The 31 page Sanders paper -
tracks the recent rise of ideology and evidence discourse as a way of describing good and bad Indigenous affairs policy. Expressing dissatisfaction with this discourse, it suggests a slightly more complex analytic way of thinking about Indigenous affairs involving three competing principles; equality, choice and guardianship. The paper suggests that dominant debates in Indigenous affairs balance these principles and move between them over time. Using a fourfold categorisation of ideological tendencies, it also suggests that different tendencies of thought about settler society and its relations with Indigenous societies occupy different positions in relation to the three competing principles. Finally, using the work of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board as an example, the paper examines the role of evidence in Indigenous affairs. Evidence, it argues, always needs to be contextualised and is always a part of arguments or debates. The role of evidence in Indigenous affairs needs to be understood in relation to the much larger issue of balancing competing principles.Thomas & Buckmaster comment in their 30 page paper that -
Governments are increasingly called upon to introduce paternalist policies — that is, policies that restrict the choices of individual citizens in their own interests and without their consent. Paternalist policies are often controversial, not least because they infringe a key principle of liberal societies; namely, that citizens are best placed to know their own interests.The emphasis on making sense of evidence is continued in a GeoCurrents post on 'The Failure of the Failed State Index'.
While paternalist policies are often contentious, they are nevertheless ubiquitous. This suggests that the main issue is not whether or not paternalism itself is justifiable, but rather the conditions under which particular paternalist policies may be said to be justifiable.
This paper argues that paternalist policies may be considered justifiable under circumstances where high stakes decisions are involved, the decisions being made by individuals are irreversible and it is possible to identify failures in people's reasoning. It is further argued that if paternalist interventions are able to be justified in terms of people's own values and preferences, then this adds weight to their acceptability given that they do not undermine people's autonomy.
Relatively little scholarly attention has been devoted to the questions of what particular forms of paternalism may be deemed to be appropriate. This paper suggests that the principles of discrimination, proportionality, accountability and efficacy provide a framework with which to consider the appropriateness or otherwise of various forms of paternalist intervention.
The author of that post comments that -
If the Failed State Index is a promising but problematic analytical tool, the map that accompanies it on the Foreign Policy website is something else altogether. At first glance, it appears the cartographers have mapped sovereign states from red to green, while using white as an unmarked category to include both dependent territories, such as Greenland and Puerto Rico, and key disputed lands, such Western Sahara and the Hala'ib Triangle (claimed by Sudan, administered by Egypt). Closer inspection, however, reveals a stunning lack of consistency. The regions depicted in white turn out to have nothing in common. Some are dependencies and a few are disputed territories, but others range from autonomous areas, to insular portions of sovereign states, to fully independent countries. Meanwhile, the world's hottest territorial dispute, Kashmir, is essentially invisible: the area controlled by India is mapped as part of India, the area controlled by Pakistan is mapped as part of Pakistan, and the area controlled by China (Aksai Chin) is mapped as if it were a lake (or perhaps desiccated lake, given that it is portrayed exactly like the Aral Sea!).
A few of the oddities on the map deserve special mention. The cartographer's most glaring gaffe is the excision of the island of Newfoundland from Canada. France too is shorn of most of its islands; the map implicitly refutes French sovereignty over all of its overseas departments (Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion), even though they are as much parts of France as Hawaii and Alaska are parts of the United States. In the Caribbean, several independent island countries (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Dominica, and more) are denied sovereignty, mapped instead as white splotches. Further south, Chile has been divested of its half of Tierra del Fuego. Some autonomous island groups, such as Portugal's Azores and Finland's Åland Archipelago, are mapped in white, but not Denmark's autonomous Faroe Islands. Taiwan, a de facto sovereign state not recognized by most other independent countries, is shown in white, but Kosovo, which fits the same category, is colored. A too-large West Bank is mapped in white, but in the accompanying tables it is aggregated with Israel. Elsewhere the mapmaker takes islands belonging to one country and assigns them to another. The coloration scheme shows Socotra as part of Somalia rather than Yemen, Rhodes as part of Turkey rather than Greece, and the Florida Keys as part of the Bahamas rather than the United States. Similar errors abound. Have the editors of Foreign Policy and the creators of the Failed State Index never checked their own map?
