tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86542016532671937492024-02-06T18:40:06.228-08:00CivitasBhutan. A long road home.Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-85422279002350424012012-08-10T20:27:00.000-07:002012-08-10T20:27:06.840-07:00It's all happening back home in Bray...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Katie in the Olympic Final</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At times, the Olympics seems largely a matter of tallying the amount of medals that one's country wins. Being from Ireland, that was never much fun. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This year however, the country became immersed in the fortunes of Katie Taylor, a boxer from my hometown bray, as she took down every opponent in her way to win gold i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">n the first year of Women's Boxing in the Olympics. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The 4 time World Champion, 5 time European Champion - probably the most dominant Irish athlete ever - has enthralled the nation </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">not just her sheer class, her supremity and her humility but through the struggle she has endured to give her sport the recognition it deserves. Katie played a key role in helping women's boxing into the olympics by participating in show fights when needed, in order to show the olympic powers that be what they were missing out on.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And while her fellow gold medalists at the olympics have access to state of the art facilities and highly paid coaches, Katie fought for years without financial support, coached by her father and (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/sports/olympics/katie-taylor-pride-of-ireland-wins-boxing-gold-medal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&smid=FB-nytimes">as the NY Times has noted</a>) trained in an old tin roofed gym without even a lavatory. Instead she had to use the facilities of the local pub, the Harbour Bar (which happens to be my local, and I can tell you, the bathrooms really are not the place's strong point).</span><br />
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An unbelievably proud moment to be Irish and share the great hometown of such a hero.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bray Celebrates</td></tr>
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<br /></div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-24220687821579834772012-08-09T03:48:00.001-07:002012-08-09T03:48:49.063-07:00The Case for Quotas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Yesterday, with my voice competing with
the clanger of the monsoon rain on the tin roof of the Planning Division’s
office, I presented my final report to the Gross National Happiness Commission.
Twenty-five people were in attendance at the meeting. More important than the
number however, was its composition. It included key decision makers from the
GNHC: Department Heads and the Secretary of the Commission – one of the most
respected leaders in Bhutan’s civil service. After weeks of worrying whether my
time here would leave any lasting impression, this was my opportunity to play a
small role in influencing the people who drive the country’s policy agenda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">When I first arrived, I had been asked
by the Secretary to work on designing a framework for implementing policies
that allowed the government to actively engage in pursuing ‘GNH Development’ (by
focusing on fostering indicators like uptake of meditation and volunteering). It
was important, interesting work and the Secretary had a keen interest in it –
the ideal way for a student to spend an internship. After familiarizing myself both
with the various dimensions of the GNH framework and the scope of the project
however, I realized my work would do very little to address the growing problem
of inequity faced by women Bhutan as the country modernized – something I had
come to Bhutan to work on. (Gender is an important component of many aspects of
GNH, but doesn’t feature strongly in others). So I decided to work on a
parallel project independently, focusing specifically on empowering women in
politics through the introduction of quotas. I would conduct the research, write
the report and present the findings alongside the original assignment, relying
on occasional advice from senior figures in the GNHC who had an interest in the
area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The plan worked. Though the issue of
gender was not something that anybody had much interest in me working on here,
it created by far the greatest stir of the presentation. The Secretary, who
opposed the introduction of quotas (like many in the senior ranks of Bhutanese government),
changed his mind on the issue. Speaking on the subject after the presentation,
he described his “180 degree turn” and decided to use the report to engage the
issue with members of parliament. That afternoon, I left the office triumphantly,
feeling that a slight of pressure had been added to the arc of justice in
Bhutan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">But was I right? Was that the case at
all? Are gender quotas fair? Are they effective? Are they the kind of policy
that furthers the pursuit of justice? Or are they some misguided interference
with natural liberty, nothing more than an undemocratic placation, a
re-enforcement of the insidious stereotype that there is something innate in
the character of women, unsuited to the vocation of politics, which makes them incapable
of making the tough decisions of statecraft?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Since introduced to the idea back in
college, I have always known quotas to be controversial. As an undergraduate
student, I was involved in a debating society with some of the most articulate
women I have ever met - students who were amongst the very best debaters in the
world – nearly all of whom were liberal and most of whom opposed their
introduction. Indeed, I have been surprised to find that their disapproval is
often more virulent in women than in men. I realized however, that what is
important to know about quotas is that they are opposed for wide variety of
reasons; some are sincere concerns regarding their legitimacy and effectiveness,
others on the other hand, are often grounded in misogyny. Reflecting upon the
issue, I tried to make sense of some of these common complaints?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Arguments grounded in bigotry – like the
notion that women are somehow intrinsically incapable of leadership in politics
- are not worth discussing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The claim that women’s preferences
might differ in some rudimentary manner to men; that the female disposition is
one which desires senior decision making positions less, is one which I don’t
buy either. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s recent article claiming that women have a
greater need to be with their children than men sadly echoed this view. Generalizations
like this, which attribue women with a more ‘domestic’ character, even if only
slight or indirect, risk fostering indifference in the face of injustice. As a
starting point in considering gender equity, a much more sensible presumption to
make is that the vast preponderance of differences in attitudes toward work,
family, and ambition are socially created, rather than naturally imbued. If
women don’t run for office, ‘simply because they don’t want to’, policy makers
should work from the view that this is because their social environment has
caused it to be so and thus should be rectified. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Moreover, this rationalization overlooks
the far more important problem with gender inequity in politics and
misunderstands the central purpose of a representative democracy. While the
right to freely run for public office unheeded by unfair structural barriers is
indeed extremely important, it pales in comparison to the right of the polity
to be adequately represented. The fact is that most people, regardless of
gender, don’t want to run for office. Even if a gender disparity in the preference
to run for office does statistically exist, this would not negate the fact that
it is unfair that 50% of the world’s democratic polities are represented by
parliamentarians, more than 80% of whom share their gender, while the other 50%
are left with less than 20% who share theirs. Such is the minuteness of the
proportion of people in a country that actually want to run for office that it
would be wrong for gender disparities within this tiny group to affect the
population as a whole. This is made more immediate in light of the growing body
