Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 2, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A7 THINK TANK PERSPECTIVES EDITOR: BRAD OSWALD 204-697-7269 ● BRAD.OSWALD@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 FRIDAY OCTOBER 2, 2020 Ideas, Issues, Insights PATRICK SEMANSKY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The first of three debates involving U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden did little to reinforce the importance of debates in the electoral process. Debates have little impact on outcome P RESIDENTIAL debates are one of the high-lights of the U.S. presidential election cycle, and hardly anyone doubted that the debates this year between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden would score high on entertainment value. The first debate this week confirmed that they will be a spectacle — hard to take your eyes off, even if you’d like to. Trump can sometimes be charming and funny. Many commentators — including this one — expected to see a less, um, “Trumpy” Trump on display during the debate. Instead, the president imported his Twitter persona straight into the debate hall, frequently interrupting and insulting Biden, scrapping with the moderator and point- edly refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election. At several points in the debate, Trump ac- cused Biden of graduating “last in his class” and referenced Biden’s son Hunter, even raising the younger Biden’s previous drug problems. Follow- ing the debate, opinion was divided among the various American news networks, with commen- tators on CNN scandalized by Trump’s brawl- ing tactics and Fox’s Sean Hannity lauding the president’s strong public persona. Biden entered the debate to low expectations, and easily surpassed them. Trump clearly intend- ed to knock Biden off his stride, and succeeded several times. But Republicans, who have spent months claiming that Biden is suffering from cognitive decline, hoped to see the Democratic nominee reduced to a sputtering mess, and that never happened. But Biden stumbled nevertheless: when asked directly whether he would attempt to pack the Su- preme Court if Trump’s most recent nominee is confirmed, he flat out refused to answer, inviting criticism that he was not being transparent. Biden never landed a convincing blow on Trump, which is remarkable considering the cur- rent president’s record, particularly with regard to the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19. But Biden is ahead in the polls, so avoiding disas- ter amounted to a win for him. It’s difficult to imagine that many undecided voters watched Trump’s performance and were convinced as a result to vote for him. I think it’s undeniable that Trump won the debate, such as it was, and he likely energized a segment of his sup- porters. But winning on points counts for little if it will have no impact on the election results. When I was a teenager, my mom found an old political-science textbook in a used bookstore and gave it to me. The book included a compelling study of the first televised presidential debate from 1960, between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon. Analysts were interested in whether televising the debate rather than simply broadcasting via radio led to one can- didate or the other gaining an advantage. The possibility that this was the case was driven in part by differences between the can- didates: in the words of the CBS president at the time, “Kennedy was bronzed beautifully…Nixon looked like death.” That is slightly uncharitable, but Nixon — sweating, his makeup running and his five’o’clock shadow clearly visible — was obvi- ously at a disadvantage to Kennedy in front of the television cameras. The result of televising the debate was that those who watched on television thought Kennedy won, whereas those who listened on radio gave the win to Nixon. There is a great deal to take from this, notably that Kennedy won on the basis of image whereas Nixon excelled in his mastery of the public policies discussed. Nevertheless, Kennedy went on to win the election. This was an early study and it suffered from some flaws. Since then, many other similar studies have explored whether U.S. presidential debates ul- timately affect the vote. The answer is largely “no.” Political scientist James Stimson studied presidential elections between 1960 and 2000 and found no evidence that debates led to substantial shifts in public opinion. They may give certain candidates a “nudge,” and this only applies in campaigns in which the candidates are very close to one another in public support (such as the razor-close 2000 election which resulted in the election of president George W. Bush). A later study that incorporates a massive number of polls from presidential elections between 1952 and 2008 found no evidence that public opinion changes from before to after the presidential de- bates. One exception is the 1976 election, and even in this case it is unclear that the debates had any effect on voters’ evaluations of Democrat Jimmy Carter, which were already dropping prior to the debates. Debates may not affect election outcomes, but they are nevertheless compelling exercises in civ- ic engagement. This week’s debate was watched by 29 million viewers in the U.S. — a decline from the 2016 Clinton-Trump debates, which attracted 45.3 million