DOMESTIC POLITICS:
ARE ALL ZOMBIE
POLITICS LOCAL?
The international relations paradigms discussed to date have been primarily systemic in their orientation.* Their sources of change and explanation in world politics come from interaction among states and other global actors. While elegant, a systemic approach might miss the more fine-grained power struggles that take place within the confines of domestic politics. The structure of domestic institutions, the state of public opinion, or the constellation of interest group pressures can affect a wide array of foreign policy and national security initiatives. At a minimum, domestic pressures can exert powerful constraints on the foreign policy leader's bargaining positions when negotiating with other actors.1
The conceptual difficulty with “second image” approaches, however, is their lack of parsimony. Domestic institutions, cultures, and attitudes vary from country to country, making it difficult to boil down differences across borders. Compare and contrast, for example, the reaction to zombies in American movies with the British response in Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004). Americans tend to display far more visceral reactions, use profanity at a far higher rate, and react quickly and aggressively when a compatriot is bitten. The English tend toward more low-key behavior. Those who are bitten by zombies choose not to inform their compatriots about this fact for fear of being a bother. If England and America are this different in their response to the living dead, imagine how different the variegated national responses of India, Russia, or China might be.
It is difficult to fashion a coherent and parsimonious theory that captures the heterogeneities of each country's domestic politics.2 To alleviate this problem, this section will therefore focus primarily on American domestic politics. The United States is perceived to be a “weak” policymaking state, in that the federal government is open to influence from societal interests.3 The effect of domestic attitudes, interests, and institutions should therefore be at their most pronounced in the United States, making their observation easier.
Would any dimension of domestic politics play a significant role in affecting the global policy response to the emergence of zombies? At first glance, domestic institutions beyond the executive branch would seem to matter little for the zombie issue. The emergence of the living dead poses an immediate threat to homeland security. When faced with such an imminent threat, the executive branch of the government possesses all of the policy levers. The president commands the armed forces, calls up the National Guard, negotiates with other countries, and so forth. For good or ill, countervailing institutions such as legislatures and courts play a minimal role during real-time policy formulation and crisis management in times of catastrophe.4 If there is divided government, and the opposition party holds a clear majority in the Congress, then legislatures can constrain the policy autonomy of the executive branch over time. Even scholars who stress the role of congressional influence acknowledge, however, that a truly global crisis temporarily enhances executive autonomy.5 Flesh-eating zombies would surely count as such an exigency.
In theory, public opinion would also not impose an immediate constraint on executive action. At a minimum, one would expect an initial “rally round the flag” phenomenon in response to a zombie emergency.6 During times of national crisis, populations will strongly support their national leaders in a display of patriotism. The effect might be long-lasting. Public opinion research shows that Americans would be willing to suffer casualties and costs if they believed in the severity of the national security threat and the likelihood of victory.7 Provided the initial counter-zombie response was sufficiently vigorous, voters would be expected to reward incumbent leaders with greater political support.8
Over time, however, public sentiment might impose significant constraints on counter-zombie policies. Scholars from Adam Smith onward have observed that mass publics will consider local issues to be far more important than the troubles of foreigners.9 Indeed, to update a critical passage from book 3, chapter 3 of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments for our purposes:
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by a plague of the undead, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, as well as the unholy nature of undead existence after the end of life. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of hundreds of millions of Chinese zombies, and the undead existence of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. If his finger was bitten off by a flesh-eating ghoul, however, then all bets would be off.
Any effort to combat the zombie problem globally would therefore have to be married to a strong counter-zombie effort at home. Even if this was done, one could envision “zombie fatigue” making inroads into public support for overseas operations.* Over time, public sentiment would likely turn against ongoing, far-flung operations that entailed high costs in blood and treasure. This would be true regardless of the foreign policy benefits of such operations. As recent public opinion data suggests, protracted military conflict, combined with a severe economic recession, will lead to increased isolationism from the American masses.10 Even the most charismatic commander in chief will encounter the limits of a “press the flesh” strategy when coping with a surly American public.