of work, which show women to make different policy decisions to men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">There are other, more measured,
complaints worth considering. The first problem often put forward by critics is
the suggestion that quotas foster a belief in essentialism, which is the view
that women cannot represent men and men cannot represent women, or that all
women represent all types of other women. The notion that quotas are grounded
in at least some version of this belief is not unreasonable. A large part of
their motivation is that issues, which affect women, would be more
appropriately addressed by parliaments that were not so oppressively
constituted of men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Taken to its extreme, the idea of
essentialism can lead to unappealing conclusions. People assume a plurality of
political identities in their lives – based upon race, wealth, age, sexual
orientation etc. - and the notion that gender is uniquely important would be
difficult to justify. A common complaint of Slaughter’s article, for example,
was how disconnected she seemed from the experiences of ordinary women. That
being said, most political ideas – from freedom to community to equality - when
embraced in their extreme lead to undesirable outcomes. Just because sharing
gender with constituents isn’t the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i>
important factor in the effectiveness and legitimacy of a representative, it
doesn’t mean that it is nevertheless a very important one. Moreover, our
democratic principles implicitly recognize that some aspects of identity are of
more importance than others when we conduct elections according to discrete
geographical constituencies (rather than having all candidates for parliament
or congress run, for example, on a national list system). The notion that
Boston might be improperly represented at a national level if it lacked members
of Congress is, not unreasonably, rarely questioned. The fact is that sharing
specific commonalities with one’s representative is often extremely important,
and gender, like geography, is just such an instance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Other common complaints suggest that
quotas are undemocratic because they impose certain candidates on the
electorate or that they are against the principle of ‘equal opportunity for
all’ (EOFA). The inconsistencies in these arguments largely parallel those of
the previous objections. Some formal structure that would guarantee women
gender balance in congress would be no more ‘imposed’ than the framework, which
currently exists, ensuring that the people of Boston are proportionately
represented as compared with those living in New York. Moreover, complaints
that quota systems violate EOFA suffer from a problem previously outlined by
fetishizing (more often than not) old, wealthy, white men’s ‘equal opportunity’
to run over democracy’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prior</i> concern
that the polity is appropriately represented by its politicians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Even when focusing narrowly on the
rights of the candidate however, it should be clear to most people that women,
as it stands, are not enjoying this wondrous EOFA. Though women rarely
encounter formal constraints on running for office (a horrific exception being
Saudi Arabia), they nevertheless encounter a myriad of informal ones. A study
in rural India, for example, highlighted one of the most significant barriers
that women face when running for office. Because female candidates compete in
an environment in which they are already severely underrepresented in politics
(and therefore not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seen</i> in these
public positions), constituents form psychological biases identifying them as
unsuitable for office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once these
informal restraints were alleviated through quotas, the study showed that the
barriers began to diminish. Though the experiment itself is not generalizable
beyond India, its observations are consistent with findings in the vast
literature in the behavioral sciences, and points to something we see every day
around us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Moreover, the EOFA argument’s fixation
on formal inequality at the expense of much more important social barriers, is
inconsistent with how think about electoral fairness in general. We already
accept, for example, the use of legal tools to mitigate inherent structural
inequalities in electoral politics when we embrace interventions to limit the
influence of money. Campaigns require financing, with some candidates often
enjoying more access to this than others, depending on personal circumstances,
social connections and the polices that they propose. In recognition of the
injustice of this phenomenon, most countries restrict the manner in which
candidates can fund their campaigns, either through donation caps or by
replacing the private donor model with one that relies upon public monies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Finally, the most common complaint of
my undergraduate peers: Quotas create the perception that women are incapable of
gaining election on their own merit alone. It would be difficult to deny that
there exists a risk this may happen. The primary reason this disempowerment is
so dangerous is that if young women are fed the belief that they are unable to
compete with men in politics without a head start, it may have serious adverse
effects on their esteem and self-efficacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This dilemma cannot be considered out
of context however. It must be contrasted with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">actual</i> alternative, the status quo in many countries without
quotas. Indeed, another study gives reason to believe that these worries might
be excessively pessimistic, showing that the introduction of quotas for two
terms in local politics in India led to a significant close in the gender gap
in aspirations, increased educational attainment and less time spent on
household chores amongst girls. Moreover, with well supported public
information campaigns outlining the real structural barriers faced by female
politicians, these beliefs could be tackled and substantially mitigated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It seems to me that most fears of
gender quotas are grounded in varying degrees of sexism; inconsistent views
about the nature and utility of representation, and excessive pessimism in the
face of change. But just because the reasons <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>to introduce gender quotas have substantial weaknesses, it does
not mean that they should necessarily be introduced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Some have suggested redressing the
imbalance in politics using alternative, less controversial methods like
providing more financial aid, making politics more flexible so as to
accommodate mothers, introducing training for prospective female politicians.
These are all wonderful ideas – some which would rightfully benefit men too or
should be used to support other underrepresented groups. The problem with these
interventions however, is that they trivialize the problem. Women constitute 19.2%
of their national parliamentary bodies worldwide. They make up 16.4% of
congress in the United States, and 15.1% of Dáil Eireann home in Ireland.
Massive historical culturally entrenched structural barriers have caused this
to be the case. They are highly unlikely to be rectified with a couple of
workshops in public speaking and an a few thousand dollars added to the
campaign budget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">There is one overarching reason
however, that I believe that gender quotas should be introduced not just
Bhutan, but in Ireland and the United States. There is something unusually striking
about the gender equality in the political domain, when compared against other
areas in which women have historically faced injustice. 75 years ago, men in
the US massively outnumber women in workforce participation, educational
attainment and national politics. By the time the Financial Crisis had wrangled
its way into the economy however, women had closed the gap and began to
outnumber men in the economy (their proportion of the workforce has now fallen to
46.7% - and serious problems persist in leadership positions). In education, girls
now spend more time in school and outperform boys in most areas. Yet when we
look to politics, women make up only 16.4% in Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The equilibrating force in education
and economy (admittedly, imperfect) is almost entirely absent in politics.
