Search the archive.

Last week, we came a step closer to a discovery for the vaccine to COVID-19, after Oxford University produced a safe version of a treatment that provided a strong immune response – a discovery that could probably be written on a small piece of paper, but would be one of the most valuable assets on the planet.

Such a finding marks an incredible moment, as societies grapple with the heart-breaking reality of this deadly virus. But the progression of this vital treatment also serves to highlight the fundamentally flawed approach to access to medicines and, specifically, the costly practise of patent enclosure by powerful and profitable pharmaceutical giants, resulting in many being denied life-saving treatments.

The rise of the “superbugs” is here. The death toll is already in the millions each year, and it won’t be too long before “superbugs” are killing tens of millions of people each year. In my last book I identified a number of long-term trends that threaten to collapse our society, and now you can add this one to the list. The clock really is ticking for humanity, but most people in the general population simply do not understand what we are facing. They just assume that life will go on as it always has, but that is simply not going to be possible.

If you are not familiar with “antimicrobial resistance”, the following is a decent definition from the official CDC website…

Nationalist populists typically speak differently than conventional politicians. According to Block and Negrine [4], populists' specific kind of language includes combative, emotional, nationalistic, and confrontational discourse through which they engage with the dissatisfied frequently through grassroots, community-oriented, communicative practices and spaces. As a result, nationalist-populist speeches and announcements are more likely to be geared toward delighting home audiences, garnering their favour and votes, and therefore sustaining their political power. According to Olive and Maren's [1] analysis, the above-mentioned type of discourse that is utilised by nationalist populists may be referred to as "loose talks," and it is typically carried out through social media.

As Olive and Maren [1] pointed out, the release of nuclear policies is not likely to take place until after a drawn-out and careful procedure has been carried out by governments. This is one of the elements that goes into maintaining nuclear order. When it comes to addressing nuclear arsenals and nuclear strategy, for instance, heads of state or government frequently rely on words that have been painstakingly drafted and extensively scrutinised. As Freedman [5] points out, the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence is typically only demonstrated when governments are confronted with threats to their very existence, and only after a stringent government consensus has been reached. In addition, Rebecca [6] noticed that everything a politician says on social media platforms regarding a certain topic is quickly understood as the nation's viewpoint and given a feeling of authority. This is the case regardless of the context in which the politician makes the statement. In spite of this, given what has been said about the unique linguistic style used by nationalist populists, it will be difficult to comprehend the underlying meanings of nationalist populist discourses because of what has been said about this language style. This is owing to the fact that these discourses would be less likely to be the result of a thorough procedure, and they also violate the norm on when countries should display their nuclear deterrence. As a direct result of this, misunderstandings are likely to take place, which has the potential to heighten tensions between governments and may even increase the likelihood of nuclear strikes.

Moving forward, the United States needs to be more strategic in how it invests in R&D, the kinds of priorities being pursued, and the manner in which we make the decisions associated with these investments. There are a number of steps America should consider in order to further important objectives and fulfill key national goals.

Pursue R&D for the public good

Although bad-to-worst case scenarios remain underexplored in the scientific literature, statements labeling climate change as catastrophic are not uncommon. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called climate change an “existential threat.” Academic studies have warned that warming above 5 °C is likely to be “beyond catastrophic” (50), and above 6 °C constitutes “an indisputable global catastrophe” (9).

Current discussions over climate catastrophe are undermined by unclear terminology. The term “catastrophic climate change” has not been conclusively defined. An existential risk is usually defined as a risk that cause an enduring and significant loss of long-term human potential (51, 52). This existing definition is deeply ambiguous and requires societal discussion and specification of long-term human values (52). While a democratic exploration of values is welcome, it is not required to understand pathways to human catastrophe or extinction (52). For now, the existing definition is not a solid foundation for a scientific inquiry.