Interest groups could affect a state's domestic and foreign counter-zombie policies in multiple ways. There are groups with a vested interest in constraining the eradication of the living dead. The actors with the most immediate stake in sabotaging any attack on zombies are those who have been bitten by zombies, and their human relatives. By definition, the moment humans are bitten, they will inevitably become zombies. This fact can dramatically alter their preferences. This change of mind occurs in many zombie films. In George Romero's Land of the Dead (2005), the character of Cholo has the most militant anti-zombie attitude at the outset of the film. After he is bitten, however, he decides that he wants to “see how the other half lives.” In Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (2002), as well as Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Survival of the Dead (2010), family members keep their undead relatives hidden from security and paramilitary forces.
Clearly, soon-to-be-ghouls and their relatives can hamper policy implementation. Paradoxically, a failure to implement early measures will force governments to pursue more extreme measures—which, in turn, will be likely to trigger a greater public backlash. The opening sequences of Romero's Dawn of the Dead suggest that one reason the zombie problem spins out of control is public hostility to harsh government measures and recommendations—martial law, the abandoning of private residences, and the extermination of undead relatives chewing the flesh away from the bones of loved ones.
The soon-to-be-undead and their relatives might hinder policy implementation, but they are too fragmented and ephemeral a grouping to immediately influence the direction of policymaking. Defense contractors are another matter entirely. These actors have a significant stake in the allocation of resources devoted to combating zombies. While the idea of a singular, cohesive zombie-
industrial complex stretches credulity, some corporations in the security sector would undoubtedly be intrigued by the military applications of zombies. In many cases—the films Return of the Living Dead (Dan O'Bannon, 1985), Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez, 2007), Zombie Strippers (Jay Lee, 2008), and the Resident Evil franchise—these firms are the very progenitors of the zombie problem. Even if private firms were not the cause of the undead menace, they would no doubt be interested in exploiting the research and development opportunities posed by the reanimation of dead human tissue.
The structural dependence of the state on capital suggests that if the zombie problem were to persist, these firms could impose a more serious constraint on adaptation and mitigation strategies.11 Corporate pressures on governments to outsource security functions to private contractors—with lucrative contracts, of course—would be intense.12 Resistance against the elimination of conventional big-ticket military contracts would be fierce. Pharmaceutical companies would lobby for massive subsidies in an effort to develop cures and vaccines for the undead problem—even if such treatments were medically improbable. Defense contractors would resist eradication strategies in favor of approaches that permit the warehousing and testing of captured ghouls. If firms headquartered in different countries pursued a similar approach, it could provoke a breakdown in trust among nations. Domestic pluralist pressures could sabotage multilateral efforts to stop ghouls from snacking on human flesh.13
The policy recommendations that come from a domestic politics orientation are relatively straightforward. Clearly, the initial policy responses to a zombie attack are crucial. This is the period when domestic constraints on countermeasures are at their weakest. If governments can fashion clear, coherent, and competent policy actions from the outset, then domestic pressures on policy autonomy should be modest. As a secondary recommendation, governments would be urged to use propaganda and other political tactics to maintain the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon for as long as possible.
If the zombie problem persists, however—through initial policy errors, resistance from zombie relatives, or the logistical difficulties of destroying the undead—then domestic politics will play an increasingly important role in global policy articulation. Legislatures will slowly exercise more voice, interest groups will constrain policy options, and the public will grow restive toward far-flung operations to eliminate the scourge of the living dead. If this effect takes place across a broad swath of countries, the bargaining core for meaningful international cooperation to combat the undead would slowly rot away.
* * *
*The key word here is primarily. As much as the liberal, realist, and constructivist paradigms might claim to be exclusively systemic in their provenance, all of them dip into both second image (domestic politics) and first image (individuals) at certain points.
*Public hostility to nationals from zombie-infested countries would be another predicted effect.
BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS:
THE “PULLING AND HAULING”
OF ZOMBIES
All of the aforementioned paradigms share one implicit assumption: that international organizations and national security agencies will act with alacrity and dexterity when the dead start to roam the earth.
This is a far from obvious assertion. International organizations often fail to live up to their original founding ideas. Politicized staffing decisions and policy drift can cause these organizations to quickly devolve into dysfunction.1 Domestic agencies suffer from similar problems.2 Classic works on bureaucratic politics have modeled foreign and security policies as the outcome of “pulling and hauling” among multiple organizations with different agendas.3 Other organization theorists argue that political institutions are like “organized anarchies” in which bureaucratic entrepreneurs hawking their solutions are searching for problems rather than the converse.4 Many political scientists argue that political actors—from the legislative or executive branches—will compromise bureaucratic competence in order to retain political control.5 The resulting policy outputs are often far from ideal.