Urgency in seeking to tackle this is necessary. Proactive intervention is required
because the character of this problem is of paralysis and entrenchment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">So in addition to the reasons I have
discussed above (the unfair structural barriers faced by female candidates, the
need of a polity to be appropriately represented by people who share a
particularly salient political identity, the harm that the status quo incurs
upon young women), gender quotas are needed because they are the most radical
tool we have to fight injustice.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: normal;"><img alt="Womenintechnology-template.jpg" src="webkit-fake-url://A4E0C60B-4B35-44E9-8434-57D04B1BC746/Womenintechnology-template.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></span> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">* This essay has focused on the
legitimacy of gender quotas, largely leaving aside questions regarding their
effectiveness once implemented. If you have read this far and would like to
read further comments on this, suggest it to me in a comment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-69752052146491509822012-07-24T13:41:00.000-07:002012-07-24T13:41:38.173-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #c0504d; font-size: 22pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Three Hands of
Development<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #c0504d; font-size: 17pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Five Centuries of Thinking About <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c0504d; font-size: 17pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Natural Order and Change in the Economy<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 144.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> With the other masquerades<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 144.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> That time resumes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> One thinks of all the hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 144.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> That are raising dingy shades<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> In
a thousand furnished rooms.</span></div>
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<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Preludes</span></i></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">,
T.S. Eliot</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While discussing the virtues
of the market system in his 1972 Nobel Memorial Lecture, Kenneth Arrow, one of
the world’s most influential economists, reflected that a ‘recurrent theme of
economic analysis has been the remarkable degree of coherence’ in the economy,
amongst ‘the vast numbers of individual and seemingly separate decisions about
the buying and selling of commodities.’ Noting that in our ‘everyday, normal
experience, there is something of a balance between the amounts of goods and
services that some individuals want to supply and the amounts that other, different
individuals want to sell,’ he suggested that such is the strength of this
innate equilibrating force, ‘would-be buyers ordinarily count correctly on
being able to carry out their intentions, and would-be sellers do not
ordinarily find themselves producing great amounts of goods that they cannot
sell.’ Markets have flaws, acknowledged Arrow, but one of their greatest
virtues is their unrivalled capacity for coherence; their natural order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Indeed, since Adam Smith’s
now providential musing that economic activity may in fact be coordinated by an
</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">invisible hand</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, whereby the self
regarding individual ‘without intending it, without knowing it, advance[s] the
interest of the society,’ many of the twentieth century’s most important
economists have gone to great lengths to formalize Smith’s relatively off hand suggestion
as a foundational axiom of the discipline. Markets are Pareto efficient,
according to this view. They are optimal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And with such claims,
supported by seemingly irrefutable, and often incomprehensible formal proofs,
the discipline of economics proceeded to trample its way through the twentieth
century, throwing about its normative weight under a mathematical cloak of
objectivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Since I have begun to sit in the
meetings of the Gross National Happiness Commission however, and consider the careful
discussion of policies aimed at nurturing the growth of the country’s key
industries, I have become only more steadfast in my conviction that economic
development cannot rely upon the invisible hand alone. A healthy economy needs
not only to be embedded in an accommodating society (an important aspect
ignored by such formal models, though admittedly, not by Smith), it also requires
</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Entrepreneurs</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to innovate and drive commercial
activity and quite often an </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Active State</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
to intervene and foster commercial development when civil society lacks the capacity
to do so independently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Alchemic Hand of the Entrepreneur<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Joseph Schumpeter is perhaps
the most influential economist to have highlighted the importance of the role
played by the entrepreneur in the economy. In one of his many influential
works, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Theory of Economic Growth</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">,
he speaks of the entrepreneur’s ‘will to conquer: the impulse to fight,
to prove oneself superior to others, to succeed for the sake, not of the fruits
of success, but of success itself,’ as being an essential driver of innovation.
Indeed, while Smith believed the economic growth he was observing at the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution to be the product of gains made from trade
and the division of labour, contemporary analysis now places technological
progress at the heart of this economic development. And as the economic
historian Robert Allen has </span><a href="http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/conference2007/Assets/AllenIIA.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">noted</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, it was the ‘projector’ entrepreneurs that
Smith was so skeptical of, that were in fact driving this process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But
the origin of the idea of the ‘entrepreneur’ has its roots in much earlier work
than that of Schumpeter and even Smith. Writing almost half a century prior to the
publication of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wealth of Nations</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, a relatively unknown
Irishman named Richard Cantillon provided the first known account of the
entrepreneur, or undertaker as he called it. In what is perhaps the first
treatise of modern economics, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Essai sur la
Nature du Commerce en Général</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, Cantillon puts forward an account of the
undertaker, somebody who buys at a known price to sell at one that is unknown.
A specialist in assuming risk, this figure plays a vital role in the economy by
solving for the information deficit faced by ordinary economic agents. As
Robert Casson of Reading University puts it, the entrepreneur ‘‘insures’ workers
by buying their products (or their labor services) for resale before consumers
have indicated how much they are willing to pay for them. The workers receives
an assured income (in the short run, at least), while the entrepreneur bears
the risk caused by price fluctuations in consumer markets.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As
a Summer Fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program, I have been reflecting
upon how these thoughts relate to fairness and gender. It would be
understandable to dismiss these reflections upon a discipline that is
oppressively male in composition as irrelevant or even hostile to women
empowerment. But while the discipline of economics is quite clearly in need of
substantial reform with regards to the gender balance in its ranks, a
reorientation of its intellectual programme for development, placing greater
weight on the importance of the entrepreneur as an essential driver of economic
growth, has quite some significance for women in developing countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As
has been frequently noted in the literature on microfinance, the main source of
commercial finance for poor people seeking to establish enterprises; women,
quite simply, are better, more reliable, entrepreneurs. When it comes to
deciding upon potential clients, micro-finance institutions consistently find
women, who are more likely to honour their debts, to be more suitable
candidates. A development agenda that places the entrepreneur at the heart of
its focus therefore, will focus on empowering women not only because of its
intrinsic value, but also because of the instrumental role it plays in
achieving other desirable ends (e.g. economic development). At a time when
women in developing countries face persistent glass ceilings (and often barriers
that are much more substantial) as they seek to gain senior positions in
established, male dominated, institutions, the return on investing in the next
generation of leaders and in gender balanced firms seems especially promising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Nursing Hand of the State<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The idea that the
entrepreneur plays a vital role in the economy meets with little resistance, even
if it is often sadly ignored in contemporary economic analysis. The third hand
of economic development I wish to discuss; that of the active state, does not
enjoy such ambivalence. The notion that the state can play an important and
active role in facilitating economic progress has been widely unpopular for decades
now. Indeed, from direct participation in the economy, to indirect stimulation of
aggregate demand, to mere regulation even, the government has seen the
legitimacy of its competencies slowly stripped away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">David Moss, an economic historian at
Harvard Business School, has framed this phenomenon as a ‘</span><a href="http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-080.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">reversal in the null</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.’ According Moss, social scientists shifted their focus of inquiry from
scrutinizing the effectiveness of markets to challenging the usefulness of
government intervention. The methodological implications of this evolution, he
argues, had a serious impact on policy: </span></span><span style="color: #1a1818; line-height: 150%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">‘As scholars of political economy quietly shifted their focus
from market failure to government failure over the second half of the twentieth
century,’ this dramatic reversal ‘set the stage for a revolution in both
government and markets, the full ramifications of which are still only
beginning to be understood’.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There was a time, however, back
when the world’s great economic powerhouses, the United State and the United Kingdom,
were still in their nascency, that the state was recognized for the active role
it played in fostering industrial developed. From the 16</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> century
to the late 18</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> century, for example, Great Britain was guided by a
Mercantilist doctrine that embraced the importance of the state. It is
noteworthy that it was during this period that many of the pre-requisites associated
with the modern economy and growth of the industrial revolution were instituted;
a modern unified state with the capacity to enforce the rule of law, a proto-modern financial
system with the beginnings of a central bank, elaborate international trade
links with periphery economies, intellectual societies that drove innovative
ideas. Many of these conditions were put in place with strong support of the
state, indeed they may not have been possible without it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As the early 20</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
century economic historian Eli Heckscher discusses in the fifth section of his
classic consideration of mercantilism, while the thinkers of the day believed
in social causation, they also believed that the policy maker had the capacity
to influence this, indeed ought to, so that the society’s true purpose could be
realized. Indeed, in societies that lack universal and sound education systems,
where only the tiny few are empowered with the capabilities and resources to
engage in ambitious commercial endeavors, it is not unreasonable that the state
temporarily lend a nursing hand in support of infant industries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interestingly, 19</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
century United States, whose ideological environment, as Tocqueville famously
observed, had a distinctly particularistic civic republican character (similar
to the political tradition of 17</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> century Britain), is also likely
to have benefited from state policies that would be frowned upon by economists today.
