Last Update - Wed Oct 16 2024
Info Slide: "Lustration" is a policy which involves the temporary removal (usually a period of 20–30 years) and political exclusion, often without trial, of officials at all levels of the political system associated with former regimes and their political parties, e.g. officials associated with the communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This process is normally conducted by the new, more democratic establishment.
Structural Reasons Volume 2
Round 5 |Naomi Pankova |OG|PM|Politics|83
INTRODUCTION
I'm gonna be doing three things in this speech
A)firstly characterizing what Lustration Tends to look like and why it is done well
what it looks like and why the process will be executed well
B)secondly preventing a hijacking of the political process by the old guard
C)thirdly on Democratic buy-in
1)CHARACTERIZING
let's start by discussing how Lustration tends to look like firstly:
Members of the Old Guard who had explicit ties to that regime I.E worked in the government or were affiliated with it with a political party are barred from running for political office. It is often not permissible to exercise things like vague support because you recognize the power of propaganda networks
Repeating the info slide
Old Guard: the original or long-standing members of a group or party, especially ones who are unwilling to accept change or new ideas.
Propaganda Networks: refers to the ecosystem (could be verbal exchange or any methods used) thats allows the promotion of biased information
(e.g state controlled media - China, Russia, etc)
Adding Nuance
The policy will affect certain people differently (often paired up with words “on a spectrum”, “it won’t be blanket ban” etc )
Secondly, there tends to be tiered degrees of Lustration if you look at how this is implemented : depending on your ties to the old regime your kind of political restrictions differ
=So if you're like an active government member it's often a complete ban first if you had more vague ties you're only relegated to a lower level government office .There also tends to be timestamps of after a number of decades who are then allowed to re-enter into political office.
the punishment is often not permanent
- the overall process seems to be fair
Why the Process itself will be done well
International Oversight
thirdly, we think that lustration will tend to be done well and will not be overly politicized
the first reason for this is that there tends to be International oversight over lustration processes note while government might try and resist these kind of processes they're often exist a dependency on International Aid and post-conflict societies and you also need to appeal to International investors in order to get Capital pulling into your country what this
means is that Western countries do have leverage in monitoring this process we stay in the same way that they often do things like hold a hybrid courts
-International bodies (like EU or neutral party) will oversee the process
-it will happen regardless
under the status quo to have checks and balances to guarantee this is not being used as a political weapon
Hybrid Courts: courts of mixed composition and jurisdiction, encompassing both national and international aspects, usually operating within the jurisdiction where the crimes occurred
Public backlash will act as accountability measure
Secondly though if the new regime tries to abuse this power obligation there's going to be backlash
Why it’ll happen
Claim: Note that the new regime tends to be unstable, it needs buy-in from the vast majority of citizens
Mechanism: if you start barring people from running for office indiscriminately to cement your own power there’s likely to be protest when the exact same pro-democratic factions who protested against the Old Guard
Impact: this is extremely negative for your PR as a new government if you also lock up too many people and you abuse this power then you also create the risk of having more counter revolutionaries as part of the Old Guard protest against your government
2) First Argument
More Corruption
Let's look at our first major arguments about preventing the hijacking of the political process
Claim/Framing: our framing here is that the old regime is obviously quite unpopular in the sense that it was just ousted from Power over but they have asymmetric influence when it comes to their tangible resources and control over government
Even though they are unpopular, they still have more access to resources
this exists on a few levels
A) Sub Claim: firstly they have more linkages to patronage networks that help to control the state
Mechanism:because if you were previously serving in government you know the judges that you were bribing in the Judiciary, you know the individuals who are on the election monitoring committee
Further Analysis: We think that corruption often does not only happen through direct payout but it happens through informal personal connections because you develop relationships with people over time you develop friendships you develop loyalties and therefore becomes easier to ask the kind of people for favors when you actually know them and when you know the guy that you have to influence
Impact: So all it takes is for the new government to be like “oh can you just
agree to this new court case the fact that we're going to extend term limits” and if the judge has been your go-to judge for the past 10 years there's substantially more likely to say yes to you
B) Sub Claim :Secondly, we also have experience with corruption we say that corruption
tends to be “quite a difficult and fine art”
Corruption is a skill that can be nurtured
Mechanism:and when you have been part of an oppressive regime in the past you know what the corrupt channels are, you know the average payout that you need for a lower level official you know how to effectively run the propaganda channels
and that was literally your job job in the past so
Preliminary Impact: therefore you are better at corruption and in democratic backsliding when you try to engage in it
Democratic Backsliding: a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary and repressive and that restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection
Exaggeration: I will note experience with corruption is not the same as being a good political official
