Legitmacy and Maslow's Hierarchy

[TheCurmudgeon]

Attached you will find a rough draft of a paper I have been working on dealing with the connection between political legitimacy and human needs. This may seem far afield from small wars but the point was to demonstrate where political legitimacy comes from and why it is not malleable. If the foundations are correct than you can no more change a target populations choice of legitimacy by bribing them with schools and hospitals than you can kill it out of them. Neither approach is going to 'win', although killing it out of them can force it underground for a long time.

It goes fairly deep into sociological and psychological ideas. There are no direct references to any current operations so it is dull reading. It is not for the faint at heart. Also my grammar sucks.

If anyone wants to peruse it and provide some feedback as to whether this is something than can be adopted for the field, might be handy for strategists to know, or could be shoved down the throat of an idealistic policy guru who is advocating intervention in a place we probably should not go, I would appreciate their your feedback.

[DJL]

Thanks for sharing - will definitely read it. I think you have the right idea that you can't impose order by the top down, or create a social ecosystem by force of will. But there may be points of leverage - if the physical and cognitive situation is understood well enough - where you can apply gain some influence over emergent social patterns, even if you can't control them. I ask the same question often - is there a set of basic geographic, social, and economic prerequisites for groups and societies to achieve stability? Can we use this knowledge to better predict the feasibility and extent to which we can "nudge" a system we'll never completely control towards patterns of complimentary adaptation that we describe as desired political outcomes? If we don't have an answer to this, it's hard to say how killing people and breaking things (or even building roads and schools) will achieve a better peace in the long run.

[Dayuhan]

You've probably seen this, but a recent article by Steven Metz in the Journal looked at Maslow's Hierarchy and participation in insurgency, closely related...

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...-in-insurgency

[TheCurmudgeon]

I have. I liked his basic premise and the way he broke up the elements of the insurgency based on their own reasoning for being involved. Too many times we think there is only one group or one way people think. They are only motivated by a liberal belief in human rights. Not really the case. Also means that any solution has to be uniquely tailored to the environment.

I was listening to NPR today, it sounded like a replay of a BBC program where the question was asked about whether it was OK to question politicians on their religious convictions or interpretations of the scriptures. The reporter asked whether asking those questions was reasonable since the US was a secular nation and the response was that the US was not securlar, never was, and that the founding fathers made that clear in their consistent references to all rights and liberties being granted to us by God. Not sure that all Amercian's would agree with that but at least some here think our nation's legitimacy is built on religion, not liberalism. If a person assumes the whole country is like that they might come up with a bad plan.

[Dayuhan]

I'd say any time people in one country speculate on the bases of political legitimacy in another country they tread upon thin ice... and that action based on such speculation is likely to result in a plunge into cold water.

One of the odder quirks or recent American thinking on such matters is the idea that "hearts and minds" can be "won" by "providing services". People don't generally fight their government because they aren't getting services, especially in places where expectations of government are historically low. People fight their government because they fear it, they're angry at it, or both. Providing service isn't likely to dissipate fear or anger unless some effort is made to figure out why people are afraid and/or angry, and correct those conditions.

[Bob's World]

This an area where Dayuhan and I share a similar perspective. It is not the services one receives or does not receive; nor is it whether one is rich or poor: It is how one feels about such things, and who one blames.

When the US jumps into the middle of another country to either overthrow, demand changes, or sustain some despot we put ourselves squarely on the proverbial "blame line" for any segment of the affected populace that is coming up short in that transaction.