Joshua Rosenbloom of Kansas University, for example, makes the </span><a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w9182"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">intriguing case</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> that
‘t</span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he protection provided by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of
1812 led to the initial expansion of textile manufacturing in the United States,’
a development that was ‘an important component of the broader process of
American industrialization.’ Indeed, looking at today’s rising power, even the
most casual spectator at China will notice the important role that the state has
played in driving its economic growth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It thus seems to me that there is somewhat of a contradiction
between the way we make sense of economic development conceptually and how it
actually plays out historically in the real world; that perhaps we need to
reconsider </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">how we think about how we
think about </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">these processes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Towards a new framework for
conceptualizing development<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">‘The notion of spontaneous
social order, an order in human affairs operating without the intervention of
any directly ordering mind’, writes the Princeton philosopher Phillip Pettit, ‘has
a natural fascination for social and political theorists.’ Development,
however, cannot afford to indulge in such fancies. The stakes are too high. Its
challenges are too great. It is time to reassess this narrow epistemology that
pervades our approach to its analysis and limits our ability to consider
important ideas or ways of thinking that do not lend themselves easily to
mathematical modeling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This view is slowly beginning
to gain traction. The idea, for example, that history matters for development is
beginning to be taken seriously in the policy arena, as is evidenced by an
illuminating </span><a href="http://www.cgdev.org/doc/events/4.21.10/Woolcock_WEB_VERSION.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">paper</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> by experts at the World Bank and the University of
Cambridge. One of the most interesting conclusions from this is </span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the potential utility of viewing history as a foreign country, a
perspective echoed in this piece. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But
if history matters for development, surely then, so too does the history </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">of</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ideas</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.
Yet despite the wealth of insights that history’s great economic thinkers, themselves
immersed in the sensibilities of development, have provided, its study </span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">continues to operate only at the outermost periphery. Apart from
lazy references to Adam Smith like the one at the beginning of this essay,
contemporary economists have virtually no interest in the great intuitive
debates that raged from the 16</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> through to the 19</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
century. The history of economic thought, rather, has become the 20</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
century’s “emeritus” profession, a pursuit enjoyed by retired economic
professors who have left their serious work behind them to indulge in more
leisurely activities. This needs to change. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If we are to re-establish political economy as a discipline that
is methodologically equipped to engage in the intellectual curiosity that is
necessary to reveal not just the three hands that drive development discussed here,
but the many others that may not yet be revealed, then we must begin to develop
a more dialectic and critically mannered approach. This alternative method,
moreover, has thrived in the study of past ideas; critiquing them, embracing
them, adapting them in order to better understand the contemporary world. Just
as the early modern intellectual tradition in Britain looked back to the Roman
republic, indeed just as Smith looked back to the ancients and Schumpeter looked
back to the physiocrats, today’s intellectuals ought put the great history of
ideas back in its rightful place.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->
</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-84994752854645297072012-07-10T06:45:00.000-07:002012-07-11T21:02:37.966-07:00Contradictions in Development: Women in Bhutanese society and politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
</h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As I spend more time in this remote
mountainous Kingdom and become increasingly acquainted with its cultural
peculiarities, the last vestiges of a parsimonious, uniformly progressive understanding
of development are dissipating within me. Though we may shy from the notion,
progress is in its essence eluded by the moral clarity and internal coherence that
our natural intuitions often crave. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One of my old professors would
often proclaim in class that modernization is messy, conflict ridden and highly
non-linear; a “package deal” sought by some, repelled by others. Trying to make
sense of this observation and my immediate surroundings here in Bhutan, I have
begun to question whether the arc of development history could ever </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">bow</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> toward justice. For to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">bow</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> requires painstaking time to
equilibrate the competing forces of progress and conservatism. Its slow shape
is defined by the inertia that opposes it. Development is no such unhurried thing.
Its vehicle is not </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">history</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, but
something far more explosive. Like a burst of fireworks, development has hurled itself to
the far corners of the earth, igniting the dark, sometimes violent serenity
with change in a tumultuous flicker of time. Development is brilliant. It is vulgar. It is
chaos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I have previously commented
that the Bhutanese development agenda seeks to temper this disorder by focusing
on “balance” – fusing its ancient, particularistic, Buddhist rituals with the new,
universalist suppositions of neo-liberal political economy. In many regards, it
has worked. Citizens now enjoy substantial political freedoms enshrined in the
recently enacted Constitution; people are quickly becoming richer and enjoy
impressive public health and education given its limited resources. And though the
country’s religious and cultural traditions must now compete for relevance with
the attraction of discothèques and fancy cars, they have nonetheless retained their respect and
importance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One aspect of development
that is struggling to live up to the promises of balanced progress however, is
the empowerment of women. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A few months ago, back in
Harvard at a WAPPP coffee morning, I was informed that Bhutan is considered to
be one of the few matriarchal societies in the world, something that, to my
embarrassment, I was unaware of. And while I would be hesitant to describe
Bhutan as a matriarchy, now that I’ve spent some time here - it has after all
been ruled by a male King for the past century and female “Dashos” (a
prestigious social title) appear extremely rare – many traditional aspects of
Bhutanese society are nonetheless a great deal fairer than those of its neighbors
in the South Asian region when it comes to issues of gender. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Karma Pem Wangdi, a Bhutanese
journalist, notes, for example, that women in
Bhutan “never really had to fight for basic rights as other women did. Female
genital mutilation, forced marriages, honour killings, social ostracism
after divorce are all still very alien” to Bhutanese women. Interestingly,
Wangdi suggests that “unlike in many communities in China and India, having a
daughter in Bhutan is looked upon more favourably than having a son … because
daughters have been known to be better caretakers of the home and the elderly
parents”. Indeed, in the world of traditional Bhutan, men move in with their
wives and married women do not take their husbands’ names. In many regions,
inheritance has even historically favored daughters, an extreme rarity in almost all cultures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But in recent years, a host
of newfound strains on women have developed that, bizarrely, appear distinctly
modern. In the contemporary economy, women face particularly stringent
unemployment challenges. Those who do find work, frequently struggle to access
affordable and trustworthy childcare. In an expanding education system, girls
underperform to a striking degree compared to boys, especially at higher levels.
