Author Archives: Peter

About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.

a Ukraine War timeline

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I have no expertise or personal experience in military affairs and a shallow knowledge of Eastern Europe, but I have been following the Ukraine war avidly on a daily basis. This summary might have some value for those who are following matters less closely than I–as long as you remember the caveats about my amateurishness.

I illustrate this timeline with maps from the Neue Zuericher Zeitung (the Swiss newspaper), because they work well graphically. The NZZ helpfully explains how and why their maps differ from some other credible ones.

Russia’s armed conflict with Ukraine begins in 2014. By February 24, 2022, Russia and its proxies occupy substantial (but disconnected) portions of Ukraine. The current war begins with strikes against military targets, denoted with the icons of explosions below.

Feb 24, 2022, per Neue Zuericher Zeitung

Putin probably thinks that he is sending about 200,000 well-equipped soldiers into Ukraine under officers who have gained combat experience in Syria and elsewhere. He probably assumes that the Ukrainian government is almost a joke: unpopular, corrupt, propped up by the CIA, and led by a comedian. He orders an ambitious attack on multiple fronts and expects the conflict to conclude in days.

That multi-front offensive has culminated by mid-March, with massive Russian casualties and atrocities against civilians, especially on the route south from Belarus. It is becoming clear that the Russian force was hollow, due to corruption and falsified reporting up the line, whereas the Ukrainians are motivated and prepared. Russian occupied territory teaches its maximum extent around March 15.

By April, the Russian columns in the north and northeast have withdrawn in defeat, and the focus is a bloody battle to control a devastated port city of Mariupol in the southeast. The Russian offensive is now very slow, but Russia controls a continuous band of Ukraine that includes much of Ukraine’s industrial east and its seacoast and ports.

Mariupol falls by early May. Ukraine’s second city, Kharkhiv in the northeast, is close to the front and constantly bombarded. The next phase is a slow Russian advance in the the eastern zone, enabled by massive artillery support. Major fighting centers on the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, which have little military value, according to independent military experts. Still, Russia wants to claim that it retains offensive goals. (On April 14, Ukraine sinks the Russian battleship Moskva, an episode in the ongoing naval campaign.)

The map in late August looks similar, because Russian forward movement has essentially stalled. At this point, Ukraine is sending all kinds of signals that it will counterattack along the southern tier, targeting the city of Kherson on the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River. By this time, it is possible that Russia is already planning an organized retreat from Kherson, which is difficult to defend because of the wide river.

The southern counteroffensive was a feint. Ukraine manages a rapid surprise advance in the north and then down into the north-center, while Russia withdraws from Kherson anyway (with light losses, in one of Russia’s under-recognized successes). Ukraine regains Kherson, Izium, Lyman, and other cities and territory.

As the Ukrainian counteroffensive culminates, attention turns to the small city of Bakhmut, which both sides seem eager to award symbolic significance. For the Ukrainians, the goal may be to entice Russians into a Pyrrhic campaign for a target of little strategic importance. In any case, the map for Jan. 10, 2023 (below) looks very similar to that for late August (above). But these maps do not depict the constant strikes against Ukrainian civilian targets as far west as Lviv–or the Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Bridge, a vital Russian supply route, on Oct. 8.

During this period, it is likely that Russia is focused on mobilizing, training, and equipping a new cohort of 300,000 reservists and redirecting its heavy industry for prolonged war. Putin may have no short-term offensive hopes between August and January, and you’d have to squint to see the differences between these maps.

But acknowledging that the Russian offensive has stalled would embarrass Putin politically and could embolden Ukraine’s allies. Therefore, the Kremlin encourages irregular proxies to continue fighting, especially for Bakhmut. These proxies include the “People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” “the People’s Militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Chechen forces under Ramzan Kadyrov, and especially the “Wagner Private Military Company” under billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, which recruits/pressgangs Russian prisoners as troops. Political ambitious motivate these groups to continue fighting (and quarreling amongst themselves), even when the costs are extraordinarily high. They serve the Kremlin’s propaganda needs and cause Ukrainians to die, while Russia strives to restore its regular Ministry of Defense forces. By today, Prigozhin has probably outlasted his welcome and is being marginalized. I would not be surprised to see him in jail soon.