viewers. In a country as fragmented as the U.S., it is re- markable to see such a large number of Americans engaging in the same civic activity at the same time. Trump’s antics, however, might have some viewers swearing off watching future debates. Royce Koop is head of the political studies department at the Univer- sity of Manitoba. WE’s demise offers stark lesson to all charities THE scandal around the federal government’s questionable allocation of a student grant pro- gram to WE Charity has led to the demise of the organization’s operations in Canada. That’s prompted a renewed debate about the trustworthiness and accountability of non-gov- ernmental organizations (NGOs). When a crisis of NGO trustworthiness emerges, the public usually demands more oversight and formal accountabil- ity from the organizations. But does this actually lead to increased trust and transparency among donors, NGOs and the general public? I look at this question using previous research on trust and accountability inside the NGO sector. Non-governmental organizations obtain their legitimacy largely from the trust that the general public bestows upon them. That means that NGO trustworthiness — defined as the perceived abil- ity, benevolence and integrity of these organiza- tions — is a paramount element to guarantee the success of NGO welfare-delivery projects. NGO trustworthiness becomes more relevant if we consider that most of these organizations fund their operations from taxpayer dollars, which is channelled through governmental agencies that act as donors. Governmental donors establish accountability measures that rely on extensive administrative requirements and bureaucratic de- mands. But they often do little to enhance project activities or to reach better co-operative relation- ships with NGOs. Recent research has shown that the current model of accountability in the NGO sector relies too much on a rational view of trust that conflates transparen- cy and authenticity with bureaucratic accountability. The WE Charity scandal demonstrates that despite the stringent accountability requirements that are dominant in the sector, relationships may fall apart due to the lack of real transparency that sustains the public’s trust. Current accountability models need to be reconsidered to recognize that trust is not only built on oversight mechanisms, but also on emotional components. Trust is usually defined as the positive expecta- tions regarding the actions of others. Sociological research on trust highlights that this concept goes beyond the use of tangible evidence to predict the behaviour of others and involves emotions. Trust is not a simple tool used to make rational predic- tions about the actions of a counterpart. Instead, trust has an emotional dimension involving shared values, principles, goals and beliefs. These shared values allow people take leaps of faith when form- ing a co-operative relationship. Simply put, no matter how many administra- tive and oversight requirements we impose on an NGO, we need emotional elements, such as shared principles and goals, that connect us. Trust is a mix of informational and emotional elements that increase the perceived trustworthiness about the partner. Such perceived trustworthiness is sus- tained through communication and transparency. The demise of WE Charity and the public scrutiny on the Liberal government started with the failure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to recuse himself from the discussions about the award of the student program, as well as the lack of disclosure of questionable financial ties between WE Charity and Trudeau’s family. Aside from any political retaliations from op- position parties, what appears certain is that both the government and the charity failed to properly communicate and be completely transparent with the public. But transparency here should not be understood as just an act of dutiful compli- ance with regulations and oversight demands, but rather as the natural outcome of nurturing relationships where the important element is the common goal that connects everyone involved. The preliminary results of my research into how trust and accountability interact in relation- ships in the NGO sector suggests that trust is enabled and enhanced by communication and transparency. That transparency is not under- stood as the fulfilment of bureaucratic account- ability measures and administrative require- ments, but instead as voluntary acts of openness and disclosure about important events that may impact the relationship. In the case of WE Charity, it’s precisely the lack of communication and transparency with the public that led to the ultimate downfall of the intended collaboration. On paper, WE Charity could have been the best partner to implement the student grant program. It may have met all the requirements in terms of capacity and operational infrastructure, and it may have had the best intentions to connect students with volunteering opportunities. But the failure to be transparent eroded the public’s trust and led to its organizational demise. This suggests that stringent oversight mea- sures — which in the current model of NGO ac- countability usually translates into bureaucratic paperwork — do not necessarily lead to enhanced trust and transparency in the relationships among donors, NGOs and the public. Accountability requirements