explanation is the
methodological complications created by new construction and conversion. As a result of
the Convention Center expansion, the Staples Center, and the adaptive reuse policy, new
developments, such as loft, apartment, and condo construction, as well as conversions,
some of the development values may have been put in limbo. Second, and not necessarily
mutually exclusively either, is that the areas simply displaced existing residents through new
construction, especially Hispanics/BNHs who could not afford rising rents.
TRACT 2077.10 TRACT 2079 TRACT 2075 TRACT 2073
1980 $100,988.23 $217,112.75 $234,235.70 $18,281.75

1990 $882,528.80 $257,128.59 $439,979.27 $56,835.82
2000 $15,750.00 $286,146.00 $208,530.00 $125,118.00

Individual tract changes from 1980 to 2000.
In addition to this race bias, the data show a class bias as manifested through edu-
cational and occupational status. On average, from 1980 to 2000, Area 1 not only had
more high-school- and college-educated individuals (9.6% and 13.2% respectively), but
also more white collar workers compared to Area 2 (14.48%). In this analysis, blue collar
workers faced the largest disparity, almost a 14.5% difference between Areas 1 and
2. This period also saw the greatest divergence in income between Area 1 and Area 2,
approximately a $9,800 difference.

MEDIANS
HIgh School 20.02% 10.35% 9.66%

College 16.73% 3.58% 13.15%
Blue Collar 18.77% 33.21% -14.44%
White Collar 23.33% 8.85% 14.48%
Income $26,743.02 $16,937.33 $9,805.69

Socioeconomic indicators from 1980 to 2000 between Area 1 and Area 2, on average.
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Across time, the trends have intensified since the 1960s-1980s. Much like it has been
for race, an important break is 1990-2000, when the high school-educated population
decreased about 10%. Already up from between 1980 and 1990, college-educated
individuals increased 6% respectively between 1990 and 2000. Interestingly, the divergence
in occupational status arrived much earlier. White collar workers in Area 1 increased between
1980 and 1990—a 10% jump—while blue collar workers dropped from 1980 to 1990
by 14%. These trends point to greater exclusion of high school-educated and blue collar
workers from Area 1. This exclusion, as well as labor stratification, is related to economic
restructuring and deindustrialization that has favored white collar professionals in the
service, technology, and science industries. The Staples Center and L.A. Live are investments
linked to the reimagination not only of a city of entertainment and tourism developments,
but also of a city full of a creative, professional class of “knowledge workers.”
HIGH SCHOOL AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 22.12% 15.42% 6.70%

1990 21.90% 11.74% 10.17%
2000 11.67% 8.74% 2.93%
COLLEGE AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 5.05% 3.88% 1.16%

1990 16.73% 2.89% 13.84%
2000 22.92% 5.35% 17.57%
WHITE COLLAR AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 13.38% 10.50% 2.88%

1990 23.49% 8.17% 15.32%
2000 22.53% 9.50% 13.04%
BLUE COLLAR AREA 1 AREA 2 DIFFERENCE
1980 32.43% 33.93% -1.50%

1990 18.77% 33.27% -14.50%
2000 9.74% 23.11% -13.37%

White collar/blue collar indicators across time between 1980 and 2000.
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The investment in the Convention Center expansion, the Staples Center, and L.A. Live is
ultimately a spatial bias in investment that favors certain areas over others. Importantly,
these demographic changes demonstrate that growth does not benefit everyone equally,
challenging value neutral growth discourse. These changes may have actually intensified
the inequitable effects of spatial exclusion from certain neighborhoods. The effect is
thus a more stratified and segregated urban space. Specifically, WNHs, white collar, and
college-educated workers benefit from these developments. The precipitous drops in blue
collar workers and high-school-educated populations as well as the increased exclusion
of Hispanics/BNHs point to this exclusionary effect, what some call “exclusionary
displacement” (Newman and Wyly 2006). The larger implication of these demographic
changes is that the reimagination of the city, hundreds of millions of dollars of urban
development, and larger trends in global economic restructuring toward the “knowledge
economy” all play an important part in shaping our cities. While the impacts are hotly
debated, what cannot be denied is the segregating effect of these trends, much of which
is decided by growth politics and city policy, which apportion the benefits of economic
growth to some groups, which can access and live in certain privileged spaces, and not
to others.
A LARGER DOWNTOWN VISION: TOWARD AN ENTERTAINMENT AND