The UK Ministry of Defense and Institute for the Study of War both believe that an attempted Russian advance–using its reconstituted, regular forces–began in mid- to late-January, 2023. This offensive was not announced, probably because of anxiety about whether it would succeed. The fog of war is thick, and conditions may change rapidly, but there is no sign of Russian success so far.

One possible outcome is no advance at all, which would be hard for Putin to conceal from domestic audiences. At that point, I think his only option would be to dig in and try to retain currently occupied Ukrainian territory long enough for Western support to wane–a bit like Germany’s decision to hold fortified lines across Belgium and France from 1916-18.

A rainy, wet season is expected that will frustrate advances by either side. Ukraine expects deliveries of Western tanks and other equipment by late spring. Thus the most likely next phase is an attempted Ukrainian counter-offensive focused wherever the Ukrainian General Staff chooses.

If that counteroffensive succeeds, I think Putin’s options will become quite unpleasant for him. Then Russian would be in a similar position to imperial Russia in 1917.

If the Ukrainian advance should falter, then the war may enter a new stalemate phase, during which the main drama will be diplomatic. Would the US and European countries continue to support Ukraine or else start pressing for an armistice, which would give Putin time to rebuild for another invasion later? And where would players like China’s President Xi stand?

Call for Papers: Generous Listening in Organizations

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The Vuslat Foundation and Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life

Date and location: July 16 (dinner) until July 18 (lunchtime), 2023 Tufts University in Medford, MA

Propose contributions here: https://easychair.org/cfp/GLO23

Practicalities: We invite proposals on the theme of “Generous Listening in Organizations.” Proposals of up to 500 words are due on March 24, 2023. Draft materials based on accepted proposals will be due on July 3, 2023. Authors will be expected to read all the materials in advance and be prepared to discuss them at a symposium in Boston in July 2023. We will accept proposals for articles (defined as 7 pages or longer), shorter written briefs, posters, or exercises/experiments that can be piloted during the symposium. The content of proposed contributions may include new research findings, reviews of specific bodies of existing research, conceptual arguments, descriptions of interventions, empirical measures, and/or plans for new research. We will not accept previously published work.How to publish and disseminate these materials will be discussed during the conference. Whether a given contribution is included in any publication or public-facing website will be a joint decision by the Vuslat Foundation and the author.

Vuslat Foundation offers to pay travel expenses. Participants who offer articles (or comparable contributions in other formats) will be eligible for honoraria of $1,200. Those who offer briefs and other shorter contributions will not receive honoraria.

Background and Topic: We define “generous listening” as the skill of listening to oneself, to one another, and to nature with generosity, which enhances human connection. Listening is defined broadly, as meaning more than hearing words. It engages both the heart and the mind. Generosity implies values like openness, courage, curiosity, and responsiveness. The phrase “generous listening” is not widely used in published literature, but it relates to ideas like attentive listening, empathetic communication, and others. The purpose of generous listening is to reach vuslat, the freedom reached by reuniting with those estranged parts of the bigger whole.

Generous listening occurs in all human contexts, including political processes, families, classrooms, psychotherapy, the arts, and religion. For the purpose of this symposium, the focus is generous listening in firms and other organizations that have employees and explicit missions. The focus encompasses listening between managers and subordinates, among colleagues, or between employees and outsiders, such as customers or clients.

We are interested in whether and how generous listening can be enhanced by improving the skills of individuals and/or creating and altering physical and digital spaces, norms, or policies. We are also interested in whether and how generous listening improves outcomes for the individuals who are directly involved and for their organizations. Among the possible questions that papers might address (as an illustrative and non-exhaustive list):

What are the components and elements of generous listening, including its essential skills?
What are the challenges and barriers to generous listening?
How should generous listening culture be measured in organizations?
Can people be evaluated as generous listeners? How?
Are survey questions about generous listening valid and valuable?
How does feeling listened-to affect individuals?
Which tools/means for generous listening are used in organizations today?
Can generous listening be learned? Is learning and teaching it necessary?
Does generous listening promote desirable processes within organizations, such as effective, inclusive, and innovative collaboration, communication, decision-making, and/or teamwork?
How can organizations institutionalize generous listening at scale?
Does generous listening relate to outcomes for organizations, such as employees’ satisfaction and retention and the organization’s strength and results and/or impact?