Within a single bureaucracy, organizational cultures can constrain flexibility and adaptation to new circumstances. All agencies develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to efficiently process routine problems.6 These SOPs, however, can constrain the ability of bureaucracies to adapt to new threats and challenges. The failure of U.S. security and intelligence agencies to reform themselves in the wake of the 9/11 attacks highlights the profound difficulties that bureaucratic politics and organizational cultures can impose on policymaking.7 If bureaucratic conflicts and organizational pathologies hamper effective counterterrorism policies, imagine the effect they would have on counter-zombie policies. The bureaucratic turf wars would be bloody in every sense of the word.
Quelling the rise of the undead would require significant interagency coordination. In the United States, one could easily envisage major roles for the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Transportation, and Health and Human Services. This does not include autonomous or semiautonomous agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the myriad intelligence agencies. A decade ago Anthony Cordesman estimated that forty-four federal bureaucracies had a hand in combating bioterrorism; it would be safe to assume a similar number would be involved today.8 Cooperation among the uniformed military, National Guard units, and local police and emergency services would also be necessary. Other countries with modern bureaucracies would face similar coordination problems.
Whether bureaucracies can adapt to an army of the undead is an open question. The zombie canon is deeply skeptical about the ability of brainless bureaucrats to handle a problem as deadly as the undead. In Brian Keene's novel The Rising (2003), for example, the U.S. government falls apart almost immediately. One trigger was the Secret Service's difficulties altering standard operating procedures. After the president turned into a zombie, he started devouring the secretary of state. As a result, “one Secret Service agent drew his weapon on the undead Commander-in-Chief, and a second agent immediately shot the first.”9 In divining bureaucratic preferences, where you stand depends on who you eat.
Indeed, the one trait common to every zombie narrative in existence is the ineptitude and fecklessness of bureaucracies. In George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), the authorities provide contradictory information to the public. At first, they suggest that people stay in their own homes; later, they reverse themselves and recommend going to emergency centers. Military officials and scientists are seen bickering on camera about why reanimated corpses are trying to eat people. In Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), a SWAT raid on a tenement building is executed ineptly, and both civilians and police officers needlessly lose their lives. Mass desertions within the security services and the disintegration of unit cohesion are recurrent themes in Romero's films. In Day of the Dead (1985), the featured team of soldiers and scientists provide a model of organizational dysfunction. The military leader is a near-psychotic, and the leading civilian scientist is little better. A unit goes rogue to blackmail political leaders in Land of the Dead (2005). In Diary of the Dead (2008), the only time the military makes an appearance is to raid the supplies of civilians. Even researchers on the sociology of panic acknowledge that “the problem with bureaucrats during crises may be the only thing that disaster movies get right.”10
Max Brooks's work also suggests that both military and civilian agencies would blunder in the wake of zombies. In his novel World War Z (2006), one obvious cause of the initial spread of ghouls is the refusal of national security and intelligence bureaucracies in powerful places to acknowledge an “out of the box” problem. When the U.S. Army has its first large-scale engagement with zombies in the Battle of Yonkers, its tactics prove to be completely ill-suited to the situation. Brooks offers a soldier's narrative that encapsulates the organizational pathologies on d
isplay:
We wasted so much time, so much energy preparing these elaborate firing positions. Good “cover and concealment” they told us. Cover and concealment? “Cover” means physical protection, conventional protection, from small arms and artillery or air-dropped ordnance. That sound like the enemy we were about to go up against?
And what genius thought to put us in body armor anyway? Because the press reamed ‘em for not having enough in the last war? Why the hell do you need a helmet when you're fighting a living corpse?
No one thought about how many rounds the artillery would need for sustained operations.…
You think that after being “trained” to aim for the center mass your whole military career you can suddenly make an expert head shot every time?11
Each of these statements reveals the inherent difficulties political organizations would have with such a radically new threat. Politics, standard operating procedures, and ingrained modes of thinking would no doubt predominate until such strategies failed to prevent zombies from achieving their goal: feasting upon the flesh of the living.
Theories of International Politics and Zombies Page 6