- A good way to further illustrate a point and implies what OPP’s world is going to look like
Preemptive
Because OPP is going to run uh these are the only people who have experience in government this is nonsense like
A) Exceptions
Firstly not everyone in the Old Government was explicitly affiliated with the old party there were still opposition groups
B) Alternative
but more importantly there's private sector crossover expertise between being like a business person and serving in the government you just go to respective bureaucratic Department
Example: if you're working as an actuary in a company you can become the new Finance Minister of the government
Professional/technical skills can easily translate to skills required for government positions
C) Further Expanding on Corruption
The third thing to say in terms of corruption is that you tend to
have increased access to resources sure the regime just lost the war but this ignores a nuances of how resources tend to be stored we're often talking about oligarchs who have frozen assets overseas five a bunch of yachts in like young in like London or other Western States and therefore after the conflict there's always a risk that people who had links to state-owned corporations they have assets overseas can re-trigger these assets and therefore access more Capital
Even after being ousted, most of their assets are kept abroad
Impact: this is crucial because access to Capital makes it easier to do things like engage payoff during election a processes that are going to exist
IMPLICIT Weighing: What is the implication of this argument ? When we're having elections in the new state even though the Old Guard tends to be less popular they have so much resources and influence over the state they're likely to have an asymmetric Advantage when it comes to these electoral processes.
Even if they’re unpopular, they can still win the elections
3) Running the Principle Argument
Under our side we are more likely to crush your power and their influence because politics is a very important sphere which influences generated it gives you access to things like state-run corporation like if you access the propaganda networks what is the impact of this claim
A)first you have the principle of fairness that we want the party to represent people that is actually in their own best interests
B)Secondly, the old regime often had uniquely bad characteristics the program was literally turned over they often tortured people think about all the
abusive under Stalinous regimes under the Soviet Union
C)thirdly often stagnate development because if you have more
ties to the old patronage Network you'll just end up stacking loyalists in the companies rather than actually those who can run the regime effectively and then
D)fourthly it makes it harder for new and small parties to be able to gain to power and if that process doesn't happen then you're more likely to get new Civil Wars and new protests against the old regime
before I talk about Democratic buy-in I'll take back half
Reasons why they’re unpopular
on Democratic buy-in our claim here that the old
regime is very unpopular from the vast majority of citizens this is for a couple reasons firstly there was literally a critical mass to engage in the revolution like the reason that the Arab Spring happened that the majority of citizens were disaffected by the old government
secondly does it stay in their power they often did Terrible Things especially towards the latter days of their regimes they often locked, up political dissonance they used fear tactics they implemented state of emergencies there's also often tremendous economic inequalities because the top priority at the government is often to sustain your patrons that works in the military that's more directly linked to your vehicles of power as a
Was seen as contradictory by OO
Weighing
consequence of this most people hate the Old Guard they do them as being their oppressors sure there's always going to be some sympathizer some people who are
persuaded by the propaganda this is fundamentally about a numbers game but yes you will have five percent of loyalists were swayed by propaganda but the vast majority of people were crushed under the regime not flourishing under it
People’s Perception
what is the implication of this citizens who see the Old Guard being able to compete are not going to trust that their nation is actually getting a fresh start because we're just going to do the dictators to return to power once again this claim is not contingent on
the dictators actually returning to power but rather the fear that they might return to power especially when
Why it needs to happen Now
you have lived under the Eternity for an extended period of time the initial couple elections are critical junctures
to get citizens to buy into the new state because there's often not be an experiential practice with democracy over a period of years that have existed
so we need people to come out and vote and honor the government when you have less Democratic buy-in from the majority of what happened firstly fewer people
show up to elections and secondly fewer people just have trust in the government but the necessary accountability mechanism to monitor their policies if people are not trusting in the new democracy Democratic facts I think in
The populace is far more politically involved after the war
Return To War becomes a lot more likely often the military will have to intervene in a coup to be able to restore stability often you will just
get dysfunctional government that fails to deliver on economic Basics that are going to exist we need volume let's kick
out the oppressors very proud to stand in opening government
POI
yeah so like why do why do the majority of people from the old regime need to use coercive Force versus in most
regimes like South Korea like the Philippines just doing things like provisioning resources
Reply
the point is if you're not a part of the government it is harder for you to be able to provide resources when you don't
have the money from the state-run corporations to be able to do so sure you can try and exercise your influence the point is that we are restricting
your catastrophe to by cutting off ahead of the political snake