And in the political realm, the pinnacle of Bhutan’s recent modernization, the
challenges are most pronounced. The country’s first parliamentary elections
have left a national assembly overrun by men, with only 10 women from 72
members. As the opposition leader, Tshering Tobgay has noted, “all its leaders
– Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the National Council, Speaker and Deputy
Speaker of the National Assembly, leader of the ruling party, and leader of the
opposition party – are men. The secretaries general of both the houses are men.”
These facts, quite simply, are incompatible with a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">just</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> society, never mind the pursuit of a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">matriarchy</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If Bhutan could boast that
its traditional norms gave more power and respect to women than other
countries’ have done in the past, then it has failed to adapt these values in
its embrace of social and political modernity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So how to make sense of the
challenges facing women empowerment in Bhutan? In </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Development as Freedom, </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">an influential doctrine of development, the
philosopher economist Amartya Sen puts forward the claim (reasonably self
explanatory, given the title of the book) that development is best thought of
as the process of expanding freedoms. Sen distinguishes between two kinds of
freedoms that individuals enjoy in society; procedural and substantive.
Procedural freedoms reflect the “processes that allow freedom of actions and
decisions,” such as the freedom to vote, access to courts and other civil and
political rights. Substantive freedoms on the other hand manifest themselves in
the “actual opportunities that people have, given their personal and social
circumstances.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the case of Bhutan, unlike
in many other developing countries, procedural freedoms have more or less
always existed in a relatively similar fashion for men and women. Moreover, in
many dimensions of social life, the substantive freedoms women have enjoyed
mirror those of men. But in those areas mentioned above, these substantive
freedoms are not being realized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For those who embrace a
libertarian understanding of justice, as expounded by philosophers like Robert
Nozick in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anarchy, The State and Utopia</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">,
procedural justice ought be sufficient and the policy conversation need not go any
further. There are obvious reasons, however, to care deeply that women in Bhutan lack
these substantive freedoms. For one thing, they have intrinsic worth. The ability
to participate comprehensively in one’s political society, to live productively
with the assurance that one’s family is safe, are valuable in of themselves. Procedural
rules are always necessary but often insufficient in their pursuit. Moreover,
these freedoms allows people to achieve other valuable ends like earn a decent
living and enjoy the benefits of education. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Less obvious however, is the
potentially more insidious intergenerational impact of these initial, male
dominated, stages of transformation. Social roles like public representative,
Prime Minister, Chief Executive Officer, and professor will quickly become
connoted with maleness if the gender structure of leadership positions in
society is not swiftly redressed. As Sen says, “greater freedom enhances the
ability people to help themselves and also to influence the world, and these
matters are central to the process of development.” Bhutan needs women in
important positions in order to influence the political agenda, and needs women
</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to be seen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> in important to prevent
the attachment of the male gender to powerful roles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So what is to be done? With
most problems of this kind, the first productive step is often to create
awareness by accumulating and disseminating important information. Working in the
Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) has highlighted for me the
importance of small procedures that I had always taken for granted in policy
(like disaggregating gender statistics, for example, a relatively recent
phenomenon here). Most people I meet in Bhutan (admittedly, these are
reasonably high level government officials) are aware of the challenge.
Extensive studies have been conducted to develop strategies for improvement.
Sometimes, the men I speak to will dismiss the problem, (I am unsure if this is
the innocent “Bhutanese banter” that I have highlighted before or if they are
genuinely opposed to gender focused reforms), but my sense is that women
empowerment is not a fringe issue amongst the country’s political elite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As part of my work at the
GNHC, I will be reviewing the strategies developed four years ago in the
aftermath of the parliamentary elections and examining the empirical evidence
from previous international efforts to empower women. Though I will be focusing
my attention on the political sphere, this is only the (admittedly, pretty
hefty) tip of the iceberg. In particular, the scars accumulated from
disparities in educational attainment will last for years to come. Swift,
ambitious and proactive measures will be required throughout Bhutan’s civil
society to ensure that its women live in as fair a society its reputation
boasts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Like an explosion of fireworks, development
hurled itself into this serene civil society. It is not surprising that
transformation’s inherent unpredictability, the tumult and messiness of the
change that Bhutan has faced over the last few decades brought with it
unintended consequences. But just as development is so often wrought with
incoherence, it also has a capacity to get things right. It can and does often
make things better. I hope that, with the sufficient attention and aided by
(Kennedy School supported) evidence based policy, Bhutan’s development can
adapt to empower rather than isolate women.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-68011968566228051182012-06-26T20:53:00.000-07:002012-06-27T03:16:25.490-07:00“Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”: A Man’s Response<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A few days ago, I awoke to a flurry of activity on my Facebook newsfeed
discussing the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Atlantic Magazine</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> article
by Ann-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” In her thought
provoking <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/">essay</a>, Slaughter argues that despite the courageous struggle fought
by previous generations of women, the work environment of prestigious, high
powered jobs continues to inhibit women, by forcing them into unnecessary and
unacceptable trade-offs between their parenting and professional commitments. An
intensely clientelist culture that fetishizes billable hours and frowns upon
those who dare prioritize family over work, even on weekends, has made it
impossible for women to lead healthy balanced family lives in a way that men in
similar positions often manage. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Slaughter, the former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department
and former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, makes a compelling
case for the reconfiguration of the work environment to make it more family
friendly. Extend the hours of the school day. Increase the use of communication
technology to facilitate working from home. Change work culture, making default
practices more accommodating of familial commitments. Without substantial
reforms like these, not only are governments and firms going to continue to
lose talented female employees, making society writ large worse off, but women
will remain in an uphill struggle filled with unfair barriers that
systematically discriminate against them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Many of my female Kennedy School peers have called on men to give their
opinion on the essay, some suggesting that we have little incentive to embrace the
proposed changes, others arguing that we have just as much to gain as women. So
as a man, what are my thoughts?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The core of Slaughter’s argument, as I read it, need not be gender
specific. It’s claim, rather, is that America needs to adapt its work culture
to embrace a new understanding of the good life. One that places family at its
core. For Slaughter, this is one where she is “able to spend time with [her]
children,” enjoying “the simple pleasures of parenting—baseball games, piano
recitals, waffle breakfasts, family trips, and goofy rituals.” These activities,
are common to millions of families across America, but are by no means
ordinary. They may not have the influence or financial earnings of a high power
job, but are nevertheless a rudimentary part of life. One that defines us,
satisfies us like nothing else. Family is not something to be sidelined by
professional commitments. No matter how important.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I full heartedly embrace Slaughter’s call. It is not clear to me, however,
why this invitation to re-imagine a more family friendly professional
environment is something that women specifically ought to value. The more
successful women have been over the past fifty years in redefining the
workplace as somewhere that everybody has a right to participate in equally,
the more men have seen their roles at home transform. Men now often make professional
sacrifices too for the sake of their family. This is something that I
experienced in my life for example. Just as my mother delayed the completion of
her degree to give my brother and I the support and attention we needed growing
up, my father, who had already earned his before we were born, then delayed his
PhD to make time in our teenage years to help us with our homework and coach the
soccer team. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">These are things my grandfathers’ generation probably never would have even
thought, and were certainly never expected, to do. Spending time engaged in the
everyday rituals of parenthood may have been the sole remit of women in the bad
old days, but that is not to say that its simple magnificence is lost upon men
today now that times have changed. And this is perhaps my most important take
away from thinking about Slaughter’s article. Women’s liberation has not been a
zero sum game. Men who are now participating in their children’s lives more
than they otherwise would have are enjoying newfound meaning. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My best male professors at the Kennedy School all have spoken of things
like putting off the next book, skipping conferences, leaving office strictly
at 5.30pm or (appropriate in this case) returning from a dream job in
Washington because their spouse dislikes the capital. I was speaking to Martin
Wolf (a hard nosed economist from the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Financial
Times</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">) about his career a few months back, and he reflected adamantly that
if his job had ever gotten in the way of his marriage, he would never have
hesitated to find new employment. I do not mean to suggest that this is
representative of all, or even most men but it nonetheless indicates that men’s
priorities are changing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What I liked about this essay was that it embraced family as the centre
of the solution, not part of the problem that ‘progress’ tries to solve.