TOURIST CITY
The Staples Center and L.A. Live project is part of a larger downtown revitalization
plan orchestrated by major downtown and city interests. Much of this revitalization
seeks to invest in an urban economy focused on cultural, entertainment, and retail,
as illustrated by Judd’s discussion of the Tourist City (Judd and Fainstein 1999). The
L.A. Conservancy leads the efforts on Broadway, northeast of the Staples Center,
pushing the Broadway Initiative to revitalize the street through cultural programming,
and utilizing the street’s historical theaters and entertainment attractions (Philips
September 30, 2001). Civic and business leaders also sought to revitalize Grand
Avenue with the New York developer Related Companies, which built the twin-tower
Time Warner Center in Manhattan.
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Planners and civic leaders see the avenue with pedestrian malls, quirky retail, a boutique
hotel, and a mix of housing to create a “vibrant” street, building on cultural institutions
such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (Levey and
Roug August 10, 2004). With its success with the Staples Center and L.A. Live, Anschutz,
Leiweke, and Roski also teamed up with Wasserman (owner of the L.A. Avengers football
team) and Ron Burkle (a supermarket billionaire) to bring a downtown football stadium
to South Park, just east of the Staples Center. However, the plan for the stadium ultimately
failed and the four sought to relocate it to the City of Industry, a neighboring city east of Los
Angeles (2004). More recently, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill allowing the stadium
to move forward, with construction initiating as soon as an NFL team moves to Los Angeles
(Hunt 2009). The city also sought to bring in tax revenue through its $2.4 billion City Center
Redevelopment Plan in 2002. The city voted 12-3 to create a special district that set aside
80% of property taxes in the area into the CRA and a housing trust fund, aiming to bring
nearly 13,000 new housing units downtown and up to 6.7 million square feet of commercial
and industrial development (Mehta, Daunt, and McGreevy May 9, 2002). The plan would
also fund adult education, mental health centers, and homeless research.
Resistance
However, various interests have pushed back on many of these downtown-centered
growth projects, especially by bringing in equity concerns. For example, in May
2002, the L.A. Board of Supervisors filed a lawsuit against the city, calling the
council’s appropriation of nearly $278 million in property tax money from 879 acres
through the City Center Plan illegal and unjust. Supervisor Yaroslavsky claimed that
“demanding that the county pony up to subsidize profit-making ventures by cutting
services to the most dependent among us is unconscionable” (Yaroslavksy May 15,
2002). This tension harkens back to the same tension downtown interests faced in
their understanding of spatial harmony. In Fogelson’s history, downtown interests
believed that what was good for downtown was good for the rest of the city. As
Yaroslavsky’s opposition shows, not everyone agreed on this strategy to accumulate
capital and growth to privilege certain spaces over other. The suit did not bode well for
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city council. The judge pointed to a similar lawsuit in 1977 filed by then-councilman
Ernarni Bernardi against a similar downtown redevelopment zone that limited the
Community Redevelopment Agency from receiving any more than $750 million in
property tax revenue to cover costs. The judge deemed the cap reached in 2000
and sought to file an order that would invalidate the city ordinance that created the
redevelopment project (McGreevy and Briscoe June 26, 2003).
Similar concerns about downtown growth have been echoed recently against the 2008
phone tax (Proposition S) ballot measure. Neighborhood councils across the city opposed
the tax not so much because of the tax itself, but what it represented: City Hall’s
subsidization of dense downtown developments, while ignoring everyday neighborhood
needs and the overall L.A. economy (Kotkin February 3, 2008). Daymond Johnson, a
secretary of the South Central Neighborhood Council, echoes Yaroslavsky’s concern,
pointing to the way that development has offered few opportunities to poorer minority
residents, with most investment “going downtown, but nothing is happening south of
the 10 Freeway. All we get is more liquor stores” (Kotkin February 3, 2008). Indeed, the
spatial bias in investment, particularly real estate development, serves to benefit and
attract a specific group concentrated in the downtown.
Demographic Overview: 1960-2000

One of the main arguments made in this paper, however, is that growth is not
targeted to and does not benefit everyone equally. As seen through the spatial biases
in urban development in Area 1 versus Area 2 and the demographic shifts that have
occurred, specific communities have more access to certain economic benefits than
others, specifically a WNH, college-educated, white collar workforce. The idea is
that the reimagination of the Figueroa corridor, and more broadly downtown Los
Angeles—one directly imagined out of contentious growth politics and actual city
policies and subsidies—has been historically linked to a certain vision of a city. It
is an urban vision that is not only global in status, following the latest trends in
urban development such as convention centers and entertainment districts, but also
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cosmopolitan, populated by a creative and professional class of highly educated and