There are at least three lessons vital for effective institutionalization of innovation that stem from Mariana Mazzucato’s analysis. There is a need to strengthen the funding sources of public R&D; a need to increase public commitment to ‘green’ technology innovation and direction setting; and a need to update the Keynesian responses to modern economic crises. If State investment in R&D is a necessary first condition in generating private innovation later, then guaranteeing a steady flow of funds for such purposes is in everybody’s interest. Her account of the Apple story shows that, apart from ‘staying foolish’ as Steve Jobs recommended, what many successful entrepreneurs have done – including him – is to integrate State-funded technological developments into breakthrough products. Given the massive returns generated by their success, shouldn’t entrepreneurs then return some of the rewards to the government, so it can continue taking the big risks that can later be turned into market game-changers? One could indeed hold that the reward is created in new tax revenues. Yet, globalization and information technology have enabled profits to migrate to low tax regions or even within tax havens. It is clear that innovation is needed in the tax system to ensure that highrisk public spending can continue to guarantee future private innovation. Mazzucato’s analysis provides a framework for thinking about ways to reform the current model to achieve that. The other direction for public sector innovation relates to ‘green’ technology. It is my own conviction that other than saving the planet, the green direction can, if properly supported, save the economy. By transforming consumption and production patterns and revamping existing structures and infrastructures, green technology can generate economic growth and long-term environmental sustainability. ‘Green growth’ can have an impact equivalent to what suburbanization and postwar reconstruction did to unleash the golden age in the West on the basis of the ‘American way of life’. It is impossible for the new millions of consumers being incorporated into the global economy to find wellbeing following the energy- and materials-intensive path exploited in the past. The limits to resources plus the threat of global warming could either become a powerful brake against the globalization process or the most powerful driver of growth, employment and innovation in a generation. Mazzucato holds that the ‘green revolution’ will depend on proactive governments. She shows, with ample illustration from the experience of the last decades in Europe, the US, China and Brazil, that success along the green direction has followed where clear, committed and stable government support has been available. As in the case of the US with information technology, it is those countries that are willing to accept the high risks and that are determined to support their entrepreneurs that are likely to lead the world markets in green technologies. Market uncertainty is unavoidable in the context of innovation, but policy uncertainty – as experienced in the US and UK with respect to all things ‘green’ – is deadly. Her analysis suggests that success is met by those countries that have been able to reach a strong national consensus and can therefore maintain the level of funding and sustained policy support through the ups and downs of the economy.

The role of the state in the economy has always been contested. Neoclassical economic theory, which dominates most major economic departments of universities and thinking within national treasuries, holds that the primary goal for the state should be simply to correct market failures. These failures could be an externality that is not properly accounted for; a public good that is currently not being funded; or a monopoly exercising undue power or price gauging. The theory then holds that once the failure has been addressed, the state should step back in order to reap the rewards of now properly functioning market which should deliver growth together with increased jobs and tax revenues. Even within the narrow frame of the role that such economic thinking sets out, everyone benefits considerably from the investments made by the state. As Mariana Mazzucato has written, even free market fundamentalists: “gain directly through the roads you drive down, the rules and policing which ensure their safety, the BBC radio you listen to, schools and universities that train the doctors and pilots you depend on, parks, theatre, films and museums that nurture our national identity. You also gain, indirectly, through enormous public subsidies without which private schools, hospitals and utility providers would never be able to deliver affordably and still make a profit.”7 The idea that the state should just facilitate, administer and regulator the economy rather than engage in more direct directing and management started gaining wide acceptance in the 1970s. These ideas have received newfound popularity in the aftermath of the recent global financial crisis and used to target reductions in government spending and debt, often arguing that reducing government spending will not lead to stagnation and collapse but instead generate additional private investment. This kind of thinking led to policies like the one introduced by the Labour Party in 2002, which reduced the time that private equity funds must be invested to be eligible for tax reductions from ten years to two years.8 As Mazzucato argues, such policies ‘increase inequality, not investment, and by rewarding short-term investments at the expense of long-term ones, they hurt innovation.’9 Just as the state has led the development of infrastructure that makes our lives possible it will also need to take a lead in addressing some of the major challenges that we face as a society today, often ones that the market is either unable to address or in fact the primary driver of the problem, things such as climate change, youth unemployment, obesity, aging, and inequality. The development of the Covid-19 public health emergency has made these challenges more acute. Despite these enormous challenges, many governments are reluctant to explicitly target large-scale investment programmes to tackle them. Often, their actions are limited to creating tax incentives, enabling legislation or providing public money for R&D, usually implemented in such a way that the state gets nothing direct in return. However, as our analysis of ONS data reveals in the following section, these limited actions operate at considerable scale, with tax incentives and public R&D spending totalling £14.4bn in the UK in 2017-18. The same is true in the US, where even though publicly funded R&D has been happening quietly, it has nevertheless delivered significant results as evidenced by the development of key components of the iPhone, outlined in Box 1