for NGOs are necessary — they help stakeholders check on the activities undertaken by these organizations. But these requirements should really focus on transparency, not as an exercise of simple box- checking. This will ultimately lead to enhanced trust relationships with NGOs. Nelson Duenas is a PhD candidate in accounting at Concordia University. This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: thecon- versation.com/ca. Venus discovery challenges our understanding of what life can be EARTH and Venus were supposed to be sister planets. But what would you do if your sister turned out to be a toxic wasteland so hot that she could melt lead and so high-pressure that she could smash submarines? News last month that there may be signs of life on the second planet from the sun came as a surprise, not because scientists had never contemplated such a possibility but because they had. Venus is about as big as we are, about as dense and, judging only by its distance from the sun, about as habitable. It is also our nearest neighbour — which is why, when humans finally sent a probe beyond our own planet, Venus was the obvious destina- tion. Unfortunately, as David Grinspoon of the Planetary Science Institute put it in an inter- view, Venus is “an easy place to get to and a hard place to get to know.” The welcome wasn’t what we’d hoped for. Humankind’s initial overtures came in the Soviet Union’s Venera missions in the dawn of the 1960s. After a couple of tries, the Russians landed a probe on Venus’s surface, though “landing on” in that case really meant “crash- ing into,” presumably as a molten mess. Subsequent probes, fortified for unforgiv- ing climes, conveyed an unlikely vacationland with surface temperatures of 460 C, sulfuric acid rain in the clouds and an atmosphere 90 times more crushing than ours. In short, a bummer. We had travelled to the heavens and found a hell. Some writers had imagined jungles and oceans; few had pre- dicted formaldehyde dust. Exploratory efforts refocused on less hostile destinations nearby, plus farther reaches of the solar system which at least had the distinction of being mysteri- ous and distant. Venus was both too similar and not similar enough. The search for extraterrestrial life has long been full of contradictions. Even as we seek confirmation that we’re less special than we assume, we conduct our search in a way that assumes we’re awfully special. We’re pursuing an Earth-like environment, whether that’s Mars after a little dusting or the moons orbiting gas giants such as Saturn and Jupiter. At the same time, we secretly hope there’s no place like home. There’s a scientific reason for our geocen- trism: We don’t have any other data. Unless this whole shebang is a simulation run by aliens, we can be confident that the conditions on Earth support life — because, well, we’re here. So we assume we’re more likely to find life elsewhere by looking for those conditions that sustain us here than we are by flailing around madly in the Milky Way. Imagination is always rooted in reality; where there’s nowhere to start from, there’s nowhere to go. Ask any kid to draw an alien. Those little green guys are usually just like us, but with antennae. Which is why reports of potential life on Venus are different. The astronomers haven’t encountered any little green guys with their telescopes, but they also haven’t encountered any subsurface oceans or mould-friendly mountains, either. What they’ve encountered is in the clouds: a chemical called phosphine that they’ve determined shouldn’t exist on a rocky planet such as Venus unless there are microbial organisms around to keep it there. They say — and astrophysicist Carl Sagan hypothesized this, too, more than 50 years ago — that these organisms are likely to live high above the ground, in a Goldilocks-like sweet spot for pressure and heat but chock full of acid nonetheless. Phosphine itself is, in fact, poisonous to humans, besides being foul-smelling. And the whole chock-full-of-acid-thing is a far cry from anything like earthiness. Some scien- tists say organisms that survive in that soup could rely on a sort of protective shell that shields them from the acidity that would oth- erwise scorch into oblivion any of the DNA, amino acids and other building blocks of life. Others say life on or above Venus is simply implausible, and that the researchers them- selves have acknowledged there may be some “anomalous and unexplained chemistry” to explain the presence of the phosphine. It may turn out there’s nothing vital on Ve- nus after all. Still, the frenzy surrounding the very thought is worthwhile. Maybe any DNA- based critter would be scorched into oblivion in the Venusian winds, and maybe an anoma- lous and unexplained chemistry does explain the phosphine — but maybe that chemistry is life of a kind, too, only one made of building blocks far different from those we know. We’ve been searching for the conditions for life as we know it because we’ve been search- ing for life as we know it. The recent dispatch from our sister planet suggests a different kind of life that remains unknown to us. In which case, the question isn’t merely whether there’s extraterrestrial life in this universe. The question is bigger: what is life, anyway? — The Washington Post ROYCE KOOP NELSON DUENAS MOLLY ROBERTS A_09_Oct-02-20_FP_01.indd A7 2020-10-01 4:39 PM ;