“productive” workers and taxpayers.
No doubt the class indicators in the Ethington data set are somewhat limited: it does not
account for the full range of class groups (for example, it lacks those with an educational
status below high school and unemployed individuals). But, it is one of the few datasets
that comprehensively tracks the changes over the last four decades. And, as the table shows
below, the very huge disparities in both race and class from 1960 to 2000, among a large
population of over 70,000 individuals, demonstrate highly statistically significant differences
between the two areas (p<0.01). Race and class differences intensify between 1980 and
2000. Areas 1 and 2 saw differences of up to 40% in the composition of Hispanics/BNHs and
15% for college-educated and white collar workers. Area 1 also saw drops in the Hispanic/
BNH populations, 15% drops from 1990 to 2000, and 10% drops in blue collar populations
in the same period. Interestingly, housing stock is negatively related to the percentage of
Hispanic/BNHs from 1960 to 2000. Income differences, though only $3,200, are mostly
attributed to two tracts: 2077.1, which contains L.A. Live and the Staples Center; and
2075, which is closer to downtown. Indeed, Ethington et al. (2001) found higher rates of
resegregation after the 1960s, with whites retreating to certain spaces, such as suburbs. This
research builds on these findings. Patterns of segregation are both higher in downtown areas,
and, post-1980s, patterns of socioeconomic segregation have dramatically risen. In other
words, looking at the differences, there is something important going on here.
WNH 35.06% 13.53% 21.53%

Hispanic/BNH 46.38% 76.87% -30.49%
High School 21.89% 15.42% 6.47%
College 5.74% 3.80% 1.94%
Blue Collar 19.05% 31.07% -12.02%
White Collar 22.97% 12.16% 10.82%
Income $22,489.64 $19,286.67 $3,202.96
Percentage Change 4617.51% 173.63% 4,443.88%
Median Land Value

Changes in selected groups from 1960 to 2000, on average, between Area 1 and Area 2.
278
HIgh School 20.02% 10.34% 9.67%

College 16.73% 3.55% 13.18%
Blue Collar 14.26% 27.85% -13.59%
White Collar 23.01% 9.49% 13.52%

Changes in selected groups from 1980 to 2000, on average, between Area 1 and Area 2.
A logistic regression model also provides a method of explaining the variances within the
data due to the areas. In other words, the model allows one to test how much of a group
is explained by the area variable. A mild or high explanation could help show that, indeed,
certain spaces privilege certain groups over others. Applying Area 1 or Area 2 to this
model, two different R-squared values are obtained: the Nagelkerke and the Cox and Snell,
a more conservative estimate. The data below show that the percentage of WNHs (between
about 40-65%), college-educated from 1980-2000 (43-71%), and blue collar workers
from 1980-2000 (40-66%) are highly related to Area 1 or 2. All of this supports the thesis
of exclusion or inclusion of certain groups in certain spaces, most significantly WNHs,
college-educated, and blue collar workers—by directly linking areas to explain how much
the data varies. The other variables are more mildly related to the Area 1 or Area 2 variable,
many of which reach up to 40% explanatory power on the higher end.
IN AREA 1 OR 2 COX & SNELL R SQUARE NAGELKERKE R SQUARE
WNH .393 .656

Hispanic/BNH .207 .346
Total Housing Units .205 .342
College .245 .409
White Collar .267 .446
White Collar 1980-2000 .272 .454
College 1980-2000 .425 .709
Blue Collar .278 .464
Blue Collar 1980-2000 .394 .657

R-square values for selected variables, which point to how much designated areas in this study determine the variance,

or variability, of the specified group.
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The data here challenge the idea that growth is good for all and show that
neighborhoods are becoming increasingly exclusive and stratified. Importantly, as the
table below documents, the ups and downs among different groups are related in an
interesting fashion with the variables of other indicators. WNHs, for example, are mildly
related to increase in housing (.36), while Hispanics/BNHs are related to a decrease
(-.336). As might be expected, WNHs are also better educated and typically hold white
collar jobs. Hispanics/BNHs are related to decreases both in education groups and
white collar jobs, but strongly correlated to blue collar jobs (.809). Total housing units
is positively related to both education groups and white collar jobs, but is negatively
related to blue collar jobs, which is expected as the relationship between Hispanics/BNHs
are strongly tied to those jobs. Income is slightly negatively correlated with WNHs and
Hispanics/BNHs, perhaps due to the dramatic fluctuations in income.
WNH HISPANIC/ TOTAL HIGH COLLEGE WHITE BLUE %