Box 1 – The public money behind the iPhone

But rather than introducing new trendy words, like ecosystems of innovation to describe the innovative process, it is now more important than ever to understand the division of ‘innovative’ labour between the different actors in these systems, and in particular, the role and commitment of each actor in the context of the very bumpy risk landscape within which they are operating. While the State needs to take risks, it should not be simply absorbing (or even ‘mitigating’) the risk of the private sector, but taking the kind of risks that the private sector is not willing to take, and also reaping returns from that risk taking. Reaping the returns is crucial, because the innovation cycle can thus be sustained over time (with returns from the current round funding the next round – as well as the inevitable losses along the way) and be less susceptible to political and business cycles. Public policies should focus on the specific role the public sector plays, within and between sectors and institutions, in order to allow things to happen that otherwise would not have – exactly as Keynes argued in The End of Laissez Faire (1926). This is not only about the important countercyclical role that public sector spending should have (and unfortunately is not having today due to the austerity ideology), but also about the types of questions that must be posed to each individual policy instrument: e.g. do R&D tax credits make R&D happen that would otherwise not have? It is precisely due to its different character (from business) that the State cannot have an ‘exact’ and ‘limited’ role in innovation (a sort of balancing point). Accepting this difference means that we need a way to both understand the State’s specific area of influence as well as the specific performance indicators that are needed to judge its activities. For example, while funding for the Concorde aeroplane (the usual example that is used to accuse the government of ‘picking winners’) can be seen as failure, a real understanding of the State’s performance in that enterprise should go beyond a simplistic cost–benefit analysis and take into account the full spillovers – tangible and intangible – that the investments in Concorde entailed. Has this ever been done? No, and yet it seems that everyone is in broad agreement that it was a massive failure. What distinguishes the State is of course not only its mission but also the different tools and means that it has to deploy the mission. In Karl Polanyi’s epic book The Great Transformation (1944), he argued the State created – pushing, not only nudging – the most ‘capitalist’ of all markets, the ‘national market’ (while local and international ones have predated capitalism). The capitalist economy will always be subordinate to the State and subject to its changes. Thus rather than relying on the false dream that ‘markets’ will run the world optimally for us ‘if we just let them alone’, policymakers must better learn how to efficiently use the tools and means to shape and create markets – making things happen that otherwise would not. And making sure those things are things we need. Increasingly this requires growth to be not only ‘smart’ but also ‘inclusive’ and ‘sustainable’. It is of course important not to romanticize the State’s difference and its ability. The State fearing ‘nukes’ from the USSR, the sinking of Florida or running out of oil may cause it to do what no one else can – e.g. use its ability to create money and risk wasting it on an inane idea/solution, such as war. On the other hand, the State can do this by leveraging a massive national social network of knowledge and business acumen – all with the knowledge that no matter what, tax dollars will keep coming in because, ultimately, the State is an active compulsory force in our lives – which we need, however, to make sure will be controlled with our just, fragmented government structures and election processes. To rely solely and strictly on Keynes is to accept that the role of the State, in balancing accounts, might as well fund a useless search for banknotes in an abandoned coal mine. Following the wisdom of Steve Jobs, mentioned earlier, it is the State that should ‘stay foolish’ in its pursuit of technological development and social problem solving. Whether the State is making an investment in the Internet or clean energy in the name of national security (having imagined a new ‘threat’) or in the name of climate change (or just as often ‘energy independence’), it can do