Advisory Committee

Peter Levine, the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life
Dr. Çagri Hakan Zaman, the Director of MIT Virtual Experience Design Lab and a Lecturer in Design and Computation at the MIT Department of Architecture
Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT and the Director of the MIT Science Impact Collaborative
Avi Kluger, professor of Organizational Behavior at School of Business at the Hebrew University
Julia Minson, an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Vuslat Dogan Sabanci, Founder, Vuslat Foundation
Selçuk Sirin, Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University

About Vuslat Foundation

Vuslat Foundation is a global initiative that fosters a deeper appreciation of listening as the essential element of all our connections. Established in Switzerland in 2020, Vuslat Foundation partners with academia, civil society, and the private sector to generate knowledge and research, develop methodologies and tools and build awareness and inspiration on generous listening.

About Tisch College

Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life is a leader in civic education and engagement that sets the standard for higher education’s role in advancing the greater good. Tisch College combines education, research, and practice to serve as a hub for students, faculty, and community members who are committed to civic engagement and to its ability to change the world for the better.

impact of policies on COVID

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We know some very important facts about COVID-19, including that vaccines work well. I do not think we understand as much as we should about the effects of government policies on the pandemic. For instance, any medical professional would wear personal protective gear while treating a patient with COVID, but it is less clear that requiring a population to wear masks has any effect. There is often a big slippage between voluntary behavior by trained professionals and large-scale mandates.

I did my own light modeling last April and found no effects of state masking and vaccination mandates on COVID mortality rates. I did find that COVID deaths by US state reflected the percentage of the population who had been in poor health before the pandemic, GOP vote share (Trump support meant higher death rates), Black/White segregation, economic inequality, the percent of the population over age 65, the incarceration rate, and a lower college graduation rate. (Statistically significant correlates: the first three. Adjusted r-square of the whole model = .699).

A new paper by Sun & Biseti examines the effects of state policies on county-level COVID death rates during the first 39 weeks of the pandemic, i.e., before vaccines were available and before masks were being widely recommended. They create a “stringency index” composed of “closures of schools, closures of workplaces, cancellations of public events, restrictions on gatherings, closures of public transport, stay-at-home orders, restrictions on domestic movement, and restrictions on international travel.”

Their model incorporates some similar contextual factors to mine but assesses different policies. It suggests that if every state had employed the maximum of all the stringent measures, the national death rate would have fallen by about 7% in 2020, but the benefits would have been greater “in counties with fewer physicians and larger shares of older adults, low-educated residents, and Trump voters” as well as “in rural areas and counties with higher social capital and larger shares of uninsured residents,” while the benefits would have been smaller “in counties with larger shares of [non-Hispanic] Black and Hispanic residents.” Although I don’t think we can tell from their model itself, it’s plausible that closing schools and businesses had no effect on deaths from the disease in big cities, although the closures were very hard on people.

An older but still valuable article (Sharma, Mindermann & Rogers-Smith 2021) looks at similar measures across subnational units (such as regions or states) of European countries. Their model finds significant benefits from stringent measures such as school closings, but smaller benefits during the pandemic’s second wave than its first. That finding illustrates that we are not in the domain of scientific laws here; we are in a messy zone of rapid change.

In my view, democratic governments and other legitimate institutions have a right to impose many kinds of restrictions to combat a disease. They must do their best to make decisions in the face of uncertainty and conflicting interests. No one’s fundamental human rights have been violated if a government closes schools for months or makes one wear a mask during a pandemic.