BNH HOUSING SCHOOL COLLAR COLLAR CHANGE
UNITS
Hispanic/ -0.42 1 -0.336 -0.532 -0.495 -0.498 0.809 -0.148

BNHs
Total Housing 0.36 -0.336 1 0.361 0.472 0.363 -0.332 -0.121
Units
High School 0.791 -0.532 0.361 1 0.469 0.392 -0.684 0.473
College 0.702 -0.495 0.472 0.469 1 0.894 -0.624 -0.016
White Collar 0.656 -0.498 0.363 0.392 0.894 1 -0.615 .005*
Blue Collar -0.624 0.809 -0.332 -0.684 -0.624 0.615 1 -0.201
% Change in 0.167 -0.148 0.121 0.473 -0.016 0.005 -0.201 1
MLV
Income -0.108 -0.106 0.653 -0.304 0.290 0.343 0.061 -0.241

Bivariate correlation between groups. All values are significant (P<0.01) unless otherwise noted. [* not significant]
The relationships in this data also urge one to piece out the differences between
Hispanics and BNHs. For the purposes of this analysis they have been usually grouped
together due to the ways both groups have been depicted in the history as the major
residents of the area. The two groups diverge mostly around economic categories.
280
BNHs are strongly related to high school educations and are negatively related to blue
collar jobs, which are actually strongly related to Hispanics (.821). In terms of college-
educated and white collar jobs, BNHs’ relationships are negligible, but are strongly
negatively correlated to Hispanics. Interestingly, median land values are strongly related
to BNHs, but negatively related to Hispanics. On the flip side, income is negatively related
to BNHs, but slightly related to Hispanics. These results are counterintuitive, but may be
explained by the nature of the data and the fact that BNHs are lower in population and
thus more susceptible to fluctuations in values.
BNH HISPANIC
Total Housing -0.083 -0.259

High School 0.58 -0.737
College 0.011 -0.429
White Collar 0.078 -0.436
Blue Collar -0.27 0.821
% Change in MLV 0.367 -0.273
Income -0.444 0.139
Bivariate correlation comparison between BNHs and Hispanics. All values are significant (P<0.01)
unless otherwise noted.
Additionally, some preliminary mapping of new and proposed developments around

Los Angeles bolsters the argument that investment is concentrated in certain spaces,
and thus, as documented by the data above, for certain demographic groups. Gathered
through two comprehensive Los Angeles Downtown News articles that track 114
new developments in 2010 (Guzman et al. 2010), lofts, retail, and development (red
circles) both proposed and currently undergoing construction are clustered within Area
1, especially around the Convention Center, Staples Center, and L.A. Live—and, more
broadly, downtown. Interestingly, housing under construction for low-income and the
homeless (blue circles) are clustered far from the three developments, to the fringes of
Area 2. See Appendix 1 for further detail on these developments.
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Map of Area 1 and Area 2 with new developments proposed and constructed since 2000, drawn from a comprehensive
inventory of new developments in Downtown L.A. Most developments are clustered around the 3 developments,
specifically within Area 1. (See Appendix 1)
The Los Angeles Business Improvement District found that from 1998-2009, there has
been an approximate parity between affordable and market rate units. However, post-
2009, with new and currently constructed units, market rate units outpace affordable
units dramatically, 22,100 to 10,500 (Downtown Los Angeles BID 2009). Though
the data looks at the downtown as a whole, the three developments observed in the
Figueroa Corridor are part of these broader trends of urban investment and the creation
of space for certain groups of people. And, of course, as seen historically, there’s profit to
be made in all of these developments.
AFFORDABLE MARKET RATE AFFORDABLE MARKET RATE

UNITS UNITS UNITS UNITS
Existing Housing 8,445 3,181 Under 1,014 3,635

Before 1998 Development
since 2009
Constructed 2,347 13,345
Since 1999*
Total up to 2009 10,792 16,526 Grand Total** 10,808 22,100

Comparison of affordable and market rate units in exisitng and proposed developments since 1998.
[*1999 marks the passage of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance] [**Existing and Under Development]
282
CONCLUSIONS: TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE URBAN AGENDA?