so on a scale and with tools not available to businesses (i.e. taxation, regulation). If a central hurdle to business investment in new technology is that it will not make investments that can create benefits for the ‘public good’ (since it then can’t capture the majority of the value created), then it is essential the State do so – and worry about how to transform those investments into new economic growth later. ‘Foolish’ businesses will not survive, as they all must take calculated risks related to product development and entry into new markets. Apple’s success did not hinge on its ability to create novel technologies, it hinged on its organizational capabilities in integrating, marketing and selling those low-hanging technologies. In contrast, the flexibility of the State is an important asset, which should be allowed to make its ‘foolish’ investments in technology in a targeted and purposeful manner. Who would ever have guessed that technology created to preserve communication abilities during a nuclear war would become the world’s go-to platform for knowledge, communication and commerce? How many back then thought the Internet was a ‘foolish’ way to invest millions in taxpayer dollars? What is needed today is a ‘systems’ perspective, but one that is more realistic on the actual – rather than mythological – role of the individual actors, and the linkages between actors, within and along the risk landscape. It must also bridge, as stated earlier, the knowledge gap that exists to explain how State investments catalyse, influence and connect to the growth of business organizations on which we rely, ultimately, to deliver new technologies on a broad scale. It is, for example, unrealistic to think that the highly capital-intensive and high-risk areas in clean technology will be ‘led’ by venture capital, or ‘nudged’ by a small and unstructured green investment bank. In the case of clean energy, it’s also not just about the willingness of the State to lead, but the willingness to sustain support for new and transitional technologies until industry can ‘mature’ – until the cost and performance meet or exceed those of incumbent technologies (e.g. fossil power). The history of new sectors teaches us that private investments tend to wait for the early high-risk investments to be made first by the State. Indeed, it has often been State spending that has absorbed most of the real risk and uncertainty in the emergence of new sectors, as well as in particular areas of old sectors (e.g. radical new medicines today). Yet the returns from these ‘revolutionary’ State investments have been almost totally privatized. While this is especially obvious in the pharmaceutical industry, where medicines that are funded from taxpayer money are often too expensive for the taxpayers to buy (Vallas et al. 2011), it is also true in other hightech areas, with companies like Apple, which have received major benefits from public funds, both direct and indirect, managing to avoid paying their taxes (Mazzucato 2013). Three key implications arise from this analysis. First, it is of course not enough to talk about the ‘entrepreneurial State’, one must build it – paying attention to concrete institutions and organizations in government that are able to create long-run growth strategies and ‘welcome’ the inevitable failure that this will entail. Indeed, it is not a coincidence that the weakest countries in the eurozone are precisely those that have low spending in areas that seem costly today, but which bring growth in the future: areas like R&D and human capital formation (see Figure 1). Yet we are told they are countries that spent too much. And while ‘governance’ is often used as a reason to impose market reforms, in reality governance should also be about how to bring expertise together and create willingness to invest in high-growth, highrisk areas. As anyone who has worked in the private sector knows, there are plenty of ‘bureaucratic’ and inertial businesses. There is nothing in the DNA of the public sector that makes it less innovative than the private sector. But equally, encouraging innovation and creativity in public sector institutions requires thinking about organizational dynamics. Instead, by dismissing the ability of the public sector to be an innovative force from within; most thinkers on strategic management and organizational change have focused more on the private sector, leaving the public sector to simply focus on ‘creating the conditions’ for innovation to happen in the ‘revolutionary’ private sector. And, as discussed above, this has created a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the smartest young graduates think that it will be more exciting and fun to work at Goldman Sachs or Google rather than a State investment bank or a ministry for innovation. The only way to rebalance this problem is to upgrade, not downgrade, the status of government – and the words and the images used to describe it. There are important implications for the eurozone crisis. The conditions being imposed on the weakest countries, via the ‘fiscal compact’, should be conditions not about reducing the public sector across the board, but conditions that increase the incentives for governments to spend on key areas like education and R&D, and also to transform the public sector from within so that it is more strategic, meritocratic and dynamic. While this might sound difficult, it is no less difficult than imposing the austerity that is undermining the weaker countries’ socioeconomic structure and future competitiveness. Second, if the State is being asked to engage in the world of uncertainty, with the inevitable wins and losses (which also characterize private venture capital), then it is only right that when the wins arrive (the upside) there is also a return to cover the losses (the downside). That is, while State spending on basic education and health should not necessarily expect a direct return beyond the taxes and supply of skilled and healthy staff, the State’s high-risk investments should be thought of differently, and allowed to reap a direct return precisely because the failure rate is so high. Successful ‘winning’ State investments should be able to cash in so as to cover losses when they arise, as well as fund the investments of the future – still unpredictable today. While the privatization of gains and socialization of losses in the financial sector has been recognized as economically inefficient and socially unjust (Alessandri and Haldane 2009), the same asymmetry that occurs in the real economy, both for new-technology firms and for more mature firms that need external investment in turnaround, has remained unnoticed. A clearer risk– reward relationship will not only increase government revenue – during a time in which public sector budgets are under strain – but also allow taxpayers to see a clearer reward from their investments and hence help increase the political support needed for making investments that lead to long-run future growth. Third, by focusing on the role that the State plays along the bumpy risk landscape, acting actively and courageously rather than just ‘de-risking’ the private sector and correcting ‘market failures’, the analysis provided here has the potential to better inform policies that are directed towards other actors in the ‘ecosystem’ of innovation. This is important because, as outlined in the section on ‘myths’ in Chapter 2, part and parcel of having undermined the role of the State has been the ‘hyping’ up of the role of other actors – from SMEs to venture capital and shareholders. Thus, acknowledging the different roles played in the ecosystem – over time and along the bumpy risk landscape – will make it more difficult for overhyped economic actors that have captured the public imagination to argue for handouts and subsidies. The Appendix contains a list of government savings (using the UK as an example) that could arise by approaching the ‘ecosystem’ in a more realistic way – with policies based on what we know about the different actors, rather than the associated myths. We live in an era in which the State is being cut back. Public services are being outsourced, State budgets are being slashed, and fear rather than courage is determining many national strategies. Much of this change is being done in the name of rendering markets more competitive, more dynamic. This book is an open call to change the way we talk about the State, its role in the economy, and the images and ideas we use to describe that role. Only then can we begin to build the kind of society we want to live in, and want our children to live in – in a manner that pushes aside false myths about the State and recognizes how it can, when mission driven and organized in a dynamic way, solve problems as complex as putting a man on the moon, and solving climate change. And we need the courage to insist – through both vision but also specific policy instruments – that the growth that ensues from the underlying investments be not only ‘smart’, but also ‘inclusive’

