Matías Koch - Entry No 6.

Writing crisis, watching rebels: The tecno-politics of the International Crisis Group in Lebanon (and beyond) At first it all comes a little strong. A particular moment is described, the explosion of a car in Beirut that kills the Lebanese Army Captain Wisám ‘Eíd. Followed by this is the article written by the Crisis Watch that month. I founded myself completely lost in the beginning of the article. Lots of names, difficult definitions and words flooded the sentences. I even used Google a couple of times to be completely honest. There are also quotes that make no sense at first, and must be re-read several times to understand them, or at least that was my particular case. But after a few pages, it all starts to make sense. The article becomes more centered and you can understand that the foggy beginning was indeed focusing on one thing, understanding the function and procedures of the International Crisis Group. The author then starts talking about his fieldwork in Beirut (2008-2010) and how he managed to get in touch with true members of this group. Robert was the name of the first person he contacted, and a brief summary of his work is described. The aim of a crisis expert is to make use of the information and experiences he has, in order to fulfill the needs of the audience in a complete way. He must have a direct experience of the crisis, in order to create a bond with it. It must be able to explain to de audience how things truly are, in order to keep the world inform. They seek the authority and recognition, in order to be a reliable source of information. The text starts to succeed in it mission of explaining how a crisis expert thinks, and what his aims are. The new focus of the text is the influence of the think tanks, which try to influence public policy and state leaders. The author is against the generalization and negative prestige of the think tanks, and his mission thru out the text is to explain why this are a key factor to the global and local communities. He believes they are an adequate institutional response to a particular problem. He thus, uses the lens of the techno-politics, approaching it as a technology that seeks to transmit and disseminate knowledge about global politics while packed organizations in a very particular technical format i.e. Magazines. They present a great resume of what is going on in the world, and take it into a smaller scale or a micro-model. He starts describing how the Reading Crisis review is organized, which is really useful to understand its goals. The accuracy of this description helps us visualize in our heads how the front page is like. He nails it with this, making the reader feel comfortable and creating a vivid experience. With every description, he gives us the reasons the publishers had to organized in that particular way. We have all the information we need about the International Crisis Group, no extra information is needed. A real full description is made by the author, and a definition is added in order to keep it extra easy: “The Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization…” And it is grounded in field research. His mission: “Can the report speak? Size, scale and sentinel”. Using Mitchell, the author tries to focus not only in the human factors of history, but also on the non-human factors, such as mosquitoes in Egypt or reports in the modern world. The techno-politics aims to connect all the dots and not to exclude important things from the equation. His mission is to analyze the crisis reports as an assemblage of forces and actors that are deployed in time, space and in relation to one other. First, he wants to make the connection between the field researchers and the office workers. For him this is representative for the “scale”, and he uses a member of the ICG team, Sandrine. As he did with Robert, he also describes her work and life. This is like a modus operandi for the author, which I like. She was a field researcher for a while, and now she works at the office in New York, so she is the perfect girl for the author intentions. Sandrine explains that the most important part of the field work is to get the right information from the right person. And to do this, you must risk your life and make the right questions at the right time. By doing this, the organization is able to make excellent reviews and get the right information every time. This is a key element for the organization and it is called as the “researched product”. One of the ICG’s main purposes is to make recommendations to the high rank leaders of the international community and to generate lobby in the member-states of the United Nation Security Council. The great thing about this text is the direct answer and experience the author takes from real members of the organization. These are words coming from high ranked workers, which is priceless and gives us the certainty that this is in fact true. To create this lobby, they need the help of the advocacy manager that is like the extension of the report. His job is to defend the policies the ICG recommends to policy makers and politicians. As the author previously mentioned, this is one of the most important aims of the organization because it means that they are in fact helping. Going back to Robert, the author now wants to know about the “Size”. As we remember, Robert was one of the ‘analysts on the ground’. He was an academic researcher before becoming part of the organization and he likes that the report has more impact. And as Sandrine, is in a way obsess with the idea of recognition and acceptance that their reports have on people. He talks about the importance of the size of the report, and how this can help them be more attractive to massive audiences worldwide. These are very technical things, like the title and the number of pages. For them, the best thing is to make a brief and easy summary at the end of each report for the occupied, important people to have at least a general idea, and for the media to take information from it. For me, this is all like a documentary of a product. It all starts with the fresh ingredients (ground agents), then it passes to the making of the product (office workers), then to the packaging (advocacy manager) and then to the selling mechanism (size). And the author is doing a great job as a documentary maker. The last item is the “Sentinel” which is the crucial balance between emergency and intervention. Now a days it is possible and desirable to understand, predict and manage global affair and crises, or it is at least believed. This justifies the compulsion to intervene on crises, and the ICG is an example of this. In the report the crisis is always accompanied with a solution, or a way to invert it. The ICG comes as a savior of the failure of the international communities, it is an artificial mechanism created while the natural one is trying to grow. The organization aims to focus the attention in the hot zones, in order to place them under particular forms of surveillance. They work as sentinel subjects, and this is a good thing.