The goal of this study is to situate the Convention Center, the Staples Center, and L.A.
Live in light of a growth coalition adjusting to new political economic conditions, such as
neoliberalism and the rise of slow growth activism.
Several historical themes appear in this case analysis. One is the change in growth
discourse, which began simply value- and race-neutral, and eventually also considered
the excitement of a “spectacle,” as noted by the use of “Times Square West” and a
“New Times Square.” Second, the organization of the growth coalition shifted from
mostly place-based coalitions to coalitions built between both local and extra-local
agglomerates, such as the Anschutz Entertainment Group and Rupert Murdoch. These
shifts occurred through injuries sustained through faulty developmental strategies
and increasing fragmentation that debilitated the vision of the local growth coalition.
Third, displacement occurred either by replacement via new construction or exclusion
via investment value multiplier effects (Hackworth and Smith 2001). Lastly, growth
resistance shifted from very localized efforts to labor and community struggles as
well as general slow-growth movements that began to weaken the established
growth coalition. As seen in broader resistance to downtown-focused development,
“use value” agendas and local community residents themselves (often working
class people of color) are often displaced and reorganized to make space for a
specific vision of a revitalized downtown as an entertainment, cultural, finance, and
technology capital.
Problematizing Exchange Versus Use Value: How Do Growth Coalitions Decide

What Is Profitable?
But how do growth coalitions and urban regimes decide what is profitable or not?
Where do they get their ideas to follow the latest trends in urban development? Utilizing
the historical, theoretical, and discursive analysis of this paper, several explanations may
be proffered to problematize constructions of use versus exchange value.
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On a broader, material level, the prevailing economic ideology of neoliberalism, which

grew in force with Reaganism, has debilitated city policy toolkits and treasuries to fund
alternative urban development and social services programs, such as public education.
Intense inter-urban competition for capital under globalization has created a collective
action problem in which cities with strong regulations, “unproductive” social services,
and inefficient state employment harm the business climate to attract companies
and capital. This collective action problem also affects the ability of states to pursue
alternative development strategies, such as human capital investment, due to the
riskiness of these investments “leaking” from their areas and the economic impacts
much more long-term. Unlike a development into a sports stadium, the jobs created from
quality schools or workforce developments are not immediate and quantifiable in the
short-term. There is also a vicious cycle that prevents this investment in human capital.
In the case of schools, for example, when individuals can simply escape to the suburbs to
find quality neighborhoods and school systems there, and when inner city neighborhoods
and their schools are continuously disinvested and defunded, both the attraction and the
ability to invest in public schools is doubly debilitated. Real estate investments, like the
Staples Center and L.A Live, are investments that have far fewer “leakage” issues, with
profits directly attainable to the investor, and the promise of very concrete jobs.
Indeed, much of the value-neutral discourse of the growth coalition borrows heavily from
this neoliberal economic discourse. The free market is represented by:
open market information, a multiplicity of small scale production and

consumption units, autonomous consumer tastes, and free mobility of labor
and capital leading to an efficient equilibrium. Rather, in reality, distortions,
disequilbria, and imperfections characterize economic life in contemporary
American society. Secrecy, high information costs, and socially structured
accessibility to information about jobs, products, and services abound.
(Smith 1981, p. 184)
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Much like Smith’s analysis, this paper also challenges this notion of value-neutral
discourse, arguing that, instead, growth is based on an imagination to create certain
visions of urban space and attract certain groups of people growth coalition leaders
deem productive to growth.
On an institutional level, the fiscal welfare state, which utilizes tax subsidies to promote
economic development objectives (Smith 1988), has created larger incentive structures
for the promotion of certain economic development projects. Growth Coalition decisions
about what is profitable is affected by not only local subsidies, but also broader federal
subsidies that promote a “leisure economy.” Smith writes that Reagan’s supply-
side tax cuts stimulated consumption, an economy of spending rooted in Keynesian
macroeconomic principles, which “underwrite the commodification of leisure in
subsidized urban sports arenas, shopping malls, luxury hotels, and rural retirement and
recreation enclaves” (Smith 1981, p. 183). With growth highly situated in consumption,
and when both growth and consumption is directly linked to the success of the economy,
most corporations followed the money trail. It is a trail influenced by public policy
decisions, which, of course, were also influenced by the politics and ideology of national
growth alliances, intellectuals, and leaders.
The negative and positive characterizations of various groups contain the second
explanation to decide who benefits from growth. Growth coalition leaders believed
and used discourses that represented urban communities in certain ways to
justify the impacts of certain development projects. In effect, these discourses and
representations are part of a larger ideology of how cities should be. Value-neutral
representations of growth were coupled with highly effective, yet disempowering
and otherizing representations of inner city communities. Discourses of the urban
crisis, slums, and blight often devalued those who lived in such communities and
symbolically served to discard their potential human capital. In this way, economic
development strategies that followed not only displaced and excluded, very
physically, certain groups of devalued individuals, but also displaced and excluded,
285
very symbolically and materially, priorities that invest in human capital, such as public
education and health.
Networks, institutions, and status symbols that privilege certain ideas also privilege
certain ideas. Tomer (1980, p. 210) argues, for example, that the rationale of housing
lending decisions that favored suburbs over urban areas were socially produced, not
based in economic fact. These ideologies, and the discourses, representations, and
imaginations that form them, were continually reproduced through a set of privileged
knowledge regimes, which included social networks, consultants, public policy institutes,
prestige symbols and awards, and learning institutions (Campbell 2000). To build a
convention center, the Staples Center, or L.A. Live was more than economic; it was
symbolic. For Mayor Bradley to say he could lift his chest in pride after the Convention
Center expansion means that what Los Angeles had before was not enough. Los Angeles
had to follow the success of other global cities to remain competitive.
Urban Development Growth Strategies: Ways Forward?