Something that progress needs to accommodate, not be accommodated by. Part of
the directionality of our collective pursuits. It differs dramatically from the
message of Ibsen’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A Doll’s House</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> for
example, where Nora, the protagonist leaves her children to escape her controlling
husband. I remember as a teenager being conflicted after the play, by a twin
sense of relief that she escaped her horrid life and anger that she had left
her children. I remember arguing that it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a
woman, you’ve still got a responsibility to care for your children. This essay
pays head to this truth, and makes a better case, I believe, for a more just,
fair society because of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And I think men should, and will listen. </span></div>
</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-44974963386248823282012-06-18T03:47:00.001-07:002012-06-18T09:16:33.045-07:00Photos: Their Monasteries are in the Clouds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This weekend, with the monsoon season finally lumbering into action, I went to visit </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Taktsang, the famous Tiger's Nest. After a 6am start, the adventure soon had to be diverted elsewhere as the main road from Thimphu to Paro became impassable due to landslides. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Instead, we visited </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chagri Dorjeden</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, the Buddhist </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">monastery</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> established by </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">in 1620. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was a breath-taking introduction to the temples of Bhutan.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26lroXohfUBv-EcuL4Fmoyl3tHNNTCyJRVQVa6RWqc38G5GXWMF6Zlj4vpcsSRksbTjgs5F3U-iXpzgSbsOcnUKVYErOD1fANj29VvLf_q7JRch42wg612jFWlGFJ3g2qveZ9LF-Ud-g/s640/Road+block.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cars line up hundreds of metres back. An unusual sight in Bhutan. A landslide has made the road impassable.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26lroXohfUBv-EcuL4Fmoyl3tHNNTCyJRVQVa6RWqc38G5GXWMF6Zlj4vpcsSRksbTjgs5F3U-iXpzgSbsOcnUKVYErOD1fANj29VvLf_q7JRch42wg612jFWlGFJ3g2qveZ9LF-Ud-g/s1600/Road+block.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipz31Ik4LuAiDPblZtco7adzgHFTR8W012l-IYfvj29iCQyamn9mdPbRISuro9HyzNTRKPJiq7jMI1X3dCCVA8hmp8_Yzx0J3-1WGM4eB9gq3tWUAlyJF_bgHGJrc6Wg9AzQZi_jZcoKE/s640/Landslide.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A group of locals consider solving the problem themselves as it becomes apparent that help will be slow in coming this early Sunday morning. They begin to hammer at the enormous rock, hoping to roll more manageable pieces off the cliff.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipz31Ik4LuAiDPblZtco7adzgHFTR8W012l-IYfvj29iCQyamn9mdPbRISuro9HyzNTRKPJiq7jMI1X3dCCVA8hmp8_Yzx0J3-1WGM4eB9gq3tWUAlyJF_bgHGJrc6Wg9AzQZi_jZcoKE/s1600/Landslide.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMFeTzI4479aJUHY8tFFxyXTXroFO9Q4QeW3Lza50W3W_vb7NmDCfZ1sKQe-JDKhlLuV3rnhyVOZxzS3ZgUGQYNKcSkpCEC-WEtJiH5CW0WMAom1m68KbJRYS8Y8I-ww4CaS26CfOunM/s640/Paddy+fields+and+houses.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We head back to Thimphu, stopping to take examine the traditional Bhutanese architecture and of the rice terraces.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQB1e5eo-edy_Ps7ZGLqXgmziGKRjQ6Ej6TFt77Wxa0LTyDsWdfJp-p1y5x3gwFrN5Bv8bkrcshGva7LJZGN4HbinkTFrbl6ZN7bplfTkOkaCEix5TdWzVwoL-9v-pUENAPuCrOS55N0/s640/Monasteries+in+the+clouds.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amidst the clouds, hanging off the side of the mountainside, Chagri Dorjeden comes into view.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two monks make their way up to the monastery.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYjMUkIhP5H8UUihMaZwbzG030zvYcS98Uw3kYuF2DHRPubG7DuXTCXLwpYGf0Wc_my0sN-Seet4dbh5A8ZMAlS1upyKTzZbxCGYw3F4vlIYbIefRBmp9cgAD5r3Ca4hjU6t-EZr03kI/s1600/dog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYjMUkIhP5H8UUihMaZwbzG030zvYcS98Uw3kYuF2DHRPubG7DuXTCXLwpYGf0Wc_my0sN-Seet4dbh5A8ZMAlS1upyKTzZbxCGYw3F4vlIYbIefRBmp9cgAD5r3Ca4hjU6t-EZr03kI/s640/dog.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We make a friend along the way who cheerfully accompanies us up and down the mountain. Traditional Bhutanese hospitality.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqKnfJQ8X8_ACVj5lPUMO4l1PlTEtQk7z8L4Zjx6ZDznjAx8eUtjvGP-xXvb8U-ICROSDyuXYNyAQDh_2Iw6nww6r_B9CnGWd3UdDmF37gt2N34BOJtENwEB1ugpcnXF16aKFCGV5qHIU/s1600/proper+ful+pic+of+monastery.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqKnfJQ8X8_ACVj5lPUMO4l1PlTEtQk7z8L4Zjx6ZDznjAx8eUtjvGP-xXvb8U-ICROSDyuXYNyAQDh_2Iw6nww6r_B9CnGWd3UdDmF37gt2N34BOJtENwEB1ugpcnXF16aKFCGV5qHIU/s640/proper+ful+pic+of+monastery.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The deep green surroundings on the walk up are bursting with all manners of life. After hiking up the steep trail, the monastery finally comes into view.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="603" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvEP9W1OSAeHc68VdkWPX2Adq2XXkTNu4J8s_HmpYdz0vLYM0jIK5TL-AaPpBww3c2SHgRkDCRSDJyfR9lhYV2WpModBBcarbimfFfaUzOvMfvQHlfdQZXndtGqy6plcQYPPYrCLL9OLI/s640/Demon+Sign.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We were allowed to enter without a letter of permission.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivVjlSobl1cyVbogdK26o8kyInp4RuF8NuRu-olOpC7mvu9hc_N8bO6YjKa80a1O23vB_i6CkAyi29GxBU8Zn2LUuy8mgE6mxURje6__ReAL-DbBYGCppFgTO-2CWxFSdZtzoKsxPIF1U/s640/Mini+Prayer+bells.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mini prayer wheels.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivVjlSobl1cyVbogdK26o8kyInp4RuF8NuRu-olOpC7mvu9hc_N8bO6YjKa80a1O23vB_i6CkAyi29GxBU8Zn2LUuy8mgE6mxURje6__ReAL-DbBYGCppFgTO-2CWxFSdZtzoKsxPIF1U/s1600/Mini+Prayer+bells.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfhD47N7u9uZeoLavPbhwH0mel-hxqvOVr767Kj8UzzZU6cR4USDNBMnTIoVxcsGv4Auo7Nza0LQl6HstfM0TIlc7HgeNl2UR4OuZ8YuzGScl2Ki5x6k1Wa0s9GSeppOXPheWxvtrFMM/s640/Painting+on+the+wall.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the thousands of designs found on Bhutanese architecture. </td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfhD47N7u9uZeoLavPbhwH0mel-hxqvOVr767Kj8UzzZU6cR4USDNBMnTIoVxcsGv4Auo7Nza0LQl6HstfM0TIlc7HgeNl2UR4OuZ8YuzGScl2Ki5x6k1Wa0s9GSeppOXPheWxvtrFMM/s1600/Painting+on+the+wall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssePyk43brEOd4vl6HVW8fLV43uIX7paZVhDX97GnSCgmBvk66zyIhJeXcazmx1turCCrCbrJSTmSoEOYqttiXGMlk7yIeINS5FCE-fZG5pSm-aaE5utK4_qcIWPOE29_I7c3-KKt1bc/s640/monks+chatting.