Dani Rodrik's weblog

A tale of two books

It’s been a strangely prolific week publishing-wise. Literally within a few days of each other, I held in my hands two new books with my name on it.

As you might gather from their cover, they couldn’t be more different.

The first is a book that lays out my ideas on globalization and its future, in what I hope is an accessible form. It took a long time to write, and an even longer time to develop. It won’t be available in the bookstores until February.

The second, written with my wife Pinar Dogan, is in Turkish and covers the most important political trial in Turkey in at least five decades, which has just opened. It is based on our blog on the topic, and was written within weeks. Amazingly, the publisher had it in bookstores within 10 days of receiving the final manuscript. (Not to be outdone, Norton, my American publisher, tells me that if necessary they can get a book from finished manuscript to bookstores in 6 days!)

The Globalization Paradox is a book on economic policy and on economic ideas. It is, in a sense, my life’s work.

Balyoz is a legal and political exposé. It details a brazen effort to frame nearly 200 officers for crimes they have not committed. It documents the roles that groups within the judiciary, police, media, intelligentsia, the national science and technological institute, and (last but not least), the AKP government have played in creating what can best be called an “alternative reality.” (Balyoz means “sledgehammer” in Turkish; it refers to the code name of the fictional coup plot on which the book is based.) This is a book I never thought I would (have to) write.

Both books aim to inject a dose of common sense and reality – the first to our narrative on globalization, the second to Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian politics.

A weird, weird trial

The most significant court case in Turkey in at least five decades is about to start. Nearly two hundred retired and active-duty officers will be on trial for having plotted back in 2003 to destabilize the country through violent acts (including the bombing of mosques and the downing of a Turkish fighter jet) and to overthrow the AKP government. Defendant no. 1 in this trial, and the alleged leader of the coup plot, is my father-in-law, Cetin Dogan.

The tragedy is that this is as much a show trial as the one that took place on the tiny Yassiada island almost exactly 50 years ago. Then, the roles were reversed. A military junta (that time, a real one) had deposed the elected government and placed the president, prime minister, and cabinet ministers on trial on trumped up charges.

True to form, history is repeating itself as a farce. The evidence behind the current case, a trove of documents on CDs delivered to a newspaper by a “secret informer,” consists of blatant forgeries. These documents are allegedly secret military plans from 2003 detailing the coup preparations. Yet they contain anachronisms that leave no doubt that they were prepared in late 2008 at the earliest.

The most striking among these anachronisms are the references to entities -- firms, NGOs, military installations, hospitals – by names that they had yet to acquire. It’s as if a text pretending to be from 1970 referred to Diana Spencer as Princess of Wales—a title which she acquired only in 1981—or mentioned her car crash decades later. To any but the most jaundiced eye it is obvious that the incriminating documents have been authored not by the military officers on trial, but by others many years later.

(Don’t take my word. Look at the evidence for yourself -- here for the overview, and here for the details.)

But wait. Isn’t Turkey a democracy now, where such things aren’t supposed to happen?

Alas, the case says much about Turkey at present, not any of it pretty. The AKP government has fanned the flames against the defendants and exploited the case for political purposes. The pro-government media have disgraced themselves by publishing a steady stream of disinformation on the case (just check out Today’s Zaman for a good dose of it on a daily basis). Many leading members of the Turkish liberal intelligentsia have chosen to disregard the fabricated evidence lest their cherished narrative of a democratic government putting an end to “military tutelage” get tarnished.

As for the once-powerful military establishment, it stands so weakened by its own history of coups and meddling in politics, that it has been totally incapable of putting up a credible storyline. Even a smallish municipal public works department would have done a better job defending itself against the kind of massive miscarriage of justice that this case represents.

Watch how this trial unfolds, for it will say a lot about where Turkey is headed. If the evidence of forgery is disregarded and the charges aren’t dismissed, we will learn that the rule of law and Turkey don’t belong in the same sentence.

A profile of Avinash Dixit and a book review

The December issue of Finance & Development has a very nice profile of Avinash Dixit, not only a great economist but the best teacher I ever had (and I had some very good ones). Here is a snippet of what he has to say, this one on the financial crisis:

“But the real fault was not so much in economic theory as, if you like, in the political and business world, where people actually swallowed some of the simplistic views about the wonder of markets too much without recognizing the hundreds of qualifications that Adam Smith and a number of others have told us about, and we should all have known about.” 

The same issue also has a very generous review of my Globalization Paradox (not yet out!) by Robert Rowthorn.

Is it time to call it quits on the Euro?

It pained me to write this as I have never been a Euroskeptic, but I fear the answer for Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal may well be yes.  These countries need both debt restructuring and a boost in competitiveness, and it is very difficult to see how they will get those while remaining in the Eurozone.  The most likely alternative is economic decline and political turmoil.

Through long and painful experience, Europe’s leaders first learned that financial integration requires eliminating volatility among national currencies.  Next they learned that eradicating currency risk requires doing away with national currencies altogether.  Now they are learning – but resisting – the lesson that you cannot achieve monetary union, among democracies, without political union.

In other words, Europe is learning that political trilemma of the world economy applies there too.  As Kevin O’Rourke tells me, “the trilemma is operating big-time in Europe right now, the obvious technical move is to federalise everything, but worries about democratic deficits etc are going to make that impossible, which leaves us with a big, big problem.”

It is a very sad story for one of this century’s boldest economic experiments. 

Down with spam

OK, I have had it with spam in my comments, and from now on you will have to sign in if you want to leave a comment.  Thanks to Fergus for the suggestion and for finally getting me to do it.

How not to win friends and influence people

From a visiting journalist who audited my globalization course this Fall:

When I first got here, someone told me that you were quite conservative, which surprised me, based on what I had read of your work; but then I went to a dinner with the editor of the FT at which a senior economics professor told me--in almost so many words--that you were a dangerous radical.

Should I worry?  Feel gratified?

The five best books on globalization, ever

I was asked by Sophie Roell recently what my favorite books on globalization are.  I listed books by Karl Polanyi, Ron Findlay and Kevin O’Rourke, Jeffry Frieden, Barry Eichengreen, and Peter Singer.  Here is the discussion that this led to.