Projects based in real estate development, entertainment, and tourism appear profitable
with concrete benefits to the city and the community. The actual picture, however, is
not always positive. Putting aside the data for now, history can provide several lessons
and further questions. The Convention Center and its expansion, despite the predicted
economic gains to the city, both continue to rack up expansive debt—tens of millions
every year—with an immense capital start-up cost. Though the Staples Center and L.A.
Live were both financed privately, the city lost hundreds of millions in tax dollars and
entitlements to attract growth, severely debilitating its treasury and its policy toolkit
to address the externalities created by increased traffic, pollution, and other quality
of life concerns. The Brookings Institution even recently sounded the death knell for
the increasingly competitive convention industry (Hayward 2006). Jumping on the
bandwagon for development, and searching for a silver bullet for the “urban crisis,”
though creating short-term, low-wage service jobs, has harmed city coffers and displaced
and excluded many. So, how stable and equitable is the growth created by this new
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round of development, in light of globalization, suburbs, and overseas competition? Can

we invest in growth that lasts—perhaps feeding and growing sustainable growth in our
regions—instead of continually competing to attract and chase new money trails?
Answering these questions escapes the furthest boundaries of this paper. The paper’s
analysis, however, may provide a couple of important trends that can shed some light
on this vital topic. First, an important part of growing growth is to ensure that growth
actually invests in the area, not just those who profit and enjoy the luxuries created by
it. From the very beginning, there have been proactive actors who have sought to ensure
that growth is fair, challenging the value-neutral growth discourse. Examples include
the Justice in the Construction Campaign in the 1960s for the Convention Center, the
Legal Aid Foundation’s advocacy to build affordable housing to house the thousands
displaced by the Convention Center expansion, and, more recently, the Figueroa
Corridor Coalition’s community and labor effort to link city development subsidies to job
training, affordable housing, and local hiring. These efforts sought to not only challenge
disempowering representations of community and those who live in them, but also
construct a more inclusive imagination of the city.
To create sustained growth, however, physically investing in communities is not