Total public sector spending on R&D, both directly and through tax relief, was £14.4bn in 2017-18, and yet receives no direct return.13 Given the scale of this investment of public resources, it is therefore important to look at the value that the public sector gets in return. Unlike when the private sector invests in R&D - whereby it would seek direct monetary returns either by monetising the specific product or service that had been created or improved through the investment, or by licensing the IP itself to others - the public sector currently expects to receive its return indirectly, through increased tax receipts and employment. As well as making sense to seek more direct returns, albeit not always financial, for the public from the state’s spending on R&D the changing scale and nature of the public investment in R&D outlined in the previous sections re-enforces the reason why we should also rethink the way in which the state shares in the upside of its risky investments.

— Indirect Value Capture not enough

However, any intellectual property that results from publicly funded research does not belong to the public, who paid for it, but instead is available for the private sector to enclose and profit from. Indeed, the state does not recoup anything directly for that investment. The state is left to cross its fingers and hope that it receives a satisfactory return on its investment in R&D through economic growth, the creation of new jobs and the corporate and private tax that this leads to. However, what historically may have been true is today highly contested. Many companies are very good at minimising their local tax bills by creatively structuring their businesses while the innovative new companies, especially the tech-based ones, do not generally create mass employment opportunities. We contend that this needs to change, with the public sector taking more direct ownership of the resulting IP in order to share more broadly in the rewards, rather than just the risks. The idea that the state should just facilitate, administer and regulate the economy, rather than engage in more direct directing and management, started gaining wide acceptance in the 1970s. This is now changing. Probably the most important piece of intellectual property (IP) being worked on now is the search for a vaccine to Covid-19. This discovery, which could probably be written on a small piece of paper, would be one of the most valuable assets on the planet, both socially and economically. This IP could have been generated in broadly three different ways. Firstly, it could have been developed using purely public sector money, including the fundamental research as well as testing and trials. Secondly, it could have been created purely through private endeavour (although actual cases of this are rare). Finally, and most likely, it could have been created through a mix of private and public sector money. Although each of these three cases differs in the contribution that public money played in generating the result, they also share some things in common, notably that the public sector would not own any part of the resulting IP. All the profit would flow to the private sector owner of the IP and that should the public sector wish to use the IP it would need to pay for it. This makes no sense economically and does not represent good value for public money. We urgently need a new system that allows the public sector to leverage the investment that it makes in R&D. The goal of any new system should be to recognise the role of the state as a major funder of R&D by changing the ownership regime, maximise innovation, license that IP from publicly funded R&D with purpose in mind and ensure that the non-monetary value of IP can be leveraged. We proposed the creation of a Public IP Commons that would change the way that the IP from publicly funded R&D is owned and managed. We propose that the public should retain ownership of the IP that results from publicly funded R&D. The public sector also contributes significantly to private R&D by offering substantial tax credits, through R&D tax credits, or relief, through the Patent Box relief scheme, to companies and there is a strong rationale for the public sector should retain some ownership of the IP covered by these subsidies. We then propose that all public IP should be managed by the IP Commons Management Body. The body would operate a licensing regime that would need to avoid the problems of being too exclusionary and too open, learning from the management of other commons. Just like all successful commons, we must ensure that there are proper rules and mechanism to govern and manage access to this new IP commons. Although these arrangements would be novel with regard to the distribution of public funds for R&D these arrangements are commonplace in any private sector organisation where the output of the work that one is paid to do, either as an employee or consultant, becomes the property of your employer. The government would merely be adapting and improving on existing practice within the private sector. Our proposal has several benefits over the existing model. It clearly acknowledges the nature and significance of the investment of public money into R&D and ensures that any resulting IP is owned collectively. The proposal for the Public IP commons also aligns the public sector’s risk and reward when funding R&D. At present the state certainly takes its share of the risk, often investing in early stage innovation, with its hyper speculative returns. The public sector should be able to reap direct returns. A system where the IPCMB retains direct ownership and control of the IP offers an opportunity for the public sector to set different targets for the use of its IP. We believe that this will ensure that the IP is utilised to maximise potential innovation, since it will be available for all to use, while ensuring a return for those using the IP commercially, all the while retaining the power to provide special licenses when there is a real social return. When companies are required to pay for licenses the IPCMB should allow for that payment to be made in money or equity. Being able to pay for the license in equity reduces any potential pressure on company balance sheets while also further increasing the sharing of risk and reward in the innovation process. Another benefit of the proposed IP Commons is that it does not necessitate any reform of the national and international IP regime, which is complex and difficult to change, but merely seeks to align the private sector regime to the public sector. We need to urgently need to change from the status quo. We hope that this paper will be part of the important discussion that needs to take place about how best to recognise the new role of the state and how to ensure that the IP that we the public fund delivers most benefit to us. The Public IP commons will radically change the domestic R&D sector and enable a large quantity of IP to be accessed by more companies and individuals fostering a more innovative economy.

These examples also set the stage for thinking about how lawyers and activists who are invested in anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles might orient themselves toward intellectual property law. Thinking about and remaking legislation, legal doctrine, and precedent are certainly important. But so too is performative resistance within the confines of existing practice. Being conscious of the racial histories of intellectual property law and committing to progressive racial ethics can drive considerable change in the direction of equity while law is being reimagined.

Where I disagree with the author, however, is his very concept of the ‘Eurocene.’ If the present international state system wasn’t working for states across the globe it would be dying out, but it seems to strengthening. There is no way we are getting through what I will remain calling the anthropocene without some level of a command economy for resources and research direction for technologies. Many of these resources will be scare and will be competed over. The competitive nature of the state system means something Darwinistic is occurring, which is good as we do not yet have the answer for surviving our current era and so multiple approaches must be tried and the best will serve as models for others and the worst will die out.