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two monks chat. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhal-A9_ERGca5PPuDk48bSszqYQiSzi7nU1JXkN_6-0jpVGghZ6RpIPpugG3qWjxsHjsnMvOSkKuZ06IMyGRrpntvA4296J-hY8ZY4Kyxz-l_8IgJKhkxrJTz-3CJWJJAP7zxly65NyYw/s640/candle+room.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A small candle prayer hut in the monastery.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhal-A9_ERGca5PPuDk48bSszqYQiSzi7nU1JXkN_6-0jpVGghZ6RpIPpugG3qWjxsHjsnMvOSkKuZ06IMyGRrpntvA4296J-hY8ZY4Kyxz-l_8IgJKhkxrJTz-3CJWJJAP7zxly65NyYw/s1600/candle+room.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2T_BDP1Ky3zeXxhCInysDNj-iE2ORqXzM9zkyl_f-zRTSCq7S2Phz1_ozNWB644iKIQwEVr0tJwYoxXV5-1Qc4YiOoFKxFAOIS4iGbh2B0v3kkYQEcIOxP0ogqawUjHle_bGksCOxX8c/s640/Monastery.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More designs. Reminds me of the old British University style architecture.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2T_BDP1Ky3zeXxhCInysDNj-iE2ORqXzM9zkyl_f-zRTSCq7S2Phz1_ozNWB644iKIQwEVr0tJwYoxXV5-1Qc4YiOoFKxFAOIS4iGbh2B0v3kkYQEcIOxP0ogqawUjHle_bGksCOxX8c/s1600/Monastery.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio-Hm3stKu6157NYYq53HUS8Mx9rtyNelEWCRyjjuunY-pqLo5GGWe37DIzDYRhJx5NJyHN5wV6wiO4r7wTI2RTEvkkgx4G448HGtgyaju8-ysDGM5RYYF6NwDh8sC07afdNgRIKyvp-g/s640/Buildings.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And more designs...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdVBeZ3eOJ2ica-QgjfrfFT6kIxdmc20S_EbxfAZ2br58ZlEkrKXILxe7GU_5OMmZLYSFHUIRke95ZOjYFizCJrXLMFrJDm7aDHoF4SNa1DiqstPpEd928qVW4fKZDpa55wbN37Aike0/s640/mossy+steps.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To the top. Slippery steps.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clouds and tree clad mountains surround the monastery into the distance.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtSDR5HGLZYtvV5lruD6vIYnBJMSnaaWksjB1o5gFiN1gkAOFZPlChZd5LThVIwuCsTLUdMpzqTLeIedQztBQWEV2n5wOtosWSiju96-CV3Gyke0VQ16NroakCAVM1T6vdqFF5bxEg_pc/s640/Feeding+the+dogs.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Local visitors feed the left overs of their lunch to the stray dogs.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Journey completed. We make our way home.</td></tr>
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</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-14984019414333922912012-06-17T08:01:00.000-07:002012-06-18T02:07:41.706-07:00The Canteen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Bhutanese are unrelentingly sociable. Embellished tales of recent visits by academic
dignitaries and racy office banter dance about the tobacco smoke that hugs the
old wooden picnic table in the back garden of the canteen. Even with strangers,
the conversation is never forced nor the silence ever awkward. More like a verbal
game, quiet at the table is spent in respite, anticipating the oncoming crack at any
idiosyncrasy the next subject of abuse happens to have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Is
smoking not banned in Bhutan?...” I ask. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My
inquiry is answered with earnest, wordy responses that utterly fail to provide
clarity. I wonder if the ambiguity is intentional, a convolution to avoid the intrusive
question, but decide it is not. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Economist article I read must have had it wrong so… </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A
tray of yogurts arrive </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(their plastic tops
unsealed).</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Unsweetened
but deliciously refreshing, the yogurt is more creamy and natural than any I’ve
tasted before. It’s the first dairy product I’ve had since arriving in this
chili infested land and lines the walls of my stomach, soothing my gut. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chilies in the Cheese Omelet. Chilies in the
Chicken Pizza. Chilies in bloody everything..</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After
the yogurt, the frequency and predictability of bathroom visits returns to
normal</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thank God. Most restrooms I
encounter are flooded holes in the ground, toilet-paper used up long ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">During
the first few days, I became increasingly aware of my foreignness. Squeamish,
precious, Western, I wonder how I must look to the locals.. like the tourists
in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Babel</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, scared of life outside my hyper
-sanitized bubble? </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Do the flies buzzing
about the food not bother ANYBODY else?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After
a generously timed one hour long break we head back to the office, returning to
the familiar sound of rats trampling hurriedly across the wood-chip ceiling,
their claws scuffing the panels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This
is my first time living in a developing country. In many ways, I didn’t know what
to expect. At this early stage, despite appearances, the discomforts of life
outside 02138 are more interesting than perturbing however. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Let’s
hope it stays that way…</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-57318873264335531832012-06-15T03:39:00.002-07:002012-06-15T03:39:47.470-07:00Photos: From Dublin to Paro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This should ideally been my first post. Below are the photos of my journey from Dublin to Paro, via Dubai and Bangkok.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A traveller hurries to his flight. I bought this camera to document my time in Bhutan. This was the first photo I took.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Waiting at Dubai International airport for 8 hours, I eventually boarded a plane like this one.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally on my Druk Air Flight. I left Ireland on Tuesday morning at 9am and arrive at my Bhutanese home at 8.30am on Thursday Morning.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As the plane descends below the clouds, I get my first sight of Bhutan.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally about to land!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My first weekend. Through the prayer flags, you can see the outskirts to the south of Thimphu. </span></td></tr>
