Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The world keeps turning

1 hour writing, 2 hours reading/researching, 2 hours processing data, 0.5 hours emailing, page count = 142

Spent the morning catching up on the results of the local elections in Colombia that took place this past Sunday. Samuel Moreno, grandson of former military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, managed a convincing victory in the Bogota mayor's race, trouncing my favorite, Enrique Penalosa. The Monday morning post-mortems focused on the bad image Bogotanos have of the expensive, tetchy TransMilenio (I find it a marvel of modern urban planning, and it's not *that* much more expensive than taking a regular bus these days) and on Penalosa's inability to project a charismatic image; he apparently comes off as an arrogant, aloof elitist. I dunno. Moreno also won thanks to the positive record of his predecessor, Lucho Garzon, with whom he shares a party label but little else. I was most surprised to see Garzon totally absent from the discussion in Bogota, even as a reference point. By contrast, in Medellin, every poster of the ultimately successful candidate, Alonso Salazar, featured his predecessor, Sergio Fajardo, and touted Salazar's continuity with Fajardo. Apparently, Moreno and Garzon don't get along, but given that in both cities, the incumbents are from non-traditional parties, I found the contrast between the two strategies striking. Ultimately, both were successful.

One of my betes noires, Horacio Serpa, was finally elected to something (governor of Santander) after losing three straight presidential elections. I have awful memories of him covering up for Ernesto Samper, the Nixon of Colombia who managed to last an entire term, during which I lived in Bogota for a year, amidst a scandal about drug barons financing his campaign.

Ultimately, the extreme fragmentation of the Colombian party system continues apace, a marked contrast with the situation not 20 years ago, when Liberals and Conservatives still structured the playing field. The more I learn about the history of the two parties, the more it's clear that there was always a war of all against all at the factional level; the main difference between then and now is that the two parties used to constitute a more-or-less solid framework within which the factional chaos seethed. Today I was reading one of the books I got last week, on the former President Alberto Lleras Camargo, who was secretary of the interior when the state and local police were first attempted to be nationalized in the 1930s, and he explains clearly that under the National Front power-sharing agreement that structured Colombian politics from 1958 through the early to mid-1970s, each party would be guaranteed a certain number of seats in Congress (50-50), but within each party, factions and lists would compete to see who got what. This dynamic was not unique to that period, but rather was frozen in a particular configuration during that period.

A key relation to untangle here is that among the local, state, and national lists on the legislative side (since mayors and governors were not elected until 1988 and 1991, respectively). This is in fact part of what I need to do for Antioquia in the 1940s and '50s: piece together the political puzzle and lay it alongside the security-force configuration.

In terms of writing, I began working with some of the data that I processed today, looking at the spatial distribution of security-force allocation in 1951 at a town-by-town level, and comparing that both to the level of armed conflict and the level of partisan competitiveness. Some interesting and non-obvious patterns emerged, and I'll want to continue expanding to other years and to look more closely at those patterns.

I continued setting up appointments for my trip to Berkeley later this week. I'm looking forward to sharing my work with my colleagues.

2 comments:

Michael Negron said...

Hi Chris,

Your posting was rich and I felt like I was there with you having a cup of coffee and talking about the election results. I am curious - does any of your blog posting detail get into your dissertation as well? also, what is your daily or weekly goal for writing? I noticed that your page count went up by 2 pages from prior day.....is that a good day? also, do you generally spend 5 1/2 hours in total per day? it seems to be the trend, when I look back. also, does your daily posting help you to open up your thinking or inspire your actual research writing? also, i liked today's posting on how you weave U.S. political references when describing current situations with local Colombian politics and elections - e.g., reference to Nixon. do you do the same thing with your dissertation?

Also, noted that you are at 1st draft for many sections, some at 2nd draft - how does this compare with your estimate of where you hoped to be by end of october?

Look forward to next posting.....michael

Chris said...

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your great questions. My goal this week is 3 hours writing and 3 hours researching per day. Getting 2 pages done in a day is OK, 4 or 5 would be better. I'd like to be a little further along in terms of having second drafts in place, but the fact that I got drafts of 3 chapters to my committee at the beginning of October was a big step. The next 2 weeks are important in terms of getting the empirical chapters in place. I would very much like to have a complete draft of the entire thing in place by November 30, so I can spend December revising and incorporating feedback.

I do find that the posting helps with my thinking about the writing, especially on days when my writing has been very specific. One of my professors from undergrad advised me to "write for the back row," that is, aim the text not at my committee, who will view it in detail, but at an informed, interested audience who aren't as close to the details. So this blog helps with that type of writing.

I find that I don't weave in U.S. references specifically into the dissertation, but I do refer to contemporary events - for example, the struggle over Gaza earlier this year, which I blogged about, or the design of security forces in Iraq. If I were writing specifically about the party system in Colombia, then I would definitely want to bring in the U.S. parallel, in terms of a long-lasting two-party system that has stymied third-party efforts.

Good monitoring, Michael, thanks!