On the other hand, this does not mean that the most stringent measures are always effective or that we should be overly confident that we know what works. On the contrary, the lessons of this pandemic appear murky to me, and humility is warranted by all.

A lot of people are very sure what should have been done and are certain their opponents are badly motivated or fools. I think most of us did our best and still don’t have a firm basis to know what we should do next time.

Sources: Sharma, M., Mindermann, S., Rogers-Smith, C. et al. Understanding the effectiveness of government interventions against the resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe. Nat Commun 12, 5820 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26013-4; Sun, Y., & Bisesti, E. M. (2023). Political Economy of the COVID-19 Pandemic: How State Policies Shape County-Level Disparities in COVID-19 Deaths. Socius, 9, 23780231221149902. See also: what explains state variation in COVID-19 mortality?; we must be able to disagree about pandemic policies; vaccination, masking, political polarization, and the authority of science.

Providence College talk on What Should We Do?

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This is the video of my Jan. 31 presentation about my recent book, What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life at The Providence College Humanities Forum, along with a Q&A session with good questions from the audience. The presentation should make sense and, I hope, have some value for people who don’t read the book. I am grateful to my Providence College friends for the opportunity.

The Civil Rights Movement and the Sixties

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I am visiting Wake Forest University today, mainly to speak at the Program for Leadership and Character. I will also visit a course on political activism in the 1960s. There, I’m planning to contribute a few remarks about the influence of the Civil Rights Movement.

By the time student radicalism became common on predominantly white college campuses in the Sixties, the Civil Rights Movement had already been underway for almost a decade. It was an inspiring model for Americans from the center-left to the far left. Specifically, about 1,000 mostly white, Northern students participated in Freedom Summer 1964, registering Black voters in Mississippi. As Doug McAdam shows, they returned radicalized by direct exposure to militant white supremacy. The summer changed them in many other ways; for instance, they turned bluejeans into the unofficial uniform of students in the Sixties by imitating rural Black organizers, who wore denim. Alumni of Freedom Summer became disproportionately influential in the left movements that followed. They also tended to exit the Civil Rights Movement itself–for a variety of reasons, including (appropriate) discomfort about their role in a Black-led struggle.

We misread the Civil Rights Movement if we assume that it had a coherent, centralized leadership structure–epitomized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.–and a consistent message, as expressed in his “I Have a Dream Speech.” It was always a hotbed of debate and difference and always had many leaders. These facts would have been more evident to young radicals in the Sixties than they are today, because the King myth had not yet formed. However, young radicals also observed some actual features of the Civil Rights Movement that they increasingly disputed as the decade progressed, and these matters remain contested today.

First, the Movement developed and honored leaders: not one, and not just the Big Six (James Farmer, Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, and King), but a cadre or layer of leaders across the country, including women. Leadership itself became more controversial after 1964 or so.

Second, the Movement treated the government as a target of demands. The goal was almost always to negotiate with government officials, from the police commissioner of a Southern city to Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daly to LBJ. The Movement eschewed two alternatives. It could have sought to become the government by winning elections or fomenting a revolution, or it could have shunned the government as illegitimate or un-reformable. Some Black leaders of the time advocated each of those strategies, but not the core leaders of the Movement. They wanted to be independent of the government and to influence it actively. The two alternatives (replacing or avoiding the government) became more popular in the student left as the Sixties enfolded.

Third, the Movement used existing social capital: organizations and associations. Churches were most important, but unions, businesses, newspapers, colleges, and fraternities and sororities also contributed. The genius of the original generation of Civil Rights leaders was to redirect inherited forms of social capital to new (political) purposes–for instance, by encouraging people already assembled in pews to boycott buses. Social capital had always been different in the urban North, it changed rapidly in the late 1900s, and leftists became critical of its major components, such as churches. Subsequent movements have sometimes tried to do without much organization or to create social capital almost from scratch, as with the communes, collectives, and consciousness-raising groups of the later 1960s.

Clearly, other changes also unfolded during the Sixties (which lasted until 1974 or so), including new causes, crises, ideologies, and constituencies. But I think the issues I’ve mentioned here still echo for today’s activists.