Business & Culture and Current Affairs

There is trouble in Tibet. Or rather, there was trouble in Tibet. The protesters have surrendered as per this writing date.
The Chinese authorities, once again, used force to crush this opposition.

Why is the Western world so concerned about this? Why does the Chinese government use crude power to end opposition?
I'll attempt to explain this from a cultural perspective, using Hofstede's 5D-model of cultural dimensions.

First some numbers; China scores high on power distance (hierarchy): 80; in comparison UK/US score 35/40, so significantly lower. A characteristic of power distance is, when it comes to change: "evolution (low score) versus revolution (high score)".

China scores low (30) on Individualism i.e. China is a collectivistic society. One of the characteristics of collectivism are so called "In-groups"; collectives of people who are loyal to themselves and not to the so called "Out-group". The West (western Europe and North America) is (very) Individualistic.

These two dimensions, are at play in Tibet. Power distance and Individualism, or in this case Collectivism.

In China there are at least 54 ethnic groups, In-groups. Groups where the loyalty lies with that specific group rather than the greater China. The Tibetans are such an In-group. In other words Tibetans are more loyal to themselves than to China as a country. This also explains the beating up of non-Tibetan Chinese by Tibetans (because they were seen as foreigners).
If the Chinese government would grant a greater autonomy to Tibet, all other ethnic groups would want the same, and China as a country would soon fall apart.

The high score on power distance of China predicts that the power holder, the government in this case, will rule with great authority, and will not leave it to evolution for things to change. The retaliation against the government is also an expression of revolution from the Tibetan side.

Even lots of pressure form the Global community will not get the Chinese government to change their ways.
And as far as the upcoming Olympic games, maybe one or two countries will pull out (although I think this incident was too early for us to remember then). The games will go ahead as planned, they will be hugley successful and the Chinese will boast about its success.

This writing is an attempt to explain, from a cultural point of view, why Democracy is not a World Universal "thing".

Democratic elections in Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan, Burma? The list is far from complete.

In the western world we seem to be obsessed by spreading Democracy.
The point is, that that will not work. Here's why not.

What is (Western) Democracy?
In actual fact, Democracy boils down to this: One man, One vote.
In addition what is important here is that this One man, is not coerced by anyone else in determining his One vote.

So fundamentally western Democracy hinges on Individuals voting for themselves.
This word "Individuals" is important here.

Prof. Hofstede came up with 5 dimensions of defining national culture (describing general trends in societies). One of these dimensions is called Individualism.
This Individualism is crucial into making (western) Democracy work.
High scoring cultures on this dimension use/have a Democracy that the Western world is trying to spread so bad.

Examples of high scoring Individualistic cultures are: North America, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe. That's it!

The rest of the world scores low on this dimension (i.e. Collectivistic).
This means that to the majority of the world (about 80%) this concept of Democracy does not mean the same thing as in the minority of the world (i.e. first world).

In collectivistic societies people are loyal to their group, more then to themselves. This means (in short) that One man, One vote, translates into "I'll vote for the One my peers (in-group) votes for".

Summarizing: Democracy in Iraq is an illusion. It always will be.

Nicolas Sarkozy

The newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to reform France, make it more competitive and an important player again in the Global arena.
He will not succeed.

Why not? Because of two reasons.

The first is because, in France, Power is important. Power as in the form of Hierarchy (France scores 68 on the dimension "power distance or PDI", of Hofstede's model of cultural values). This factor shows in Mr. Sarkozy taking the center stage time and again, and wanting to stand in the lime light. Whilst his counterpart in Germany, Ms. Merkel, is by far more successful in reforming Germany, and giving the credit to her team (Germany scores a remarkably low score of 35 on this "power distance" dimension), and not herself.

The second reason why Mr. Sarkozy will not be able to reform France is the relative high score on the dimension Uncertainty avoidance (France scores 86, UK 35). This makes the French relatively more reluctant to change (or more protective of their own interests) then the British.
An example is the removal by Mr. Sarkozy of the EU’s commitment to “undistorted competition” from the draft EU summit declaration recently.
So much for Sarkozy “the reformer”.

What he has done will split the EU right down the middle.
It’s also an explicit attack by the French president on Gordon Brown’s vision for Europe – which doesn’t augur for European harmony in the months ahead.

Apart from anything else, the promotion of competition has brought unmitigated benefits to European consumers, in the form of lower prices for all manner of goods and services.

There would probably be no Ryanair or Easyjet, if it weren’t for EU competition policy.

There would have been less pressure on mobile phone companies to lower their prices for using phones abroad.

My prediction is that there will be some changes in France, but not the fundamental changes that Mr. Sarkozy has promised during his presidential campaign.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy
http://news.bbc.co.uk

For some time now, it has been relatively quiet between the Israelis and Palestinians.
However there seems to be more unrest amongst the Palestinians themselves.

Why (from a culturally perspective) could that be?
The answer is "Individualism". Or rather "Collectivism", the other side of the cultural dimension called individualism, founded by prof. Geert Hofstede.

This cultural dimension describes the concept of "loyalty"; or, where one’s loyalty lies: with oneself or with the group that you belong to.

The whole of the Arab world has a so called collectivistic culture (with the exception of Israel (respective scores of Israel and the Arab world on this IDV dimension are 54 & 38)).

Extending the concept of collectivism from loyalty to the group leads to so called "in-groups".
One belongs to an in-group and is considered to be unconditionally loyal to its members.
In-groups implicitly then have out-groups.

The two in-groups currently battling it out are Hamas and Fatah.

It happens ever so often. A shooting by one individual in a public area. Schools have been in the news that way. Recently it happened at an Amish School in Pennsylvania.
6 people are dead.

So why is there no better/stricter/tighter Gun Control in the USA?

It is mostly because of the powerful Gun lobby.

From a cultural standpoint this is to be explained using two of Hofstede´s cultural dimensions: Individualism and Masculinity. Respective scores of the USA: 91 & 62

There is quite something at stake for the American Gun lobby. Mainly the loss of lots of influence and money.
This lobby is run by a few individuals. These individuals do not want to loose (a characteristic of a Masculine culture like the USA).

The fact that the individual (which is indeed a characteristic of the the cultural dimension Individualism) wants to decide for him/herself (also a individualistic characteristic) whether to have or not have a gun (a masculine power toy) is also explainable using the cultural dimensions of Hofstede.

The Europeans do not understand this kind of behaviour. That is because the Europeans are either feminine (the opposite of masculine; e.g. Sweden), or score high on Uncertainty avoidance (one characteristic is not wanting to run unfamiliar risks; e.g. USA score is 46, Germany scores 65)

For you to decide what is right and wrong...