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<span id="goog_330034444"></span><span id="goog_330034445"></span></div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-65322821934157526062012-06-09T21:43:00.000-07:002012-06-18T06:44:41.142-07:00Home in a foreign land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yesterday (Saturday 9th of June) I went for a walk up one of the mountains. The prayer flags were beautiful.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are stray dogs everywhere,
lying exhausted across the roads, defeat in their bloodshot eyes. With
composition akin to a lazy cow. Not like the dogs I know back home. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Upon arrival, I am immediately
struck by how utterly different life in Bhutan is to my experiences in the West.
The taxi drivers invite you to dinner with their family. The burgers are put on
display in plastic wrappers, pre-cooked. The air is purer than a sea breeze
(and yet its thinness leaves you gasping for breath). The mountains are lined
with colorful prayer flags. Just look at the buildings. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And yet it is essentially the
same. The procedures of human interaction. The untidiness of a city under
construction. The greyness of the sky looking down upon the valley. And with
modernization, the last Shangri-La seems at times to be slowly fading away.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Bhutan however, the mother of the
genius peculiarity of Gross National Happiness, balance pervades all aspects of
the development agenda. Indeed, there is little desire amongst government officials
for creative destruction. The modern endeavors to complement rather than
replace the past. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On my second day in Bhutan, I am
invited to observe the opening meeting of the National Assembly’s Session. The recently
instituted seat of democracy, the parliamentary chamber elegantly marries the
routines of political liberalism with monarchical customs and the ancient rituals
of the country’s Buddhist religion. The antediluvian tapestries and faint smell
of incense fit comfortably by the flat screen televisions built into the walls of
the assembly and the Gohs and Kiras (The Bhutanese national dress) look at ease
beside suits and dresses.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Work begins on Monday, when I
will get a chance to begin examining the theory and practice of GNH in detail.
I wonder will it be, as I hope, a replicable model for development beyond the
Himalayas.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sign that Bhutan is entering an economic heyday, this gigantic Buddha has been constructed on the mountainside overlooking Thimphu, the capital.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8654201653267193749.post-45727704786270290092012-05-09T07:25:00.000-07:002012-05-09T07:25:01.290-07:00A Sort of Homecoming<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><h4>
Dia Dhuit agus fáilte roimh go léir!</h4>
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My name is Jamie Walsh. I am an Irish graduate student at Harvard University studying public policy. This summer, I will be working as a short-term consultant for the National Planning Commission (GNHC) of the Royal Government of Bhutan. </div>
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The GNHC is the central coordinating body of the government that engages in the country's mid to long-term planning. It also controls budget allocations and approves priorities for all ministries and agencies in the government. I will be focusing on building the capacity and deliberative processes of local governance institutions with an emphasis on the political empowerment of women in rural communities.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXE412XptHpTf_2MntS72kCrlpaQtAizAIiu6CbvBouDpAYzU25_ThO44dsxwyhSHvnEvVQ43sUDAYIg-7AdDTMHjFFedungCfhBmXNx74v95cAu_C_Irq_I62tAbPgjFrCs7AgjUXb9k/s1600/Jigme+Sonam+1990.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXE412XptHpTf_2MntS72kCrlpaQtAizAIiu6CbvBouDpAYzU25_ThO44dsxwyhSHvnEvVQ43sUDAYIg-7AdDTMHjFFedungCfhBmXNx74v95cAu_C_Irq_I62tAbPgjFrCs7AgjUXb9k/s320/Jigme+Sonam+1990.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="222" /></a></div>
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Me in Bhutanese dress, 1990</div>
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<h4>
A long road home</h4>
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Twenty three years have passed since I last set foot in Bhutan, the remote Himalayan Kingdom nestled between China and India. Since then, the magical beauty of the Land of the Thunder Dragon has run as a constant thread of imagination through my childhood. </div>
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Me and my Mom in Bhutan, Summer 1989</div>
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Early memories of sitting with my mother, looking through carefully crafted photo albums of my parents' time in Bhutan, seemed to bring me not only to a faraway land, but somewhere situated in a distant time. The buildings, the clothes, the mountains, the dances, the places of worship, the music, the everyday practices all stood in stark contrast to my experiences growing up in Ireland. </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">My parents with the Jesuit Priest Father Mackey who married them during their time in Bhutan</span></div>
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Before I was born, my parents spent a number of years working in educational development in Bhutan. The years they spent there were undoubtedly formative. They were married there. They had the opportunity to take on important projects there. They made long lasting friendships there. When I think of Bhutan, I think of my family. Its very idea has come to be synonymous with my parents' values. Through them, it has made me who I am today. And yet, apart from a six week stint as a baby, I have never been there.</div>
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This summer, thanks to the lovely people at the Women and Public Policy Program and the generosity of the funders of the Cultural Bridge Fellowship, after the long journey of growing up, I will be making a homecoming of sorts. </div>
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I look forward to sharing my stories with you!</div>
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Jamie Sonam Walsh</div>
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The Walsh abode, 1987</div>
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</div>Jamie Walshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17301382467110462568noreply@blogger.com0