enough. People, families, and neighbors make up communities and are a vital part
of the economy. How might growth also serve to invest in those who live in the local
community for the long term? One must first challenge disempowering representations
of local communities that form the logic of exclusion and displacement. Disciplining
and “cleaning up,” an area makes implicit judgments and pervade much development
discourse that go hand in hand with policies of policing, imprisonment, and a “war” on
poverty. A new wave of fair or just growth advocates challenge these representations
and the power dynamics that embed them. Through partnerships and community-based
investments, growth coalitions may not only challenge their own understandings of
growth, but also see local leaders and members as partners and human investments
that can “grow growth” regionally. Indeed, Birdsall, Ross, and Sabot (1995) argued
“investment in education is a key to sustained growth, both because it contributes
287
directly through productivity effects and because it reduces income inequality” (1995).
Investing in people and reducing the inequitable impacts of growth creates a sustained
growth pattern. Similarly, Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka (2009) also contend that
“regions characterized by high levels of inequality may also tend to underinvest in
human capital, even as they get involved in distributional conflict that can derail a focus
on economic growth… regional economic growth and a more equitable distribution
of income at the metropolitan level (tend) to go hand and hand.” In both of these
formulations about sustained economic growth, human capital and reductions in
inequality are a critical foundation.
Growth coalitions and, more broadly, cities and regions could stand to gain a lot by
integrating place- and people-based strategies. But this requires smart and proactive
state institutions and policies. In terms of education, linking the fate of both the cities
and their suburbs, and, even further, coordinating federal urban policy for education
and workforce development are important steps. This institutional investment would
remove the collective action problem of human capital investments potentially leaking
from one city or business to another. Overall improvements in the human capital of
the labor force, especially of underserved communities, and investments into public
infrastructure such as housing and transportation, create an important foundation
for sustained and equitable growth (Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009). With
simultaneous investments into innovation, research, and development foundations to
generate new ideas for growth and progress (Brookings 2009), a new virtuous cycle
of growth, equity, and sustainability can be pursued. For our cities, and for democracy
at large, the important point is that a population with more human and financial
capital will have the opportunity to overcome the spatial exclusion and stratification
that is intensifying in Los Angeles.
The landmark Community Benefits Act is an important step toward a more inclusive
development agenda. Policymakers must be cautious, however, of community
benefits and their actual implementation and impacts of achieving an inclusive
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urban vision. The displacement of local community residents, their cultural history,
and use-value agendas from the current reimagination of the Figueroa Corridor must
be considered closely.
Demographically, logistic regression data show, that between 1960-2000 Area 1, on

average, is highly significantly different (p<0.01) than Area 2 in certain demographic
aspects, especially in terms of percentage of WNHs (22% greater), Hispanics/BNHs
(30% less), white collar workers (10% more), blue collar workers (12% less), and the
percent change of housing land values (4500% greater). Additionally, between 1980
and 2000, coinciding with neoliberalization and economic restructuring, Area 1 has
10% more high-school-educated individuals (though this group faced a 10% drop
from 1990 to 2000) and 13% more college-educated individuals (p<0.01). Building
on Ethington et al.’s 2001 study, the findings here suggest that whites, white collar
workers, and college-educated individuals are not only resegregating in suburbs but
also in downtowns. While the causal relationships cannot be firmly decided through
this study, logistic regressions demonstrate that the placement of, especially, WNHs
and white collar workers is strongly influenced by their area. Indeed, this feeds this
paper’s thesis on the bias of development across not only space, but also to certain
demographic groups. With the archival and discursive material seen throughout,
growth coalitions have exclusively reimagined a certain vision of city for a certain type
of person, favoring a specific types of economic development.
However, the historical impact of increasing community-labor resistance, more minority

leaders, and the influence of slow-growth movements demonstrate the power of the
local. These struggles are part of a larger battle to define the role of the state. To use
Bourdieu’s (1994) and Wacquant’s (2009) analogy of the Bureaucratic Field, the struggle
about growth is part of an “internecine struggle” of the state’s social “Left Hand” (i.e.
affordable housing, public education, social services) against the disciplined “Right
Hand” (i.e. prisons, deregulation, fiscal incentives). And this internecine struggle is
related to the social struggle to construct space and the role of the state. Community
289
resistance—with its desire for more inclusive growth city policies and its alternative
representations of inner city residents—contest those representations and policies of the
growth coalition.
Future research would integrate more ethnographic and interview data, especially
of displaced individuals, to provide a bottom-up picture of the Figueroa Corridor.
Additionally, a comparative study of urban growth agendas will prove useful.
Jacksonville, for example, with its integrated metropolitan government and its decision to
not invest in entertainment and tourism industries, can illuminate a different story than
Los Angeles’ Figueroa Corridor. Comparing and contrasting these stories can provide a
typology of growth coalitions, growth discourses, institutional structures, and community
responses that influence how “just” and “sustained” growth is in a region. Lastly,
integrating the new 2010 census data can help confirm or condition the major findings
of this paper.
The Chicago School urban ecology’s contention that growth, as it is constructed, is good
for all has been an influential theory. But research has continually sought to challenge it.
Urban political economic research must do two things. It must first document increasing
urban stratification due to traditional growth strategies and second promote alternative
city narratives that demonstrate growth and equity can go hand in hand. Much like the
community battles that are being fought now, this research contests the legitimacy of
certain constructions of the state and seeks to advocate for constructions through which
the state plays a more inclusive role in the imagination of space and opportunity. The
internecine struggle continues. More recently, a 2007 ruling from the California Superior
Court struck down Mayor Villaraigosa’s effort for inclusionary zoning and mandatory
affordable housing in new developments. The conversation between growth and equity
must continue. We must imagine a new Figueroa, a new Los Angeles.
290
Appendix 1: Map of new developments post 2000.
Proposed/Developing
4. Corporation Building
5. Conversion of Holiday Inn to Luxe Hotel City Center
6. 655 Hope Residential
7. 808 S. Olive
8. 1133 S. Hope St
9. City House and Olympic
10. Concerto Tower
11. 8th and Grand
12. El Dorado
13. Jewelry District Tower
14. L.A. Lofts
15. Libeskind Towers
16. Park Fifth
17. Shy Barry Tower
18. South Figueroa, Tower 1
19. South Figueroa, Tower 2
20. Zen
21. 1027 Wilshire
22. Holland Partners Project
23. Orisini II
24. Medallion
25. Metropolis
26. Wilshire Grand/Korean Air
27. Pacific Stock Exchange Nightclub
28. Embassy Hotel
29. Mignon
30. Concerto Annex
31. Emil Brown Lofts
32. Mendocino Farms
33. SB Tower
Affordable Housing (Single Rent Occupancies, Mostly affordable housing)