I also do not see anything particularly European about modernity anymore. While a new era did begin with the biological and demographic takeover of the western hemisphere and its forceable wedding to Europe-previously a minor and not particularly important subcontinental peninsula of Asia-any Eurasian actor could have potentially done the same thing. The bureaucratic state was first born in China and the agricultural state came from the Middle East, and those strike me as just as relevant to where we are now than the maritime-industrial states of post medieval Europe. Furthermore, as India and China move their way into full industrialization on their own terms and countries like Japan have long held that position dating back to the colonial era, I find little to argue for something called specifically ‘The Eurocene.’ That being said, the author is entirely correct that our currently unsustainable methods of development are a type of self-replicating virus imposed by force. But so too will any solutions have to follow that path.

Nevertheless, it is crucial to exercise caution when attempting to establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between media coverage and policy decisions. The concern raised about the CNN effect in a larger context is that theoretical models often oversimplify complex issues and assume clear cause-and-effect relationships. Influence in decision-making processes cannot be quantitatively valued. The decision-makers acknowledged the role of media coverage in shaping public opinion and the formation of their own perspectives on the conflict. However, it is important to recognize that media coverage was not the sole factor driving U.S. policy in Somalia. The decision to intervene was also influenced by strategic interests, humanitarian considerations, political messages, personal beliefs of decision-makers, and national perceptions of the situation on the ground. The CNN effect, while playing a role in shaping public opinion and the nature of intervention, should be viewed as only one piece of the puzzle among many other influential factors.

In conclusion, the media coverage of the crisis in Somalia did have an impact on the timing and nature of the U.S. intervention. The intense media coverage, influenced public opinion, creating pressure for swift political decisions. However, it is essential to avoid oversimplification and recognize that the decision-making process is complex, involving a multitude of overlapping factors. The CNN effect should be seen as a significant but not exclusive influence on policy decisions. Policymakers and media organizations should consider these findings to ensure a more comprehensive and balanced approach to understanding the interplay between media, public opinion, and foreign policy.

In all of this, there has been little reflection on the practices of critique being enacted in educational scholarship. The more common academic reaction to lack of policy response tends to be further hermeneutic suspicion, and continued analysis of how power is exercised to exclude the voices and possibilities of critique and progressive forms of change. Here, certain forms of critique might be argued inadvertently to be reproducing that which they critique. Given this, we might well heed Latour’s argument that critique has run out of steam in education as elsewhere.

Latour (2004) is never afraid to be controversial and starts his discussion by drawing an analogy between the logic of some forms of critique provided by researchers, including himself, and those offered by conspiracy theorists. In particular, he is commenting on the way the critic can unveil the truth to others by identifying the agents through which power is exercised behind their backs.

Conversely, non-Western cultures, epistemologies, social arrangements are celebrated as situated, concrete, particular, embodied, non-rationalist, non-anthropocentric. Such thinking reinforces provincial notions of place, punctual notions of time, and identitarian notions of subjectivity. It often proceeds as if boundaries between here and there, now and then, us and them are categorical and self-evident. Risky assays, like solidarity politics or attempts to envision actual alternatives (through acts of situated political imagination) are denigrated as immature, naïve, and dangerous – as somehow ignoring or denying violence, hierarchy, messiness. Such thinking tends to treat the given order as the horizon of political possibility. Supposedly critical claims about being stranded in an unsurpassable present perversely mirror triumphal neoliberal claims about the end of history: There Is No Alternative.

In short, my analytic and political frustration with these tendencies also propelled much of the writing that found its way into this book. I organized my interventions as critiques of what I call left realism, left culturalism, left presentism. Likewise, I question supposedly critical work that reproduces normative understandings of clock time, of categorical divisions between past, present, and future, and which treats any given period as temporally identical with itself.

More is the pity that such irrational and obviously abstruse debate should so occupy us at a time of great global turmoil. That it does and continues to do so reflect our lack of judicious criteria for evaluating theory and, more importantly, the lack of attachment theorists have to the real world. Certainly, it is right and proper that we ponder the depths of our theoretical imaginations, engage in epistemological and ontological debate, and analyze the sociology of our knowledge. But to support that this is the only task of international theory, let alone the most important one, smacks of intellectual elitism and displays a certain contempt for those who search for guidance in their daily struggle as actors in international politics. What does Ashley’s project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to the truly marginalized, oppressed, and destitute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor, the displaced refugees, the casualties of war, or the émigrés of death squads? Does it in any way speak to those whose actions and thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international relations?