1. Bristol Hotel
2. Gateway Apartments
3. Panama apartments
4. Renato Apartments
5. The Ford
6. Hope Street Family Center
7. Project Home
8. YWCA Job Corps Campus
9. New Carver Apartments
291
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USC LIBRARIES | USC DANA and DAVID

© 2011 USC Libraries

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

4 FOREWORD Catherine Quinlan

6 INTRODUCTION Steven L. Lamy

8 OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES: A MULTILEVEL NEURAL

28 ROCKETS OF BABEL: WAR AND TECHNOLOGY IN GRAVITY’S

72 THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL CAUSES OF

130 TEENS, TODDLERS, AND TOTORO Victor Luo

144 EFFECTIVENESS IN PEACEKEEPING: A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

216 DEAD LETTERS, DEAD AUTHORS, LIVE READERS Sarah Thermond

228 REIMAGINING THE FIGUEROA CORRIDOR, 1960-2005:

My computational neural network seeks to validate the IR model in a theoretically and

MODEL CONSTRUCTION AND TRAINING

Evaluation Evolution Analysis

The results of the IR model provide an alternative understanding of evaluation that

These patterns of evaluation account for commonly observed and experienced

Table 1: Second stage training frequencies.

Presentations per Presentations per

White male doctor 15 White female athlete 5

Black male doctor 3 Black female athlete 4

White female doctor 10 White male gang member 3

Black female doctor 2 Black male gang member 8

White male athlete 8 White female 1

Black male athlete 6 Black female 1

TABLE 1: Second stage training frequencies.

Table 2: Trained features.

Profession Input Context Attributes

Athlete Sweatpants, street Street corner, Athletic, popular,

Gang Member Gang colors, Street corner, gang Violent, unintelligent

TABLE 2: Trained features.

Figure 1: Network structure with nodes and connections.

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 16

Figure 2: Black male doctor evaluation.

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 17

Figure 3: White male doctor evaluation.

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 18

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 19

Figure 5: White male gangster evaluation.

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 20

OVERRIDING RACIAL STEREOTYPES 21

But a technology? In our epoch, technology is defined by speed, as arguably, all

As a work of fiction, Gravity’s Rainbow is an unlikely candidate in helping us come to terms

1.2 Charting a Constellation

intertexts also exist alongside a large amount of metafictional elements, a combination

Linda Hutcheon has detailed the genre—historiographic metafiction consists of two

Gravity’s Rainbow is indeed a work of historiographic metafiction. Pynchon uses

When we concentrate on the density of Gravity’s Rainbow, the relevance of these

These external states of exception between (sovereign) bodies had to be legitimated, or

2.2 Present’s War

What has replaced the conglomerate of nation-states is not, however, a single

capitalism in order to prove useful instruments of Empire. Endocolonization therefore

2.2.1 Means: Technology & Biopower

Before engaging the IG Farben of history, it is first necessary to understand what IG

3.1.1 The Character of IG Farben

in the text, his presence is noteworthy, for it is completely dependent on IG Farben—he

Another example of IG Farben’s ability to create and command characters/personas is

In addition to these characters/figures whose existence is dependent on IG Farben, and

3.1.2 The Empire of IG Farben

3.2 Enzian’s Name

be understood as a “pure word” that has been “won” by a “wanderer” (Weisenburger