On all these questions one must answer no. This is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its technical rationality and problem-solving capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to support that problem-solving technical theory is not necessary—or in some way bad—is a contemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront daily. As Holsti argues, we need ask of these theorists and their theories the ultimate question, “So what?” To what purpose do they deconstruct, problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this “debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics” be judged pertinent, relevant, helpful, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract and recondite debate.

The North and the South do have complex relationships that cut across such phenomena as the environment, agriculture, and population growth, and ni these relationships there are certain puzzles. The North, for example, controls advanced technologies, which the South noticeably needs; regarding issues pertaining to environmentally sound technologies, the IPR related to those technologies are invariably considered ot be an integral part of any policy designed to achieve sustainable development, whether at the global or the national level (Juma 1994a).

The reason why the North controls advanced technologies, in fact, re- volves around intellectual property, which deals with specialized issues and is governed by such specialized branches of law as industrial property law and copyright law (Olembo 1994). Intellectual property si intangible. It is based on creations of the human mind and intellect which can be integrated into computer programs, machines, electronics, medicine, books, films de- signs, or brand names (Olembo 1994). In this way, intellectual property forms the basis of technology transfer and development.

There has been a growth of scholarship in recent years analyzing intellectual property law’s impact on minorities and indigenous people. Awareness of intellectual property’s disproportionate impacts on these groups can increase equality and lead to better laws. Critical Race Intellectual Property has also emerged as a movement focused on the racial and colonial non-neutrality of intellectual property regimes, including copyright. Its goals include “reconstructing racial and neo-colonial hierarchies in the evolving contexts of intellectual property,” especially important in a rapidly changing world where infringement is easier than ever because of technology. Discussing intellectual property’s racial impacts can be productive for thinking about addressing both racism and social injustice in intellectual property law. In addition to remedying past discrimination, a critical race focus on intellectual property law regimes will also help ensure history is not repeated.

In addition to public awareness and scholarship, there are other proposed solutions out there that are focused on ensuring adequate intellectual property protection for groups that have faced legal and economic obstacles. These include improving access to legal services, increasing protection of personal rights in works, and heightening the originality standard needed to obtain copyright protection. Further, increasing scrutiny of copyright applications may help address disparities resulting from intellectual property laws.

This critique is both narrowly true and narrow in perspective. Context is of course important, but foreign policy choices are not sui generis, there are patterns across space and time that inform decision-making. Policymakers recognize this and routinely draw lessons from history when making foreign policy decisions. As noted below, policymakers in other areas such as development and public health routinely rely on broader, more general studies to craft policy. And, broader scholarship can improve foreign policy performance, as evidenced by the ability of IR academics to build on their own work to predict outcomes, including for example forecasting the lengths of the conventional and insurgency phases of the U.S.–Iraq conflict in the 2000s.

But, even if one were to accept the limits of general work, there is a growing body of academic work that evaluates foreign policy tools as applied to a specific country or region. These studies ask questions such as whether:

Since the 1970s, a ‘critical’ movement has been developing in the humanities and social sciences denouncing the existence of ‘Western dominance’ over the worldwide production and circulation of knowledge. However, thirty years after the emergence of this promising agenda in International Relations (IR), this discipline has not experienced a major shift. This volume offers a counter-intuitive and original contribution to the understanding of the global circulation of knowledge. In contrast to the literature, it argues that the internationalisation of social sciences in the designated ‘Global South’ is not conditioned by the existence of a presumably ‘Western dominance’. Indeed, although discriminative practices such as Eurocentrism and gatekeeping exist, their existence does not lead to a unipolar structuration of IR internationalisation around ‘the West’. Based on these empirical results, this book reflexively questions the role of critique in the (re)production of the social and political order. Paradoxically, the anti-Eurocentric critical discourses reproduce the very Eurocentrism they criticise. This book offers methodological support to address this paradox by demonstrating how one can use discourse analysis and reflexivity to produce innovative results and decentre oneself from the vision of the world one has been socialised into.